Now, in the first place, I should like to be allowed to say what you perhaps have guessed: that he is a very fine and a very valuable officer. I am not a bad judge, not only because I command his Company, but because, unlike himself, I am not quite without military knowledge of the kind that came before the war, having a good many years behind me of service as a Volunteer, and then as a Territorial, down to within seven months of the beginning of the war when I joined this Service Battalion. And I have no hesitation in saying that our friend is a fine and valuable officer. I know that a big share of any credit due for the fine training and discipline of our Company--which is, I think, admitted to be the crack Company of the best Battalion in the Brigade--is due, not to me, but to the Commander of our No. 1 Platoon. It is a very great loss to me to have him laid aside now; but I am so thankful his life is spared that I have no regret to waste over his being wounded. But I do very sincerely hope that he will be able to return to us, to the reorganised "A" Company, for I have never met an officer I would sooner have beside me. The men of the Platoon, and, indeed, of the whole Company, are devoted to him; and I regard it as little short of marvellous that in so comparatively short a time a man who had never had even the slightest hint of military training should have been able to become, all round, so efficient, so well posted technically, and, above all, so confident and absolutely so successful a leader of men. For that has been his greatest asset: that his men will go anywhere with him, do anything for him, trust him without the slightest reserve or doubt. You know more about his character than I do, but I venture to say that the character you know has been wonderfully developed by the war and by his military training. He may have been the most lovable of men before, but I cannot believe that he was anything like so strong a man or so able a man. Confidence, fearlessness, decisiveness--strength, in fact; these qualities, I am sure, have developed greatly in him since he joined. I sometimes think there is nothing more wonderful in all this wonderful period of the war than the amazing development it has brought in the thousands of young Englishmen who now are capable and efficient officers, loved and trusted by their men, and as able in every way as any officers the British Army ever had, although the great majority of them have no military tradition behind them, and before August, 1914, had no military training. That is wonderful, and I am convinced that no other race or nation in the wide world could have produced the same thing. The men, fine as they are, might have been produced elsewhere, or something like them. But this apparently inexhaustible supply of fine and efficient officers--no, I think not.