As I say, I liked George, and I’m grateful to him because he helped me to keep alive when a legion of the swine were trying to destroy me. And, of course, I helped him. He had a strong dose of shyness—his mother had sapped his self-confidence abominably—which made him seem rather conceited and very aloof. But _au fond_ he was extraordinarily generous, spontaneous, rather Quixotish. It was that which made him so helpless with women, who neither want nor understand Quixotic behaviour and scrupulousness, and who either think they mean weakness or are veils for some devilish calculation. But with another man, who wanted nothing from him but a frank exchange of friendliness, he was a charming and inexhaustible companion. I was damned glad to get my commission and leave that stinking hole of a Camp, but I was really sorry to part from George. We agreed to write, and both applied for commissions in the same regiment. Needless to say, we were both gazetted to completely different regiments from those we had applied for. We exchanged one or two letters while waiting in depots in England, and then ceased writing. But, by an odd freak of the War Office, we were both sent to different battalions in the same Brigade. It was nearly two months before we found this out, when we both met by accident at Brigade Headquarters. I was rather startled at George’s appearance, he looked so worried and almost scared. I saw him on reliefs or at Brigade Headquarters or at Divisional Rest Camp several times. He looked whacked in May ’18. In July the Division moved down to the Somme, but George’s company front was raided the night before we left, and he was badly rattled by it. I had watched the box barrage from the top of Battalion Headquarters dugout (I was then signal officer), but I never thought that George was in it. He lost several men as prisoners, and the Brigadier was a bit nasty about it, which made George more rattled and jumpy than ever. I told him then that he ought to apply for a rest, but he was in an agony of feeling that he was disgraced and a coward; and wouldn’t listen to me. The last time I saw him was at Hermies, in October ’18, as I mentioned before. I had come up from a course and found George had been “left-out” at Divisional Rest Camp for that tour. There were some sacking beds in the Orderly room, and George got me one. He talked on in the dark for what seemed hours during the air-raids, and I really thought he was demented. Next morning, we rejoined our battalions, and I never saw him again.