‘War should be a sport for men above forty-five only, the Jesse’s, not the David’s. “Well, dear father, how proud I am of you serving your country as a very gallant gentleman prepared to make even the supreme sacrifice. I only wish I were your age: how willingly would I buckle on my armour and fight those unspeakable Philistines! As it is, of course, I can’t be spared; I have to stay behind at the War Office and administrate for you lucky old men.” “What sacrifices I have made,” David would sigh when the old boys had gone off with a draft to the front singing _Tipperary_. “There’s father and my Uncle Salmon and both my grandfathers, all on active service. I must put a card in the window about it.”’ We defined the war in our poems by making contrasted definitions of peace. With Siegfried it was hunting and nature and music and pastoral scenes; with me it was chiefly children. When I was in France I used to spend much of my spare time playing with the French children of the villages in which I was billeted. I put them into my poems, and my own childhood at Harlech. I called my book _Fairies and Fusiliers_, and dedicated it to the regiment. Siegfried stayed a few weeks. When he had gone I began the novel on which my earlier war chapters are based, but it remained a rough draft. In September I went for a visit to Kent, to the house of a First Battalion friend who had recently been wounded. His elder brother had been killed in the Dardanelles, and his mother kept his bedroom exactly as he had left it, with the sheets aired, his linen always freshly laundered, and flowers and cigarettes by his bedside. She was religious and went about with a vague bright look on her face. The first night I spent there my friend and I sat up talking about the war until after twelve o’clock. His mother had gone to bed early, after urging us not to get too tired. The talk excited me but I managed to fall asleep at about one o’clock. I was continually awakened by sudden rapping noises which I at first tried to disregard but which grew louder and louder. They seemed to come from everywhere. I lay in a cold sweat. About three o’clock I heard a diabolic yell and a succession of laughing, sobbing shrieks that sent me flying to the door. I collided in the passage with the mother, who, to my surprise, was fully dressed. She said: ‘It’s nothing. One of the maids has hysterics. I am so sorry you have been disturbed.’ So I went back to bed, but I could not sleep though the noises had stopped. In the morning I said to my friend: ‘I’m leaving this place. It’s worse than France.’ * * * * *