This filled me with anxiety and unhappiness. I entirely agreed with Siegfried about the ‘political errors and insincerities’; I thought his action magnificently courageous. But there were more things to be considered than the strength of our case against the politicians. In the first place, he was not in a proper physical condition to suffer the penalty which he was inviting, which was to be court-martialled, cashiered and imprisoned. I found myself most bitter with the pacifists who had encouraged him to make this gesture. I felt that, not being soldiers, they could not understand what it would cost Siegfried emotionally. It was wicked that he should attempt to face the consequences of his letter on top of his Quadrangle and Fontaine-les-Croiselles experiences. I knew, too, that as a gesture it was inadequate. Nobody would follow his example either in England or in Germany. The war would obviously go on, and go on until one side or the other cracked. I decided to intervene. I applied to appear before the medical board that was sitting next day; and I asked the board to pass me fit for home service. I was not fit and they knew it, but I asked it as a favour. I had to get out of Osborne and attend to things. Next I wrote to the Hon. Evan Morgan, with whom I had canoed at Oxford a month or two previously. He was private secretary to one of the Coalition Ministers. I asked him to do everything he could to prevent republication of or comment on the letter in the newspapers, and to arrange that a suitable answer should be given to Mr. Lees Smith, then the leading pacifist M.P. and now Postmaster-General in the Labour Cabinet, when he brought up a question in the House about it. I explained to Morgan that I was on Siegfried’s side really, but that he should not be allowed to become a martyr in his present physical condition. Next I wrote to the Third Battalion. I knew that the colonel, a South Welshman, was narrowly patriotic, had never been to France, and could not possibly be expected to take a sympathetic view. But the senior major, an Irishman, was humane, so I wrote to him explaining the whole business, asking him to make the colonel see it in a reasonable light. I told him of Siegfried’s recent experiences in France. I suggested that he should be medically boarded and given indefinite leave. [Illustration: VARIOUS RECORDS Mostly self-explanatory]