Some time in January on one of his visits to London we fell to discussing the lay-out for the second volume. Our conversation ranged over all the various theatres of war. We lingered on the East, because it attracted him. We mutually regretted that the signing of the armistice had stopped a visit which he was to have made to the flying fronts of the Middle East. He felt he ought to see it. The first volume was out of the way. The Easter vacation was coming. Why not go then? I told him I thought there would be every service help for him once he got there. The thing was tentatively fixed. I telephoned the steamship company and retained a passage in the S.S. _Egypt_--ill-fated vessel. We discussed the itinerary and then passed to other subjects. I had misgivings. Not that I thought he was too old to undertake the journey, but because I knew how tireless and conscientious he was. I felt that he might be too vigorous, that it might take too much out of him and so leave him weak for disease. But I knew also that his visit would be enormously useful because it would make all the difference to the spirit of the history of the Middle East. The journey to France had supplied the cream of his first volume. The journey East would do the same for the rest of the work. Not that it was any good pointing out the difficulties and drawbacks of the journey. I did try something of that sort. “Adventures must be done, my boy,” was his reply. He had gone to India soon after leaving Cambridge. In India he had been attracted to Baghdad. He tried to get there by caravan. He had to wait until he could get there by aeroplane. Every facility was given him by the Air Ministry (although he paid for the journey himself). He wrote to tell me that the thing was fixed. “I had a letter from the General, enclosing a copy of a letter he has sent to W. G. Salmond, asking for every facility for me--beyond anything I should have asked or hoped. “So I wired you for the bunk--a complete room at the extra charge (of £18 I think).... “When I come up I hope you may be able to fit me out with maps to use from the air, and with some things to read preparatory. “It’s a good (mild) adventure. Thank you immensely for the dates, etc. “The General has sent them all over to Salmond, for his successor. “So there I am, and it’s me for Baghdad, ‘Orace, my boy. (I am thinking of what Robertson said to Smith-Dorrien.) “It seems they will try to take me to anything it is important I should see, so I depend on your advice. “You shall have a cheque as soon as _I get the bill_. “I owe all this suggestion to you. Bacon says there are things a man can’t decently do or claim for himself, and then a friend comes in.” In reply I sent him a passport form. “Many thanks for the passport form,” he wrote. (“A lot of notice the Arabs will take of it if I come among them!”)