_October 20th, 1915._ Whom do you think I met the other day leading a column of motor lorries up to our brigade H.Q.? No less a person than G. P. S. Clark, the centre three-quarter who scored that wonderful try against Haileybury in my first year in the team--running and feinting his way through right from his own line. He is a motor expert, and has been gazetted to the M.T. branch of the A.S.C. Is there any chance of my getting the post of A.D.C. to a Welsh brigadier? If the Welsh division is due out presently it would be rather a good job. But if it involved my coming back to England for any length of time I wouldn't take it. I am perfectly satisfied with my present work, but still would very much like to become a real combatant. Against the defect of short sight I can put the following points: (a) Three months of Active Service, almost invariably in the neighbourhood of the firing-line; on several occasions right up in it. (b) I have always been attached to the Headquarters of a Cavalry Brigade, have been in the closest contact with the Brigade Staff, and have taken my orders from the Staff Captain direct--a very large proportion of those orders about real Staff work. (c) I have now a real linguistic fluency in French; pretty useful German also. (d) I have been acting under the supervision of a Supply Officer, whose work I do when he is away, and I know the system of transport and supply backwards. (e) I have a thorough knowledge of how to make up supplies by requisition and purchase on the countryside. (f) On the march I move at the head of the limbers which form the Cavalry Divisional train, and am second in command of them all, so I know something about that branch of work, too. (g) I am quite a useful horseman. You may say on reading the above list of virtues that a glass case is the right place for me, but I know to the full that if one wants one of these "knutty" jobs one has to represent oneself as a sort of little tin god. Now don't imagine that I am dissatisfied with my present job. I am more than pleased with it; still I am very keen to become a fighting soldier. _October 25th, 1915._ My present quarters are in a mill. I have a fine large room, also first-rate stabling for my horses. Brigade Headquarters are in one of those magnificent chateaux that are dotted over this part of France. A gorgeous place it must have been in time of peace, and so it is now except that it is beginning to show signs of war-wear and constant use. I am very bucked with life. All that we would like now would be a stupendous advance. This nibbling policy is all very well, but it doesn't suit cavalry.