I am very sad, too, at the death of A. W. Fischer.[9] He and I got our 1st XV colours together in Killick's year, and were the best of friends throughout his last two years at school. He was a smallish, active forward of the Irish type, a splendid hard worker all through the game. He and I never on any occasion got crocked, and we played in every 1st XV match for two consecutive seasons, 1912-1914. He was a shrewd fellow, too, and well read, particularly in the classics. He had a very deep, rich voice, and used to do well every time in the competition for the Anstie Memorial Reading Prize. As a soldier he would have been almost ideal, as he was a rare good leader, and a devil-may-care chap who feared nothing. It is inexpressibly sad that he should have been taken away thus. And I haven't even seen him since we parted at the end of the summer term, 1914, just before this holocaust started. We shook hands on saying "Good-bye" on the cricket ground, he proceeding towards the school buildings, and I towards the pavilion. He was to have gone to Cambridge the ensuing October, and we had been talking of his chances of a "Blue," and if we would be able to play against each other in the coming season. But what use to raise up the vanished ghosts of the past? It only makes the tragedy more heart-breaking. It is up to us to see that these lives have not been laid down in vain. [Footnote 9: A. W. Fischer. Born, 1895. Died of wounds, May 12th, 1916. In the 1st XV, 1912-13-14. Held the Tancred Studentship for Classics and Science at Caius College, Cambridge. Lieutenant, Devonshire Regiment.] _July 25th, 1916._ I was up yesterday in the region where we won ground from the Germans, seeing to a dump of rations. The chief impression I brought away with me was one of all-pervading dust. I have witnessed a few scenes of destruction in my time out here, but nothing to match a certain village in this area. Vermelles was bad enough, but this place is even worse. Everything in it has been razed to the ground. Except for an occasional square foot of masonry protruding out of the earth, there is nothing to suggest that there was ever a village here at all. In one old German trench I saw a cross with the following words written on it: "Hier liegen zwei Franz. Krieger," which interpreted would be: "Here lie two French warriors," a tribute by the enemy to two Frenchmen buried here earlier in the war before we took over this portion of the line.