Alas! another old pal of mine has been killed, namely W. J. Henderson,[10] a captain of the Loyal North Lancashires. In the old days at Dulwich he did well in football. He got into the 2nd XV under Evans, and frequently played for the 1st XV. He was also decidedly clever, and won a classical scholarship at Oxford. The war is taking a frightful toll of the best of our race. [Footnote 10: Captain W. J. Henderson, M.C. Born, 1895. Killed in action, July 6th, 1916. A senior classical scholar at Dulwich. Won a classical scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Joined the Army, September, 1914.] _July 27th, 1916._ I should like to have your permission to apply for a transfer to the Royal Field Artillery. The procedure will be quite simple. I will send in my application to the O.C., who will forward it with the Medical Officer's health certificate to the higher A.S.C. authorities; then it will go forward in the usual course. If the people in charge think my record satisfactory and my eyesight good enough they will take me. I want to give the authorities a chance to take or refuse me for a really combatant corps. In this way, whether refused or accepted, I shall have satisfied my conscience. After all, the doctor will state on the medical certificate exactly what my vision is. So there will be no question of trying to deceive the authorities. They will have before them all the facts _re_ my record and my eyesight. If they then refuse me, well and good. I shall accept the inevitable. If they take me, so much the better. I have had several chats with the Officer Commanding the Supply Column on the subject, and explained to him that I was utterly fed up with grocery work. The scenes I have witnessed during and since this great attack--the Somme battles--have confirmed my resolution to go into the fighting line. You who have not seen the horrors of a modern campaign cannot possibly know the feelings of a young man who, while the real business of war is going on at his very elbow (for we are not far from the centre of things), and who is longing to be in the thick of the fighting, is yet condemned to look after groceries and do work which a woman could do probably a great deal better. Oh! it is awful. And all this, mind you, with the knowledge that all the chaps one used to know are in the thick of it.