It is not only my own desire and my own temperament that influence me, but the example of others. I pick up my newspaper to-day, and what do I see? Why, that a fellow that sat in the same form-room as I did two years back has won the V.C., paying, it is true, with his life for the honour. But what a glorious end! I mean, of course, my namesake, Basil Jones, the first Dulwich V.C., of whose achievement one can scarcely speak without a lump in the throat. Likewise I see my friend S. H. Killick, to whom I gave football colours, has been wounded. And think of the men who have fallen! Men of the stamp of Julian Grenfell, D. O. Barnett,[11] Rupert Brooke, Roland Philipps, R. G. Garvin, and W. J. Henderson have not hesitated to give up for their country all the brilliant gifts of character and intellect with which they would have enriched England had it not been for the war. The effect on me is as a trumpet call. All the old Welsh fighting blood comes surging up in me and makes me say, "Short sight or no short sight, I _will_ prove my manhood!" If it should be my fate to get popped off--well, it is we younger men without dependants whose duty it is to take the risk. You will get some inkling of my feeling when you read in Garvin's father's article how his son, when sent off to the Divisional H.Q., lost all his spirits and begged to be sent back to the old battalion, and how, when he did get back to it, "his letters recovered their old clear tone." How well I can understand that! [Footnote 11: Lieutenant D. O. Barnett, killed in action, 1916, was a distinguished scholar and athlete at St. Paul's School. His career there presents a striking similarity to that of Paul Jones at Dulwich. Both won junior and senior scholarships; both ended their school career by winning a Balliol scholarship; both shone in athletics; Barnett was captain of St. Paul's School; Paul Jones was head of the Modern Side at Dulwich.] My application for a transfer to the R.F.A. has now gone in. If I am refused I shall be broken-hearted, but my conscience will be clear. If I am accepted, it will be the happiest day of my life.