_To face page_ Paul as an Infant 8 In his 6th Year 12 Winning the Mile, March 27, 1915 22 Dulwich College First XV, 1914-15 28 Dulwich Modern Side XV, 1914-15 32 Paul Jones in his 19th Year 110 As a Subaltern in the A.S.C. 120 WAR LETTERS OF A PUBLIC-SCHOOL BOY INTRODUCTORY _These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy ... And those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality._ RUPERT BROOKE. In deciding to publish some of the letters written by the late Lieutenant H. P. M. Jones during his twenty-seven months' service with the British Army, accompanying them with a memoir, I was actuated by a desire, first, to enshrine the memory of a singularly noble and attractive personality; secondly, to describe a career which, though tragically cut short, was yet rich in honourable achievement; thirdly, to show the influence of the Great War on the mind of a public-school boy of high intellectual gifts and sensitive honour, who had shone with equal lustre as a scholar and as an athlete. My choice of the title of this book was determined by the frequent allusions made by my son in his war letters to his old school. He spent six and a half years at Dulwich College. His career there was gloriously happy and very distinguished. On the scholastic side, it culminated in December, 1914, in the winning of a scholarship in History and Modern Languages at Balliol College, Oxford; on the athletic side, in his carrying off four silver cups at the Athletic Sports in March, 1915, and tieing for the "Victor Ludorum" shield.