Though his duties were often laborious and exacting, his relative freedom from peril and hardship while other men were facing death every day in the trenches sorely troubled his conscience. Feeling that he was not pulling his weight in the war and seeing no prospect of the Cavalry going into action he resolved, at all hazards, to get into the fighting line. After two abortive efforts to transfer from the A.S.C., he succeeded on the third attempt, and was appointed Lieutenant in the Tank Corps, which he joined on 13th February, 1917. His elation at the change was unbounded, and thenceforth his letters home sang with joy. He took part as a Tank officer in the battle of Arras in April, and when the great offensive was planned in Flanders he was shifted to that sector. In the battle of 31st July, when advancing with his tank north-east of Ypres, he was killed by a sniper's bullet. He seemed to have had a premonition some days before that death might soon claim him. In a letter to his brother, a Dulwich school boy, dated 27th July, he wrote: Have you ever reflected on the fact that, despite the horrors of the war, it is at least a big thing? I mean to say that in it one is brought face to face with realities. The follies, selfishness, luxury and general pettiness of the vile commercial sort of existence led by nine-tenths of the people of the world in peace time are replaced in war by a savagery that is at least more honest and outspoken. Look at it this way: in peace time one just lives one's own little life, engaged in trivialities, worrying about one's own comfort, about money matters, and all that sort of thing--just living for one's own self. What a sordid life it is! In war, on the other hand, even if you do get killed, you only anticipate the inevitable by a few years in any case, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have "pegged out" in the attempt to help your country. You have, in fact, realised an ideal, which, as far as I can see, you very rarely do in ordinary life. The reason is that ordinary life runs on a commercial and selfish basis; if you want to "get on," as the saying is, you can't keep your hands clean. Personally, I often rejoice that the war has come my way. It has made me realise what a petty thing life is. I think that the war has given to everyone a chance to "get out of himself," as I might say. Of course, the other side of the picture is bound to occur to the imagination. But there! I have never been one to take the more melancholy point of view when there's a silver lining to the cloud.