the 15th August, the day before
Boyce left Wellingsford to join his regiment in France. In writing an
account of other people's lives it is difficult to know what to put in
and what to leave out. If you bring in your own predilections or
prejudices or speculations concerning them, you must convey a distorted
impression. You lie about them unconsciously. A fact is a fact, and, if
it is important, ought to be recorded. But when you are not sure
whether it is a fact or not, what are you to do?

Perhaps I had better narrate what happened and tell you afterwards why
I hesitate.

Marigold had driven me over to Godbury, where I had business connected
with a County Territorial Association, and we were returning home. It
was a moist, horrible, depressing August day. A slimy, sticky day.
Clouds hung low over the reeking earth. The honest rain had ceased, but
wet drops dribbled from the leaves of the trees and the branches and
trunks exuded moisture. The thatched roofs of cottages were dank. In
front gardens roses and hollyhocks drooped sodden. The very droves of
steers coming from market sweated in the muggy air. The good slush of
the once dusty road, broken to bits by military traffic, had stiffened
into black grease. Round a bend of the road we skidded alarmingly.
Marigold has a theory that in summer time a shirt next the skin is the
only wear for humans and square-tread tyres the only wear for
motor-cars. With some acerbity I pointed out the futility of his
proposition. With the blandness of superior wisdom he assured me that
we were perfectly safe. You can't knock into the head of an
artilleryman who has been trained to hang on to a limber by the
friction of his trousers, that there can be any danger in the luxurious
seat of a motor-car.

There is a good straight half mile of the Godbury Road which is known
in the locality as "The Gut." It is sunken and very narrow, being
flanked on one side by the railway embankment, and on the other by the
grounds of Godbury Chase. A most desolate bit of road, half overhung by
trees and oozing with all the moisture of the country-side. On this day
it was the wettest, slimiest bit of road in England. We had almost
reached the end of it, when it entered the head of a stray puppy dog to
pause in the act of crossing and sit down in the middle and hunt for
fleas. To spare the abominable mongrel, Marigold made a sudden swerve.
Of course the car skidded. It skidded all over the place, as if it