hree weeks have been few and far between, you must put
it down to War activities. It would be ridiculous to try to
conceal the fact that my movements of late have, to a certain
extent, been connected with the great "stunt" now in progress.
For me the past three weeks or so have been a period full of
incident and rich in variety--quite and by far the best period
of my life up to date. There have been certain rotten incidents
that have worried me at times; but, on the whole, I have been far
happier during that period than at any other time since joining
the Army. Thank goodness! I shall at length be able to hold up my
head among other Dulwich men and not be forced to admit with
shame that in this War I only played a safe, comfortable,
luxurious part in the A.S.C. No! those wretched days are over and
done with. Even now, I have a far easier time than thousands of
fellows in the Infantry.

I have referred to certain rotten incidents. The worst of these
was the death in action of one of my best friends in the Company.
This chap was a young Scotsman named Tarbet. We had been thrown
very much together and became warm friends. On April 9 Tarbet was
killed by a sniper about 11 A.M. while out in the open
reconnoitring the approach to the Boche second line. I came along
to relieve him an hour later, and practically fell over his dead
body--a very bad moment, I assure you. Another of our section
officers was wounded in the face about the same time by shrapnel.
I myself had rather a close shave, as I was alongside another man
at the time he was hit in the head by a shrapnel bullet. I
scarcely realised the explosion until I saw the poor fellow
wounded.

On the whole, that day was an absolute picnic. The only trouble
was that the Boche ran back too fast in our particular sector for
us to inflict all the damage on him that we would have liked to
have done. Such, however, has not been the case everywhere since.
He is fighting desperately hard now.

Two more O.A.'s killed in action--Gerald Gill[16] and Eric
Clarke.[17] Gill took his colours in cricket, gym, and football.
His impersonation of M. Perrichon in the French play on Founder's
Day, 1913, was very clever and entertaining. I am also much
grieved at Clarke's death. He was shaping for a brilliant c