protracted battles on the Somme,
was in command of an ammunition working party. In October, 1916, he
was again appointed requisitioning officer, this time to the 2nd
Cavalry Brigade.

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.

Person