SOURCE: “Eddie Marsh: The Complete Edwardian,” in The Saturday Book, edited by John Hadfield, Hutchinson & Company, 1955, pp. 57-64.

In the following essay, Sieveking reminisces about his friendship with Marsh.

It was in April, 1915, that I saw Eddie Marsh for the first time. Some months earlier, at the age of eighteen, I had joined the Artists' Rifles as a private, for no better reason than that every young man I knew was doing the same thing. I was nearly six feet six high, and had the mind of a fairly bright child of twelve.

I shared a small round tent with eleven other men. One was a painter named Paul Nash, with whom I became great friends. Before long I realized that I was inconveniently tall for the trenches, and I applied for a commission in the flying branch of the Navy. However, the Admiralty would not commission me...