That reminds me.  I’ve seen the “Tanks” (Nicky’s Moving Fortresses) in action.  I’d give my promotion if only he could have seen them too.  We mustn’t call them Fortresses any more—­they’re most violently for attack.  As far as I can make out Nicky’s and Drayton’s thing was something between these and the French ones; otherwise one might have wondered whether their plans and models really did go where John says they did!  I wish I could believe that Nicky and Drayton really had had a hand in it.

I’m most awfully grieved to hear that young Vereker’s reported missing.  Do you remember how excited he used to be dashing about the lawn at tennis, and how Alice Lathom used to sit and look at him, and jump if you brought her her tea too suddenly?  Let’s hope we’ll have finished up this damned War before they get little Norris.

Love to Dorothy and Don and Ronny.—­Your loving, MICK.

When Frances read that letter she said, “I wonder if he really is all right.  He says very little about himself.”

And Anthony said, “Then you may be sure he is.”

          May 31st, 1916. 
     B.E.F., FRANCE.

MY DEAR RONNY,—­I’m glad Mummy and Father have got all my letters.  They won’t mind my writing to you this time.  It really is your turn now.  Thanks for Wadham’s “Poems” (I wish they’d been Ellis’s).  It’s a shame to laugh at Waddy—­but—­he has spread himself over Flanders, hasn’t he?  Like the inundations round Ypres.

I’m most awfully touched at Dad and Mummy wanting to publish mine.  Here they all are—­just as I wrote them, in our billet, at night or in the early morning, when the others were sleeping and I wasn’t.  I don’t know whether they’re bad or good; I haven’t had time to think about them.  It all seems so incredibly far away.  Even last week seems far away.  You go on so fast here.

I’d like Ellis and Monier-Owen to see them and to weed out the bad ones.  But you mustn’t ask them to do anything.  They haven’t time, either.  I think you and Dorothy and Dad will manage it all right among you.  If you don’t I shan’t much care.

Of course I’m glad that they’ve taken you on at the Hampstead Hospital, if it makes you happier to nurse.  And I’m glad Dad put his foot down on your going to Vera.  She gave you up to my people and she can’t take you back now.  I’m sorry for her though; so is he.

Have I had any adventures “by myself”?  Only two. (I’ve given up what Mother calls my “not wanting to go to the party.”) One came off in “No Man’s Land” the other night.  I went out with a “party” and came back by myself—­unless you count a damaged Tommy hanging on to me.  It began in pleasurable excitement and ended in some perturbation, for I had to get him in under cover somehow, and my responsibility weighed on me—­so did he.  The other was ages ago in a German trench.  I was by myself, because I’d gone in too quick, and the “party” behind me took the wrong turning.