atural time of
relief shall come, I'll go and be happier in my going than you or
anybody else can guess.

Now we go to get my digestion stiffened up for another long
tug--unless the Germans proceed forthwith to knock us out--which
they cannot do.

With my love to everybody on the Hill,

Affectionately yours,
W.H.P.

Mr. and Mrs. Waldorf Astor--since become Viscount and Viscountess
Astor--had offered the Pages the use of their beautiful seaside house at
Sandwich, Kent, and it was the proposed vacation here to which Page
refers in this letter. He obtained a six weeks' leave of absence and
almost the last letters which Page wrote from England are dated from
this place. These letters have all the qualities of Page at his best:
but the handwriting is a sad reminder of the change that was
progressively taking place in his physical condition. It is still a
clear and beautiful script, but there are signs of a less steady hand
than the one that had written the vigorous papers of the preceding four
years.

_Memorandum_

Sandwich, Kent, Sunday, 19 May, 1918.

We're at Rest Harrow and it's a fine, sunny early spring Carolina day.
The big German drive has evidently begun its second phase. We hear the
guns distinctly. We see the coast-guard aeroplanes at almost any time
o'day. What is the mood about the big battle?

The soldiers--British and French--have confidence in their ability to
hold the Germans back from the Channel and from Paris. Yet can one rely
on the judgment of soldiers? They have the job in hand and of course
they believe in themselves. While one does not like in the least to
discount their judgment and their hopefulness, for my part I am not
_quite_ so sure of their ability to make sound judgments as I wish I
were. The chances are in favour of their success; but--suppose they
should have to yield and give up Calais and other Channel ports? Well,
they've prepared for it as best they can. They have made provision for
commandeering most of the hotels in London that are not yet taken
over--for hospitals for the wounded now in France.

And the war would take on a new phase. Whatever should become of the
British and American armies, the Germans would be no nearer having
England than they now are. They would not have command of the sea. The
combined British and American fleets could keep every German ship off
the ocean and continue the blockade by sea--indefinitel