s feeling restive; the inaction that prevails is getting
beyond a joke.

As for the A.S.C., I consider that my particular branch of the
service is overstocked. In itself the mere fact of the work not
appealing to me (though I absolutely loathe it) would not be
decisive. It is because I am convinced that I could do better
work in other directions that I am longing for a transfer. Even
the transport side of the A.S.C. I would not object to. It is the
Supply, or grocery, side that I loathe. Had I remained in the
post of Requisitioning Officer, with its variety of work and the
possibility of exercising my linguistic gifts, I would have been
moderately content. But in my heart and soul I have always longed
for the rough-and-tumble of war as for a football match. What I
have seen of the war out here has not frightened me in the least,
but rather made me keener than ever to take part in the fighting.
It is all very well to be an "organiser of victory," but it does
not appeal to me, even if I had the particular type of mind
necessary for success at it. But I am not a good business man,
and the details of business bore me stiff. On the other hand, it
is my passionate desire to share the hardships and dangers of
this war.

It is not only my own desire and my own temperament that
influence me, but the example of others. I pick up my newspaper
to-day, and what do I see? Why, that a fellow that sat in the
same form-room as I did two years back has won the V.C., paying,
it is true, with his life for the honour. But what a glorious
end! I mean, of course, my namesake, Basil Jones, the first
Dulwich V.C., of whose achievement one can scarcely speak without
a lump in the throat. Likewise I see my friend S. H. Killick, to
whom I gave football colours, has been wounded. And think of the
men who have fallen! Men of the stamp of Julian Grenfell, D. O.
Barnett,[11] Rupert Brooke, Roland Philipps, R. G. Garvin, and W.
J. Henderson have not hesitated to give up for their country all
the brilliant gifts of character and intellect with which they
would have enriched England had it not been for the war. The
effect on me is as a trumpet call. All the old Welsh fighting
blood comes surging up in me and makes me say, "Short sight or no
short sight, I _will_ prove my