came up to lunch. In the evening he
took Godley back to Anzac. Duncannon came to dinner. I have made him
liaison officer with the French in place of de Putron who has gone to
Salonika with Bailloud.

As to the Murdoch unpleasantness, I began an _expose_ to be sent to the
Governor General of Australia; another to the Secretary of the C.I.D.
But Pollen, Braithwaite and Dawnay (the last of whom had been shown the
document whilst he was at home, though he had said nothing to me about
it) thought this was to make much ado about nothing. They cannot believe
Lord K. will trouble himself about the matter any further and they think
it best handled in lighter vein. Is K. still the demi-God, that is the
question? Anyway, there is simply no time this Mail to deal with so many
misstatements, so that has settled it.

"GENERAL HEADQUARTERS,
"MEDTN. EXPEDITIONARY FORCE,
_"14th October, 1915._

"DEAR CALLWELL,

"I have read Mr. Murdoch's letter with care, and I have tried to give it
my most impartial consideration and not to allow myself in reply to be
influenced in any way by the criticisms he may have felt himself bound
to make upon myself personally.

"What does this letter amount to? Here we have a man, a journalist by
profession, one who is quick to seize every point, and to coin epithets,
which throw each fleeting impression into strongest relief. He comes
armed with a natural and justifiably enthusiastic admiration for
everything connected with the Commonwealth to which he belongs, and
ready to retail to his Minister or his public anything that can
contribute to show the troops they have sent in an heroic light.

"Here he obtains his first sight of war and of the horrors and hardships
inseparable from it. He finds men who have just been through some of
the hardest fighting imaginable and who have suffered terrible losses;
he finds probably that very many of those whom he hoped to see,
certainly many of those of whose welfare their motherland would wish to
hear, are killed, wounded or laid up with illness,--he finds all this
and he becomes very deeply depressed. In such an atmosphere Mr. Murdoch
composes his letter, a general analysis of which shows it to be divided,
to my mind, into two separate strata.

"First an appreciation in burning terms of the spirit, the achievements,
the physique and all soldierly qualities of the Australian For