handed down from proprietor to proprietor ever since. Ninian and I
have been dining together, and as he's going down to Boveyhayne
to-morrow, I thought I might as well write to you because I shan't see
you again for a while. I'm off to Gallipoli in a day or two. I dined
with Roger and Rachel last night, and they told me that you looked
rather pipped before you went to Devonshire. I hope you'll soon be all
right again. I wish we could have met, but it can't be helped. We must
just meet when we can. It seems a very long while, doesn't it, since we
were at Tre'Arrdur together? It'll be jolly to be there again when the
war's over. You've no idea how interested I've become in this job, far
more interested than I ever imagined I should be. And I've changed very
largely in my attitude towards the War. I 'joined up' chiefly because I
felt an uncontrollable love for England that made me want to do things
that were repugnant to me, and also because I thought that the Germans
had behaved very scurvily to the Belgians; but I don't feel those
emotions now particularly. I do, of course, feel proud of England, and
the sight of a hedgerow makes me want to get up on my hindlegs and
cheer, but I've got something else now that had never entered into my
calculations at all ... and that is an extraordinary pride in my
regiment and a strong desire to be worthy of it. I've just been reading
a book about it, a history of the regiment, and it's left me with a
sense of inheritance ... as I should feel if I were the heir of an old
estate. This thing has a history and a tradition which gives me a
feeling of pride and, perhaps more than that, a sense of responsibility.
... 'You mustn't let it down' I keep telling myself, and I feel about
all the men who served in the regiment from the time it was formed, that
they are my forefathers, so to speak. I feel their ghosts about me, not
the alarming sort of spook, but friendly, sympathetic ghosts, and I
imagine them saying to me, 'Sergeant Farlow, you've got to live up to
us!' I've not told any one else about this, because I'm afraid of being
called a sloppy ass ... and perhaps it is sloppy ... but you'll
understand what I feel, so I don't mind telling you. I shall write to
you as often as I can, and you must write to me and tell me what you're
doing. I wish we could have gone out together. Sometimes I get a
creepy-crawly sort of feeling that nearly turns me inside out ... a
feeling that this is good-bye fo