UCSB LIBRARY
 
 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD
 
 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD. 
 
 Frontispiece.
 
 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM HIS LETTERS 
 
 WITH A CHARACTER SKETCH 
 
 BY HIS FATHER 
 GEORGE SOMES LAYARD 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT 
 
 PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 
 1919
 
 [All rights reserved.]
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 PETER'S MOTHER, 
 
 FOR OF ALL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD 
 HE LOVED HER BEST.
 
 CONTENTS 
 PART I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH i 
 
 PART II 
 LETTERS - 36 
 
 VI
 
 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 
 
 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD was born on the 7th of 
 June, 1896. He volunteered immediately the 
 war broke out, and received his commission in 
 November, 1914. He was killed in action at 
 Gomiecourt on the 2$rd August, 1918, aged 22. 
 
 Until the war broke out the profession of soldier 
 appeared to be the very last that Peter would be 
 likely to adopt. Indeed, so early as his seventh 
 year, with the inexorable logic of childhood, he 
 had definitely put a stopper on any such suggestion. 
 He had once heard me say that a man could not 
 live on his pay in the army. Shortly afterwards, 
 his mother happened to ask him if he would like 
 to be a soldier. To her surprise he answered 
 reproachfully and with tears in his voice: " No, 
 Mummy, for I should either have to starve or be 
 killed." For to his childish understanding the only 
 alternative to " living on his pay " was " dying 
 on his pay," and he naturally found no attraction 
 in that.
 
 2 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 At the age of eight he entered the Preparatory 
 School for Bedales, near Petersfield, and after 
 a somewhat turbulent career proceeded in due 
 course to the school proper. That his turbulent 
 career had suffered no check is sufficiently demon- 
 strated by the following candid and illuminating 
 note kindly sent to me by Mr. Hooper, one of the 
 masters, for whom he always felt the liveliest 
 affection : 
 
 " It was as a boy of twelve years old or there- 
 abouts, in the lowest form at Bedales, that I, as 
 his form-master, got to know Peter Layard best, 
 and had a good deal to do with him. He was just 
 one of those boys who make the problem of col- 
 lective teaching a difficult one, not because of any 
 deliberate naughtiness but because of strong in- 
 dividual characteristics, and, in his case, on account 
 of an irresistible reaction to his immediate environ- 
 ment, and a lively imagination. Nothing could 
 be or happen in Peter's proximity without arousing 
 his liveliest interest. He simply must nudge or 
 push his neighbour merely for the sake of doing 
 so. In short, everything was interesting to him. 
 He liked excitement, and could not endure dulness 
 or monotony, and alas ! we poor teachers, being 
 only human, proved unequal to such demands, 
 and found them upsetting to our purposes. 
 
 " Every member of the form had his appointed 
 seat in the room, and his was at the end of the 
 front row, where at least he was reasonably undis- 
 turbed by what was behind him . Even so, whenever 
 possible I kept the place on one side and at the back
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 3 
 
 of him empty, in order to insulate him as far as I 
 could, for he just could not resist contact. It was 
 characteristic of him that he made a home of his 
 regular place, and even in out-of-school hours, when 
 he was free to sit where he liked, he always stuck 
 to this one, so that never after could I see that 
 seat without immediately thinking of him. 
 
 ' In these early days I think his education was 
 much more his own doing than the work of his 
 teacher. When he had not got to sit still, he often 
 would do so for hours, as busy and absorbed as 
 could be, elaborating in minute detail some plan, 
 or maze, or map of imaginary country, all with much 
 ingenuity and skill. Then it would be a great 
 delight to sit down by him, and listen while he 
 explained it with his eager, excited manner. It 
 was amazing to meet him some twelve months ago, 
 after an interval of several years, wearing the 
 uniform of a Captain* in the army, and to find 
 him just exactly the same, to listen to the same 
 superlatives " absolutely gorgeous !" " how 
 frightfully ripping !" " you simply must come !" 
 and so on. He really hadn't altered a bit; he 
 was just like a bigger little-boy, looking at his 
 enlarged environment with a boy's eyes a veri- 
 table Peter Pan. 
 
 " ' The Pictures ' seemed to be his chief delight 
 just then : They were so thrilling melodrama 
 above all. But it was all good, clean, and healthy 
 sordidness didn't touch him. He was generous 
 to a degree, and beautifully happy-go-lucky. I 
 
 * He was promoted to rank of temporary Captain at the end 
 of 1916.
 
 4 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 was told that he was quite surprised to discover 
 he had a balance of 30 or so at his bank when he 
 came home on leave, and that he promptly drew 
 it all and insisted on his sister coming to spend it 
 with him in Bond Street. I believe that he invested 
 in the latest thing in officers' tailoring, not because 
 he wanted to ' swank,' but because it was so exciting 
 to wear it. 
 
 ' It would be quite a mistake to think that Peter 
 was superficial and frivolous he wasn't. He 
 had a very quick and active mind, and was intelli- 
 gently interested in ideas quite as much as in things. 
 
 " At school it fell to my lot to teach him drawing, 
 both as a boy in my form and afterwards ; and 
 again it was what he did for himself rather than 
 what I set him to do, which was most successful; 
 and during his last years at school he became very 
 interested in making minute little coloured 
 imaginary landscapes, quite good in their way, 
 and showing a good deal of observation and a keen 
 appreciation of beauty. His cousin, who is an 
 artist, has told me that she always liked to show 
 him her work and get his opinion about it, because 
 he entered into it so keenly and seemed able to 
 understand what she had aimed at, and got enthu- 
 siastic about it. His criticism, she said, was 
 more valuable than those of more professional 
 friends. 
 
 ' Well, the war seized him, along with many 
 others who would never have voluntarily chosen 
 soldiering as an occupation; but I feel sure that 
 Peter never had any regrets. It was life, and 
 exciting and thrilling, and he would never worry
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 5 
 
 himself about possibilities or what might have 
 been. Possibly routine and discipline would have 
 irked him at times ; but as long as he was with other 
 human beings he would be happy, for he was above 
 everything sociable. The circumstances of his 
 death prove what he was throughout his short 
 life better than any accounts or description." 
 
 That gives an admirable bird's-eye view of Peter 
 at school. 
 
 His restlessness and " troublesomeness," the 
 outcome of intense vitality and nervous energy, 
 undoubtedly often proved irritating to those 
 around him. One day when he was quite small we 
 had driven far into the country. Not properly 
 appreciating how irksome it was for him to sit 
 still so long, and at the end of my patience, I 
 threatened of course it was a hollow threat, and 
 foolish at that to put him out of the carriage and 
 leave him by the roadside. Naturally he was 
 somewhat alarmed at the idea of being marooned 
 so far from home, and someone asked him what he 
 would do if so abandoned. "I should," he said 
 seriously, " get a thorn and stick it into my little 
 body." This was characteristic of his lively 
 imagination and readiness on an emergency. 
 
 He had, as Mr. Hooper says, a great liking for 
 cinemas. When he was old enough not to be seen 
 across London to and from school, he made a 
 practice of taking his fill of the latest Metropolitan 
 productions. This continued till he was about 
 fifteen . Then came a day on his way home for the 
 holidays when, scanning the hoardings for the
 
 6 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 latest thrills of the picture-houses, he was brought 
 up short by a very striking poster which advertised 
 what I think must have been the first post-impres- 
 sionist and futurist exhibition at the Grafton 
 Galleries . From that moment the call of the cinema 
 lost much of its insistence. Hitherto, to my great 
 but wholly unreasonable disappointment, he had 
 found picture galleries, modern academic as well 
 as Old Masters, extremely boring. Now he dis- 
 covered for himself something of which he was 
 really in need, something that appealed to his 
 essential modernity, something that enlarged his 
 horizon, and, what was of immense importance to 
 me, something that immediately brought him and 
 me into closest sympathy. Up till now I had 
 myself been sitting on the fence over these new 
 developments in Art, trying to keep an open mind, 
 but prejudiced in favour of what I knew and 
 understood. Pedagogically I had been wanting to 
 teach Peter the Dead Languages. Now the pupil 
 turned on me and proved that the Living Languages 
 had also to be reckoned with. Rightly enough, 
 I think, I wanted to show him that which was 
 done and perfected, but more rightly still he was 
 athirst for something still germinating, stretching 
 out into the future, not satisfied with the past. 
 At any rate, his sudden enthusiasm made it clear 
 to me that these new manifestations in the world 
 of Art meant something more than mere perversity 
 were portents, indeed, of the needs of the rising 
 generation for a deeper vision, a more extended 
 understanding, new modes of expression. 
 
 With Peter, to want to do a thing was to do it
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 7 
 
 at once. To leave a thing till to-morrow was never 
 to do it at all. So off to the Grafton Gallery sped 
 this boy of fifteen, and not only made what he could 
 of cubist, futurist, vorticist, or what-not, on his 
 own account, but must needs seek out the secretary 
 for further information and discussion. And the 
 Secretary promptly caught fire at the boy's enthu- 
 siasm. Not surprisingly, for Peter's eagerness was 
 highly infectious. At any rate, he now made a 
 second tour of the Galleries in the Secretary's 
 company, and so ingratiated himself by his eager 
 curiosity and quick understanding that, when the 
 hour for luncheon struck, he found himself the guest 
 of his new-found friend at a Bond Street restaurant. 
 
 Nor did the encounter end there. Peter had to 
 hurry off to catch his train to Felixstowe, but he had 
 found an instructor to his own taste, and it was not 
 an opportunity to be wasted. The upshot of it 
 was a voluminous correspondence on Art which 
 was continued long after the exhibition had come 
 to an end. 
 
 This was a real turning-point in Peter's develop- 
 ment. Up till now he had been impatient of 
 aesthetics, whether literary or pictorial. Indeed, 
 it was a standing joke against him that, on his 
 lists of suggested birthday or Christmas presents, 
 he always printed in large letters " NO BOOKS." 
 But from now onwards his thirst for good pictures 
 and good books became avid. In place of the gust 
 for penny-dreadfuls and popular magazines of his 
 immaturity, there was an ever-increasing hunger 
 for, and appreciation of, the best in Art and Litera- 
 ture. Not that he ever grew to despise the lighter
 
 8 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 aspect of things. For he was no prig. Indeed, 
 to the last he enthused over such frivolities as the 
 drawings to " Eve " in the Taller, ragtime in music, 
 and such funniments as those of Mr. Stephen 
 Leacock in print. But his greater enthusiasms 
 were given to Mr. Augustus John, Mr. Nevinson 
 and Mr. Paul Nash, in painting; to Debussy in 
 music and, with curious inconsistency in view of his 
 essential modernity, to Borrow, the Brontes, and 
 Mrs. Gaskell, in literature. 
 
 Fortunately, as time passed, Peter showed no 
 faintest sign of growing " high-browed " or affected. 
 Light-heartedness and gaiety were of the very fibre 
 of his being. Indeed, did we want to track him 
 in the wilds of one of the many hotels in which we 
 stayed together, we had only to listen for laughter, 
 and were pretty certain to find him the centre of it. 
 But he had just that underlying vein of real under- 
 standing that saved him from becoming that most 
 annoying of beings, a fribble or a buffoon. He had 
 too great a sense of humour to run any risk of that 
 sort. Colour and beauty became increasingly in- 
 tegral parts and needs of his life. They were not 
 merely matters of aesthetic, a mere frilling to 
 existence. They had their very practical uses, 
 and in no way was this more marked than in the 
 reliance he placed on them to help him through the 
 horrors of the war. It may sound a very small 
 thing, but it meant very much, that, on going out 
 the second time with the dreary drabness of the 
 trenches vivid in his memory, he laid in a large 
 stock of brilliant silk handkerchiefs to be used as 
 wall decorations, so, as he said, to have something
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 9 
 
 of beautiful colour to feast his eyes on in his 
 monotonous surroundings. For bitter experience 
 told him that for the infantryman there was no 
 glamour of war ; that the chief misery of the trenches 
 was a deadly sameness, an endless repetition of 
 the same kinds of horror, a boredom more terrible 
 than death itself. It was with the same deliberate 
 intention that he paid two or three pounds for a 
 long tortoiseshell cigarette-holder to take out with 
 him to the front, which will be found in his letters 
 playing its appointed part. 
 
 It was all part and parcel of a fine practical 
 determination not to allow the abiding dreariness 
 of the trenches to overwhelm him, to weaken 
 his physical and moral fibre, to upset the balance 
 of body and mind. 
 
 The same forethought was apparent in the choice 
 of papers and periodicals with which he demanded 
 to be supplied. The Times, Punch, the American 
 papers Life and The Saturday Post, Blackwood's 
 and Pearson's Magazines, were matters of course. 
 But what he particularly insisted on was the 
 Colour Magazine, which not only kept him in touch 
 with the advanced and advancing schools of paint- 
 ing, but provided him also with an ever-changing 
 picture gallery. For with those reproductions of 
 which he approved he would adorn the walls of his 
 billets and dug-outs, although with me he deplored 
 the uneven selection of the editors of that interesting 
 venture. There were, however, some of the more 
 advanced pictures which he told me he dared not 
 display, lest some Philistine among his fellow- 
 officers should blaspheme. An outstanding ex-
 
 io PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 ample of these last was Kramer's " Mother and 
 Child," which he held in the highest and most 
 reverend esteem. This he shrank from exposing 
 to the possible ridicule of those who would see 
 nothing in it but an ugly peasant-woman and an 
 exceedingly scrubby infant ! 
 
 Nor was his appreciation of Art and Literature 
 merely emotional. It was intelligent and critical. 
 In respect to the first, Mr. Hooper has given an 
 example. In respect to the second, I yield to the 
 temptation to give a specific instance of what was 
 of course to me peculiarly interesting. 
 
 Towards the close of his second period at the 
 Front, I had sent to him, as was my wont at his 
 special desire, some verses which I had lately 
 contributed to one of the Magazines. I found 
 them afterwards transcribed in the beautiful 
 decorative script, half writing, half printing, which 
 he had invented for himself, in the pocket-book 
 which he always carried upon him. He was 
 generously appreciative of them, and told me he 
 had learnt them by heart. They are entitled 
 ' The Master-Seeker," and run as follows: 
 
 " The seed, impatient of th' authentic hour 
 Yearns for the sun to find its secret flower. 
 
 " Prison 'd in marble, Galatea stands 
 Breathlessly waiting her Pygmalion's hands. 
 
 " And language, yet a wordy rabble-throng, 
 Craves for a Keats to track its hidden song. 
 
 " So does my bosom wistfully await 
 The Lord of Love who is predestinate 
 To win from out my heart th' elusive elf 
 Which I can ne'er discover for myself."
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 1 1 
 
 He was, as I say, generously appreciative, but 
 did not on that account hesitate to put his finger 
 upon that which jarred his fastidious taste. 
 
 ' What price ' a wistful bosom ' ?" he wrote. 
 
 And I can conscientiously say that I felt it worth 
 while to have been guilty of such a betise to find his 
 criticism so unquestionably right. For it was a 
 sound principle to substitute the adjective for the 
 adverb, and so test the quality of the word from 
 another angle. The line as corrected stands: 
 
 " So does my soul impatiently await "* 
 
 As will be gathered from his letters, he was too 
 complimentary about my writing. But that was 
 characteristic of his enthusiasm, and doubtless the 
 less it was deserved the more it was gratifying. 
 
 Indeed, I think it came as a pleasant surprise 
 to him that he had a father of average intelligence, 
 and that being so, he was not slow to realize that 
 even a parent is the better for some little encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 * The only other entry in his pocket-book which did not 
 immediately refer to his military duties was the following 
 quotation from The Order of Compline, sent out to him by his 
 sister : 
 
 " Keep us, O Lord, as the apple of an eye, hide us under the 
 shadow of thy wings. Preserve us, O Lord, while waking 
 and guard us while sleeping, that awake we may watch with 
 Christ, and in peace may take our rest." 
 
 Further reference to this will be found in his letters. 
 
 In addition to the above I find recorded the names df all the 
 men in his platoon, against each of which he has put cryptic 
 signs, which no doubt were of important significance to him 
 and to them.
 
 12 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 Although it is naturally tempting to me to 
 enlarge on Peter's intense love of Art in all its 
 aspects, it must not be forgotten that to him 
 aesthetic emotion was quite subsidiary to emotion 
 of quite a different sort. First, and easily first, 
 in his religion of life, came his affection, particularly 
 his affection for his mother and sister (which 
 will be found so constantly punctuating his letters), 
 and, much as he enjoyed doing the " proper thing," 
 he never allowed any false shame to interfere 
 with its expression. He preferred to be found 
 guilty of gushing rather than forego its undoubted 
 advantages. " We are all apt to be sparing of 
 assurances," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. Peter 
 was not guilty of any such reticence, and certainly 
 he gained in reciprocity of affection an exceeding 
 great reward. Demonstrative he might be, but 
 anything of sentimental sloppiness was abhorrent 
 to him. His affection was wholly unaffected. It 
 was robust and splendidly partisan. Those he 
 loved certainly might do wrong, but, in his judgment, 
 the right they did so far outweighed it that the 
 wrong hardly counted. Particularly marked was 
 his loyalty to his family behind their backs. In- 
 deed, it was at times embarrassing to learn from 
 strangers how compact of all the virtues we were, 
 what anticipation of our charms had been excited, 
 and* to realize the difficulty of living up to our 
 exalted reputations. 
 
 This affectionate loyalty, combined with his 
 inexhaustible spirits, was, I think, the prime factor 
 in his extraordinary popularity the reason why the 
 shoals of letters of regret received from all sorts
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 13 
 
 and conditions of men and women strike the note 
 of personal loss. He was so splendidly alive that 
 he radiated vitality. Something quick, something 
 electric, seemed to charge his surroundings, so that 
 with his loss all felt that much virtue had gone out 
 of them. It was not only clear to him that it takes 
 all sorts of persons to make a world, but equally 
 clear that all are entrancingly interesting if only 
 one takes the trouble to exploit them. He was 
 out for adventure. Every moment of life must be 
 lived. Everyone was a possible companion in the 
 quest. None was too humble, none too exalted. 
 
 It is indeed on record that, on occasion, he would 
 fly at very exalted game. Fortunately he had the 
 sense of humour that disarms offence, and, by its 
 spontaneity, keeps on the hither side of impudence. 
 
 He was about sixteen when the ex- King Manoel 
 of Portugal was a visitor at Felixstowe, and an 
 enthusiastic player at the Lawn Tennis Club. 
 At that time autograph-hunting was Peter's 
 temporary craze. Here was an opportunity that 
 could not be missed. So at the conclusion of a 
 sett up he goes, takes his cap off, and, proffering 
 paper and pencil, says : 
 
 ' I say, Sir, you might give me your auto- 
 graph." 
 
 " All right," says the King with the utmost 
 good-humour, " turn round and I will write on 
 your back." 
 
 " You'd better not let people see what you're 
 doing, Sir," said Peter, " or you will be besieged." 
 
 ' Very well," said the King, laughing, " I will 
 disappear."
 
 14 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 And disappear he did, but not till after he had 
 performed his part of the contract. 
 
 Later on, through the exigencies of the war he, 
 still hardly more than a boy but now the proud 
 possessor of His Majesty's commission, found 
 himself certainly with suppressed amusement but 
 as certainly with no embarrassment thrown 
 unexpectedly into the society of exalted personages. 
 
 How we laughed over the story of the Church 
 dignitary's wife who, greatly impressed by his 
 personality, so far forgot the conventions as to 
 exclaim to the Primate of all England who had just 
 entered the room: " Oh, Archbishop, / must 
 introduce you to Mr. Layard !" 
 
 And how we laughed again at Peter's quick 
 adaptation to his newly-found and most reverend 
 acquaintance, whom he delighted with an anecdote 
 (apocryphal perhaps, though certainly character- 
 istic) about Dr. Johnson, which His Grace had 
 never heard before ! 
 
 Again, there was the case of the beautiful Duchess 
 with a house contiguous to their camp, who gave 
 a general invitation to the Mess to come to tea on 
 any day that suited them. In due course the visit 
 was made with all ceremony by the officers in 
 massed formation. But without Peter. For he 
 had no idea of being lost in the crowd. So what 
 must he do but bide his time, go and call tout seul, 
 and have the beautiful Duchess to himself? I 
 confess I envy the Duchess. 
 
 Again we find him winning golden opinions as 
 the guest at the high table of a great Cambridge 
 College, not only holding his own with the pundits,
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 15 
 
 but surprising himself by setting the tune of the 
 conversation. He had great native intelligence, 
 which moved with ease even among intellectuals, 
 who might well have intimidated anyone with more 
 self-consciousness or less pliability. 
 
 These are but characteristic examples of his 
 adaptability to all sorts and conditions of people. 
 His adaptability to circumstances was equally 
 marked. One or two examples may be given. 
 
 After being wounded in 1916, he was in hospital 
 a mile or two outside Newcastle-on-Tyne. To be 
 near him during his convalescence his mother had 
 put up at an hotel in the town, and he spent his days 
 with her. Taxi-cabs being few and far between, 
 the tram was as a rule the only alternative to the 
 long walk back to the hospital. One evening he 
 found the overcrowded tram-cars besieged. Sud- 
 denly in the distance he saw a fine private car 
 approaching a lady the sole occupant. In a flash 
 he realized that, with his bandaged head and his 
 arm in a sling, occasion was ripe for a diplomatic 
 adventure. A moment more, and he had detached 
 himself from the surging throng and, with weariness 
 and dejection charging every movement, had started 
 to trudge the painful road. Another moment 
 and the car had pulled up beside him, and the fair 
 and compassionate owner had risen to his artfully 
 calculated lure. 
 
 That was a legitimate adventure enough. The 
 second, though equally ingenious, was clearly not 
 so defensible. 
 
 Again the tram-cars were crowded, this time, 
 indeed, so crowded that the drivers would not even 
 
 2 B
 
 1 6 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 pull up at the appointed stopping-place. The 
 situation was desperate to one still weak from 
 his wounds, and desperate ills demand desperate 
 remedies. At the critical moment Peter's eye fell 
 upon the movable points of the tram-line. At no 
 risk to the car its course could be diverted. With 
 him to think was to act, especially if the piquancy 
 of danger was not lacking. And in this case 
 danger was imminent in the person of an adjacent 
 policeman. That made the adventure irresistible. 
 In an instant his heel had wrenched the points over, 
 the while his face wore the innocence of a dove. 
 The inevitable happened. The next tram-car took 
 the wrong metals at the junction, had to be backed 
 to the stopping-place, and Peter reaped the 
 triumphant reward of his wrong-doing. 
 
 No doubt it was indefensible, but then I am not 
 out to prove that he was in any sense a plaster 
 saint. Furthermore, it was this very readiness of 
 resource and adaptability that made him the good 
 officer that he proved himself to be. 
 
 Of course his impetuousness got the better of him 
 at times. Indeed, I remember a dreadful scene in 
 an hotel in the South of France where as a school- 
 boy he had joined us for the holidays. An amorous 
 swain, not in his first youth, lay back in a rocking- 
 chair making play in the presence of the girl of his 
 heart. In the excess of his emotions he rocked 
 himself back and forth. As ill fortune would have 
 it, Peter was lurking in his rear. Back rocked the 
 chair, another tip would do it. And to Peter came 
 temptation. The next moment the unfortunate 
 Lothario lay on his back, legs in air, his up till now
 
 I 
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 17 
 
 successful transports quenched in the inextinguish- 
 able laughter of the onlookers. Whether the whole 
 thing was fortuitous, or whether Peter was an 
 instrument in the hand of destiny may be open to 
 question. Anyhow, the episode, unimportant in 
 itself, goes to show that Peter was not, as a boy, 
 free from the defects of his qualities. Had he 
 realized what agony of shame it must have meant 
 to the sufferer nothing would have induced hi.m to 
 meddle, for his mischievousness had no cruelty in 
 it. But he must always be experimenting, and 
 empiricism is bound to find its victims. Indeed, 
 it was all part of his adventurousness. He had 
 enormously developed what Ben Keeling called 
 " the sense of fun of sitting on a large orange 
 spinning through space." 
 
 And the manifestations of this sense were endless. 
 It was an adventure to go in an aeroplane, and he 
 went whenever he could. It was an adventure 
 to find himself earning money. It was a greater 
 adventure to spend it . Indeed, he naively admitted 
 that he loved to buy expensive things, not so much 
 because he wanted them, as because they were ex- 
 pensive. He made no bones about it. It was 
 adventurous to have the sensation, for however 
 short a time and it was certainly never long-lived 
 in his experience of being rich. The discovery 
 of a balance at Cox's meant a balance no longer. 
 He would give a dinner to his sister and friends 
 at the Carlton, and have stalls for the theatre 
 afterwards. And he would have a car for the even- 
 ing no common taxis for him and Croesus-like 
 keep it waiting his pleasure at hotel and theatre.
 
 1 8 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 And if it meant the tops of omnibuses for the rest 
 of his leave, well ! there was nothing really pleasanter 
 than the tops of omnibuses ! Besides which, it 
 was just as great an adventure to see how far a 
 little money could be made to go as to see how 
 quickly a comparatively large sum could be made 
 to melt away. 
 
 Nor was it only, or indeed chiefly, objective 
 adventurousness that made his companionship so 
 stimulating. He was equally ready for mental 
 and speculative adventure. 
 
 A typical example comes to my mind. He was 
 on leave, and we were walking on the Lower 
 Sandgate Road at Folkestone. Suddenly he half 
 slipped up on a loose stone that had strayed on to 
 the asphalte path. 
 
 " By Jove !" he said in an alarmed voice, " I 
 might have sprained my ankle." 
 
 Immediately the full comedy of the situation 
 struck us. Here was he, a veteran of the war, 
 recovered from wounds and at any time likely to 
 be ordered again to face the deadly perils of the 
 Front, suddenly appalled at this tiny and imaginary 
 danger. From this we easily went on to speculate 
 how, so far as we were for the moment concerned, 
 this whole uniyerse seemed to have been created 
 for the express purpose of bringing that very stone 
 at that precise instant under his foot. And thence 
 we plunged into one of those intimate talks which 
 lifted us out of emptiness of phrases and made us 
 feel that together our heads were touching the 
 stars. Regardless of the wisdom of mental reser- 
 vation, we would open our hearts to one another
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 19 
 
 and discover the passionate pleasure of true inti- 
 macy. 
 
 Not that it must be understood that talk with 
 Peter was normally so intensive. That would 
 give a wrong impression altogether. For he would 
 with as great enthusiasm discuss the detail of a 
 lady's hat as " the effect of the movement of fish- 
 tails on the undulations of the sea." In fact, 
 he would probably prefer the former. But if a 
 scientific fact found itself upon the tapis, he was 
 eager to tackle it and discuss it with all the profun- 
 dity of which he was capable. 
 
 This brings me to a further point. No doubt 
 Peter, like every decent person, had his reticences, 
 but openness was an outstanding characteristic. 
 As a result, misunderstandings when they happened 
 never festered for want of ventilation. They never 
 assumed such proportions as to need those formal 
 explanations which are as appalling in the moral, 
 as surgical operations are in the physical, world. 
 
 Another point that made things easy was that 
 he was generous in conversation. When excited, 
 no doubt he might for the moment appear over- 
 bearing; but at the back of his bluster he was as 
 generous as Laurence Boythorn himself, and would 
 be at the next moment laughing at his own 
 vehemence. More and more as time went on he 
 strove to understand what his opponent was 
 saying not occupying himself the while in merely 
 searching for a counter-stroke. He was cordial, 
 and his cordiality was catching. 
 
 A good example of this understandableness is 
 to be found in the following letter.
 
 I 
 
 20 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 Before going out for the first time we had given 
 him a motor-bicycle, for the reckless riding of 
 which it may incidentally be mentioned he had, 
 more than once, paid the proper penalty. On his 
 return from France after having been wounded 
 he found that it had greatly deteriorated. He 
 therefore wrote to his mother asking her to make 
 him an advance towards the purchase of a new 
 machine. This she very properly, though regret- 
 fully, declined to do, writing at the head of her 
 letter " Hateful business." This he countered by 
 heading his reply " Lovely business," and wrote 
 as follows : 
 
 " Your letter was one of the sweetest letters of 
 refusal. In fact, I probably love you for it more 
 than if you'd accepted, tho' I can't tell why. . . . 
 I 'm going to do my best with the old one get new 
 tyres, etc., not costing much. I hope you don't 
 still hate refusing me. That part of your letter 
 made me feel an awful rotter. I have quietly 
 thought it over, and I think you are perfectly 
 right, you splendid darling. The thing you say 
 about my bike being responsible for sciatica ends 
 the letter up with a sweet humorous touch. I 
 think it's very good for Nancy and me that we 
 are not too rich. You and Johnny don't want to 
 be, so that's right too. I am going to save up now 
 and I shall have a fair bit to start with, as ap- 
 parently I haven't been drawing all the allowance 
 I should have while on leave. I shall put it into 
 the war savings book I've got, with the idea of being 
 able to take it out when I want it. I shall
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 21 
 
 go up next week-end to see about my old bike. 
 Much more fun having a bike that needs brains 
 to work than a new one that goes anyhow. Really, 
 you sweet darling, you've saved me 30, I'm sure, 
 as I '11 be every bit as happy without it . 
 Thank God for a sweet mother like you. 
 Very hugest love from 
 
 PETE. 
 
 It seems to me that the spirit of this letter could 
 hardly be bettered, nor is it unamusing in this 
 connection to recall the fact that, earlier in life, 
 he had declared that if he were free to choose a 
 profession it would be that of a millionaire. 
 
 But to return to his conversational agility, which 
 of course had its pitfalls ! For his love of adventure 
 made him eager to balance on the dangerous edge 
 of persiflage. It was an adventure to see how far 
 he could presume, how far he could be personal 
 without giving offence, how far audacity could be 
 allowed to go. And no doubt there were occasions 
 when he had to pay the penalty of his temerity. 
 But as time went on he grew quick to recognize 
 if offence was being taken where no offence was 
 meant, and he was ever cleverer at healing a wound 
 than at inflicting one. 
 
 I have mentioned his cordiality, and in nothing 
 was this more apparent than in his readiness to 
 acknowledge favours. And he was as punctual 
 in thanking us for doing things that might well have 
 been taken for granted, as in acknowledging bene- 
 fits from those on whom no such obligation rested. 
 This scrupulousness was amusingly exemplified
 
 22 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 when, as a boy of about ten, he underwent an 
 operation for adenoids. To the doctor's and 
 nurse's amusement and gratification, the moment 
 he awoke from the anaesthetic, and whilst still 
 half-unconscious, he politely and promptly tendered 
 them his thanks for their kind services. 
 
 Further evidence of this punctiliousness informs 
 his letters a niceness of conduct which may well 
 come as a surprise to those who only knew him 
 before his mercurial temperament had been disci- 
 plined by his training as a soldier. For it is of 
 the irony of things that the war which took Peter 
 from us also gave him to us in a sense which cannot 
 be over-estimated. 
 
 No doubt his scrupulousness resulted largely 
 from the strict rules of politeness inculcated by his 
 mother. Nevertheless, one felt that his politenesses 
 were not merely perfunctory, but were charged with 
 genuine feeling. This was very apparent in his 
 intercourse with old people. He was certainly 
 very far from being unsusceptible to bright eyes, 
 but he was just as often to be found laying himself 
 out to fascinate women old enough to be his grand- 
 mother. He had the perception, rare in those of 
 his age, that old people yearn for sympathy, 
 affection, and lively banter, though not so openly, 
 as do the young, and he gave of his best to all and 
 sundry. An example may be found in his deter- 
 mination, in spite of everything, to spend his 
 week-end leaves when in England with us. I used 
 to beg him to go to London and have good times 
 with his young companions, but he would rarely 
 do this, declaring that he preferred the quiet times,
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 23 
 
 the rubbers of bridge, and the good talks that he 
 had with us, to anything more exciting. And if 
 to give happiness is the greatest happiness, Peter 
 must in this last year of his life have been happy 
 indeed. Certainly, never were parents more 
 fortunate or more satisfied in a son's companionship. 
 
 As will be seen from his letters, Peter was no 
 stranger to hyperbole a characteristic inherited 
 from his paternal forbears. He felt keenly, and 
 found exaggerated phraseology a weapon easier to 
 his hand than logic, and used it accordingly. He 
 was not of those who speak in cliches. Every word 
 he said was alive with feeling or meaning newborn 
 at the moment. If he told an old story, he told it 
 in fresh words, bending his mind to give it life. 
 As I often said to him: " Peter, I can hear your 
 brains creaking !" He made up in imagination 
 what he lacked in knowledge, and though this 
 might not make for scientific accuracy, it certainly 
 made for pleasurable and lively intercourse. 
 
 Not that where Peter had studied a subject he 
 was inaccurate. Very much the reverse. He 
 probed deeply for the why and wherefore and was 
 meticulous in mastering details. But while he was 
 quite capable of knowing everything about some 
 things, he was also curious to know something 
 about everything, and though it would be exaggera- 
 tion to say that omniscience was his foible, he 
 preferred (in spite of Pope's advice) to risk the 
 danger of a little learning rather than deprive 
 himself of the pleasure of tasting the Pierian Spring. 
 
 It is true that his impetuosity and spirit of 
 adventure led him not infrequently to essay
 
 24 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 experiment before he had become expert. Indeed, 
 I well remember an agitated letter from a temporary 
 tenant of Bull's Cliff, our house at Felixstowe, 
 saying that a fire had broken out, the result of an 
 unprotected electric wire in the bicycle-room. It 
 is hardly necessary to say Peter was the culprit. 
 New to the business of harnessing the lightning, 
 he had run a wire into the room ignorant of the 
 necessity of the most elementary precautions. 
 Whether or no the Insurance Company would have 
 recognized liability had the house been burnt down 
 seems problematical. Fortunately for me, Peter 
 on this occasion got his lesson a good deal cheaper 
 than he deserved. 
 
 But, as I say, once he became interested in a 
 thing he was very thorough, not to say reckless, in 
 probing its possibilities. Unmethodical he might 
 be, for he hated to do things by rule, but certainly 
 he managed to arrive. A result of this was that, 
 when he had mastered anything, he was curiously 
 surprised to discover his own proficiency when put 
 to the test. An example of this occurred at the 
 conclusion of a course on tactics for about a hundred 
 young officers in* the spring of 1918. When the 
 resulting examination was imminent, word went 
 round that the six who came out first and the six 
 who came out last would have to undergo the ordeal 
 of a personal interview with the General. Peter 
 was one of the selected and, as he told me afterwards, 
 he had not the faintest idea whether he would be 
 amongst the sheep or the goats. In the event he 
 found himself specially singled out for honour, 
 and the only one of the whole course recommended
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 25 
 
 for work on the Staff. Unfortunately for us 
 though who can say unfortunately for him ? the 
 great final Push was imminent, officers for the front 
 were being loudly called for to take the places of 
 those who were falling, and he was hurried out to 
 France before the recommendation could material- 
 ize. I offered to do what I could to push his claims, 
 but he would have none of it. If th appointment 
 came, well and good, but he would have no hand 
 in anything that might, however little, savour of 
 shirking. 
 
 To those who only knew Peter as a rather 
 exceptionally irresponsible boy, evidence of such 
 altruism might well be suspect if it only rested on 
 the authority of one naturally prejudiced in his 
 favour. It is therefore gratifying to find preserved 
 amongst our papers an unsolicited testimonial 
 from his second C.O. In this, Colonel Eaton White, 
 after saying that he had asked unsuccessfully for 
 Peter to be sent back to the regiment, concluded 
 with these words: " I never saw anyone improve 
 and alter as he did. I could do at the present 
 moment with ten like him." This was the more 
 gratifying, as it was no secret that Peter, on joining 
 the regiment, had been rather notoriously trouble- 
 some in a schoolboyish way, just as he had been 
 often in the past irritatingly irresponsible at home. 
 It was therefore the more remarkable that after 
 so short an interval one C.O. should be vying with 
 another to obtain his services. 
 
 A like radical change had occurred in the relation- 
 ship between him and myself. There had never 
 been any antagonism. Indeed, we had probably
 
 26 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 more common affection than exists between most 
 fathers and sons. But there was no very active 
 understanding. The cause lay as much in the 
 unnatural conditions of civilized life as in faults 
 of character on one side or the other. But with his 
 joining the army, and especially after his first 
 baptism of fire, there came a miraculous change. 
 Suddenly came the realization that he was no more 
 merely a natural and sometimes troublesome result 
 of fatherhood, but a son doing a man's work; no 
 more merely a boy to be patronized, but a friend 
 to be cultivated; no more merely a companion to 
 be tolerated, but a comrade, stimulating and 
 interesting to a degree which I had never before 
 experienced as between man and man. I found 
 that to enjoy anything in his company was to 
 double the sum of enjoyment. With his mother, 
 whom he loved more than anyone else in the world, 
 this had been the case from the earliest days. In 
 my case the war gave a meaning to our relation- 
 ship that was nothing short of a revelation. Every 
 phase of him gave me a sense of long-sought 
 satisfaction . 
 
 This seems an appropriate place in which to say 
 a few words as to the characteristics of Peter's 
 letters, bearing in mind that letters are very often 
 as wonderful for what is left out as for what is put 
 in. The absence of self-pity in them might well 
 lead the casual reader to suppose that the discom- 
 forts in Flanders were really hardly worth com- 
 plaining about. Take this quotation from a letter 
 to his aunt, Miss Nina Layard :
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 27 
 
 February 8, 1916. 
 
 " I am glad you had a good time flint-hunting 
 it must have been really after your own heart. 
 I love thinking of everybody having a good time. 
 Do, oh, do, tell people to enjoy themselves and not 
 think how awful it must be in the trenches 
 as it isn't too bad, though we have had a pretty 
 stiff time lately. How exciting about your model- 
 ling. Out here where it is very chalky we often 
 cut little figures in lumps of chalk with our jack- 
 knives, when waiting about in the trenches with 
 nothing else to do. Thank you again hugely for 
 the parcel." 
 
 And this was the Peter whom we had looked on 
 as selfish. Well, I suppose he was, as we all are. 
 But then it is only the selfish who can rise to a 
 zenith of unselfishness, as it is only the indolent 
 who can be heroically active, the coward, .not the 
 man who never knew fear, who can be supremely 
 brave. For just think what sort of things were 
 covered by this " not too bad." And lest my 
 natural prejudice should be suspected of exaggera- 
 tion, I paraphrase from a chance page of 
 ' Kitchener's Mob " which lies at my hand, and 
 whose author at least cannot be accused of extra- 
 vagance. 
 
 It was " not too bad " to be living from morning 
 till evening and from dusk to dawn, looking upon a 
 new day with a feeling of wonder that he had 
 survived so long. 
 
 It was " not too bad " to move on and halt,
 
 28 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 move on again, stumble to get out of the way of 
 headquarters cars and motor-cars, jump up and 
 push on again : every step taken with an effort 
 through intolerable mud. It was " not too bad " 
 to lose touch with the troops ahead in the dark, 
 and to march at the double to catch up, all in 
 the despondent, despairing frame of mind that 
 comes of great physical weariness, and to do it all 
 through noise so deafening that each man was 
 thrown entirely upon his own resources for comfort 
 and companionship, since conversation was impos- 
 sible. It was " not too bad " to pass over ground 
 covered with the bodies of comrades, men who 
 had done their bit and would never go home again ; 
 to see them huddled together in little groups of 
 twos and threes, as they might have crept together 
 for companionship before they died, some lying 
 face downwards just as they had .fallen, others in 
 attitudes revealing dreadful suffering, others 
 hanging upon the tangles of German barbed wire. 
 And then to arrive at the trenches that were to be 
 relieved, to see those who, had been holding them 
 cased in mud, their faces, seen by the glow of 
 matches or lighted cigarettes, haggard and worn, 
 a week's growth of beard giving them an appearance 
 wild and barbaric; eagerly talking, voluble from 
 their nervous reaction, hysterically cheerful at the 
 prospect of getting away for a little while from 
 the sickening horrors, the sight of maimed and 
 shattered bodies, deafening noise, the nauseating 
 odour of decaying flesh. 
 
 All these things were " not so bad " that people 
 at home need stop enjoying themselves to think
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 29 
 
 how awful it must be for those they loved as they 
 loved themselves to be in the trenches ! 
 
 That, and infinitely more, is what lay behind 
 these casual and unselfish lines, this tolerant 
 acceptance of all that was most intolerable. 
 
 Of course, the war will have its full-dress his- 
 tories and its full-dress biographies of the great 
 leaders who have figured in these past five years. 
 That is as it should be. But of the " short and 
 simple annals " of the rank and file, who had no 
 prospect of honour or renown to sustain them, who 
 went uncomplainingly, nay more, voluntarily, to 
 do their unambitious part, and looked for no 
 material reward, who will adequately speak ? 
 Where is the recorder of the blood and tears and 
 heroism of the numberless lives which were sacri- 
 ficed to the making of the Great Pyramid, wanting 
 whom it would not have been ? Just so, who 
 will be found to do meet and proper homage to those 
 subalterns and privates who, in their humbleness, 
 were so important in the World War that without 
 them no great leader could have gained any reward 
 or reputation whatever ? 
 
 I am inclined to think that the only way we shall 
 properly arrive at anything like a just understanding 
 will be by reading for ourselves between the lines 
 of such unstudied utterances as Peter's letters. 
 We must picture these boys in no heroic attitude 
 such as the painter finds on huge canvases for 
 his Field-Marshals and Generals, in which fierce 
 encounters are depicted taking place in the back- 
 ground between their horses' legs. In no letters 
 from the front that I have seen, and certainly not
 
 30 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 in these of Peter's, is there any attitudinizing 
 of this sort, any chauvinistic braggadocio. In- 
 stead, we discover boys not unnaturally bewildered 
 at finding themselves cast for, and doing their 
 level best in, parts for which they were never 
 designed by Nature, more and more, as the first 
 flush of excitement and curiosity dies down, filled 
 with disgust at the apparently ridiculous and 
 tragic futility of the whole thing. Indeed, so 
 unspeakable are the bloodiness and bestiality, 
 that we find Peter, like most others, refusing to 
 speak of them. Extraordinarily communicative 
 as to the every-day happenings of existence, when 
 it comes to the great experiences, hair-breadth 
 escapes, great horrors, he declines to dwell on them. 
 Dwelt on, they might well become an obsession. 
 Ignored, he forces them into a position of secondary 
 importance. 
 
 Not that these experiences at the front were 
 failing to leave their mark on him. This will be 
 clear to anyone who reads his letters. One can 
 see the boy gradually developing into the soldier, 
 though at the same time one can see that the man, 
 however old he grew, would never cease to be a boy. 
 There may be a growing seriousness, yet there is 
 no sign of disillusionment, no abatement of hope 
 and enthusiasm. On one of the rare occasions 
 that he approaches philosophy, he writes to his 
 sister apropos of a few days rest from fighting: 
 " It is a great thing to suifer evil, because you can 
 enjoy the commonplace as if it were just a joyous 
 holiday specially prepared for you." There we 
 have an indication of psychological development.
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 31 
 
 No longer is he merely impatient of what is dis- 
 agreeable. He is recognizing that nothing in 
 life is absolute, everything relative reminding 
 one of Keats 's question: "Do you not see how 
 necessary a world of affairs and troubles is to school 
 an Intelligence to make a Soul ?" It is this 
 aptitude on the part of our sons at what we our- 
 selves have been slow in learning that makes us 
 proud that we could have been their fathers, 
 thanking God that even at the cost of losing them, 
 they were and are for ever ours. As time goes on 
 this sense of intimate possession curiously inten- 
 sifies. More and more people and things present 
 themselves in terms of Peter. " How Peter would 
 have loved this !" " How Peter would have laughed 
 at that !" help us to cling fast to his admirable 
 companionship. As his sister says to me as I 
 write: " He is just as near to us now as if he were 
 in Australia and never wrote to us." Never to be 
 other than young and joyous, never to know dis- 
 illusionment, his life is to us a perfect episode 
 rounded off by a symbolic act of self-forgetfulness. 
 For the facts of his death need no embroidery. 
 His Colonel wrote: " He was killed after the 
 successful capture of a village in which he led his 
 men with great gallantry. He was killed instan- 
 taneously while binding up a wounded German." 
 And a brother officer, the only one to come unhurt 
 through the engagement: "We were attacking 
 Gomiecourt on the 23rd August, and the attack 
 was extremely successful, and we were consolidating 
 the positions won ; your son was carrying on with 
 re-organization of his platoon. He went back to 
 
 3 c
 
 32 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 see if he could find any more men, and on his way 
 back he came across a wounded Boche, whom he 
 bound up and was talking to when he was hit 
 through the heart by a sniper." This is supple- 
 mented by such laconic but eloquent sentences 
 as: " He was extremely gallant in action, and 
 was greatly respected and esteemed by all he 
 came in contact with." " He was a great soldier- 
 loved and admired by his men." And from his 
 corporal, when he was wounded almost to death 
 in 1916: " He was as good an officer and gentleman 
 as ever wore the King's uniform." 
 
 Later I was able to discover further particulars 
 of the action. 
 
 On August the 23rd two companies of the Suffolks 
 one of which was Peter's, were detailed to take the 
 village of Gomiecourt. This village was the apex 
 of a deep salient into the enemy's lines, which 
 lay between and in advance of the two Divisions 
 of which the Suffolks were a part. Until this 
 stronghold was reduced, the Divisions could not 
 advance with any degree of safety. Gomiecourt 
 stood on a high point above a cup-shaped valley. 
 High ground on either side of the hollow was held 
 by the enemy and* manned by machine guns. As 
 the officer commanding told me later, the position 
 appeared to them impregnable, and would probably 
 have proved to be so had not the Germans broken 
 and run almost as soon as they were attacked. 
 And the fact that only Peter and one other officer 
 of his Company got through unhurt is proof that 
 the danger of the operation was not exaggerated. 
 
 Then in the moment of victory, the village
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 33 
 
 captured and five hundred prisoners taken, came 
 the end. Having rounded up his men, he came 
 across a wounded German . Worn out with fighting 
 as he was, he stooped to bind him up. That was 
 the moment chosen by a German sniper to shoot 
 him through the heart. Just four words he spoke : 
 ' I can breathe now " and was dead. 
 
 That is the plain story of what happened. There 
 is but one thing that should be added. I have 
 it from one of his companions that the night before, 
 he and his fellow-officers knew how desperate an 
 affair was before them on the following morning, 
 that " the odds in favour of death were enormous," 
 that the hope'of getting through was forlorn enough. 
 And yet, worn out with two days of continual 
 fighting, too tired to sleep, he must needs write a 
 cheery letter home with apologies for missing a 
 day ! It was the last communication we had from 
 him, and reached us the day after we received the 
 fatal telegram. 
 
 AugUSt 22, 
 
 MY DARLING ONES, 
 
 I didn't write yesterday, as we were simply 
 going the whole time, and never saw anyone who 
 could get back. I expect you will see something 
 in the papers which will explain my busy-ness. 
 A maddening thing has happened. I have lost 
 my sweet little sponge-bag made by you, my 
 razor (as last time), and rhy soap. But don't 
 trouble about replacing them, as I may be able 
 to get one when I go out of the line. I'm dead 
 tired, and have had about five or six hours inter-
 
 34 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 mittent sleep in two very strenuous days. I 
 don't know when we are to be relieved, but I do 
 hope soon. The organization is tremendous 
 and so is the chaos, which can't be avoided but 
 so far we've had our rations up fairly well, though 
 water has been scarce. Anything to wet our 
 mouths was welcome, so you can imagine with 
 what joy I sucked your lemon last night when I 
 was dead tired and hadn't a drop of water left 
 in my bottle. The morning of the first day was 
 very misty, so we were lucky but later the day 
 was tropical; and to-day has been hotter, if any- 
 thing. I'm really too tired to sleep. I have had 
 two letters since I've been up from Mum with 
 Miss Tennent's enclosure, and Dad's about the 
 C.O. asking where my gas-mask was ! The joy 
 they gave me was too huge for words. I hoarded 
 them, and haven't read the T. enclosure yet. We 
 just had some lovely tea to drink, and I feel that 
 my thirst is quenched for the first time ! 
 
 I'll try and get this off to-night. 
 
 PETE. 
 
 Before another day was out he slept well indeed. 
 
 In his pocket were found the letters referred to 
 from his mother and myself. They were returned 
 to us stained with the yellow soil of the country 
 in which his dear body finds rest. His mortal 
 remains lie in the Cemetery of Douchy-les-Ayette, 
 about seven miles south of Arras. 
 
 Though it will be clear that Peter had consider- 
 able personality, I do not claim for him that he was 
 any more remarkable, any better, any more heroic
 
 CHARACTER SKETCH 35 
 
 than hundreds of his fellows. Certainly he would 
 not have claimed anything of the sort for himself, 
 and would have laughed to scorn his fellow-officer's 
 description of him as " a great soldier." And yet, 
 like how many more, enamoured of life he went 
 laughing into the arms of death ; he knew the agony 
 of fear, yet never flinched; he did violence to the 
 native pity of his heart, and rigorously dealt out 
 such punishment as he could to the common enemy 
 of the world; asking no questions, unconsciously 
 he emulated the heroism of his great ancestor, 
 Sir Richard Grenville, and just did his " duty as a 
 man is bound to do." 
 
 " He has outsoared the shadow of our night. 
 Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
 And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
 Can touch him not and torture not again. 
 From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
 He is secure, and now can never mourn 
 A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in*vain."
 
 PART II 
 
 THE LETTERS 
 
 WHERE not otherwise stated, the letters were 
 written to his mother or myself, or to us jointly. 
 In a few instances consecutive extracts have been 
 placed under one date. He wrote practically every 
 day when in the trenches, but exigencies of printing 
 have necessitated a very large curtailment. 
 
 January 18, 1916. 
 
 I am now in the trenches and it really is the 
 most utterly inexplicable sensation I have ever 
 felt. Beyond a slight aversion to food, and a 
 curious involuntary twitching in the biceps of my 
 left arm, I haven't felt definitely frightened yet 
 two quite unusual ways of feeling frightened. 
 This morning I have been sort of looking after a 
 party who were carrying ground boards up to the 
 front trenches, but I think the Germans must have 
 seen us, as this happened : I was walking behind the 
 party and stopped to talk to a strange officer, and 
 when I finished the men were about 70 or 100 yards 
 ahead of me, and just as I started on I saw a burst 
 of smoke in the air about 30 yards ahead. I 
 ducked, heard the explosion, and then, terrified 
 because I was alone (a cat would have been com- 
 
 36
 
 LETTERS 37 
 
 pany), I went cautiously on and caught the men 
 up. On the way back I found a bit of the shell 
 which was still warm, and in the wall of the trench 
 were lots of shrapnel holes tho' I couldn't find 
 any bullets. . . . 
 
 Every morning (or anyhow this morning) they 
 issue each man and officer a small portion of rum. 
 This is very nice and cheering, and I had some in 
 my tea this morning. Send out as many papers 
 as you like, Punch and others Nan will know the 
 ones. Also I insist on seeing the proofs of my 
 Barnett photo. I shall be miserable if I don't. . . . 
 
 From his Diary. 
 
 January 19. 
 
 Early this morning at 6.0 a.m. I was walking 
 round the trenches with Sgt. Rutter when a mine 
 exploded under us and buried me, Rutter, and two 
 other men up to our knees, with our heads almost 
 over the parapet. We were dug out in about 
 J hour, but two of our men were buried alive as 
 were five or six engineers. They must have heard us 
 working our mine and blown theirs in prematurely. 
 All the other men half buried with me have gone 
 to the dressing station, and I have come back to 
 Mazingarbe to rest after the shock, as it did put 
 the wind up me a bit ; so really I have got off better 
 than anyone else.* 
 
 The reference in the following letter is to his 
 elder brother, John Willoughby Layard, who had, 
 
 * He told jus nothing of this in his letters, and only casually 
 mentioned it when home on leave.
 
 38 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 in 1914, been doing valuable ethnological work 
 for Cambridge University on a small island in the 
 South Pacific. When the serious condition of 
 affairs in Europe had filtered through to his lonely 
 outpost, he had, early in 1915, taken the three- 
 weeks' journey down to Sydney, and volunteered 
 for the Australian Army, but had not been found 
 fit for service. Later in the same year, having 
 completed his work, he returned to England, again 
 volunteered for the Army, and was offered a com- 
 mission. Unfortunately, as a consequence of 
 malaria contracted in the Tropics, he broke down 
 in training, and was eventually discharged as 
 physically unfit. 
 
 January 21, 1916. 
 
 I am very glad that Johnny has got started with 
 
 Col. E now, and am not at all surprised at 
 
 him finding the " orange sucked dry " but I am 
 rather glad, as he will have a better chance. If 
 he has to give any words of command in front 
 of these government officials, tell him not to be 
 afraid to yell them out clearly, as it nearly always 
 impresses them ; and swear at the men if they do it 
 wrong, even if it is your fault it sounds awful but 
 it is true. I will write every day when I possibly 
 can, but there may be some days when it is im- 
 possible, or the mail may not get off. 
 
 I have got a sad bit of news to tell you but it 
 is nothing to worry about. Our Colonel . . . 
 was killed the last day we were in the trenches. 
 He was a splendid man wise and kind, but I 
 am afraid there is no doubt he was foolhardy.
 
 LETTERS 39 
 
 He was about 47 years old, and he was climbing 
 over the parapet at about 3 o'clock in the morning, 
 to look at a piece of ground, and he got picked off 
 by a swinish German sniper. He never feared 
 anything, and while the others crawled over the 
 parapet, he walked over upright, which was very 
 unwise. He was buried this afternoon, and all 
 the battalion attended. The Adjutant is a very 
 capable man, and he will make a splendid tem- 
 porary C.O., and I shouldn't be surprised if he's 
 promoted. The way he was killed is a great lesson 
 to all of us to be more careful always. 
 
 Nan's letter and yours (Mum's) are all so 
 deliciously cheery and sweet. I wonder if you 
 remember that in " Books of To-day," some time 
 ago, there was a prize offered to the person who 
 composed the best and cheeriest letter to a man 
 at the front and I know that both of yours, in 
 fact those of the whole household, would win the 
 prize above all the ones I read in " Books of To- 
 day." . . . 
 
 Do let me see some of the snaps you took of me 
 the last day. 
 
 January 27, 1916. 
 
 I love looking at the stars, and especially Orion 
 and his belt, and thinking that they are the identical 
 ones you see. Do look at them sometimes, as I 
 love thinking that as it seems to be the nearest 
 we can get to each other. I often think of you 
 all sitting in your cosy house while I sit in my cosy 
 dug-out it is simply extraordinary how we don't 
 value luxuries till we haven't got them. . . .
 
 40 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 Sunday, January 30, 1916. 
 
 The socks, arrived to-day, are the greatest 
 blessing, just as my feet were cold and damp and 
 while I was longing for a pair to change into 
 and I had none, having lost my pack. You angel ! 
 words can't express how I love getting letters 
 from you all, seeing Dad's writing on the parcel 
 and your letter inside, and another sweet letter 
 from Johnny and one from D. . . B. . . AND 
 a parcel from the F -'s containing i cake and i 
 paper! I haven't opened it yet, as we move up 
 to the reserve line to-night, and it is easier to 
 carry done up so my last post was a lovely one, 
 wasn't it ? ... 
 
 There's a very human touch in Johnny's letter. 
 He says : " There is one very boring thing 1 we are 
 only cadets now, and have to salute baby officers 
 when we pass them in the street." I thoroughly 
 sympathize with him it is a thing I should have 
 loathed doing. 
 
 February 7, 1916. 
 
 Rest billets ! ! Oh, joy ! we are in them at 
 last, and I am gloriously tired, but love writing you 
 a line before I go off to bed. 
 
 I have just got your two exquisite parcels. You 
 sent them off by the exact post, as I hoped I would 
 not get them while I was in the trenches as it 
 meant I should have to struggle down here under 
 the weight of them. As it is, directly I got here 
 I found and unpacked them. It was a huge joy, 
 and I was dying for every single one of the things 
 that you sent. We marched back hard from the
 
 LETTERS 41 
 
 trenches, and on the way we had a halt, and I was 
 lying in the dark, staring up at a glorious starlit 
 sky, when I started singing half aloud, "Sun of my 
 soul," etc. It is a sweet tune and when I had got 
 half-way through a sweet voice joined in and sang 
 parts, and when we had finished I saw it was one 
 of the other officers, who I had till then considered 
 rather boring ; and without another word we started 
 on other hymns, and sang parts and loved it hugely. 
 With your two lovely parcels, including dad's 
 lovely scarf, I got another parcel from Aunt Nie. 
 Wasn't it sweet of her ? 
 
 February g, 1916. 
 
 How gorgeous about the Zepp down in the North 
 Sea and the Germans admit its loss ! I've just 
 put on Nan's socks and the bedroom shoes, after 
 only having had my high boots off once in 12 
 days. It is a heavenly feeling. . . . Good-night. . . . 
 
 We are back in the support trench now for four 
 more days, and then, thank Heaven ! we'll be out 
 for a rest. Yesterday from 10.30 a.m. till i.o p.m. 
 and 4.0 p.m. till 6.30 p.m. we had two awful bom- 
 bardments from the Huns. The second was 
 much the worst, and the trench was bashed to bits 
 in places by huge shells. At firs I was terrified, 
 and I got more and more so, until suddenly they 
 sent over an incendiary shell. It fell a good 
 50 yds. away, but lit up the whole place with an 
 enormous column of flame for 5 solid minutes. 
 Then came an awful smell, and we all put on our 
 gas helmets, thinking that it was a gas attack as 
 well; but that was only the fire shell. Well, that
 
 42 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 last one was so awful that somehow I found it was 
 not an atom of good worrying, so I seized up a rifle 
 lying there, and some ammunition, and plugged 
 away at the Huns with the men. They must have 
 been astonished that we were still in the trench, 
 and they can't have anticipated our sudden burst 
 of fire. 
 
 It really is a lovely day, and I have hung out 
 my coat and its lining and the two blankets to air. 
 The coat is a mass of mud, and when I come on 
 leave I shan't attempt to clean it up in the smallest 
 degree or my boots, or anything that is mine 
 and I shall walk down Bond St. with a pack on my 
 back, and stump into ist class carriages. People 
 ought to say: " He's very young, isn't he ?" . . . 
 
 I loved hearing about your sumptuous lunch 
 with Forbes, tho' it did make my mouth water. 
 
 February g, 1916. 
 
 I went over to Bethune to-day it is a fairly 
 large town, and tho' it gets shelled sometimes, 
 there are good shops there, and I bought a gorgeous 
 pair of gloves (25 f.), with sheepskin inside and dark 
 brown leather outside, with gauntlets, and hugely 
 warm. I lost my last pair in the bombardment, 
 and loved buying the new ones. I also got a 
 ripping squashy hat (18 f.), and a few other things. 
 
 Later. I am just back from having dinner 
 at Headquarters with the C.O., second-in-command, 
 and Adjutant they were awfully sweet. Why 
 they asked me I don't know, as only one other 
 subaltern was there. 
 
 No I such things as cameras are very strictly
 
 LETTERS 43 
 
 forbidden now, tho' people used to have them a lot. 
 I love having your sponge-bag I would much rather 
 have it than a new one, as the little marks on it may 
 come off oft my sponge, and get transferred to my 
 face, so that any sweet germs (all yours are sweet) 
 off your face may get on to mine and make me 
 radiantly lovely ! 
 
 I got a lovely long and very entertaining letter 
 from Olive to-day. Did I tell you that when I 
 was sending over rifle grenades in the middle of 
 the night, I noticed that they were made at the 
 ' Thames Munition Works, Erith," which is where 
 she works? Wasn't it romantic? . . . 
 
 . . . How killing about the house-parlourmaid, 
 who only knows a man fighting for the Huns ! . . . 
 
 February n, 1916. 
 
 No, I didn't get out of my clothes once in the 
 12 days, but one gets quite used to it. I did get 
 out of my boots once, which I think was more of a 
 joy than getting out of my clothes. Now I think 
 of it, I got out of my boots twice or 3 times, but 
 the other times seemed such ages ago that I thought 
 they were in the other spell of trenches. . . . 
 
 February 13, 1916. 
 
 Sudden joy ! at the last moment, just as the 
 battalion was going to move for the trenches, I 
 got a note from the Orderly Room saying that I 
 was to attend a course at a village near here 
 and that means that I don't go into the trenches 
 this time. Isn't it gorgeous! I leave here to- 
 
 4
 
 44 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 morrow for the course isn't it gorgeous! Three 
 of us are going, and we are all overjoyed. I bought 
 this luxurious paper just now from sheer joy, and 
 sat down to write to you. . . . 
 
 To his Sister. 
 
 February 16, 1916. 
 
 . . . Nan I loved your sweetly written out 
 quotation. I always specially love the sentence, 
 " In the midst of so many and great dangers." It 
 is so gloriously simple, and such perfect English. . . . 
 
 There is a piano here, which is ripping the first 
 one I've seen since I came out. There is a concert 
 this evening, and I believe I've got to do an accom- 
 paniment or two. I do wish I could read as well 
 as you I'd give pounds to be able to. 
 
 Later. 7.45 p.m. I am writing this to the 
 accompaniment of a Stanley Kir by rag-time, which 
 I don't think you know, called " The Most Wonder- 
 ful Girl." The concert went off very well, and 
 thank Heaven I didn't have to accompany. People 
 always think I can read anything, from the way I 
 play the things I can play, and they always have to 
 be disillusioned. It was a painless disillusionment 
 this evening. (What a word !) 
 
 February 17, 1916. 
 
 Such a surprise I had last night ! I happened to 
 be reading that little New Testament that Aunt 
 Nie gave me, and I thought I'd read Peter; and to 
 my astonishment I found, in Chap. 2, Verse 17, 
 " Fear God and honour the King " I thought that
 
 LETTERS 45 
 
 it came out of Shakespeare or something ! I 
 suppose you know it quite well. 
 
 Here is a thing that will amuse Nan. Whenever 
 the Major who is commandant of this course comes 
 into the room, we all start up ; and if I am writing 
 and have my specs on, I always snatch them off 
 so as to look beautiful. Nan tell Mum about 
 the time that I, you, and Christina, were all at 
 the theatre together, and how we all snatched off 
 our specs whenever the lights went up. 
 
 February 20, 1916. 
 
 Now to answer Nan's letter. First of all I got 
 her sweet music, and I struggle with it and love 
 it. Someone has just been playing it quite well. 
 It's marvellous that it should arrive just as I am 
 near the first piano I've seen since I've been here. 
 Nan our house will be gorgeous ! I've seen little 
 things here that I long for.* On a farm there's a 
 sweet little silhouetted weather-vane. It is a horse 
 and cart, and looks lovely against the sky. I long 
 to climb up and steal it on a dark night. . . . 
 
 There's a loathsome man here who always strolls 
 about the room and looks as if he's reading people's 
 letters I believe he does; anyhow, it'll serve him 
 right if he sees this ! . . . 
 
 The absence of cant and bravery out here is 
 delicious. Everyone admits to being in a funk, 
 and longing to get home on the pretext of small 
 wounds, etc., which would render them " tem- 
 porarily unfit for military duty." 
 
 * There was an idea that his sister and he might take a 
 cottage together when he came home.
 
 46 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 February 22, 1916. 
 
 . . . We have had another lecture since I wrote 
 about the snow and it has been going on hard, 
 and I spent a very pleasant hour during the lecture 
 watching the flakes get bigger and bigger, and 
 blacker and blacker, against the sky, and coming 
 faster and faster down ; but now it's almost stopped, 
 and the ground is white with about an inch of 
 snow. It looks lovely on the naked trees, and 
 makes war more utterly impossible and absurd 
 than ever. 
 
 It is still snowing, and the whole place looks 
 gorgeous. (More thoughts- on futility of war.) 
 Have you ever noticed how marvellously quiet 
 it is on a snowy day ? much quieter than indoors, 
 even if you ARE in a room alone. . . . 
 
 To his Sister. 
 
 February 22, 1916. 
 
 I've written all the news to Mum, so this will 
 be an ASSES' letter. 
 
 I am so thankful I have got nice white teeth 
 we all have, haven't we ? but I say that because 
 such a lot of these Scotch officers and tempys have 
 awful teeth. 
 
 Don't you think that " disoblige " is an awful 
 word ? A Scotch, very tempy, just used it to me. 
 You see, I went out to get my letters, and returned 
 in 17! seconds to find him in my chair (by the 
 fire), so I said, " If you don't mind, that's my 
 chair," but he stuck to it like a hog-leech, and said 
 he didn't know it was; so I said, " Yes, you did 
 because my pencil and paper was on it and any.
 
 LETTERS 47 
 
 how, you know now !" But he said: " I'm sorry 
 to disoblige you but I don't see why I should 
 remove." 
 
 So I had to leave it at that. (Awful words 
 underlined.) Then I produced toffee and offered it 
 to everyone to him first, and I 'm sure he wanted to 
 give up the seat then, but I'd got one just the same, 
 which I still hold. You see, there's a sort' of chair 
 etiquette, like anything else, and I do think I was 
 right. What gorgeous waste of paper this letter 
 is, isn't it? By the way, the Hun-Scotchman 
 referred to above has " des dents affreux." . . . 
 
 The Corps commander a marvellous man of 
 about 55, with 80,000 men under him a double 
 General, came and talked to us to-day. He is a 
 huge man, about 6ft. 4in. high, with a grey mous- 
 tache, and he has had a commission for 35 years. 
 He simply raged against the Government, and 
 he told us lots of things he is about the most 
 marvellous man I've ever met. We all loved him, 
 and one of the things he said was: " People who 
 have never seen me say that I'm mad, and people 
 who know me say that I'm a damned fool they 
 
 may be right, but anyhow " etc. He is just a 
 
 wonderfully outspoken man, and we were all ready 
 to worship him when he'd done. . . . 
 
 March 2, 1916. 
 
 I am going to write this, which I nearly wrote 
 yesterday evening, but I thought it would worry 
 you, so I write it now when I am safely back. 
 ( 1/3/16) 4.30 p.m. I have been told I have got to 
 go on patrol to-night, and I am rather afraid. 
 
 4D
 
 48 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 It is a loathsome job. With one Cpl. and one man, 
 who each carry two bombs as I do (I also carry 
 a revolver) we have to go out about 40 yds. in front 
 of our trench (at midnight), and see if we can hear 
 the Germans doing anything; or if we see their 
 patrols, bomb them. Of course, we warned all our 
 men not to shoot, and we went out over the parapet, 
 walked for about two minutes, and suddenly the 
 Germans sent up two or three lights, so we flung 
 ourselves flat down and lay still till the lights had 
 finished (I forgot to say that they are about 200 yds. 
 away). Well, we got up and came to a trench 
 which is between the lines, about 30 yds. from our 
 own; and we lay outside it to listen for any Huns 
 who might have patrolled into it, but no one had. 
 Before this we had to get thro' our own wire, which 
 is difficult, and one falls about and apparently 
 makes an awful noise. 
 
 When we made sure there were no Huns in the 
 trench, we listened a bit longer and then started 
 back. When we were about 20 yds. from our 
 own trench suddenly the German machine guns 
 started to fire. They may have seen us or not 
 but anyhow they hadn't fired for 3 hrs. The way 
 they fire is this. (Sketch.) These four lines show 
 the way the gun can swing round, and the shaded 
 part of the picture shows the ground where anyone 
 standing up would get hit ; so you lie as flat as 
 possible, and put your head in any hole, and pre- 
 ferably with your back to the Germans, as, if one 
 hits you, it doesn't hit a vital part like your head, 
 but hits your leg or back instead. Well, we lay like 
 this simply eating into the ground, so as to get our 

 
 LETTERS 49 
 
 heads down, and they swung over us 4 or 5 times, 
 always too high. Of course it seemed ages, but 
 people looking on said that two machine guns went 
 on for a whole minute which is a good time. That 
 is 500 shots fired. Well, as soon as they stopped 
 we got up and tore back, and leapt into our trench 
 greatly to the alarm of the adjacent sentry, who 
 probably thought us Germans but was too flabber- 
 gasted to fire. . . . 
 
 Wednesday, 7.55 p.m. 
 
 The people about | mile on our right have been 
 having a great bombing attack it was wonderful 
 to watch all the flashes in the dark and our artil- 
 lery put over 4. i /-inch shells. They are the most 
 ghastly things imaginable. When they exploded 
 they shook all the ground right round here 
 and they make a hole 30 ft. deep and 50 ft. across. 
 Isn't it too awful the shell alone weighs just over 
 a ton ! 
 
 I rather hate watching these strafes in a way, 
 because you think of all the poor men being broken 
 and killed and for what ? I don't believe even 
 God knows. 
 
 Any faith in religion I ever had is most frightfully 
 shaken by things I've seen, and it's incredible that 
 if God could make a 1 7-inch shell not explode 
 it seems incredible that he lets them explode; and 
 yet, on the other hand, I don't know if I told you 
 that in our horrid bombardment I described to 
 you, the shell which came near to me was a dud, 
 and that seems rather deliberate luck or something, 
 tho' He knows I didn't deserve it a fraction as
 
 SO PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 much as the poor splendid heroes who are killed. 
 I hate the whole thing, and so do we all, because 
 it shouldn't be. 
 
 The Germans were quite nice two days ago. 
 The battn. on our left sent out a patrol, and the 
 Hun machine guns saw them and fired, hitting 3. 
 They got 2 back, and when they went for the 
 3rd he was gone, and in the morning they put up 
 a notice in German: " Tho' alive when we took 
 him into our trench, No. 1328 Pte. Summers has 
 since died from wounds." When we saw this 
 we put up a notice : " Danke sehr." It was rather 
 sweet, wasn't it ? But of course that makes it 
 worse, as it shows how unwilling everyone is to 
 fight. We kill them because they'd kill us if we 
 didn't and vice versa, and if only we could come to 
 an ordinary agreement But we can't. 
 
 REST BILLETS, 
 
 March g, 1916. 
 
 . . . No, I don't and won't economize. To-day 
 I had a lovely shopping tour. I bought a lovely 
 pair of pyjamas (silk facing) BUT STAY they were 
 really necessary, as the loathsome flannel ones I 
 brought out seem to attract the moisture and 
 are always damp, and of course we never get a chance 
 of airing things. Then I bought a lovely solid 
 walking-stick, 3.50; and two collars, 2.50; lovely 
 pipe, 3.50, and its case to keep dust out, i.o; and 
 clothes-brush, i.o. 
 
 Now I spent 36.50 so what did the heavenly 
 mauve pyjamas cost ? . . . 
 
 There is the most gorgeous tea-shop here, and it
 
 LETTERS 51 
 
 has the most lovely little cakes in it. You go in 
 and choose your plateful, and then on the way 
 thro' to where you eat a beautiful French girl 
 springs on you, and gives you a paper saying how 
 many cakes you've got. Then you order chocolate 
 (lovely and sweet), coffee, or china tea and you 
 are served by another beauty. All this in a town 
 that gets bombarded occasionally ! It is a gorgeous 
 change. I ate 4 chocolate eclairs, and two sort 
 of open jam-tarts, but instead of jam it was cherries 
 in a sort of squdgy red juice. I shall feel ill to- 
 night ! ! 
 
 M - and I were walking across the square 
 to-day, and we saw two nurses, evidently ladies, 
 walking across, and we both exclaimed simulta- 
 neously, " How ripping to see an Englishwoman 
 again !" and we then realized that the one thing we 
 longed for was to be allowed to talk to an English- 
 woman but we didn't like to go up to them and 
 ask if we might talk to them for 10 minutes, as it 
 wouldn't have seemed right. But I realize that 
 the fact of never seeing a fellow-countrywoman 
 is one of the things that makes one feel such a 
 barbarian. Be she i, 29, 58, or 100, it wouldn't 
 matter. . . . 
 
 April 3, 1916. 
 
 This evening a peremptory order came from 
 Brigade that " Lieut. Layard will report imme- 
 diately to Brig. H.Q." That is in the town about 
 2 miles off. I was very puzzled, and the C.O. 
 couldn't think what it was about. Well, I went, 
 and the Brig. Major said in an angry tone: " The
 
 52 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 General wants to see you." So I thought: 
 " Heavens ! what have I done !" I waited about 
 10 minutes, and the B.M. said: " The General 
 will see you now." And he was sweet seeing 
 my name, he said he knew some Layards, but I 
 couldn't gather which; and then he asked me if 
 I'd like to be Trench Mortar officer: it is quite a 
 couchy. job sometimes not on others. And I 
 said, " Yes, I would "; and after asking me a few 
 questions, he said I should be and I should hear 
 further about it. 
 
 To his Sister. 
 
 April ii, 1916. 
 
 One thing in your letter makes my mouth water 
 hugely, and that is you singing to the people. 
 I immediately began to hum " Pauvre Colinette," 
 and I remembered little pieces like " Elle est morte 
 en fevrier," and I cried for sheer joy. Don't forget 
 that ever it's the sweetest song I've ever heard. 
 Do you remember at L Johnny loving the sing- 
 ing so that he cried for joy? I couldn't under- 
 stand it till my last Sunday when we all sang hymns, 
 and then I did too. I've never felt more wonder- 
 fully happy than on that day, although it was my 
 last with all you sweetest people. 
 
 April 24, 1916. 
 
 I expect the noiseless T.M's you've heard about 
 are worked by compressed air. ... As I write 
 a veritable Adonis is sitting next to me. Hugely 
 handsome, but, alas ! I fear dull. Like so many 
 people with good looks. I always think what a 
 marvellous family we would be if Johnny and I
 
 LETTERS 53 
 
 were marvellously handsome, and Nan radiantly 
 beautiful, and if we still had the same characters. 
 But if we were such ocular feasts as I describe, 
 I don't think we should be nearly so nice ! 
 How splendid about Dicky !* 
 
 April 28, 1916. 
 
 Two glorious letters from you, and one from 
 Dorothy with the news in it . The infant is a son 
 and I am to be one of the godfathers ! Aren't 
 I hugely honoured ! Tell the Girdle that I've got 
 two boys to pit against her one girl now. I 
 suppose it is all right being godfather to two 
 separate ones, isn't it ? Both the mothers' names 
 are Dorothy, which is rather funny. I am writing 
 this in the shade of an old windmill made of huge 
 wooden beams. It is a wonderful weird old 
 thing. . . . 
 
 Aren't the Irish too hoggish for words ! they 
 need strafing hugely. Starting with worst, this 
 is how I hate people now : 
 
 1. Conscientious Objectors. 
 
 2. Irishmen. 
 
 3. Americans. f 
 
 4. The Cabinet (I read the Daily Mail}. 
 
 5. Germans (they are much the nicest). 
 
 May 4, 1916. 
 
 The flies buzz about lazily, but they don't settle 
 on one much, as they have tons of things much 
 
 * Lt. Richard Dickinson, R.N.A.S., who had been awarded 
 the D.S.O. and Croix de Guerre for his great flight over Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 t This was before America came into the war.
 
 54 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 nicer than live humans to eat. There is a sweet 
 white and grey pussy quite dear, which lives in this 
 dug-out. Altogether it is a perfect place for a 
 holiday if the Huns don't Minnie. . . . We are 
 going to plant bulbs and flowers round our dug-out 
 do suggest good things. The soil is sort of 
 clay, and it gets very dry in hot weather. . . . 
 No, I've never been beyond the sound of the guns 
 not' even beyond the range ! . . . 
 
 May ii, 1916. 
 
 I simply long to see you all I would do and 
 give almost anything. I get so sick to death 
 of this beastly rotting about in the dullest part 
 of the whole world. Your last two letters were 
 simply sweet, and made me love you more than 
 you can possibly guess. I go out of this trench 
 on Friday, thank heavens ! Good-night now, 
 you sweetest of all perfect mothers I am quite 
 tired and ought to have a good night if we aren't 
 disturbed. You darling sweetheart ! 
 
 May 12, 1916. 
 
 I am out of that filthy trench at last. It was 
 lovely for the first three days and absolute hell 
 for the last five. Early this morning from 5 to 
 5.30 we had a terrific strafe on a big mine the 
 Huns blew up two days ago. Heavy shells, light 
 shells, heavy mortars, light mortars, and bombs. 
 After the first 3 minutes you couldn't see the place 
 for black, white, yellow, green, and red smoke. 
 Black from the heavies and big shrapnel, white 
 from light shrapnel, yellow and green, from stink
 
 LETTERS 55 
 
 and gas shells, and red when it hit a pile of bricks. 
 It was priceless and then they retaliated, and the 
 air was full of flying pieces, and we were hugely 
 thankful for our shrapnel helmets. . . . 
 
 May 13, 1916. 
 
 I have got a terrifically gorgeous secret to tell 
 you as I write, but I shan't tell you, as I'm not 
 quite sure. I've got a marvellous feeling in my 
 stomach, and I love the whole world madly, and 
 only very few people could annoy me. But I am 
 also terrified in case anything happens. When 
 you get this letter the secret will probably be out 
 as is even a cat let out of a bag. 
 
 I don't think I shall telegraph to you till I actually 
 get to England then I shall come STRAIGHT down 
 to you, so you MUST NOT rush up to London to 
 meeeeeeet meeee, as we might cross. I think it 
 is much the best idea that I should go to you 
 'first, and then all to dear London Town to- 
 gether. Can't write any more tho' there's tons to 
 say, as I've just had the most HEAVENLY NEWS 
 POSSIBLE 
 
 Peter told me afterwards that, when the news 
 came that he was to go on leave, he was in the 
 trenches, and so distractingly bored that he would 
 almost have welcomed a shell that would find him 
 and put an end to the whole thing. Then came 
 the chit saying: " You will proceed to U.K. to- 
 night." And suddenly every shell, every explo- 
 sion, took on a terror that he had never before 
 imagined. Like Kipling's hero in Plain Tales
 
 56 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 from the Hills, his good fortune suddenly sapped 
 him of all courage, for life that had but a moment 
 ago seemed valueless now became invaluable. 
 Not only was he terrified lest a missile should get 
 him before he started, but he was terrified in the 
 train lest it should run off the rails before he got to 
 Boulogne, terrified in his bath there lest it held 
 some hidden danger, terrified on the steamer lest 
 it should run on a mine before he got to Folkestone, 
 terrified in the train again lest it should meet with 
 some mishap before he got down to Devonshire, 
 and finally most terrified when in the motor he 
 sighted his mother and brother, lest there should 
 be an accident before he reached them. 
 
 After an all too short six days of " gorgeous " 
 happiness he was back again at the front. 
 
 ROYAL PAVILION HOTEL, 
 
 FOLKESTONE, 
 
 May 21, 1916. 
 
 Just a tiny line, as we are here for three hours 
 before the boat goes. Glorious sun. 
 
 I didn't want to say good-bye properly at the 
 station, because I love you so terrifically, you angel. 
 Really, I couldn't possibly imagine a more gorgeous 
 leave, and nothing went wrong. I shall write 
 SOME on the boat. I am in splendid spirits, and 
 don't feel going back half as much as I did going 
 to school. What could have been more perfect, 
 you sweetest one ? 
 
 June i, 1916. 
 
 ... I have had rather a trouble to-day one 
 man lost ten francs out of his coat, and he told me
 
 LETTERS 57 
 
 about it, and I said I'd make inquiries; and in the 
 heat of the moment he told some other chaps that 
 he suspected a third man. This third man got to 
 know and was furious, and says his reputation is 
 ruined unless he is court-martialed and found 
 innocent. He wouldn't take a humble apology 
 which the other man made to him and I am 
 trying all I can to persuade him to give up his idea, 
 as if he insists on it we can't refuse. It would be 
 a bad thing for him, as everyone knows he's a decent 
 chap, and if he was court-martialed it would appear 
 in orders with his name saying he had been tried 
 for theft. I haven't told him that yet, but it is 
 my last argument, and if he won't listen to that, 
 then it will be like running his head at a brick 
 wall, and the man who accused him won't be 
 punished at all. 
 
 June 10, 1916. 
 
 Just got your letter written on my birthday 
 addressed to your twenty-year-old. It is a colossal 
 age to be, isn't it ? I have just been thinking 
 (thoughts no doubt prompted by my great age) 
 how I shall make any money after the war, and the 
 more I think, the more utterly incapable of money- 
 making I find myself to be and yet, I have 
 promised to be a millionaire by your diamond 
 wedding. Of course there's a good deal of time 
 and if the worst comes to the worst, I might marry 
 Miss J. P. Coats or Miss Mallaby Dealy, or someone 
 like that. But I don't think I shall ever marry, 
 unless one of the two aforesaid wenches. I am 
 writing this absurd letter because I am quite exiu
 
 58 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 berant. I had a ROW this morning, and it was 
 raining and everything beastly and now (3.15) 
 the row has blown over better than I could possibly 
 have imagined, and the sun is shining ; consequently 
 I feel much better than if it had been fine all day 
 and there had been no row. ... I wish you 
 would send Bob (the dog) out in your next parcel 
 I simply love him, and long for a friend like that, 
 as most of the humans are 'such asses. ... G. 
 and I are just going down to see a late landlady 
 of ours who has a beautiful daughter or, rather, 
 two, but I hope one is away, as I propose to give 
 one a silk hankie (quite the correct thing, I may 
 tell you), but if they are both there I can't cut it 
 in half, so I shall have to keep it. 
 
 June 16, 1916. 
 
 . . . We are hugely busy to-day, as we are taking 
 over a new bit of line and the old people were 
 awfully slack. I go up to-morrow for certain. 
 I've had several false alarms, but it really is true 
 now. I am rather glad to change our position, 
 as the Bosches were being rather rude there. I went 
 up to the line this morning, and it seemed fairly 
 quiet, and though they were shelling a bit the 
 inhabitants of the line said it was very unusual. . . . 
 I am very glad you said " don't tell me if you don't 
 want to," after asking me who the row was with, 
 as I don't want to. I may tell you later. Tell 
 me about professions I might take up. 
 
 That the " change in his position " did not prove 
 very healthy- was made only too clear to us by
 
 LETTERS 59 
 
 two telegrams received a few days later from the 
 War Office, the second of which ran as follows : 
 
 " June 21, 1916. 2nd Lieut. P. C. Layard 
 admitted 14 General Hospital, Wimereux, June 20. 
 Gunshot wound scalp and fracture of tibia severe." 
 
 A few days later his mother received the following 
 letter written from " a hospital in France," from 
 which it will be clear that the description of his 
 wound was not correct. 
 
 June 19, 1916. 
 
 I've been wounded at last, and you shall know 
 the extent in the next sentence. My left asm is 
 broken between elbow and wrist quite a clean 
 break of the big bone and my head is punctured 
 in five places, but my skull is intact ; I had a wonder- 
 ful escape, but I shall tell you all about that later 
 on. I may get to England quite soon, or I may 
 take a month anyhow, they tell me I'm well out 
 of action for three months or so. I go to the base 
 to-morrow or the day after. Of course, it's my 
 left arm that's broken. None of my wounds hurt 
 very much, except when I'm being dressed. I'm 
 bruised all over, and consequently am stiff. They 
 have clipped my hair all off. I had to leave that 
 other page where I did, as I have nothing to hold 
 my paper with. You sweetest one do you re- 
 member you said in almost the last letter I got : 
 " God bless my sweet son and bring him safely 
 home ?" Well, it's a blessing in a way and I 
 think home wounded is better than here well, don't 
 you ? Give my hugest love to everyone, and look 
 out for my name in the casualty lists, and keep 
 
 5
 
 60 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 whole papers with it in it will be such fun seeing 
 it. I look a huge hero sitting up in bed thus. 
 (Drawing.) Isn't it shriekingly funny to think 
 that / should have been wounded fighting ! 
 Didn't you think the last thing in the world I'd 
 do would be to fight ? I can't write every day now, 
 so don't expect me to. 
 
 To his Sister. 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND WAR HOSPITAL, 
 
 June, 1916. 
 
 ... I got your sweet letter of hero-worship, 
 which I thought ought to come, to-day. I loved 
 it so. I think I'll be here for about three weeks 
 until my arm is all right and then how glorious ! 
 My writing is so bad because I can't hold the paper 
 still not because my hand is very shaky. You 
 can't possibly think how joyous I am to get away 
 from France it was so loathsome. I hope I 
 stay in England for absolute ages. I think of 
 " Bing Boys,'" 1 Half-past Eight, """"Razzle-Dazzle," 
 and " Fishpingle " as things of the near future. 
 There are quite a lot of Comedians from Ypres at 
 this hospital, and I rather love them. 
 
 It is fun that I'm not going to die, or anything 
 low-class like that. I only wondered if I should 
 die once and that was when I was being jolted 
 along the road in a hand-cart, half fainting and 
 half awake; and then I didn't ask them, because 
 I remember thinking what a coward a man was 
 who asked me that, when he was wounded.
 
 LETTERS 6 1 
 
 When Peter was well enough to go to church for 
 the first time, he whispered to his mother: " What 
 a sense of peace !" Then suddenly noticing the 
 lancet windows: " They look like shells." 
 
 So ended Peter's first period at the front. For 
 three months he was in hospital or convalescing 
 in Devonshire. Towards the end of September 
 he passed his Medical Board, and was pronounced 
 fit for light duty. Altogether he was in England 
 for almost exactly two years. He was ordered 
 to the front again on June 24, 1918. 
 
 June 30, 1918. 
 
 I am en route for the line now, and go on by train 
 early to-morrow morning. The organization has 
 increased a thousand-fold since I was here last, 
 and the whole thing is too wonderful for words. 
 I love watching it all, and feel more interested 
 if anything than I was on my original trip. I am 
 going to a very good division, which is nice, and I 
 shall have to be very brilliant. 
 
 July 6, 1918. 
 
 ... I won't answer your sweet letters now but 
 later. They make me long to come and see you, 
 dear hearts. . . . What a wonderful thing about 
 Julian getting the V.C.* It really is a magnificent 
 thing to have. I do hope he isn't missing after all. 
 
 * His cousin, Captain Julian Royds Gribble, V.C., Royal 
 Warwickshire Regiment, after being " missing," for six weeks 
 was discovered to be a prisoner in the hands of the Germans. 
 While still in Germany he died of influenza, November 25, 1918, 
 aged 21. Announcing the award of the V.C., the Gazette said:
 
 62 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 To his Sister. 
 
 July 7, 1918. 
 
 Thank you so hugely for your sweet letter, and 
 for the illuminated bit, which I am keeping I was 
 most awfully touched when you told me about 
 Sister Annie praying for me a little thing like that 
 puts new strength into one, tho' it does make one 
 actually weep with joy and home-sickness at the 
 time. Give her my very best love, and tell her 
 that and also that I shall always remember her 
 after what you said. Tell her, if you think fit, 
 that the first thing that I thought so tremendously 
 touching about her was her little rough hands, 
 which speaks of all the homeliness and naturalness 
 which I long for more and more out here. 
 
 What time in the evening is Compline ? I shall 
 try and think of you saying, " Keep us, oh Lord," 
 etc., and say it myself then. I wish I could stop 
 being sentimental and home-sick in this letter, but 
 yours about Sister Annie touched me so. 
 
 July 15, 1918. 
 
 ... I know people in England say: " What 
 curious ideas and superstitions the soldiers at the 
 front get ! But of course it's only natural." Well, 
 however much people at home may disbelieve it, 
 this business about crucifixes remaining untouched 
 
 " By his splendid example of grit Captain Gribble was materi- 
 ally instrumental in preventing for some hours the enemy from 
 obtaining a complete mastery of the crest of ridge, and by his 
 magnificent self-sacrifice he enabled the remainder of his own 
 brigade to be withdrawn, as well as another garrison and three 
 batteries of field artillery."
 
 LETTERS 63 
 
 is simply wonderful. There is a very much strafed 
 house near here to which I have been several times, 
 and in it or all that is left of it is a big centre 
 room with one wall out of four 'standing, and a fair 
 amount of roof left supported by the wall, and a 
 window- frame and a few bricks opposite it. On the 
 mantelpiece stands a fragile procelain figure of 
 Virgin and Child absolutely untouched. On the 
 floor is a stone which would weigh about 2 cwt. 
 blown from its place across the room and almost 
 twisted beyond recognition. It is absolutely 
 amazing that the figure shouldn't have been broken 
 by the concussion let alone the pieces of shrapnel, 
 of which the room is full. There are some sweet 
 flowers in that garden marguerites, small sweet- 
 peas, yellow things, and sweet Williams. I must 
 send some along one day. 
 
 To his Sister. 
 
 July 17, 1918. 
 
 ... I do think that Compline sounds simply 
 sweet, and I wish we could have it out here. I 
 will think of you when it is 8.40 as often as I can. 
 Another comforting thing is: "The Lord shall 
 preserve thee from all evil, yea, it is He that shall 
 keep thy soul." I love the tune to that psalm so 
 cheery and nice. 
 
 July 19, 1918. 
 
 Your letters (Dad's) do deserve the appreciation 
 I give them. I think they should be called 
 " Letters from a self-made War- weariness-Alle- 
 viator to his Son." 
 
 When in the line like this is much the best time
 
 64 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 to get to know your men. I've got one amazing 
 man from Lancashire you never heard such an 
 accent. It really is as if he were trying to put it 
 on all the time. He is very staunch and steady. 
 They are all nice people bar one and I'm getting 
 to know them well, and I think they don't consider 
 me aloof which is what I always fear. The 
 one is one of those people who start trying it on 
 (not in a nice way, like I used to at school ! !) directly 
 a new overseer comes along and, finding that no 
 good, consider that they have a grievance and are 
 always ill-treated. For instance, when rations 
 were divided up yesterday morning there weren't 
 very many no one grumbled but him, and when 
 the Sgt. gave him his jam (I wasn't there) he threw 
 it over the parapet, and started swearing that he 
 always got less than anyone else. So this morning 
 I went round at rations and told the Sgt. not to 
 give him any jam at all so, when we went past him. 
 in a fearfully injured and self-righteous voice he 
 said: Pardon me, sir, but aren't I allowed any 
 jam ?" So I said: " Certainly not, because it had 
 much better be given to men who eat it instead 
 of throwing it over the parapet ; if you want any 
 you can come to me during the day and say so." 
 He came, this morning, with a long rigmarole of how 
 he lost his temper and was sorry, so we had it out, 
 and I think the situation is distinctly clearer now. 
 What do you think of all that ? Without exception 
 the other 35 are wonderfully cheery and bright, 
 and always turn out quickly for carrying rations 
 or repairing trenches though very tired. My 
 particular jammy one always looks discontented,
 
 LETTERS 65 
 
 and is, I am sure, a fanatical socialist at heart. 
 I must try to smooth his path, but it is difficult 
 to do that without appearing to pander to him. 
 
 July 25, 1918. 
 
 I had a lovely little adventure this morning. 
 Coming home from my bath I saw a village church 
 which I hadn't seen before. It wasn't much 
 shelled, and at first I thought I couldn't get in, as 
 it seemed to be all locked up and was " Out of 
 bounds to troops." So I walked round the grave- 
 yard, which was a bit shelled. Their idea of a 
 good graveyard is absolutely different from ours. 
 They cover the graves with imitation flower wreaths, 
 and extra wooden notices, and altogether the 
 place looks overcrowded and tawdry, though 
 quite pathetic. They evidently spend a good 
 deal on them. While wandering round I found 
 a door of the church open, and the place was chock- 
 full of crucifixes and Virgin-and-Childs, etc. 
 not one touched, though one big shell had fallen 
 into the church. It had broken a hole in the 
 wall and then burst on the floor in the middle of 
 the church, not doing much damage. The hole 
 it entered by was like this (drawing), just missing 
 the Vierge by about 4 inches, and then it exploded 
 in the middle of the church. Any ordinary shell 
 would have exploded against that wall and blown 
 all that part of the church down. Then I climbed 
 to what I thought was going to be the tower, and 
 found a big harmonium, which I played for about 
 an hour, and got quite good at the stops, etc. I 
 so enjoyed it all, and shall go there again to-morrow.
 
 66 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 Later. I've just had tea and am feeling a great 
 deal more brilliant. I enjoyed Dad's lines im- 
 mensely, and they seem to be a little familiar 
 but there are two lines that I not only do not like 
 but to which I OBJECT; they seem to me to be very 
 sloppy, and the bad sort of early Victorianism. 
 The rest of it gave me a huge joy, and I was going 
 to say especially the third couplet re Keats; but 
 then I look back and find that I can't desert Galatea 
 in her marble prison; and then again the seed 
 waiting for the sun, which reminds me of the song 
 Ina Pelly* sang at her much discussed recital at 
 Bully; something about a sunflower-seed, and one 
 of the lines is : 
 
 " When I've grown golden and gay, 
 Little brown brother, good-bye." 
 
 Really, the more I read it the more I'm amazed, 
 it goes so wonderfully well, and the wording is so 
 tremendously real and natural. The words I object 
 to are, " bosom wistfully," " Lord of Love." I 
 don't know why, but they jar I think probably 
 because of the wonderful beauty of expression 
 of the rest of the thing. To pay it an honest com- 
 pliment, I think " Keats " should be replaced 
 by " Layard " ! I really do love it more than 
 ever each time I read it. You must have a huge 
 command of language to produce a thing like that 
 it can't be inspiration, it must need work and 
 study. On re-reading this I find I have used some 
 very superlative adjectives re the poem but I'm 
 glad, because I am much impressed with my papa's 
 
 * Now Mrs. Christopher Lowther.
 
 LETTERS 67 
 
 eloquence ! What a lovely idea yelling those verses 
 at the wind, rain, and sea. It is wonderful, I think. 
 I would like to whisper your verses into the green 
 grass on a lovely hot summer's day. I know they 
 would be appreciated. I remember you or Johnny 
 telling me about your yelling, and I did not appre- 
 ciate it at all and thought it rather mad. I shall 
 take you to Torquay some time, as I know a good 
 place there for doing it. Huge rocks and a merciless 
 sea, driving rain and an almost incessant gale. I 
 don't see that the quotation re " the fathers eating 
 sour grapes " is unfair I think it means that the 
 children's teeth are set on edge as a warning to 
 them to avoid the things their fathers did. I think 
 the metaphor is magnificent. I think this second 
 part of my letter is a great deal more " inspired " 
 than the first ! ! 
 
 August 2, 1918. 
 
 I'll do my very utmost to think of you at 8.0 a.m. 
 onwards for an hour on Sunday morning* and 
 I '11 think of this : 
 
 " This is the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 take and eat it, that it may preserve you to ever- 
 lasting life." Is that right ? What topping words 
 they are, anyway. GORGEOUS news just come. 
 I am to go off on a course to-night. 
 
 Good-night and I leave trenches to-night. 
 HURRAH / 
 
 Tons of love to exquisites. 
 
 * Referring to the special services on August 4, to which 
 his mother told him she was going (Fourth Anniversary of the 
 War).
 
 68 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 August 4, 1918. 
 
 I'm absolutely in heaven here ! It is a perfect, 
 peaceful, beautiful little place and I am on the 
 side of a hill just like the Downs, with more Downs 
 opposite, and a busy little railway station in the 
 valley, which doesn't worry us. It is too heavenly 
 for words. The hill opposite is sweet, and 
 chequered with different coloured fields and more 
 trees than I've shown (a drawing), but dotted about. 
 
 My silk hankies are a great joy to me and also 
 my wonderful cigarette-holder. I liked Dad's 
 little burst of after-dinner stories, none of which 
 I've used yet. 
 
 To his Sister. 
 
 August 12, 1918. 
 
 Thank you hugely for the Compline book 
 I read a little of it each night in bed (as we are out 
 in rest now) before I put out the light. I love the 
 old S's. I am enjoying life hugely now no WAR 
 here, about 8 miles behind the line, and I've got 
 plenty of books and bridge; so bar you all I'm 
 deficient of nothing but what a big If ! ! 
 
 Mum sent me out some lovely fly-catchers, and 
 they do very well here ; one got two wasps to-day, 
 which struggled bravely, but eventually got hope- 
 lessly glued up, poor darlings ! I loathe wasps 
 and bulls more than any other animals I don't 
 know why bar Huns, of course but they come 
 below the category of animals, tho' one almost 
 feels inclined to say. " Poor swine !" about them 
 now.
 
 LETTERS 69 
 
 August 13, 1918. 
 
 Rather a terrible thing happened last night. We 
 were just starting bridge (no, this isn't a bridge 
 episode) ! and I was making rather a noise, but I 
 didn't know that the C.O. was in the room and 
 apparently he was, and he was having a conference 
 on some abstruse military problem. Anyway, he 
 called for me, and I didn't hear; so he called again, 
 and someone said, " Layard, the C.O. wants you," 
 so I leapt up and he said: " Have you got your 
 gas mask here ?" So I said, " No, it's at my billet." 
 So he, " Well go and put it on and play bridge in 
 it." Of course, I didn't go but I think he was 
 rather a hog to be so cutting; as a matter of fact, 
 he has rather a reputation for that sort of thing, 
 tho' he has also one for being a good soldier. Oceans 
 of love, you blessed and heaven-sent darlings. 
 
 PETE, 
 Your own loving son. 
 
 A supernumerary letter written because I feel 
 like writing, and it is too early to go to bed. 
 
 August 13, 1918. 
 
 I am now in my bare billet, as all my things 
 are packed and we move off to-morrow to an 
 unknown place. We know only one thing, and that 
 is enough we are going to a training area, which 
 means NO WAR for the present, anyway ! ! ! Just 
 before mess this evening I opened the last of my 
 reserve store of joy i.e., one of Dad's letters 
 the one in which he calls me a scoundrel about 
 three times on the first page because I write such
 
 70 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 by him alleged intriguing letters that he is 
 forced to answer them. Needless to say, the prac- 
 tice will continue with more violence than pre- 
 viously ! 
 
 [My answer to this letter was found in his pocket, 
 together with one from his mother, when he was 
 shot by the German sniper just ten days later. 
 It was returned to us stained with the mud of the 
 trenches.] 
 
 August 15, 1918. 
 
 After some very hot marches and train journeys 
 I have arrived at a new place. There were very 
 few billets for the officers, but plenty of good ones 
 for the men ; and I was to sleep with two others 
 in a room with one bed. So I went round and 
 used my blandishments with the French Madames, 
 and got a small room and bed. Also I got a bowl 
 of milk warm from the cow, and four poached 
 eggs. To-day at midday, when I came into the 
 room, I found the kit of one of our officers on my 
 bed, and apparently it is his billet but I shall 
 try to stick to it. You'd love Madame and 
 her daughter very healthy and red-cheeked, 
 Madame about 50 but very agile (looks 70), the 
 daughter about 25, and 25*5 nephew Gaston 
 aged about 3 to 7. Gaston got strafed last night 
 because, with the excitement of seeing me, he 
 forgot to say to 25, "Bon soir, ma tante Marie," 
 and he had to add " Monsieur " to his list for me. 
 | hour later. I had to rush off just now, as I
 
 LETTERS 71 
 
 had to take my Lewis gunners on a revolver class, 
 and when I got back I found a lovely bowl of brand- 
 new milk waiting for me contents about three 
 tumblers, and I drank two-thirds of it at the first 
 draught; the rest will disappear shortly, as I am 
 now eating some of the very excellent toffee you 
 sent out. The day is boiling hot, as well as yester- 
 day, when we marched, so you can imagine how 
 we sweated. Even I did a good amount. The 
 last | mile of the march I took and carried three 
 rifles I had carried one for about six miles, two 
 for three miles; but then I'm not nearly so heavily 
 equipped as the men. (Pause for thought.) Why 
 does Dad miss out Orpen from his list of modern 
 painters ? Of course, you didn't see his exhibition 
 it was magnificent. Here is a plan of the en- 
 trance to my mansion. I come in and out as per 
 arrows, and as I came in this morning one hen, 
 terrified, leapt from A. to B. and B. to C., where 
 the dog who is chained up leapt in turn upon her, 
 and held her by the neck, thus: (Picture.) 
 
 N.B. The hen is the thing somewhat the shape 
 of England, with a " more in sorrow than in anger " 
 expression on its face. The dog's tail is wagging. 
 Before I interfered I yelled to Madame, " Le chien 
 a le poulet," and she came and leapt from A. to 
 B. and separated them then thrashed the dog 
 and shortened his chain. 
 
 August 17, 1918. 
 
 DEAR Miss WINTER, 
 
 It was topping of you to write, even though 
 it was at Nancy's instigation. Thank you muchly
 
 72 PETER CLEMENT LAYARD 
 
 for the nose-cleaner; it hasn't stood the test of a 
 French washerwoman yet, but if it does it must be 
 SOME material ! I am writing a poem called 
 " D 'ALVAREZ THE DIVINE." Please note that the 
 title applies to figure as well as voice. Who are 
 you that you should dare to criticize her ? Just 
 because you have been brought up to believe that 
 Venus de Milo's was a good figure ! Pooh ! no 
 reason. I, glorying in my infatuation for the 
 aforesaid D 'ALVAREZ, say of the Venus, Pshaw ! 
 the skinny brute. There you have it, and you 
 must consider yourself reproved ! Tell SISTER 
 ANNIE that she is always in my thoughts, and that 
 any letter I write to the convent is assumed to 
 convey my love to her; but that such people as 
 NANCY, and one whose Christian name is MILDRED, 
 have to be specially told each time ! ! I think that 
 should appease her wrath. I shan't get leave for 
 about another five months, which is long to wait. 
 We do get some wonderful effects out here, with 
 the gorgeous skies and blackened ruined villages 
 and trees, which are simply wonderfully magnificent. 
 It always seems to me that the RULER of everything 
 is proving how futile are our efforts at destruction, 
 showing that we only make His works look all the 
 more grand and magnificent because, after all, 
 houses are His works just as much as trees, etc. 
 Well, I could go on arguing for ever, but I won't 
 nor will I give as an excuse for stopping that I am 
 boring you, because I don't think I am, as it's quite 
 a good letter. Best love, anyway, and do write 
 again.
 
 LETTERS 73 
 
 August 1 8, 1918. 
 
 Still in rest, but I don't know how long this 
 Elysium will last. 
 
 I have spent a gloriously lazy afternoon it 
 being Sunday. I stopped writing this at about 
 3.15; then I lay on my bed and read to 3.30; then 
 I slept till 4.30; then I couldn't fag to walk f mile 
 to tea, so I made them give me some brea 4 d and 
 butter and coffee, and I scrambled two eggs myself 
 and your honey, which isn't finished yet, put 
 the finishing-touch of joy to my tea. It is now 
 6 p.m. as I write, and when I finish this I shall 
 read " Mary Barton " until 7.30, when I go to 
 mess. I haven't started it yet. I've just finished 
 Gilbert Parker's "You Never Know Your Luck." 
 Quite a sweet story. One more thing I did which 
 I didn't tell you of after tea I cleaned my beautiful 
 cigarette holder; so that my lovely day so far has 
 been entirely devoid of WAR, and will, I hope, 
 continue so. After dinner I shall play bridge and 
 smoke one of my cigars, provided the HORRIBEE 
 HUN doesn't make a nuisance of himself. About 
 | hour ago Mademoiselle, OF WHOM I AM NOT ENA- 
 MOURED, but who is very cheery and bright and 
 nice, brought me in some lovely flowers, as per 
 illustration on the other page. I enclose sarrrples. 
 They make a lovely blaze of colour. 
 
 August 20, 1918. 
 
 We go into the line to-night, I believe. Our rest 
 has been too lovely and welcome for words. 
 
 We've had sweltering weather lately, but to-day 
 has been dull, with an occasional drizzle. I have
 
 74 PETER CLEMENT LA YARD 
 
 only just started " Mary Barton," but I like its 
 quiet genuine style very much. 
 
 The village we are in now has been much shelled 
 a good time ago ; but the French have all come back, 
 and instead of putting tiles over the holes in the 
 roofs they have made use of all the bits of tin they 
 could find, so the effect is quite funny. They are 
 like ants, these inhabitants, because you know 
 that however hopelessly wrecked an ant's nest 
 is, they always start rebuilding it. Well, these 
 people are just the same, tho' they can still be 
 shelled. As a matter of fact, our short sojourn 
 here has been quite quiet. Well, God bless you 
 both, dear ones. 
 
 His last letter has already appeared in Part I. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, F.NCLAJIB
 
 UCSB LIBRARY
 
 J SOUTHERN REG 
 
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