" A STUDENT IN ARMS " : THE LAST FIVE
MINUTES. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") think the enclosed extract from a letter dealing with Donald Hankey cannot fail to move your readers as it has moved
" On Saturday night Harry Smith, one of our boys, home on leave, told me how he met a private of the Warwicks the day after they had gone over the top. Harry asked him if he knew a friend of his called Hankey, and the man, who was one of Donald's own men, spoke of him in a way that surprised even Harry. He told him how all Donald's men had knelt down just before going over and said how Donald told them of the things that awaited them- ' if wounded, Blighty; if killed, the Resurrection.' His power over his men seems to have been absolutely unlimited, as was their confidence in him. I wish I could reproduce for you all that Harry's conversation with this man implied. Harry Smith, just home after sixteen months and dropping with sleep, went of that evening with A Student in Arms. I saw him the next morning and asked him if he had had a good sleep; he, had read the book till 3.30 a.m. and was too full of it to talk about anything else."
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