August 27, '15. I think I made you a promise
to let you know how I was getting on. Well, I am still in bed; but I am to sit up on Sunday, and hope to be quite fit within a fortnight. Within a .month at latest I hope to be bark at the front—this time as 2nd Lieut. in my old regiment—the R.G.A. I feel that I have learnt all that I am likely to learn in the ranks, and that what I now have to consider is how I can best help to end the war. Hence my application for a commission, which I hear has met with success. I am afraid that I am likely to get only a week's freedom before I go back, and so I fear that our meeting in the flesh will have to be post- poned till after the war—that problematical period which seems as remote as the millennium! You will perhaps be interested to hear that I have been trying to continue my pursuit of literature, and sent off two playlets and three articles to the Spectator! My effrontery is rewarded, for the acting editor has accepted one article, and is keeping the rest for Mr. Strachey to look at, and says he will be "very much disappointed" if he does not accept one of the playlets. They are not primarily religious, but rather studies of trench psychology. Nevertheless each one leads up—as I find everything does naturally lead up—to Christ as its climax. "Shornells " V.A.D. Hospital, Abbey Wood, Kent.
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