To change the subject, I have been getting a lot of swimming lately. At a big cement works in a neighbouring town there is an enormous pond in a quarry. The water is about 15 feet deep all round and not at all stagnant, and there is a splendid place for diving. Yesterday I was down at a neighbouring seaport on business and got a delightful swim in the sea. A swim means to me almost as much as a Rugby match. I am going down to the cement-works pool every day, and whenever possible I shall have a swim in the sea. The weather just at present is wonderful, the sunshine simply glorious. Do not imagine that I am neglecting my work. In fact, I have been tremendously busy buying and arranging for green fodder for about 2,000 horses at the rate of 4 lbs. per horse per diem. By to-morrow noon I shall have contracts concluded to keep the brigade supplied until further orders.
May 21st, 1916.
Thanks so much for congratulatory messages. It certainly was gratifying to get the second pip, and a particularly pleasant coincidence that it should be gazetted on May 18th [his birthday].
The weather in "this pleasant land of France" remains wonderful. The sun is really shining. In the height of summer I have never known more beautiful weather. This, on the whole, is a picturesque part of France, and everything looks at its best just now. The lanes and wooded downs here might be in Surrey.
I was seven hours in the saddle yesterday. The General himself commented the other day on the splendid condition of my horses. They certainly are looking extraordinarily well.
May 28th, 1916.
I note that Winston Churchill suggested in the House of Commons the other day that the Cavalry should be turned into Infantry. With due respect to him, I think that he is all wrong. Whenever the "Push" comes, cavalry will be not only desirable, but absolutely and vitally essential. The day of cavalry charges may have gone, but I agree with Conan Doyle that "the time will never come when a brave and a capable man who is mounted will be useless to his comrades." You might, indeed, mount them in motor cars, but a man with a horse has three times the freedom and the scope for scouting and independent action that a man has who is brought up in a motor and then dumped to shift for himself. I entirely agree with Churchill, nevertheless, about the large number of able-bodied men employed behind the fighting-lines. I only wish I were in the trenches myself, I can tell you. My rejection for the Infantry was a bitter blow!
Everybody here is grieved at the death in action of Captain Platt, —— Hussars, attached Coldstream Guards. I knew him quite well, and we were great friends. He was a chivalrous gentleman, and very clever intellectually, quite a bit of a poet in his way.
June 2nd, 1916.
We are now in bivouacs in a big field. I have rigged up a first-rate tent, made out of cart-cover, with a sort of enclosed dressing-room for washing, etc., attached. We've got a fine mess-tent, 30 feet long by 20 feet wide, made out of wagon-sheetings. It is not only much more pleasant, but a good deal cheaper, to live in the open like this.