"My dear Wolfe Murray,
"How do you manage to find time to write these charming letters of yours with your own hand? They come like a gift from some oriental potentate and carry with them the same moral obligations; i.e., that they ought to be returned in kind. But to-day the time limit interposes, and I know you will pardon me for once if I dictate.
"I am immensely interested in what you say with reference to the 29th Division being below strength, namely, that we are getting short of men. Well,—though one of the keenest voluntary service people existing, I have always envisaged the fact that during a war we might be driven to compulsion. Also in writing out fully my views on this subject (views which I was not permitted by late Chiefs of the General Staff to publish) I have always, for that reason, pressed for National Registration. It does no one any harm, and rubs into the mind of the young man that, under certain conditions, the State has first pull on his pocket, labour, life and everything else. But, of course, if your own wish that the 29th Division should take out 10 per cent. extra for drafts (like the regiments do in France), had been carried into effect, they would never have fallen as low as they actually did.
"Freddy Stopford and Reed have been staying with me for 24 hours, and the former is now in command of the 8th Corps on the Peninsula, Hunter-Weston having gone sick. He asked to stay with the Admiral for a couple of days' rest, and the very moment he got safe on board ship the overstrain of the past month told on him and he went down with a sharp go of fever. I earnestly pray he will get right again quickly for there are not many Commanders of his calibre. Freddy Stopford will now have a good chance of getting the hang of this sort of fighting generally, surrounded as he will be by Hunter-Weston's experienced Staff. After sending my last letter I rather repented of one or two harsh things I said about Reed. There is some truth in them, but I need not have said them. I hope he will do very well out here."
Now since that letter was written (yesterday) in comes a cable from K. saying Winston can't leave England but that Hankey starts in his place.
K. says he is sure I will give him every facility.
A pretty stuffy cable in from the War Office on the Hospital ships and medical personnel and material wrangle which is still going on. I, personally, have checked every item of my estimate with closest personal attention, although it took me hours in the midst of other very pressing duties. This is not Braithwaite's pidgin but Woodward's and there was no help for it. Our first landing found out a number of chinks in our arrangements, and now, my Director of Medical Services is (quite naturally) inclined to open his mouth as wide as if ships were drugs in the market. So I have tried very hard, without too much help, to hit the mean between extravagance and sufficiency. Now the War Office, who would be the first to round on me if anything went wrong with my wounded, query my demands as if we had just splashed off a cable asking for the first things that came into our heads!
I am all for thrift in ships, but thrift in the lives of my wounded comes first; my conscience is clear and I have answered sticking to my point,—firmly! They say the thing is impossible; I have retaliated by saying it is imperative.