Not a moment was allowed to elapse after this. On October 16th, 1914, I wrote, setting out my believed qualifications in concise terms, adding that my age had unfortunately precluded my eagerly proffered services from acceptance in other spheres; that I was keen and eager to be of service to my country; and that I was eating my heart out through inactivity. If there was a chance of my being any use, I prayed that my services might be commanded.
I had been cautioned with impressive seriousness that if my services were accepted it might be only for enrolment in the "Forlorn Hope Brigade" and that my chances of survival might be very remote indeed.
Rather than damping my ardour, this warning merely added fuel to the flames of my desires. In early life I had been most bitterly disappointed. A somewhat sensitive nature had received a shock from which it never properly recovered. With the fatuity of early youth I had placed a whole family upon an idealistic pedestal—including a mere child of thirteen years of age. When that theoristic fabric fell, shattered to a million invisible fragments, at my feet, I could not understand, but I felt for years afterwards that life for me held nothing of worth.
Time heals wounds, and I survived in bodily health. In 1912 I lost a man's best friend on earth—my mother. At Christmas, 1913, my father, my dearest pal, followed her to the grave. I was unmarried. My brother and my sisters had homes of their own, far away. What mattered it to anyone, least of all to myself, if I crossed the Great Divide before my allotted time? I was at best a mere worthless atom of humanity dependent upon no one, with no one dependent upon me.
Here at least was a chance of doing something worth the while. 'Twas a far, far better thing to do than I had ever done.
Yea, indeed. I was ready, and willing, and eager, for the service, whatsoever that service might be, and withersoever it might take me, even to the jaws of death itself.
Having regard to all the circumstances, I do not believe I shall be accused of presumptuousness or of egotism if I say that I fully believed myself to be a fit and qualified person for the service for which I then had volunteered.
On October 17th, 1914, I received a letter from the Under Permanent Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Arthur Nicholson—now Lord Carnock), acknowledging my letter of the previous day's date and saying Sir Edward Grey appreciated my offer, although he regretted there were no such appointments at the disposal of his department; but he added that my name had been noted in case my services might be utilised in any capacity at some further date.
On October 19th, I received a letter on War Office paper referring to my letter to Sir Edward Grey of the 16th, saying: "I should be very glad if you would arrange to come and see me here one morning. If you will let me know when I may expect you I shall arrange to be free." This letter was signed "P. W. Kenny, Captain"[4] and on its left-hand top corner specified a certain room number. I subsequently ascertained that this gentleman (and a real gentleman in every sense of that embracive word I found him) was the "Acting Buffer" between the Secret Service departments for both the War Office and the Admiralty to anyone who might attempt to approach either of these departments. It will be remembered that his name figured in the public Press as acting in that capacity when Admiral W. R. Hall, C.B., brilliantly defeated and frustrated the clever schemes so carefully yet vainly laid by the then notorious ex.-M.P. Trebitsch Lincoln, whose apparent intention and purpose was to work the double cross against the British Empire.