There was, for some reason, considerable delay in the arrival of the photograph; it did not arrive till the afternoon of December 7. Meanwhile, on December 6, Lady Lodge had been looking up Raymond's Diary, which had been returned from the Front with his kit, and found an entry:—
"24 August.—Photo taken."
(A statement will follow to this effect.)
Now Raymond had only had one "leave" home since going to the Front, and this leave was from 16 July to 20 July. The photograph had not been taken then, and so he could not have told us anything about it. The exposure was only made twenty-one days before his death, and some days may have elapsed before he saw a print, if he ever saw one. He certainly never mentioned it in his letters. We were therefore in complete ignorance concerning it; and only recently had we normally become aware of its existence.
On the morning of 7 December another note came from Mrs. Cheves, in answer to a question about the delay; and this letter said that the photograph was being sent off. Accordingly I (O. J. L.), thinking that the photograph might be coming at once, dictated a letter to go to Mr. Hill, recording roughly my impression of what the photograph would be like, on the strength of the communication received by me from 'Raymond' through Mrs. Leonard; and this was posted by A. E. Briscoe about lunch-time on the same day. (See statement by Mr. Briscoe at the end.) My statement to Mr. Hill ran thus:—
Copy of what was written by O. J. L. to Mr. Hill about the
Photograph on the morning of Tuesday, 7 December 1915
"Concerning that photograph which Raymond mentioned through Peters [saying this: 'One where he is in a group of other men. He is particular that I should tell you of this. In one you see his walking-stick,'], [10] he has said some more about it through Mrs. Leonard. But he is doubtful about the stick. What he says is that there is a considerable number of men in the photograph; that the front row is sitting, and that there is a back row, or some of the people grouped and set up at the back; also that there are a dozen or more people in the photograph, and that some of them he hardly knew; that a B is prominent in the photograph, and that there is also a C; that he himself is sitting down, and that there are people behind him, one of whom either leant on his shoulder, or tried to.
"The photograph has not come yet, but it may come any day now; so I send this off before I get it.
"The actual record of what was said in the sitting is being typed, but the above represents my impression of it."
The photograph was delivered at Mariemont between 3 and 4 p.m. on the afternoon of 7 December. It was a wet afternoon, and the package was received by Rosalynde, who took the wet wrapper off it. Its size was 12 by 9 inches, and was an enlargement from a 5 by 7 inch original. The number of people in the photograph is twenty-one, made up as follows:—
Five in the front row squatting on the grass, Raymond being one of these; the second from the right.
Seven in the second row seated upon chairs.
Nine in the back row standing up against the outside of a temporary wooden structure such as might be a hospital shed or something of that kind.