He then made up his mind that I was not only wanting in essential parts, but was also the sort of person who jested on religious subjects. He never forgot the matter; indeed, when applied to (under "Secret and Confidential" cover) to suggest a means of getting rid of me, he very clearly remembered it. At once every department in the War House got busy; the interest of the Secretary of State was enlisted, and the War Cabinet decided that for permanent purposes my post must necessarily be held by a P.S.C. man. Done in by what was little better, when you come to think of it, than a mere postscript.
Please understand that there was no talk of discharging me; no talk of demobilising me; no talk even of disembodying me. Without any reflection on my conduct and merely upon the grounds that, not being P.S.C., I could not be regarded as quite right in the head, they intimated their intention of vacating my appointment by the simple process of an advertisement in the fashionable columns of The London Gazette.
"What happens next?" I asked.
"You will return to regimental duty," they said.
"But there isn't any regiment," I pointed out triumphantly, "therefore there won't be any duty."
They didn't seem to mind that, and for some time I wondered why. Then a thought occurred to me.
"But here, I say, what about my pay?"
"Ah!" said they unhelpfully....
And that, my dear Charles, is why, if you keep your eye on the journals of (say) the Summer of 1925, you will read in the Stop-press Column an urgent telegram from the W.O.: "On April 1st, 1920, the following relinquishes his appointment
(Remaining, however,
Yours always),
Henry."