…we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.

Once you are so unfortunate as to be drawn into a war, no price is too great to pay for an early and victorious peace.

I am happy here … I always get on with soldiers. I do not certainly regret the step I took … I know that I am doing the right thing out here … Do you know I am quite young again?

Last night ... I had a splendid walk ... all over the top of the ground ... You cannot show yourself here by day, but in the bright moonlight it is possible to move about without danger (except from random bullets) & to gain a vy clear impression ... We also went out in from of our own parapet into the No man’s land & prowled about looking at our wire & visiting our listening posts. This is always exciting.

Nowadays we are assailed by a chorus of horrid threats. The Nazi government exudes through every neutral state inside information about the frightful vengeance they are going to wreak upon us, and they also bawl it around the world by their propaganda machinery. If words could kill, we shall be dead already.

'Safety first' is the road to ruin in war, even if you had the safety, which you have not.

Before the war it had seemed incredible that such terrors and slaughters, even if they began, could last more than a few months. After the first two years it was difficult to believe that they would ever end.

There is no doubt the charge was an awful gamble and that no normal precautions were possible. The issue as far as I was concerned had to be left to Fortune or to God – or to whatever may decide these things. I am content and shall not complain.

There is no doubt the charge was an awful gamble and that no normal precautions were possible. The issue as far as I was concerned had to be left to Fortune or to God – or to whatever may decide these things. I am content and shall not complain.