Memory Hold-The-Door by John Buchan — Read

There was little solitude for me during those years. I seemed to live among crowds both in France and in London, and, though I missed the intimate comradeship of regimental service, I rubbed shoulders with a great variety of human beings. I added to my already extensive military acquaintance, and in London I had to concern myself with every variety of social and political groups, while one side of my duties brought me into touch with the queer subterranean world of the Secret Service. No man had ever more loyal and competent colleagues, men like Lord Edward Gleichen, Charles Masterman, Geoffrey Butler, Reginald Farrer, Ernest Hodder-Williams, Henry Newbolt -- to name only those who are dead. I was occasionally summoned to the War Cabinet and renewed old friendships with Milner and Carson. I met every foreigner of importance who came to London. I saw something of the veiled prophets who are behind the scenes in a crisis -- Colonel House, and Lord Esher, and especially Northcliffe. Northcliffe I had known for many years, and our friendship had no breaches in it since we were wholly independent of each other. At Christmas 1916 he paid a visit to G. H. Q. and for a week, on Haig's instructions, H took him for an elaborate tour of the British Front. He talked much during those long cold journeys, brilliantly, persuasively, sometimes almost with inspiration. Had he had a more normal education and discipline he might have been a great man, for when unswayed by vanity he had sound judgment and a penetrating insight. I saw at close quarters the intricate mechanism which directed the War at home, one of the strangest mixtures of amateur and professional, talent and charlatanry, the patriot and the _arriviste_ which history has known, with behind it the dynamic figure of the Prime Minister, generating heat and somehow turning it into power. Of Mr. Lloyd George I have written elsewhere[1]; _proximus ardebat Ucalegon_; he was the flame at which all warmed, and many scorched, their hands.

[1. In _The King's Grace_, 1935.]