‘I stood with Maynard Greville on the stone terrace outside the School House studies at Oundle in the spring of 1915.

‘I vote we chuck all this at the end of term and join up,’ said he.

‘Wouldn’t it be fine – but they won’t let us.’

‘Why not? We’re almost seventeen.’

‘But old King says you can’t get a commission in anything until you’re eighteen.’

‘Rot. What about the Flying Corps? They’ll take you at seventeen. They want young chaps.’

‘Shall we speak to Beans?’

‘No. He might stop us. I vote we write to the War Office and see what happens.’

‘All right! Oh, Maynard, wouldn’t it be ripping!’

Cecil Lewis, Sagittarius Rising