"18 February, 1917. In the middle of letter writing, I am interrupted by a message. It bears sad news. My dearest friend, Les Morice, is dead. I put down my pen for a wander in the hills. It is a great shock to me. I knew my friend inside and out. He was like a brother and I cannot believe that he is gone. I can sympathise with his poor parents and Olive Graham, the love of his life, who he always dreamed and talked about.

My old friend received gunshot wounds to his leg and a compound fractured femur just before Christmas at the River Lys near Armentières, where I last saw him with the machine gun corps. What a terrible Christmas present. He was evacuated to England and died forty miles from me in the Brockenhurst Hospital for New Zealanders on February 4th. He now lies in the Brockenhurst church yard, far from his people. I am sorry I did not know he was in England and never got to see him. What a terribly slow way to go, lying about, suffering from his wounds." [Trafford (2020) pp79-80]