September 29th 1939

Friday September 29th (St Michael and All Angels*)

I went to Gloucester to the Infirmary and am to go again on November 24th. Report is favourable on the whole, although I have had more pain than has been usual for a long time.

We have received our marching orders. Berlin and Moscow, having “liquidated” the state of Poland, have now decided that we are going to make peace - or else. I am afraid they will be doomed to disappointment, and are liable to find that when you have driven another country to war it is possible that they will be determined only to end it on their terms.

There is one crumb of comfort to be drawn from this deplorable situation and that is that knowing the militant and brutal attitude of Fascist states, when they are sure of any easy victory and their utter intransigence, it leads one to suppose that they have only one thing to look forward to from a long war - and that is defeat. Otherwise there would have been no offer of peace.

* This entry was most likely written in Bristol at St Michael and All Angels Church on the Gloucester Road. The church no longer exists: it was demolished in the 1990s.