8 4 
A. G. Tansley. 
of the Somerset Light Infantry. 1 well remember his excitement 
when he showed me the letter—he was like a girl with the invita¬ 
tion to her first hall. He joined his regiment within a week, and 
put in ten months of hard training before going to the front. I 
saw him only three or four times during that period; generally 
when he got leave for a day or two he came over to Cambridge and 
stayed at my house. In March he told me he was beginning to feel 
his feet, and indeed it was quite evident from his talk that he was 
getting a real grip of the work and of his men : in April he got his 
lieutenancy. His battalion went to France early in September 
and his first letter to me after that was about half full of the botany 
of the region where they were in billets. At Loos, his battalion 
was in support and was heavily shelled and sniped during the 
German counter attacks. The casualties were heavy, especially 
among the officers. As Marsh expressed it in a wonderfully vivid 
and very characteristic letter to another friend, “ We were told 
that once we got the Germans on the run it would be all right, but 
they had the audacity to counter-attack ! . . . The high explosives 
dazed the men and the snipers slaughtered the officers.” And 
then—after giving a (for him) quite exceptional glimpse of the after 
effect on his mind of the scenes he saw at Loos—he breaks off: 
“ If you are fond of Antirrhinum orontium, this is the country for 
it.” He promised to tell me all about Loos the first time he came 
home on leave, but that was never to be. Marsh’s own company, 
“ A,” got off fairly lightly, and he escaped unscathed, but so heavy 
were the officer casualties that Marsh got his captaincy immediately, 
and commanded the battalion when it was soon afterwards inspected 
by the King. Then came the regular routine of alternating trenches 
and billets till January, when, just before he was to come home on 
leave, he was killed. 
Marsh was, I believe, just beginning to find himself mentally 
when he joined the army, and it is impossible to say what he would 
have done if he had lived to return to botany, as he certainly would. 
I should not describe the work he actually did as “ brilliant ” 
though it was distinguished in style and of very excellent quality. 
He was very young—only 22 when he got his commission. His 
talents were certainly remarkable and his love for his subject most 
undoubted. I fancy his experience in the army was having a great 
effect on his character, which would have been evident when he 
returned to scientific work. I am sure he felt that here was a very 
serious job and though it might be, at any rate at first, an uncon- 
