In the meantime he would return to London, and if his father's recovery was complete he would not revisit "home" till Christmas.

As soon as he was able to write, his father would forward him the copy of his birth-certificate, and he would likewise answer in the sense agreed upon any letters of reference or enquiry: would state the apprenticeship to architecture with Praed A.R.A., and then the impulse to go out to South Africa, the slight wound--David insisted it was slight, a fuss about nothing, because he had enquired about necrosis of the jaw and realized that even if he had recovered it would have left indisputable marks on face and throat.

In fact there were so many complications involved in an escape from the Boers, only to be justified under the code of honour prevailing in war time, that he would rather his father said little or nothing about South Africa but left him to explain all that.

A point of view readily grasped by the Revd.

Howel, who to get such a son back would even have not thought too badly of desertion--and the negative letters of the War Office said nothing of that.
So early in September, after the most varied, anxious, successful six weeks in his life--so far--David Vavasour Williams returned to Fig Tree Court, Inner Temple..