Signing up

Following Dyson's quick move from Marlborough and timely transfer to Rugby the declaration of war on 4 August 1914, after he had been in the Midlands for only three months, caused another hiatus. Who knows quite why he volunteered so immediately when he might well have felt more concerned with trying to carve out a reliable reputation for himself in his new surroundings – at least for a time, unless Freeman Dyson's assertions about an affair at Rugby are actually correct. Perhaps at the back of his mind was the feeling that the hothouse atmosphere of another public school might well prove as much of a minefield at Rugby as it had at Marlborough. He was, after all, a good-looking young man, was available and, as we have seen, susceptible to the charms of the opposite sex. Perhaps, also, he missed his friends at Marlborough after being so swiftly removed. Certainly, on joining up, he did so with his closest friend from Marlborough, Freeman Atkey, and in all likelihood made a pact to join up together right at the outset of hostilities.

Freeman Atkey's sister, Mildred, kept a diary which noted ‘Aug 4th War!’ and then: ‘Sept 6th. It has been going on for a month. Tod [her nickname for Freeman] is going to enlist – if by any chance his eyes will pass muster. … All the men are going, Carfrae boys, Churchills, Stilmans and of course in the lower orders the same. … The women are all busy doing something. Our Sept. holiday has quite fallen thro.