Percy gets his commission on 1 June 1918, although he doesn't say a lot about it. This covers the final weeks up to departure and the trip through to Base Camp. Dorrie's Dad, Mr Jewel remains a gem, ha ha, and the two lovers bid a fond adieu.

I found the best old WW1 song for our Perce, as you will hear.

Percy gets a letter from his old friend, Jack Elliott, and you can guess the response from the Episode title! Here is a bit of what Percy wrote back:

"Jack, if you've got any manhood left in you, cut adrift from that miserable soulless lot of cowards and come over here and do your duty as a man and a true Australian, and as a Christian."

Take that Jack!

Percy finishes his officer training and prepares to go back to France.

Frustration and more frustration, bloaters again and more bloaters.

Percy does something to Dorrie and is full of remorse, what it was, who knows? The engagement is on and off.

Nonchalant brother Viv turns up .... Well, it's Viv's way, or.... Luckily, he didn't keep King George waiting!

Finally, Percy passes and gets ready to go back to France.

In this episode, Percy continues officer training. He practices code, unfortunately no one seems to be able to break it. I guess that means he knew what he was doing. He spends his third Christmas away from home, this one much more pleasant than the first two... He is with his ummm, fiancee, Dorothy.

Three of the Aussies are suspended from the Officer's Training School at Cambridge. Two for sleeping in and one for swapping a blown light bulb for a good one from the mess.

In this episode Percy is at Cambridge training to be an officer. He and Dorrie are busted by her Dad and have a lot of explaining to do. He visits his new sister-in-law, Mary near Londonderry in Ireland and is pleasantly surprised to spend a few days there also with brother, Vern.

Okay, no fighting, except maybe with his would be father-in-law, but still an interesting look at life during the war, and especially at Cambridge.

Once the sighing whine of a shell in flight ended with a savage hiss and an explosion just behind our dug-out, and I felt the sandbag wall heave in several inches. "That one nearly smashed our dug-out," I remarked, thinking it was a H.E., but the next moment a strong smell of gas rushed in. "Get your respirator on!" I yelled at Gus, making a grab for my own. I held my breath, but the powerful fumes got into my eyes, and the tears poured from them in streams. The tapes of my respirator were twisted up with the mouthpiece somehow, and there was I struggling to get them free. Had to open my eyes several times and endure a fresh flow of tears, and it soon became impossible to hold my breath any longer. However, just as I got a good deep breath of poisonous gas, the mouthpiece came free of the tapes and I got it into my mouth. That just about says it all, take a ride through the final days of Passchendaele with Percy

Percy has finally left Blighty, crosses the channel and ... "After crossing the ridge we left the duckboards and struck off to the right through the sloppy slippery mud, picking our way in and out between the shell-holes." Percy makes his way back to the trenches right into the tail end of the Battle of Passchendaele.

Wouldn't you know it, Percy found his soul mate and then gets whisked back to war. Nevermind, he wants that promotion so he can afford a house for his "little girl" when the war is over. The parting is sad, well isn't it always, and then he has to sit out for a few lonely days in Southampton. Brother Vern causes him a real scare but Percy finds out more about his brother's time at Passchendaele; Vernon Smythe MC + Bar!

This one starts with Percy coming back from leave and within two days he looks up Dorothy, the jewel of a girl he met on the train. Not a slow worker, our Perce, they are engaged in less than a month!

Okay, so there are no battles in this one, except of the father - suitor kind, but this is probably the most significant thing to happen to Percy in the war. Enjoy!

There were almost 13,000 war brides to diggers in WW1 according to the Australian War Memorial. Brother Vern found Mary in Ireland, but what about Percy? Well, our Casanova finally meets his "one and only," but does he know it yet?

There is one problem, Percy is still in Blighty, but not for much longer!