with impetigo. By March 1918, he had reached the rank of captain and was the adjutant for 7th Battalion KRRC, when the German spring offensive started. Davies took charge of the battalion after their colonel was wounded during a fighting retreat that lasted for 15 days, for which he was awarded the Military Cross; however, he was emotionally scarred by his wartime experience. His brother George was killed at the age of 21 at Ypres in March 1915. In 1917, while still in the military, Davies met and began to court Hungarian-born Vera Willoughby (a watercolour painter and illustrator, as well as a costume and poster designer), a married woman 27 years older, with a daughter older than he was. He stayed with her when on leave, which scandalized Barrie and caused a rift between the two. His former nurse and mother figure Mary Hodgson disapproved strongly as well. The relationship continued at least through the end of his military service in 1919. In 1926 he published an edition of George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer featuring illustrations by Willoughby. In 1926, Davies, with financial help from Barrie, founded a publishing house, Peter Davies Ltd, which in 1951 published his cousin Daphne du Maurier's work about their grandfather, illustrator and writer George du Maurier, The Young George du Maurier: a selection of his letters 1860–67. He married Margaret Leslie Hore-Ruthven, youngest daughter of Maj-Gen Walter Hore-Ruthven, in 1931, and had three sons with her: Ruthven (1933–1998), George (b. 1935) and Peter (1940–1989). He grew to dislike having his name associated with Peter Pan, which he called "that terrible masterpiece". Upon Barrie's death in 1937, most of his estate and fortune went to his secretary Cynthia Asquith, and the copyright to the Peter Pan works had previously been given in 1929 to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London. Davies and his surviving brothers each received a legacy. Davies's son Ruthven later told an interviewer: My father had mixed feelings about the whole business of Peter Pan. He accepted that Barrie considered that he was the inspiration for Peter Pan and it was only reasonable that my father should inherit everything from Barrie. That was my father's expectation. It would have recompensed him for the notoriety he had experienced since being linked with Peter Pan—something he hated. He assembled and edited family papers and letters into a collection which he called