the literary editor Raymond Mortimer who admired his skits. He was asked to contribute an article each Christmas on the best books for girls published during the year – Angela Brazil was nearing the end of her career but Winifred Darch, May Wynne and Dorita Fairlie Bruce were still very productive. World War II interrupted this reviewing of books for girls. World War II During World War II Marshall's knowledge of French and German led to his being enrolled in the British Intelligence Corps, and he was soon sent as part of the British Expeditionary Force to northern France. After the rapid German advance he became a part of the Dunkirk evacuation. He wrote in his autobiography, "Absence of food, coupled with exhaustion, made the nights seem unusually cold and there is little of comfort, save protection of a sort, to be found in a sand dune. One's childhood love of sand and beaches disappeared in a trice." Back in England he spent three months with a security section on the Cumbrian coast before being sent to Lisburn in Northern Ireland. In April 1942 he was transferred to the London headquarters of Combined Operations in Richmond Terrace, off Whitehall. He was appointed a security officer and by the end of 1943 was transferred to the headquarters of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in Bushy Park, Twickenham. In 1945 Marshall was in Flensburg and lodged on Adolf Hitler's yacht at the time that Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel were being interrogated. At the end of the war, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and an MBE, he returned to Oundle School as a Housemaster. Later career During and immediately after World War II, Marshall had some success on radio and the stage. His wartime radio programme A Date with Nurse Dugdale was popular, and he wrote numerous revue sketches for performers such as Hermione Gingold. He appeared on radio and TV occasionally and published books of humorous pieces among other writings. The most widely known of these were his skits on the life and antics of girls at private schools. From a relatively early age he had been an ardent admirer of the girls' school stories of Angela Brazil. He found them hilarious, although he noted "Miss Brazil had, of course, no comic intention when she started, in 1906, to write her books." In 1954 he left Oundle and, after being private