ore many months."

"Lucky beggars!"

It was this fatuous remark which showed Radley that I had no idea of
my own relation to the coming conflict. So he forbore to spring upon
me the greatest surprise of all. He just said with a sadness and a
strange emphasis:

"Well, good-bye, _and the best of luck_. Make the most of your
holiday. There are great times in front of you."

All the while he said it, he held my hand in a demonstrative way,
very unlike the normal Radley. Then he dropped it abruptly and
turned away. And I went exuberantly out--so exuberantly that I left
my hat upon his table, and was obliged to hasten back for it. When I
entered the room again, he was staring out of the window over the
empty cricket fields. Though he heard me come, he never once turned
round, as I picked up my hat and went out through the door.

And because of that I dared to wonder whether his grey eyes, where
the gentleness lay, were not inquiring of the deserted fields: "Have
I allowed myself to grow too fond?" He seemed as if braced for
suffering.

Farewell, Radley, farewell. After all, does it matter to a strong
swimmer if the wave beats against him?

_Now Thames is long and winds its changing way
Through wooded reach to dusky ports and gray,
Till, wearily, it strikes the Flats of Leigh,
An old life, tidal with Eternity.

But Fal is short, full, deep, and very wide,
Nor old, nor sleepy, when it meets the tide;
Through hills and groves where birds and branches sing
It runs its course of sunny wandering,
And passes, careless that it soon shall be
Lost in the old, gray mists that hide the sea.

Ah, they were good, those up-stream reaches when
Ourselves were young and dreamed of being men,
But Fal! the tide had touched us even then!
One tribal God, we bow to, thou and we,
And praise Him, Who ordained our lives should be
So early tidal with Eternity._

BOOK II
AND THE REST--WAR

_Part I: "Rangoon" Nights_

CHAPTER I

THE ETERNAL WATERWAY

Sec.1

The most clearly marked moment of my life was when I passed the fat
policeman who was standing just inside the great gateway of
Devonport Dockyard. I was to embark that morning on a troopship
bound for the Dardanelles. As I stepped out of the public
thoroughfare, and walking through the gate, saw th