ty had passed us, yelled "Eyes FRONT!" It was one of the
most triumphant moments of my career.

Scarcely, however, had this pride-tickling honour been paid to me
before there happened as distressing a thing as--oh, it was
dreadful! I passed one of your full-blooded regular-army sergeants,
and, since he raised his hand towards his face, I apprehended he was
about to salute me. Promptly I acknowledged the expected salute,
only to discover that the sergeant had raised his hand for no other
purpose than to blow his nose with his naked fingers. Believe me,
even now, when I think of this blunder, I catch my breath with
shame.

What young bucks we were, Doe and I! We bought motor-bicycles and
raced over the country-side, Doe, ever a preacher of Life, calling
out "This is Life, isn't it?" I remember our bowling along a
deserted country road and shouting for a lark: "Sing of joy, sing of
bliss, it was never like this, Yip-i-addy-i-ay!" I remember our
scorching recklessly down white English highways, with a laugh for
every bone-shaking bump, and a heart-thrill for every time we risked
our lives tearing through a narrow passage between two War
Department motor lorries. I see the figure of Doe standing
breathless by his bicycle after a break-neck run, his hair blown
into disorder by the wind, and the white dust of England round his
eyes and on his cheeks, and saying: "My godfathers, this is Life!"
Oh, yes, it was a rosy patch of life and freedom.

Sec.4

But, in our abandonment, we tumbled into more sinister things. It
was disillusionment that bowled us down. The evil that we saw in the
world and the army smashed our allegiance to the old moral codes. We
suddenly lost the old anchors and blew adrift, strange new theories
filling our sails. We ceased to think there was any harm in being
occasionally "blotto" at night, or in employing the picturesque army
word "bloody." Worse than that, we began to believe that vicious
things, which in our boyhood had been very secret sins, were
universally committed and bragged about.

"It's so, Rupert," said Doe, in a corner of the Officers' ante-room
one night before dinner, "I'm an Epicurean. Surely the Body doesn't
prompt to pleasure only to be throttled? There's something in what
they were saying at Mess yesterday that these things are normal and
natural. I mean, human nature is human nature, and you can't alter
it. I don't think any man is, or can be, what they call 'pure.' I
s'pose