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 the fat policeman. I passed out of one period of my life and entered upon another. The first period that remained outside the tall walls of the dockyard was made up of chapters of boyhood and schooldays; and a gallant last chapter of playing at soldiers. Ah! this last chapter--it had tennis and theatres and girls and kisses: a great patch of life! And I left it all outside the docks. The second period, on to which I now abruptly set foot, was to be intense, highly-coloured, and scented; a rush of rapidly moving pictures of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, the bleak hills of Mudros, and the exploding shells on the peninsula of Gallipoli. The fat policeman had a revolver slung over his shoulder, and his businesslike weapon expressed better than anything else that England was at war and taking no risks. He suitably challenged me: "Your authority to go through, sir?" demanded he.