§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.
"That's where I've got you by the winter garments," said I vulgarly; and, diving my hand into my pocket, I drew out my Embarkation Orders. They were heavily marked in red "SECRET," but I judged the policeman to be "in the know," and showed them to him. Properly impressed with the historic document, he turned to a fair-haired young officer who was with me, and asked:
"You the same, sir?"
"Surely," answered my companion, which was a new way he had acquired of saying "yes."
"Right y'are, sir," said the policeman, and we crossed the line.