"Got him! In the middle of the chest."


CHAPTER III

OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN

We rejoined the Colors on Friday. On Monday we are to move out. Today, being Sunday, is full-dress Church Parade.

I slept badly last night, and am feeling uneasy and limp.

And now we are sitting close-packed in church.

The organ is playing a voluntary.

I am leaning back and straining my ears for the sounds in the dim twilight of the building. Childhood's days rise before my eyes again. I am watching a little solemn-faced boy sitting crouched in a corner and listening to the divine service. The priest is standing in front of the altar, and is intoning the Exhortation devoutly. The choir in the gallery is chanting the responses. The organ thunders out and floods through the building majestically. I am rapt in an ecstasy of sweet terror, for the Lord God is coming down upon us. He is standing before me and touching my body, so that I have to close my eyes in a terror of shuddering ecstasy....

That is long, long ago, and is all past and done with, as youth itself is past and done with....