was false; but it wasn't contradicted till next day. Meanwhile, in
that quiet village, over and above the purring of the engine, we heard
the beat of Death's wings across the Channel--a gigantic vulture
approaching which would pick clean of vileness the bones of both the
actually and the spiritually dead. I knew then for certain that it was
only a matter of time till I, too, should be out there among the
carnage, "somewhere in France." I felt like a rabbit in the last of
the standing corn, when a field is in the harvesting. There was no
escape--I could hear the scythes of an inexorable duty cutting closer.

After about six weeks in England, I travelled back to New York with my
family to complete certain financial obligations and to set about the
winding up of my affairs. I said nothing to any one as to my
purpose. The reason for my silence is now obvious: I didn't want to
commit myself to other people and wished to leave myself a loop-hole
for retracting the promises I had made my conscience. There were times
when my heart seemed to stop beating, appalled by the future which I
was rapidly approaching. My vivid imagination--which from childhood
has been as much a hindrance as a help--made me foresee myself in
every situation of horror--gassed, broken, distributed over the
landscape. Luckily it made me foresee the worst horror--the ignominy
of living perhaps fifty years with a self who was dishonoured and had
sunk beneath his own best standards. Of course there were also moments
of exaltation when the boy-spirit of adventure loomed large; it seemed
splendidly absurd that I was going to be a soldier, a companion-in-arms
of those lordly chaps who had fought at Senlac, sailed with Drake and
saved the day for freedom at Mons. Whether I was exalted or depressed,
a power stronger than myself urged me to work feverishly to the end
that, at the first opportunity, I might lay aside my occupation, with
all my civilian obligations discharged.