vulgarity of the camp.

Winifred would never meet him again at the cottage--only in London, where
the world was with them. But sometimes he came alone to Crockham perhaps
when friends were staying there. And then he would work awhile in his
garden. This summer still it would flame with blue anchusas and big red
poppies, the mulleins would sway their soft, downy erections in the air:
he loved mulleins: and the honeysuckle would stream out scent like
memory, when the owl was whooing. Then he sat by the fire with the
friends and with Winifred's sisters, and they sang the folk-songs. He put
on thin civilian clothes and his charm and his beauty and the supple
dominancy of his body glowed out again. But Winifred was not there.

At the end of the summer he went to Flanders, into action. He seemed
already to have gone out of life, beyond the pale of life. He hardly
remembered his life any more, being like a man who is going to take a
jump from a height, and is only looking to where he must land.

He was twice slightly wounded, in two months. But not enough to put him
off duty for more than a day or two. They were retiring again, holding
the enemy back. He was in the rear--three machine-guns. The country was
all pleasant, war had not yet trampled it. Only the air seemed shattered,
and the land awaiting death. It was a small, unimportant action in which
he was engaged.

The guns were stationed on a little bushy hillock just outside a village.
But occasionally, it was difficult to say from which direction, came the
sharp crackle of rifle-fire, and beyond, the far-off thud of cannon. The
afternoon was wintry and cold.