e dreams came: the war continued. S. S. was with me, walking up
a big cobbled road, muddy as ever, towards the front. On every side lay
exhausted men, not caring whether they were in the mud or not. I was
not quite sure, but was not this Poperinghe Station? At that station
was--I hope is--an hotel, bearing the legend, "Bifsteck a Toute Heure";
was this gaudy-looking place, perhaps, the same? At all events, S. S.
said, "Let's go and have a port." We did, and the drink appears to have
gone to my head, for I now found myself alone, walking across a large
common or pasture. Here Mary and another woman went by, but I could not
at the moment recognize them. There, beyond the common with its dry
tussocks, stood a town, flanked by mountains, which I knew to be--Barry.
A cathedral or abbey of white stone rose in gigantic strength into the
sunlight. This place, I soliloquized, so near the line, and yet not
shelled! But I was not to escape. I proceeded. The screen alongside was
blown down. Better slink along these hedges at the double! It was the
support line. Some large splinter-proof dugouts came into sight, and
some officers, who told me about an attack. We were going over. I
recognized my destined end.

However, I woke up alive, having again suffered more from fear and the
atmosphere of it--in projection--in a few seconds, than I was ever
conscious of suffering in a day of the actual war. With weary and aching
head, whether these fantasies were to blame or not, I looked out to
ask the wireless expert if there had been a storm in the night. He
grinned, and going farther I saw outside a sea of pale glow not a great
deal more disturbed than a looking-glass.

The ashen whiteness soon gave place to a deep blue, and our entry into
the tropics became plainer and plainer, the sea fluttering with the
sun's blaze. This was unfamiliar also, to be roasting on the water in
January. The pith-helmet season began. The third mate could not claim
a pith helmet, but he displayed what none of the others could, as he sat
washing on the step of the alleyway--a marvellous red and blue serpent
tattooed on his arm, by the very Chinaman, he said, who had tattooed King
George. It was, I still think, a superfine serpent.

Washing, or "dobing," was not Mead's sole recreation. Literature, and
even poetry, with limitations, had its power over him. Suspecting me of
critical curiosity about his favourite poets, he directly approached the
matter. Rudyard Kip