Energy books

Opposite the Folkestone
there was a park of ambulances driven by "Scottish women," who were
always on the move from one part of the town to the other. Motor-cars
came hooting with staff-officers, all aglow in red tabs and armbands,
thirsty for little cocktails after a dusty drive. Everywhere in the
streets and on the esplanade there was incessant saluting. The arms of
men were never still. It was like the St. Vitus disease. Tommies and
Jocks saluted every subaltern with an automatic gesture of convulsive
energy. Every subaltern acknowledged these movements and in turn
saluted a multitude of majors, colonels, and generals. The thing
became farcical, a monstrous absurdity of human relationship, yet
pleasing to the vanity of men lifted up above the lowest caste. It
seemed to me an intensification of the snob instinct in the soul of
man. Only the Australians stood out against it, and went by all
officers except their own with a careless slouch and a look of "To
hell with all that handwagging.


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