In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the Army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as assistant surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, orderly who threw me across a packhorse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the veranda when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was despatched accordingly, in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air — or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.

‘My eye!’ said Gudrun, sotto voce, looking at the motley of guests, ‘there’s a pretty crowd if you like! Imagine yourself in the midst of that, my dear.’

Gudrun’s apprehensive horror of people in the mass unnerved Ursula. ‘It looks rather awful,’ she said anxiously.

‘And imagine what they’ll be like—IMAGINE!’ said Gudrun, still in that unnerving, subdued voice. Yet she advanced determinedly.

‘I suppose we can get away from them,’ said Ursula anxiously.

‘We’re in a pretty fix if we can’t,’ said Gudrun. Her extreme ironic loathing and apprehension was very trying to Ursula.

‘We needn’t stay,’ she said.

‘I certainly shan’t stay five minutes among that little lot,’ said Gudrun. They advanced nearer, till they saw policemen at the gates.

‘Policemen to keep you in, too!’ said Gudrun. ‘My word, this is a beautiful affair.’

‘We’d better look after father and mother,’ said Ursula anxiously.

‘Mother’s PERFECTLY capable of getting through this little celebration,’ said Gudrun with some contempt.

But Ursula knew that her father felt uncouth and angry and unhappy, so she was far from her ease. They waited outside the gate till their parents came up. The tall, thin man in his crumpled clothes was unnerved and irritable as a boy, finding himself on the brink of this social function. He did not feel a gentleman, he did not feel anything except pure exasperation.

Ursula took her place at his side, they gave their tickets to the policeman, and passed in on to the grass, four abreast; the tall, hot, ruddy–dark man with his narrow boyish brow drawn with irritation, the fresh–faced, easy woman, perfectly collected though her hair was slipping on one side, then Gudrun, her eyes round and dark and staring, her full soft face impassive, almost sulky, so that she seemed to be backing away in antagonism even whilst she was advancing; and then Ursula, with the odd, brilliant, dazzled look on her face, that always came when she was in some false situation.

Birkin was the good angel. He came smiling to them with his affected social grace, that somehow was never QUITE right. But he took off his hat and smiled at them with a real smile in his eyes, so that Brangwen cried out heartily in relief:

‘How do you do? You’re better, are you?’

‘Yes, I’m better. How do you do, Mrs Brangwen? I know Gudrun and Ursula very well.’

His eyes smiled full of natural warmth. He had a soft, flattering manner with women, particularly with women who were not young.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Brangwen, cool but yet gratified. ‘I have heard them speak of you often enough.’

He laughed. Gudrun looked aside, feeling she was being belittled. People were standing about in groups, some women were sitting in the shade of the walnut tree, with cups of tea in their hands, a waiter in evening dress was hurrying round, some girls were simpering with parasols, some young men, who had just come in from rowing, were sitting cross–legged on the grass, coatless, their shirt–sleeves rolled up in manly fashion, their hands resting on their white flannel trousers, their gaudy ties floating about, as they laughed and tried to be witty with the young damsels.