Something of the happiness of possessing, at last, some object which one has many days desired and never hoped to attain--but more, too, than that.

Something of the happiness of danger or pain that one has dreaded and finds, in actual truth, give way before one's resolution--but more, again, than that.
This happiness, this exultation that I felt now but dimly, and was to know more fully afterwards (but never, alas, as my companions were to know it) is the subject of this book.

The scent of it, the full revelation of it, has not, until now, been my reward; I can only, as a spectator, watch that revelation as it came afterwards to others more fortunate than I.But what I write is the truth as far as I, from the outside, have seen it.

If it is not true, this book has no value whatever.
We were warned by the soldier who guarded us not to walk in a group and we stole now, beneath a garden-wall, white under the moon, in a long line.

I could hear Trenchard behind me stumbling over the stones and ruts, walking as he always did with little jerks, as though his legs were beyond his control.