He sat on a bench for a moment looking at the flag, suffused with zest for life and a burning wish to live a long time yet in this radiant world through which he had been walking blind as a bat. This grim stocky obscure American Navy captain sat bemused on a London park bench, undergoing an exaltation for which he finally found the name. At first he had thought his exhilarated mood was the snapback from the bombing mission, the plain joy of being alive after brushing death in a diving plane, in a whirl of blue cones and exploding colored balls. But it was something more. Nothing like this had
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