SATURDAY RIDE 5

27. At the engine's noise, a strange feeling came over me which I have experienced several times both before and since. I was, suddenly, icily calm; my immediate part of the world seemed to be moving in slow motion. There was no longer any trembling in my hands as I fastened the strap of my helmet, and I scarcely noticed that my friends had started toward the Headquarter Company offices to take up positions to view the coming attraction.

28. I suppose now would be a good time to describe the layout of the building, which was at this time still at peace. Occupying one floor, it was shaped like the capital letter T. The main entrance was at the base of the T and was reached by ascending five concrete steps to heavy glass, double-swinging doors at the top. AT either end of the branches of the T were further glass double-swinging doors, with six or seven steps down to return one to street level.

29. Offices were on either side of the corridors, with the highest raking officers' suites closest to the front door. The other rooms were allotted, in declining importance, to lower grade officers, sergeants major, sergeants, and closest to the exits were the office rooms occupied by the clerks and a handful of civilian employees.

30. Putting my motorcycle into gear, I slowly the building for a brief reconnoiter. It was important that there be no staff cars parked immediately in front of the steps, nor could there be any group of people in the vicinity of the door. Once again my luck ran out—the coast was clear.

31. Circling away, I prepared to gain the momentum necessary to mount the steps. For a brief moment, I even entertained the hope that perhaps I could sneak through the offices and barely be noticed. Opening the throttle, I mounted the steps in picturebook style and, placing the front wheel against the doors, thrust them open and entered this bastion of military administration.

32. Nothing could possibly have prepared me for the deafening noise my BSA made in the confines of that corridor. The walls appeared to vibrate from the roar, as if I had suddenly entered a giant radio speaker with the volume turned all the way up. I was sure my eardrums would burst and that I would be rendered deaf forever. I rode on.

33. I proceeded quite slowly, waiting for my eyes to adjust from the brightness outside to the electric light in the building. It occurred to me that if I ever did this again, I would close one eye for some time before I entered a building so that, upon opening the eye, I would have instant vision. I also made a mental note to take along some cotton for my ears. These thoughts were flashing through my mind while the physical world around me was still moving in slow motion, like a strange dream... only with real ear-shattering, unnerving, disorienting noise.

34. As my eyes quickly adjusted to the reduced light I saw there were some 20 or so people in the extended hallway; most of them gaped briefly I my direction before promptly duckling into the most convenient sanctuary. A few feet inside the door three officers of undetermined rank, walking with their backs toward me, swiftly separated and disappeared into two open doors on either side of the corridor, one to the right and two to the left. I rode on. A captain, whom I recognized, stepped out of his office and back into it in one fluid motion, displaying a grace that probably surprised him as much as it surprised me. I rode on.

35. Two junior officers pressed themselves against the wall to my right. One of them dropped a sheaf of papers, which slid across the shiny floor and passed under the wheels of my bike. (It was not the last time I would see those papers.) A few heads appeared from a few doors, and then I was at the junction of the building's T. I rode on.