When the troopship was pitching round the Cape in '41, and there was a lull in the night uproar of      seas and winds, and a sudden full moon swung huge out of the darkness like the world it is, and we all crowded into the wet deck, leaning on      the rail, our arms on each other's shoulders,      gazing at the savage outcrop of great Africa. and Tommy Cosh started singing 'Mandalay' and      we joined in with our raucous chorus of the      unforgettable song, and the dawn came up like thunder like that      moon drawing the water of our yearning though we were going to war, and left us exalted, that was happiness, but it is not like that. When the television newscaster said the second sputnik was up, not empty, but with a small dog on board, a half-ton treasury of life orbiting a thousand      miles above the thin television masts and mists      of November, in clear space, heard, observed, the faint far heartbeat sending back its message steady and delicate, and I was stirred by a deep confusion of feelings, got up, stood with my back to the wall and my      palms pressed hard against it, my arms held      wide as if I could spring from the earth – not loath myself to go out that very day where      Laika had shown man, felt my cheeks burning with old Promethean warmth rekindled – ready – covered my face with my hands, seeing only an      animal strapped in a doomed capsule, but the future      was still there, cool and whole like the moon, waiting to be taken, smiling even as the dog's bones and the elaborate casket of      aluminium glow white and fuse in the arc of re-entry and I knew what I felt was history, its thrilling brilliance came down, came down, comes down on us all, bringing pride and pity, but it is not like that. But Glasgow days and grey weathers, when the      rain beat on the bus shelter and you leaned slightly      against me, and the back of your hand touched      my hand in the shadows, and nothing was      said when your hair grazed mine accidentally as we      talked in a cafe, yet not quite accidentally, when I stole a glance at your face as we stood in a      doorway and found I was afraid of what might happen if I should never see it again, when we met, and met, in spite of such differences      in our lives, and did the common things that in our feeling became extraordinary, so that our first kiss was like the winter morning moon, and as you      shifted in my arms it was the sea changing the shingle that changes      it as if for ever (but we are bound by nothing, but      like smoke to mist or light in water we move, and mix) – O then it was a story as old as war or man and although we have not said it we know it, and although we have not claimed it we do it, and although we have not vowed it we keep it, without a name to the end.