Charles's early life vividly illustrates themes central to the experience of being homosexual, privileged and British. Will reads of his boyhood at public school, where he experienced sexuality by turns brutal and tender. He is cruelly raped by one boy but later taken under the protection of an older boy, Strong, who treats him gently. Strong became a soldier in the Great War, was badly injured and died insane. Charles becomes aware that he is strongly attracted to black men when he is openly propositioned by an American soldier. He experiences feelings of desperate arousal, fear and revulsion and flees.