"I wonder when we shall be off!" thought Bob, after what seemed to him an interminable number of days. "Pringle said we were to start immediately, and yet we are still hanging around here."
At length the orders arrived, and one night Bob found himself in a closely packed train bound for the South Coast. He wondered at what he called his good fortune in being allowed to start so soon, but reflected that he owed it to Captain Pringle's good offices and to what were called the Colonel's eccentricities. He rejoiced now, although he had been very reluctant at the time, that he had joined the O.T.C. This, of course, had made it possible for him to get to the front so soon.
Eager as he was to be in action, he could not help being saddened as he watched the men making their way to the trains. Splendid young fellows most of them were. The cream of England's manhood. They were almost without exception ruddy with health, and as hard as nails: straight, muscular men, who laughed at hardships, and who seemed to look at the whole business as a joke. They might have been going to a picnic, so merry were they. And yet, as Bob looked more closely, it was easy to see by the compressed lips, and the steely looks in their eyes, that they realised what they were doing.
"Good-bye, Piccadilly,
Farewell Leicester Square,
It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there."
They sang, and perhaps as they sang they pictured the homes to which they would never again return; they saw, as in a vision, the girls to whom they had said "Good-bye," perhaps for ever.
In a few days, perhaps, many of those light-hearted boys would be lying in the trenches, or in some ditch, stark and dead, or in some hospital maimed and crippled for life.
Yes, war was a ghastly, hellish business, and it should never be possible in Christian countries. This war, Bob felt, was one of the greatest crimes ever known, and all through which he had been passing ought only to be able to exist in troublous dreams.
Still he had no doubts about his duty. England's hands were clean, and England's path was clearly marked out. We were not fighting for gain or territory. With us it was a war of sacrifice, a war of duty. We were going in order to keep our word with a small state, to crush tyranny and slavery. But more, we were going to overthrow the war devil which the Germans had set up as a god. That was the thought that stirred Bob's heart and hardened his muscles. It was a war against war; he was really taking his part in a great mission on behalf of peace. Yes, it must be a fight to the finish. The sword must never be sheathed until this military god, which had turned all Europe into an armed camp, and which had made Germany a menace to the world, should never be able to lift its ghastly head again.
"I say, Nancarrow, you look mighty grim."
"I'm in for grim work, Pringle."