And what to do with the Huns—about them? Can the world ever get on a genuine, fraternal basis for living with them? Can they ever be made to become like other people? These questions kept surging through his mind as he hurried along.
When Holland was reached that morning, his passport was declared impeccable and his faithful trunk caused him no trouble. Although the war excitement was seizing that region he fortunately met no delay in getting to the coast. Once out of Deutschland he felt amazingly well despite the weariness of his exhausting night. He concluded that the vigorous exercise and sweating he had been through had steamed out of him the vileness he had found in Germany. It acted like a rejuvenating process. Gard now seemed to himself like a clean, new man. He was to be a new man.
CHAPTER XLII
The Anti-Christians
IN England, when war came, the confusion was unbelievable. All that Gard had seen, heard, gone through in Deutschland proved the awfulness of the Force flung against Europe which had stupidly considered itself civilized.
He was burning to enlist. But what a chagrin to find his services not wanted! The only satisfaction he could get lay in the suggestion to wait. The more he was put off, the more he was bent on reaching the firing line.
In his enforced and impatient idleness he took out his German note book and began writing letters to Rebner in America, thus giving partial vent to his own feelings. The following brief extracts were written first as he went about different camps, offering himself, then at the front: