It is deadly earnest now. And this sense of the seriousness of it has numbed the State like a stroke of paralysis. But then a jar, as of a lever thrown over, goes through the vast iron fabric. And every one has got to yield to this jar. The time for anxiety and hesitation is over, for doubts and oscillation. The moment has now come when we cease to be citizens, from henceforward we are only soldiers—soldiers who have no time to think, who only have time to die.
So they come flocking in from the work-shops, from the factories, from behind the counters, from business offices, and the open country—they come flocking into the town, and every man falls in to stand by his native land.
"Four days from date" was the order on my summons. Well, the fourth morning has come, and I have said good-by to my wife and my two children. Thank God, the fourth morning has come, for the parting was not easy, and my heart aches when I think of them "at home."
"Where are you going, Daddy?" asked Baby, as I kissed her for the last time with my portmanteau in my hand.
"Daddy's going on a journey," said her mother, and looked at me with a smile amid her tears. "Yes, he's going on a journey, girlie, and you, little chap, you've got to be good, and do as Mummy tells you."
And then we got the parting over quickly, for Dora kept up her pluck until the last moment....
Now we are drawn up in the barrack-yard with bag and baggage—we of the rank and file—we reservists and militiamen, every man at his place by the table.
How serious their faces are. They reveal no trace of youthful high spirits or martial exuberance. Their expressions rather betoken deep thought.
"The war that in the end was bound to come"—so we heard and so we read in the papers. "That is bound to be so, that is a law of Nature. The nations are snatching the bread from one another's mouths; they are depriving each other of the air to breathe. That is a thing which in the end can only be settled by Force. And if it has to be, better it should be today than tomorrow."