“I hate the idea, but it’s got to be done,” said the city-bred man.

So they disappeared from their familiar haunts⁠—more and more of them as the months passed. They were put into training-camps, “pigged” it on dirty straw in dirty barns, were ill-fed and ill-equipped, and trained by hard-mouthed sergeants⁠—tyrants and bullies in a good cause⁠—until they became automata at the word of command, lost their souls, as it seemed, in that grinding-machine of military training, and cursed their fate. Only comradeship helped them⁠—not always jolly, if they happened to be a class above their fellows, a moral peg above foul-mouthed slum-dwellers and men of filthy habits, but splendid if they were in their own crowd of decent, laughter-loving, companionable lads. Eleven months’ training! Were they ever going to the front? The war would be over before they landed in France⁠ ⁠… Then, at last, they came.