ng of the

sea were

s me from

things me

wn to Go

at I were

lens of

l me coward

ero if

r to be a li

ce a he

to go to sl

ur Serge

of the troopship that was bearing us away on the most momentous journey of our lives. The hour was about ten. Southampton lay ast

my mission as a rifle

mind. "Did I think three years ago that I should ever be a soldier?" I asked myself. "Now that I am, can I kill a man; run a bay

quite an hour; then, shivering with cold, I made my way down to the cabin where my mates had taken up their quarters. The cabin was low-roofed and lit with two electric lamps. The corners receded into darkness where the shadows clustered thickly. The floor was covered with sawdust, packs and haversacks hung from pegs i

was dim with tobacco smoke. In the thick

ick blunt nose, and a broken row of tobacco-

ckney named Spud Higgles. "I thou

id the sergeant. "It's not all fun, I'm t

vver?" asked

an?" inquired

yours," said Spud. "'E's only in Ally Sloper'

"The A.S.C. runs twice as m

t join it then, is i

ly tongue!" sai

like this,

ped the sergeant, and Sp

Germans that I'll look for in the trenches," he said, "wh

g to put a bullet through the sergeant-major, the company cook, the sanitary inspector, the army tailor a

s a talking to at times," said Sp

and gay. A journey from the Bank to Charing Cross might be undertaken with a more serious air: it looked for all the wor

't bear the discomforts and terrors which thousands endure daily I'm not much good. But I'll be all right. Vanity will carry me through where courage fails. It would be such a grand thing to become conspicuous by

r the lower lips; some with knees curled up and heads bent, frozen stiff in the midst of a grotesque movement, some with hands clasped tightly over their breasts and others with their fingers bent as if trying to clutch at something beyond their reach. A few slumbered with their heads on their rifles, more had their heads on the sawdust-covered floor, and th

ourney and the perils that lay before them? Of the glory or the horror of the war? O

morrow or the day after. The hour was now past midnight and a new d