irable system inflicts a fearful wound; but he is an example
(if one were needed) of the matchless discipline that can teach a man
to obey without question or complaint a command that has two edges for
death. I am glad to say that I met no other man in half so dreadful a
plight as his, but there were dozens of men to whom the order came as an
ending of happiness, and of course one knew, although the thought was
not dwelt upon, that many of the little homes of which these men had
been the centre and support would have that support no more. Yet of one
thing I am very sure. Not one of the men to whom I spoke but was willing
and anxious to serve his country; not one but looked proud to be wearing
the old uniform again. The sadness and trouble was all in the
retrospect, not in the outlook. Tommy Atkins, with his great, simple,
conspicuous vices and his obscure, surprising, and enduring virtues was
unconsciously putting into practice the precept of a certain Old
Buccaneer: _No regrets; they unman the heart we want for to-morrow._

[Footnote 1: This man's wife died a week after he had sailed.]

II

HOW THE ARMY LEFT ENGLAND

The few days that elapsed between rejoining and embarkation were spent
by the Reservist at the depot barracks of his regiment, where he
received his kit and underwent the small amount of drill necessary to
remove the rust of civilian life. After that, the sound of reveille in
the depth of a winter night; the sudden awakening; the hasty breakfast,
eaten like a Passover feast; the long and noisy railway journey; the
faint, salt smell of the sea, and the first sight of it through the
rainy dawn. In the early days of the war I was present at many
embarkations at Liverpool and Southampton, and they left an impression
on my mind which will not easily be effaced. For, even to an onlooker,
the embarkation of troops, with its sights and sounds of tragedy, is an
affair that burns itself into the memory; one is dazzled and confounded
by the number and variety of the small dramas that are enacted before
one's eyes; and the whole is framed in a setting of military system and
circumstance that lends dignity, if that were needed, to the humble
tragedies of the moment.

Only a few of the thousands who came to watch the departure of the
_Canada_ from Liverpool one December morning were allowed inside the
dock shed; nearly all of those within the gate were sweethearts and
wives and children of soldiers who had