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CHAPTER I

HOW IT STARTED

"England has declared war on Germany!"

We were working on a pumphouse, on the Columbia River, at Trail,
British Columbia, when these words were shouted at us from the door
by the boss carpenter, who had come down from the smelter to tell us
that the news had just come over the wire.

Every one stopped work, and for a full minute not a word was spoken.
Then Hill, a British reservist who was my work-mate, laid down his
hammer and put on his coat. There was neither haste nor excitement in
his movements, but a settled conviction that gave me a queer feeling.
I began to argue just where we had left off, for the prospect of war
had been threshed out for the last two days with great thoroughness.
"It will be settled," I said. "Nations cannot go to war now. It would
be suicide, with all the modern methods of destruction. It will be
settled by a war council--and all forgotten in a month."

Hill, who had argued so well a few minutes ago and told us all the
reasons he had for expecting war with Germany, would not waste a word
on me now. England was at war--and he was part of England's war
machine.

"I am quitting, George," he said to the boss carpenter, as he pulled
his cap down on his head and started up the bank.

That night he began to drill us in the skating-rink.

I worked on for about a week, but from the first I determined to go
if any one went from Canada. I don't suppose it was all patriotism.
Part of it was the love of adventure, and a desire to see the world;
for though I was a steady-going carpenter chap, I had many dreams as
I worked with hammer and saw, and one of them was that I would travel
far and see how people lived in other countries. The thought of war
had always been repellent to me, and many an argument I had had
with the German baker in whose house I roomed, on the subject of
compulsory military training for boys. He often pointed out a
stoop-shouldered, hollow-chested boy who lived on the same street,
and told me that if this boy had lived in Germany he would have
walked straighter and developed a chest, instead of slouching through
life the way he was doing. He and his wife and the grown-up daughter
were devoted to their country, and often told us of how well the
working-people were housed in Germany and the affairs of the country
conducted.

But I think the war was as great a surprise to them as to us, and
although the two women told us we were foolish t