As for Bob, he was there because he had listened to what he was sure was the Call of God. He hated war, he hated the soldiers' calling, and, because he hated it, he was there. Not one in the whole of His Majesty's Army was more eager to be in the thick of the fight than he, because he wanted to take his part in killing the war devil which had turned a great part of Europe into a hell. CHAPTER XVI September was nearly at an end when Bob, alighting at a little station, heard the booming of guns. The country-side seemed quiet and peaceful but for this. There were evidences that fighting had been going on, but at present no fighting was to be seen. The sky was a great dome of blue, the air was pure and sweet. It was as though great Mother Nature were defying the War God to disturb her tranquillity. Scarcely a breath of wind stirred; bird and beast and flower were composing themselves for their nightly sleep. And yet to Bob the atmosphere was tense with excitement. The very calm of the evening was unnatural. He felt as though lightnings should be flashing, the wind roaring. "Boom! Boom! Boom!" The great War God was roaring, and from his mouth death came. With every boom of the guns men were falling, souls were going home to God. Bob felt a shiver to the centre of his being. It seemed to him as though the foundations of his life were shaken. He had never experienced such a feeling before. He did not think it was fear; rather it was awesomeness. For a moment he regarded life, his own life, from a new standpoint. He was only a pawn on a chess-board, one of a million of human beings, none of whom had any personality, any will. Life and death were nothing. Each had to fill his place, and to do what was allotted to him, regardless of consequences. He found himself thinking of lines from "The Charge of the Light Brigade": "Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die, Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred." Suddenly he found himself alert. The men were forming into marching order, and almost unconsciously he was performing the duties allotted to him. Bob saw that a large mass of men had gathered. Other trains had arrived before the one by which he had come, and each had brought its quota from England. He realised, as he had never realised before, how efficiently, quietly, and at the same time wonderfully, the forces at home were working. He, like others, had read several weeks before, that something like a hundred thousand men had landed on French soil without a casualty, without a mishap. It had come to him, as it had come to us all, as a kind of surprise, that such a mass of humanity, with horses, accoutrements, and provisions, could have been sent to France with so little noise, and without the nation's knowing anything about it. Yet so it was. While we were wondering, the work was done.