By the end of the South African war Sergeant Cane had got one thing very well fixed in his mind, and that was that war was an overrated amusement. He said he “was fed up with it,” partly because that misused metaphor was then new, partly because every one was saying it: he felt it right down in his bones, and he had a long memory. So when wonderful rumours came to the East Anglian village where he lived, on August 1, 1914, Sergeant Cane said: “That means war,” and decided then and there to have nothing to do with it: it was somebody else’s turn; he felt he had done enough. Then came August 4th, and England true to her destiny, and then Lord Kitchener’s appeal for men. Sergeant Cane had a family to look after and a nice little house: he had left the army ten years. In the next week all the men went who had been in the army before, all that were young enough, and a good sprinkling of the young men too who had never been in the army. Men asked Cane if he was going, and he said straight out “No.” By the middle of August Cane was affecting the situation. He was a little rallying point for men who did not want to go. “He knows what it’s like,” they said. In the smoking room of the Big House sat the Squire and his son, Arthur Smith; and Sir Munion Boomer-Platt, the Member for the division. The Squire’s son had been in the last war as a boy, and like Sergeant Cane had left the army since. All the morning he had been cursing an imaginary general, seated in the War Office at an imaginary desk with Smith’s own letter before him, in full view but unopened. Why on earth didn’t he answer it, Smith thought. But he was calmer now, and the Squire and Sir Munion were talking of Sergeant Cane. “Leave him to me,” said Sir Munion. “Very well,” said the Squire. So Sir Munion Boomer-Platt went off and called on Sergeant Cane. Mrs Cane knew what he had come for. “Don’t let him talk you over, Bill,” she said. “Not he,” said Sergeant Cane. Sir Munion came on Sergeant Cane in his garden. “A fine day,” said Sir Munion. And from that he went on to the war. “If you enlist,” he said, “they will make you a sergeant again at once. You will get a sergeant’s pay, and your wife will get the new separation allowance.” “Sooner have Cane,” said Mrs Cane. “Yes, yes, of course,” said Sir Munion. “But then there is the medal, probably two or three medals, and the glory of it, and it is such a splendid life.”