The Red Horizon

Night, a grey troubled sky without moon or stars. The shadows lay on the surface of the sea and the waves moaned beneath the keel of the troopship that was bearing us away on the most momentous journey of our lives. The hour was about ten. Southampton lay astern; by dawn we should be in France and a day nearer the war for which we had trained so long in the cathedral city of St. Albans. I had never realized my mission as a rifleman so acutely before. To the war! to the war! I said under my breath. Out to France and the fighting! The thought raised a certain expectancy in my 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 bayonet through his body right through so that the point blood red and cruelly keen comes out at the back? I'll not think of it.