In these tiny fields, in these clean swept villages, in these manor
houses, in these castles, in factory and in shipyard, were struck deep
the roots of an England whose greatness they had never yet guessed.
The next afternoon brought them to the great military camp at
Shorncliffe, in a misty rain, hungry, for their rations had been
exhausted early in the day, weary from ship and train travel, and eager
to get their feet once again on mother earth.
At the little station they were kept waiting in a pouring rain for
something to happen, they knew not what. The R. T. O., a young Imperial
officer, blase with his ten months of war in England, had some occult
reason for delaying their departure. So, while the night grew every
moment wetter and darker, the men sat on their kit-bags or found such
shelter as they could in the tiny station, or in the lee of the "goods
trains" blocking the railroad tracks, growing more indignant and
more disgusted with the British high command, the war in general, and
registering with increasing intensity vows of vengeance against the
Kaiser, who, in the last analysis, they considered responsible for their
misery.
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