"All right!"



CHAPTER V

As I went about the country now, working hard to recruit men, to
induce people to subscribe to the war loan, doing all the things in
which I saw a chance to make myself useful, there was now an ever
present thought. When would John go out? He must go soon. I knew
that, so did his mother. We had learned that he would not be sent
without a chance to bid us good-by. There we were better off than
many a father and mother in the early days of the war. Many's the
mother who learned first that her lad had gone to France when they
told her he was dead. And many's the lassie who learned in the same
way that her lover would never come home to be her husband.

But by now Britain was settled down to war. It was as if war were the
natural state of things, and everything was adjusted to war and those
who must fight it. And many things were ordered better and more
mercifully than they had been at first.

It was in April that word came to us. We might see John again, his
mother and I, if we hurried to Bedford. And so we did. For once I
heeded no other call. It was a sad journey, but I was proud and glad
as well as sorry. John must do his share. There was no reason why my
son should take fewer risks than another man's. That was something
all Britain was learning in those days. We were one people. We must
fight as one; one for all--all for one.