Casca 21: The Trench Soldier Read Online Free Page B

the potential conflict had widened to include the British Empire, and through the Triple Entente Treaty, Britain would be allied with her long-term enemies, Russia and France.
    Casca's daily toil in the mine had become easier as his muscular body had adapted to the demands made upon it. He came to tolerate the heavy, dangerous work and more and more enjoyed the company of the tough, little men he worked with. Gwyneth made no demands on him, except in bed, and his life had settled into a routine that was not at all unpleasant, especially when compared to sleeping out on the London embankment and running to open cab doors in the hope of a penny.
    Each evening he came back from the pit to a hot bath and a fine hot meal, then off to the pub for a few beers with Cockney Dave whose landlady had similarly moved in with him. Over pints of bitter Casca and Dave would discuss their undesired, but irresistible, marital arrangements, the worsening economic conditions of the mine workers, and the increasingly bizarre politics of Europe.
    On August fourth, its ultimatum unanswered, Germany moved on Belgium, and sixty thousand German troops crossed the frontier, swamping the twenty-five thousand Belgian defenders. The German spearhead attacked Liege, the key to the narrow pass to the Belgian plain.
    England and France immediately declared war on Germany, Austria, and Hungary. Russia quickly declared that she too was at war, joining England and France.
    The declaration of war gave the two reluctant spouses just what they needed. They bade farewell to their landladies and their underpaid jobs and headed for London to join the volunteer force being raised by Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener.
    Half a million men flocked to the colors, almost half of them miners. Conservatives, liberals, the Labour Party, even the Irish members, supported the war and the recruiting campaign. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill was to direct the war, personally supervising strategy. Sir John French was to command the troops in the field and was ready for a short, decisive campaign that would wrap up the whole affair before Christmas.
    The recruits were paraded through the London streets in their civilian clothes, mostly worn out and none too clean. Crowds cheered them, women threw flowers, and old men clapped them on the back as they passed.
    "Popular war," Cockney Dave smiled.
    "They all are – when they start," Casca grunted, unimpressed by the crowd's patriotism.
    As they came to Whitechapel, they were saluted by a bobby sergeant. Hugh Edwards shook his fist at him in return. "I know that bleedin' perisher," he snarled. "Three months ago I was marchin' with the unemployed, and the bobbies broke up the march. That swine tried to break my 'ead with 'is baton – and now he salutes me."
    A pretty woman in a white dress and a flowered hat ran to pin a flower on Dave's chest and kissed him on the cheek. Dave grinned happily then chuckled to Casca, "And a week ago she'd have stepped into the gutter to avoid me."
    Casca and the other ragged men within earshot laughed with him. The army of the rear had become the army of the front.
    But Lord Kitchener was only accepting the cream of young British manhood, and two thirds of the recruits were rejected as chronically undernourished or otherwise medically unfit. Many recruits were barely eighteen, and many, having lied about their ages, were younger.
    Cockney Dave passed fit, his youth making him acceptable, and Hugh Edwards and Casca were readily enlisted for their physiques, but several of their friends were summarily rejected by the army doctors.
    The doctor who examined Casca was intrigued by his numerous scars but accepted his explanation that he had survived a number of mine accidents. There was scarcely a miner who didn't carry some scars. But when he looked into Casca's eyes, the doctor was puzzled, then began to feel uncomfortable. There was something in the eyes that was older than the face. A thousand