The Seed of Empire by Fred M. White

The favoured Musketeers made their way slowly down to the coast in cattle trucks and wagons attached to returning munition trains. As they went along they picked up others here and there, until by the time Havre was reached they numbered something like fifteen hundred altogether. It mattered nothing that the weather was abominable and that the journey proceeded in a perfect downpour of rain; they were used to all this; the trenches had hardened them against weather of all sorts, and, besides, they were going home. That word would have meant a good deal to many of them in ordinary conditions; now it had a peculiar significance all its own. And there was not one of them who did not feel that he was earning his holiday.

There were some amongst them, of course, who were fighters by instinct, men who had served with the colours in all parts of the world, professional soldiers to whom all countries are more or less alike so long as they draw their pay and have sufficient to eat and drink. But there were many others, Territorials and volunteers, who a few brief months ago had never dreamt of the coming strife. They had come out of all walks in life; the country gentleman from his old family home, with its almost sacred ties, leaving his dogs and his sport and all that goes to make up most that is pleasant in life; and his tenants and the sons of his tenants, his game-keeper and the labourers from his estate; and others who had earned their bread by hard, monotonous labour in workshops and factories.