With that declaration, thousands of young men across the country, as if relieved that the tension of uncertainty had finally been broken, besieged the recruiting stations that had been hastily set up a few weeks earlier. In fact, hundreds of young men, unable to wait for American intervention, had enlisted as early as 1915 for service in the Royal Canadian Armed Forces or as ambulance drivers in one of the European Allied armies. Some of the older students at the university had done it; and though John Smith had known none of them, he heard their legendary names with increasing frequency as the months and weeks drew on toward the moment they all knew must finally come.
War was declared on a Friday, and although classes were still scheduled for the following week, few students or professor
