THIRTY-SEVEN
The only way he could see of getting out of the s**t pan.
September 1914Joe Garforth also saw the notice, not long after his father, and he almost immediately decided that he was going to enlist.
His resolution was so immediate that he could give no real reason for it; it was simply the right thing to do. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He had no great burning patriotism. He believed in God and the King and the empire and thought that to be born an Englishman was the greatest blessing that God could bestow upon an ordinary man but, beyond that, he had no great animosity towards Germany and her people.
Germany threatened the empire, that was reason enough to go to war, but his reasons for enlisting were, like most men, I suppose, far more personal.
