What if the number of places was limited?

[breathedout]

[Pollard] and others had queued for almost three hours. When the gates of the recruiting centre finally opened, he and another man—an acquaintance from the tennis club—pushed and elbowed their way through and then sprinted for all they were worth to the main building in order to be first. After all, what if the number of places was limited? And what if it was all over before they even got to the front? (His brother enlisted as a volunteer in the same unit at first, but then deserted in order to join a different unit under an assumed name simply because this second unit was expected to be one of the first sent into battle.)

Pollard loved the drill, found the long marches “rather fun” and could hardly control his excitement when he was given his rifle: “I was armed. It was a weapon designed to kill. I wanted to kill.” He often sat playing with his bayonet in secret, testing the edge: “The desire to get to the front had become an obsession.” They marched through London to the sounds of a military band. Weapons training consisted of firing fifteen shots.

—Peter Englund, The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War