These young men had no real career before them from their birth, almost, except in the army.

So it was easy to guess why the lights were burning in those mansions, and why there was anxiety among them, and why the throbbing motor cars were humming over the roads.
If Germany were beaten back in the beginning, if the task she had undertaken proved too heavy, this was the province that was sure to feel the first brunt of invasion.

Behind him, to the east, Fred knew were the great masses of Russia, moving slowly, but with a terrible, always increasing force.

No wonder these people were stirring, were sending out all their men to drive back the huge power that lay so near them, a constant menace! But now, though he did not know it, Fred was approaching real danger for the first time.

Many of the motors he saw and heard were going west.
Though he could not guess it, they were carrying women and children away from the old houses that were too much exposed, too directly in the path of a possible invasion for the helpless ones to be left in them when the men had gone to fight.