Their goals were much more practical and earthly: to fight honorably, survive the trenches intact, and pick up their academic careers where the war had interrupted them. “Before I went to the last war I certainly expected that my life in the trenches would, in some mysterious sense, be all war,” wrote Lewis years later. “In fact, I found that the nearer you got to the front line the less everyone spoke and thought of the allied cause and the progress of the campaign.”68
