My Mum's Dad joined up at Halifax in 1914 or 15, he was only 16 but got thru, he was with the horses that pulled the gun carriages at Ypes and he was horrified by the way the horses were screaming in fear and panicking, he had been brought up on a farm and had never experienced such cruelty, it never left him and he was haunted by it all his life, he died in 1972. yes he lost pals that he had been thru it all with, but he was traumatised just as much i think by seeing the beasts lying with their legs missing and holes in their sides and then being shot where they had fallen.