Neither had a good war.
Edward Williams suffered ptomaine poisoning (as they called it at the time) and was out of the army within a few weeks. Ptomaine poisoning was extremely serious, often fatal, food poisoning, usually caused by eating rotten meat supplied to the army by crooked businessmen. Doctors said he would not live to be 21. He fooled them and survived until his mid 70s, but he was never a well man and almost every winter he was seriously ill and unable to work. As a teenager he'd been a sportsman.
Len Brind, who looked almost identical to my brother Christopher (and I've heard my grandmother call Chris 'Len'), had if anything an even worse war. He was working for the Post Office so he joined the Post Office Rifles.
In 1916 he was at Sutton Veny (near Salisbury) training. In August 1917 he won a scouts race organised at Simoncourt (close to Arras). At the time he was a Lance Corporal with the 2/8 London Regiment. Some time later he was captured by the Germans and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner. When he returned he was emaciated.
Len volunteered.
Jonathan Brind