" 28 weeks 4 days was not exactly a sinecure!"
precisely - it was a meat grinder. However - Snr A's grandfather joined up on Day2 and served the whole war through to March 1919 in front line infantry/cavalry/machine gun regiments as a junior officer and came out with nary a scratch. And that included 3 stints at Ypres. Tho depressingly he finished the war about 10 kms from where he started it in Belgium..................