Chapter 3

Back in camp. It was hard to come down to it. Our blankets and clothes left in the tent were mildewed, clammy, and partly submerged. Our feet are wet and we are again soldiers, dirty and cold.

Traveled down in the train with thirty-six men of the Canadian contingent who had formed an escort for fifty-six undesirables who have been shipped back to Canada. It seems strange when men are needed so badly to ship them back because they are a bit unruly or get drunk too often. They will all come back with future contingents. Six of them made a dash for it at Liverpool. Three of them got away altogether.

It snowed yesterday. Last night the camp looked beautiful; the tents lit up through the snow in the moonlight made a pretty picture, a suitable subject for a magazine cover, but mighty uncomfortable to camp in.

In a gale last night many tents were blown down. We spent all day putting them up again. The cook house, a substantial frame building, has also blown down again.

When I got back I found a Christmas hamper, a bunch of holly and a small box of maple sugar and packet of cigarettes from the Duchess of Connaught with her Christmas card. All parcels for the troops came in duty free. Our postal system is very efficient. We get our letters as regularly as we would in a town.

People send us so many cigarettes that we sometimes have too many. I wish we could get more tobacco and fewer cigarettes. If you remember during the Boer War the authorities tried to break the “Tommy” of his “fags” by giving him more tobacco. Now they really seem to encourage cigarette smoking, although it really doesn’t matter; the same things which are harmful in towns don’t have the same bad effects when we are living in the open.

All leave is up by the 10th of January for everybody, officers and men.

The Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry have gone to the front to the envy of everybody. It is a splendid battalion with fine officers. They have been lying next to our lines and we have made many friends with the “Pats.”

Cerebro-spinal meningitis has broken out, and in spite of all efforts to check it, seems to be gaining ground. Several officers have died with it, and I believe that four battalions are quarantined. We have to use chloride of lime on the tent floors and around the lines. My friend Pat calls it “Spike McGuiness.” The worst of a disease like this is that a patient never recovers. Even a cure means partial paralysis for life. I believe that Salisbury Plain is known for it, and I hear that all the ground that troops are now occupying is to be ploughed up when we leave. As far as that goes we have ploughed it up a bit already, but a systematic ploughing will make it more regular. The subsoil is only four inches, then you come to chalky clay. The tent-pegs when they are taken from the ground are covered with chalk.

I think that the Canadian Contingent has had a pretty raw deal. We’re not even included in the six army divisions which are going to France by the end of March. Wish I had joined the “Princess Pats,” who are already there. We want to fight.

We’re having a beastly time as compared with the Belgian refugees and the German prisoners in England. We’re beginning to wonder if we are ever going to the front. There is now some talk of billeting us in Bristol. We’ve been under arms nearly five months and should be good fighting material by now. With a similar number of men the Germans would have done something by this time.

All the last week the selected few of us have been working separately on a course of work to qualify us for commissions. We have had to study hard every spare minute when not drilling each other.

Several dogs have attached themselves to us; sometimes they find themselves on a piece of string, the other end being in a man’s hand. One of these, a big bull terrier, sleeps in the canteen. The beer is quite safe with him there, but two nights ago the canteen tent, after a great struggle, tore itself off the tent-poles and went fifteen feet up in the air like a balloon, then collapsed. The dog, I regret to say, did not stay at his post, so a quantity of beer will have to be marked down as lost. This same bull has a pal, a white bull terrier, who came out with the officers’ class the other morning. We had not been drilling more than fifteen minutes when he came back with a large rabbit. We stewed it at night. It certainly was good.

One of the mechanics has forged an Iron Cross which has been presented to the dog in recognition of his services.

I doubt if I shall ever be able to sit up to a table again regularly. I would much sooner sleep on the floor, and I have found, when on leave, that I preferred sitting on a hearthrug to a chair. Even while writing this I am lying on my blankets. My pipe is burnt down on one side from lighting it from my candle.

To-day being Sunday and as there were only two of us left in the tent, the others being on leave, we gave it a thorough spring cleaning. It needed it! By some oversight the sun came out to-day, so that helped. We also washed up all our canteens and pannikins with disinfectant.

The infantry are bayonet-fighting and practicing charges every day. If you want a thrill, see them coming over the top at you with a yell; the bayonets catch the light and flash in a decidedly menacing fashion. They practice on dummies, and are so enthusiastic that they need new dummies almost every lesson.

Every man, on becoming a soldier, becomes a man with a number and an identification disk. My number is 45555 and my “cold meat ticket,” a tag made of red fiber, is hanging round my neck on a piece of string.

We’re packing up and expect to go away next week. Of course, it may be another bluff, but somehow I think we really are going now, as we have been fitted out with a “field service-dressing,” a packet containing two bandages and safety pins, which we have to sew into the right-hand bottom corner of our tunics. We have also been given our active service pay book, a little account book in which we have our pay entered. We don’t get paid much in the field. We carry this book instead.

It seems always cold and wet. We are very hardened. We look tough and feel that way. I haven’t had a bath for a month. Since I have been soldiering I have done every dirty job that there is in the army, and there are many. Often when a job seemed to be too dirty and too heavy for anybody else, they looked around for Keene and Pat.

“On guard.” Writing this in the guard tent, when we are not actually on sentry. We keep all our equipment on, as we are liable to be called out at any minute. We sleep with our belts and revolvers in place.

A quarter guard is three men and a noncom. The men do two hours on and four off. When it comes to a man’s turn he has to be on his beat no matter what the weather is like during the day or night. The cold is pretty bad and occasionally it snows. Some units have sentry boxes, but we haven’t. We use a bell tent. I was called this morning at five o’clock to do my sentry from five to seven. The small oil stove which serves to heat the guard tents had evidently been smoking for an hour, and over everything was a thick film of lamp-black. Everybody thought it a great joke until they looked at themselves in the mirror and caught sight of their own equipment. We must come off guard as clean as we go on. I got out quickly and left them swearing and cleaning up.

From five to seven is the most interesting relief. I had first to wake the cooks at five o’clock and then I watched the gradual waking up of the camp. At six o’clock I had to wake the orderly sergeants and then far away in the distance the first bugle sounded reveille, then it was taken up all around and gradually the camps all over the Plains woke up. Men came out of the tents, the calls for the “fall in” sounded, and the rolls were called and the usual business of the day commenced. The change from the deadness of the night with its absolute stillness all takes place in a very short time. To a person with any imagination it seems rather wonderful. You must remember that we can see for miles, and in every direction there are hundreds of tents. Each battalion is separate, and they have great spaces between them; still wherever you look you can see tents.

I wonder if I told you that aeroplanes are all the time flying over our camp. With characteristic British frankness they always have two huge Union Jacks painted on the undersides of the wings. We have become so used to them that we scarcely trouble to look up unless they are doing stunts.

The frost makes a fine grip for the cars; when the ground freezes over we can take the cars anywhere, but unfortunately it thaws again too quickly. As we are a motor battery we are of course a mile from the road, and sometimes it takes an hour and a half to get on to it.

It is a howling night, wind and rain galore. I’m wondering how long the tent will last. I have been out three times already to look at the tent pegs. How often it has been so since we first came on to these plains. If you are living in tents you notice the changes in weather more than under ordinary circumstances, and every rain-storm has meant wet feet for us. But now we have been given new black boots, magnificent things, huge, heavy “ammunition boots,” and the wonderful thing is they don’t let water in. They are very big and look like punts, but it’s dry feet now. I can tell you I am as pleased with them as if some one had given me a present of cold cash. At first they felt something like the Dutch sabots. They seemed absolutely unbendable and so we soaked them with castor-oil. Once they become moulded to the feet they are fine. Of course they are not pretty, but they keep the wet out.

We have had new tunics issued to us of the regular English pattern, much more comfortable than our other original ones, and then instead of the hard cap we now have a soft one, something like a big golf cap with the flap on to pull down over the ears. These are much more comfortable. They have one great advantage over the old kind—we can sleep in them. We can now lie down in our complete outfits even to our hats. Once I considered it a hardship to sleep in my clothes. Now to go to bed we don’t undress; we put on clothes.

I managed to get a pass to Salisbury on Saturday and went to the local vaudeville show. In the row in front of me were several young officers of the British Army, and it was striking what a clean-cut lot they were. England is certainly giving of her best. They were not very much different from any others, but at the same time they are the type of Englishmen who have done things in the past and will do things again. They are all Kitchener’s Army. Thousands of men who have never been in the army before threw up everything to go in the ranks. You see side by side professors, laborers, lawyers, doctors, stevedores, carters, all classes, rich and poor, a great democratic army, drilling to fight so that this may be a decent world to live in.

At present it is almost impossible to use each man in his own profession as they do in Germany, but sometimes the non-commissioned officers work it out in this way.

Sergeant to squad of recruits:—

“Henybody ’ere know anythink abart cars?”

“Yes; I do. I own a Rolls Royce.”

“Olright; fall out and clean the major’s motor bike.”

One patriotic mother who had a son who was a butcher did her best to get him to join the Royal Army Medical Corps, because he was proficient at cutting up meat and would feel quite at home assisting at amputations.

Now that we are approaching the time for our departure to France we are hearing that favorite farewell to all men going to the front, “Good-bye, I’ll look every day for your name in the casualty list.”

The “Princess Pats” have already been in action. They had a hard fight and many of them have been put out of business. We envied them when they went away and still do, although it only seems yesterday that we were lying together here and now a number of them are lying “somewhere in France.”

The jam-making firm of Tickler was awarded a huge contract for the supply of “Tommy’s” daily four ounces of jam; either plum and apple were the cheapest combination or else the crop of these two fruits must have been enormous, because every single tin of jam that went to the training camps, France, Dardanelles, or Mesopotamia, was of this mixture.

We became so tired of it that we used the unopened tins to make borders of flower-beds, or we used them to make stepping-stones across puddles. Eventually the world’s supply of plums and apples having been used up, the manufacturers were forced to use strawberries.

In the army all food is handled by the Army Service Corps, and as soon as they found real jam coming through they took it for their own and still forwarded on to us their reserve “plum and apple.” The news got around amongst the fighting units: result—the Army Service Corps is now known as the “Strawberry Jam Pinchers.”

Reviewed by King George V, and it was indeed a very impressive sight. Although there were only twenty thousand troops, they seemed endless. During the time that the King was on the parade ground in company with Lord Kitchener, two aeroplanes kept guard in the sky. Our K. of K. is a big, fine man who looks the part. An inspection by the King is always a sure sign of a unit’s impending departure. He traveled down on the new railway which had just been built by the defaulters of the Canadian Contingent.

At the last minute I managed to get weekend leave and went to London. No Canadians there! I caught sight of a military picket, sergeant and twelve men, looking for stray ones, though. Another picket held me up and made me button my greatcoat. I did! It isn’t clever to argue with pickets at any time!

The train was three hours late. Troops’ trains were occupying the lines. From Bulford we walked home in a hail-storm. Got in about five o’clock just as the reveille was blowing in the other lines. They were just leaving for the front, and had made great fires where they were burning up rubbish and stuff they couldn’t take with them. Tons of it! Chairs, mattresses, and tables. When we move, everything except equipment has to be discarded. We can’t do anything with extras. We have to cut our own stuff down to the very smallest dimensions. I walked through the lines afterward of other battalions who had left, and I saw fold-up bedsteads, uniforms, equipment, books, buckets, washing-bowls, cartridges and stoves of every conceivable kind and shape; hundreds, from the single “Beatrice” to the big tiled heaters. Some tents were half full of blankets thrown in, others with harness. All the government stuff is collected, but private stuff is burnt.

In the army you soon realize that you have to make yourself comfortable your own way. I don’t hesitate to take anything. If I have on a pair of puttees which are a bit worn and I find a new pair,—well, I just calmly yet cautiously annex them and discard the old ones. We found a barrel of beer had been left by one of the other units, so we carefully carried the prize to our lines and then tapped it. Zowie! It was a beer barrel all right, only it was filled with linseed oil.

Thank the Lord!! Under a roof, sitting on a real chair; tablecloth, plates; and I’m dry. We have come to Wilton (of carpet fame) and I’m in a billet. I have a real bed to sleep in. Last night I lay on the floor of a mildewed tent; couldn’t sleep on account of the cold. To-night I sleep between sheets, and the wonderful thing is that I’m not on leave.

We drove our cars down here, each of us hoping that we would never again see Bustard Camp, Salisbury Plain, as long as we lived; it had been our home for five months. Yesterday we felt like mutiny; to-day every one is smiling. As soon as we were “told off” Pat and I went to our billet, a nice clean little house close to the center of the town. The owner is a baker. I felt kind of uncomfortable with my boots and clothes plastered up with mud, but the good lady said, “Don’t ’e mind, come in, bless you; I’ve ’ad soldiers afore. The last one ’e said as ’ow he couldn’t sleep it were so quiet ’ere.”

I had a wash (this is Friday night), the first since Wednesday morning. The idea of having as much water as you want, without having to go a half mile over a swamp, pleased me so much that I used about six basinsful in the scullery.

When the lady of the house asked us _what_ we would _like_ to eat, we both fainted. I’m afraid we’re going to get spoiled here. Couldn’t sleep at first. Cold sheets and having all my clothes off—too great a strain! Had breakfast and then drove our cars to the canal, where we scrubbed and washed them down inside and out.

This afternoon I’ve been into every shop I could find, chiefly to talk to people who are not soldiers. Even went into the church to look around and listened to the parrotlike description of the place by the sexton.

Everybody is happy, and although it has rained ever since we have been here, we haven’t noticed it yet. I may say there are four or five kids, and the whole house could be packed into our front room. Still, “gimme a billet any time.”

I have just received the news that I have been given a Second Lieutenancy in the Motor Machine Gun Service, Royal Field Artillery, and I go into camp at Bisley at once. I am very glad that before being an officer I have been a private, because I now have the latter’s point of view. I am going to try hard to be a good officer; promotion always means more work and responsibility,—so here goes.

I have been very busy lately training my new section, and we are now part of the 12th Battery, Motor Machine Guns, 17th Division British Expeditionary Force, leaving to-day for the “Great Adventure.”

Somewhere in France. At last we are here. We landed at a place the name of which I am not allowed to mention, and were then taken by a guide to a “Rest Camp” about two miles from the docks. If they had called it a garbage dump I shouldn’t have been surprised. You would be very much surprised with the France of to-day. Everybody speaks English; smart khaki soldiers in thousands everywhere.

Already I have seen men who have been gassed and the hospitals here are full of wounded. Our troops are arriving all day and night and marching away. English money is taken here, but French is more satisfactory as you are likely to get done on the change. The officers have a mess here just as in England. Actually we are farther away from the firing line than we were in camp at Bisley; but we leave to-day on our machines going direct to it. There was a transport torpedoed just outside; they managed to beach her just in time. The upper decks and masts are sticking up above water.

Since I last wrote anything in this diary we have ridden over one hundred and ten miles by road towards the firing line. All day yesterday it poured. The country was beautiful, ripening corn everywhere, the villages are full of old half-timbered houses, the roads are all national roads built for war purposes by Napoleon, and run straight; on either side are tall, poplar shade trees, so that the roads run through endless avenues.

At night we stayed in a quaint village inn. The men all slept in a loft over their machines. Our soaked clothes were put in the kitchen to dry, but owing to the number of them, they just warmed up by the morning. One officer has to follow in the rear of every unit to pick up the stragglers. I had to bring up the rear of the column to-day—result: I didn’t get in until early in the morning, only to find the other subalterns “sawing wood.”

Yesterday was the French National Day. We were cheered as we rode along, and women and children smothered us with flowers. In the morning a funeral of two small children passed us. Our battery commander called the battery to attention and officers saluted. The priest was two days overdue with his shave—soldiers notice things like that, you know.

To-day we continued our ride; the weather was much better—dried our clothes by wearing them. Strange to run through Normandy villages and suddenly come across British Tommies—many of them speaking French. A Royal Navy car has just passed us; our navy seems omnipresent. I saw an old woman reading a letter by the side of an old farmhouse to some old people, evidently from a soldier, probably their son. It reminded me a great deal of one of Millet’s pictures. Every one thinks of the war here and nothing but the war; it’s not “Business as Usual.”

We stay here one night and move away to-morrow. We can hear the guns faintly.

The three section officers, myself and two others, are sleeping in a hut together. It is one of these new collapsible kind, very convenient. We are now all in bed. Outside the only sound we can hear is the sentries challenging and the mosquitoes singing.

All males are soldiers in France, even the old men. They look very fine in their blue uniforms, but I have a prejudice for our khaki Tommies. We get good food as we travel, but pay war prices for it. Cherries are now in season; we don’t pay for them, however.

Rode another sixty miles to-day. A car smashed into the curb, cannoned off and ran over me, busting my machine up. The front wheel went over my leg. My revolver and leather holster saved me from a fracture, but I got badly bruised up. I was very scared that I should not be able to go “up” with the Battery. It would be almost a disgrace to go back broken up by a car without even getting a whack at the Boche. Had to ride later on another machine twenty-five miles through the night without lights, in a blinding rain.

Everything interesting. Should like to have a camera with me. I had to post mine back. So many things are done in the British Army by putting a man on his honor. They just ask you to do things. They don’t order you to do it. It was that way with me; they merely “asked” me to post my camera back.

Great powerful cars rush by here all day and all night, regardless of speed limits. Every hour or so you see a convoy of twenty or thirty motor lorries in line bringing up ammunition or supplies, or coming back empty. Every point bristles with sentries who demand passes. If you are not able to answer satisfactorily, they just shoot. The French soldiers have magnificent uniforms; the predominating color is a sort of cobalt blue. To see sentries, French and British together, they make quite a nice color scheme.

Officers censor all letters. I censor sometimes fifty letters a day. One man put in a letter to-day, “I can’t write anything endearing in this, as my section officer will read it.” Another, “I enclose ten shillings. Very likely you will not receive this, as my officer has to censor this letter.” Of course we don’t have time to read all the letters through. We look for names of places and numbers of divisions, brigades, etc., but I couldn’t help noticing that one of my men, whom I have long suspected of being a Don Juan, had by one mail written exactly the same letter to five different girls in England, altering only the addresses and the affectionate beginnings.