"Crumps", The Plain Story Of A Canadian Who Went Part 4

That date seems to be the favorite one. I believe it is the commencement of big things; a move will then be made to embark large numbers of troops across to France.

All our telegraphic addresses were taken when we came away on leave in case it were decided to send units over before our term of leave expired.

A German aviator flew over Dover yesterday and made a fierce and terrible bomb attack on a cabbage patch. Terrible casualty in cabbages. Berlin must have designs on a b.u.mper crop of sauerkraut.

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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 "f.a.gs" 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 quant.i.ty 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' cla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ces 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.s to Salisbury on Sat.u.r.day 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 cla.s.ses, 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 a.s.sisting at amputations.