"Crumps", The Plain Story Of A Canadian Who Went Part 5

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 b.u.t.ton 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 s.e.xton.

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 ga.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.ses. 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.

The village in which I am now was visited last September by twelve German officers who came through in motor cars; the villagers cried, "Vivent les Anglais," for not having seen an English soldier they took it for granted that the "Tommy" had come.

Everybody goes armed to the teeth. I have my belt, a regular Christmas tree for hanging things on, with revolver and cartridges on even while I'm writing this. We carry a lot, but we soon get used to it.

The corn is being cut now. Through the window opposite I can see it standing in newly-stacked sheaves. These places are the favorite sketching grounds of artists in normal times, and I often wonder if they ever will be again.

We return salutes with all the French and Belgian officers. It is difficult sometimes to distinguish them. I got fooled by a Belgian postman, and then went to work and cut a French general.

The nearer we get to the firing line the finer the type of soldier. They are the magnificent Britishers of Kitchener's First Army. It makes you proud to see them marching by, dirty and wet with sweat. I watched two battalions come through; they had marched twenty miles through the sun with new issue boots; a few of them had fallen out, and other men and officers were carrying their equipment and rifles; many of the officers carried two rifles.

I am now well within sound of the guns. A German Taube was sh.e.l.led as it came over our firing line yesterday. One man was lying on his back asleep with his hat over his eyes, when a piece of shrapnel from one of the "Archies" hit him in the stomach-result: one blasphemous, indignant casualty. From the road I can see one of the observation balloons, a queer sausage-shaped airship. We may be moved up into the thick of it at any time now.

I have been over into Belgium to-day: crossed the frontier on my motor bike; the roads are terrible, all this beastly "pave" cobblestones; awful stuff to ride over on a motor cycle. Sh.e.l.l holes on both sides of the road, and I saw three graves in the corner of a hop garden. All along the road there were dozens and dozens of old London motor buses, taking men to the trenches. They still have the advertis.e.m.e.nts on them and are driven by the bus-drivers themselves. Three hundred came over with their own machines. They are now soldiers. The observation balloon I mentioned yesterday was sh.e.l.led down to-day.