Chapter VI: In England

Our stay in England was marred by the heaviest rainfall of many years, and Salisbury Plain, where we were quartered all winter, had the reputation of being the muddiest spot in the world until we struck Flanders; and even now there are patriots who maintain that the "Plain" holds the championship.

But these were not our first impressions of the Downs. It is hard yet to reconcile the mud in which we lived for months with the velvety swards that first greeted our eyes.

We had detrained at Amesbury, bleary eyed and sleepless after a tedious night trip from Plymouth. This had followed a seemingly interminable march through Plymouth, during which our progress had been seriously delayed by women who broke into the ranks and kissed and wept over our dear boys. Officers escaped with mere handshakes, but still found the ordeal rather trying.

However, a few minutes of standing around the platform munching sandwiches while the necessary mistakes were made and corrected wakened us thoroughly, and then to the crunch of our own footsteps we swung smartly down the village street.

Here we found we were in a new world, a world we had read of in books. The thatched cottages, the neatly-clipped hedges, the churchyard with its headstones and tumbling wall, all seemed to fit in with what we expected. When we passed a public-house with its wooden sign emblazoned with "The Three Feathers," or some such emblem, the picture was complete--it was the England of Jeffery Farnol!

Later we swung across the ample Downs, passing on our way Stonehenge. After having said "I don't know" to a few hundred questions from the men nearest you, it was a relief to be able to answer a few for a change. What memory failed to supply imagination furnished; but this is every guide's privilege. A momentary halt here--to give the men a rest--afforded a chance for cameras to click, and then we left the road and marched across the grassy Downs to the Bustard Inn. Here the rows of tents that were to be our homes for the next few months had already been pitched.

Other brigades went to Lark Hill, to Pond Farm, to Sling Plantation, and to West Down, North and West Down, South ... one could lose a whole army in this vast training ground.

Gone was the long main street of Val Cartier camp with its cinema shows and booths of tempting merchandise. Gone, too, was the little river with its gravelly shores for bathing.

But we were one step nearer our goal, and that was the one thought that consoled us during those trying winter months that followed.

From then on we saw little but our own brigade--the 1st Brigade--and the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry--who were also at Bustard Camp.

The latter held themselves rather aloof from the Canadian Division, counting themselves as superior troops--as indeed they were, being mostly veterans of one or two campaigns--and as they were not brigaded with us we saw little of them.

Early in November the King, accompanied by Lords Roberts and Kitchener, reviewed the Division. His Majesty took special interest in the Patricias, so we were not surprised when in the early days of December the "Pats" left the Plain to join the 27th Division. Of their subsequent doings another book might be written, for no regular battalion of the British Army has proved itself steadier on the field than this magnificent corps--the gift to the Empire of a very gallant gentleman who has since succumbed to wounds received while serving with it in the field.[1]

Christmas brought with it leave and relaxation from the monotony of drilling, but with the New Year we started brigade and divisional manoeuvres, and we knew our stay on the Plain was drawing to a close.

We were again reviewed--in a drizzling rain this time--by the King on February 4th, 1915, and on the following day--just six months after the declaration of war--the First Canadian Division, complete in every detail (horse, foot, and guns) entrained for France.

So secret had the departure been kept that people in the neighbouring town of Salisbury knew nothing of the review or the entraining of the troops till they were well on the high seas.

[Footnote 1: Major Hamilton Gault, referred to above, did not die of wounds as first reported, but suffered the loss of a leg by amputation.]

After a very rough passage from Avonmouth the Division landed at St. Nazaire in the Bay of Biscay, the last transport arriving some time in the second week of February.

From there they were taken in box cars to that mysterious region known as "the front," travelling forty men or eight horses to a car, a state of affairs that one man complained "showed undue regard for horses."

But five whole battalions and a number of surplus officers who had managed to get over to England supernumerary to their battalions were left behind on the Plain as a base depot.

Amongst the latter were the writer and Begbie Lyte, and when they rejoined a month or two later their battalion had been cut to pieces and some twenty-five of the officers with whom they had trained were casualties.

It is hard to imagine anything sadder than rejoining a battalion after fighting such as that unless it is the saying of good-bye.