VAL CARTIER
A more picturesque site for a camp than Val Cartier could hardly be
imagined, situated as it was among the foothills of the Laurentian
mountains along the banks of the Jacques Cartier River.
A gentle slope, dry sandy soil, and plenty of water made it ideal from a
sanitary standpoint, and with the ample manoeuvre grounds available,
the shower sprays, and running water piped throughout the camp, Val
Cartier was the peer of any camp the Canadians have yet seen.
But when we tumbled out of the train in the early morning there was
nothing to show the existence of a military camp except one lonely
bell-tent guarding the railway platform and a pair of wheel-tracks
disappearing in the clumps of second-growth cedars.
Following these tracks we came upon an opening on either side of the
road in which men laboured at clearing away the underbrush. The vivid
colours of the jerseys in which they were clad told the world that those
on the one side were students from McGill, while those on the other clad
in blue and white represented 'Varsity (Toronto). Further along the red,
yellow, and blue of Queen's University showed where their University
Field Company was at work. The same spirit of competition that existed
on the football field now kept the three units working at top speed.
A patch of land that one day was covered with cedars would next day be
bare of all but stumps, the brushwood blazing merrily in huge fires.
Next day the stumps in turn would be gone and by evening the new area
would be covered with tents.
Already some hundreds of tents had been erected on each side of what was
to be the main street of the camp. A ditching machine pantingly laboured
on one side of the road and dug as much in a day as fifty men. In the
ditch already made on the other side pipes had been laid and running
water was available.
Showers had been erected for each company, and, most welcome of all, the
advance party greeted us with a flourish of dirty aprons and ladles and
the joyful cry of "skillet."
During the afternoon greatcoats were received, and very necessary they
were, for when we rose next morning ice had formed in our pails, and the
trees on the mountain side were beginning to turn red.
Long before we left the mountain sides were a wild revel of colour,
reds, yellows, and browns predominating, where the frost had touched the
leaves. Particularly brilliant were the shot-scarred trees that stood on
the slopes forming the stop-butts of the rifle-ranges.
These ranges are worthy of special mention, comprising as they did
targets for fifteen hundred men.
The method of construction was simplicity itself. A deep ditch had been
dug and the earth thrown up like an ordinary trench to protect the
marker. Strong posts had been erected about six feet apart to carry the
targets, which took the form of squares of pulpboard mounted on a lever
pivoted to the upright. The weight of the target held it behind the
butt, and it was brought into view by pulling a short piece of rope
attached to the free end of the lever.
Crude as this arrangement was, it served the purpose admirably, and
daily we trudged out toward the mountain, around the foot of which this
trench wound much as the German line does around the foot of Messines
Hill, and fired ragged volleys into the re-echoing hill sides.
In only two ways could the training have been improved, and neither of
these two was practicable under the circumstances. Better checking of
the target registers and fire control would have necessitated officers
trained better in musketry, and such officers were not available, and
had the latest pattern ammunition in clips been obtainable instead of
the old square-toed bullet wrapped in paper packages, more practice in
rapid fire--the English Army's Mad Minute--could have been had.
But Sam Hughes had to work with the material at hand, and from an army
of men who had, in the majority, never fired a service rifle in their
lives, he formed an army that he described as being "the finest shooting
army in the world."
Drill was not by any means neglected, and there were few idle hours in
camp, even moonlight nights being eagerly seized upon by battalion
commanders for extra work.
Daily fresh drafts from battalions arrived and were formed into new
composite battalions, and daily the proportion of men in old civilian
clothing grew less.
Two reviews were held, after one of which the Honourable Sam had many
things to say to the officers. He told them that every officer, no
matter what political gender, would have an equal chance in the great
struggle for a place on the contingent, for instead of the one thousand
officers asked for some fifteen hundred officers were actually in camp.
Sam spake yet other homilies to the officers, and his address, delivered
from a mound on which he and his staff were drawn up, was irreverently
referred to around camp as the "Sermon on the Mount." A story is also
told that one of his aides suggested that all could not hear him.
"That's all right," he is credited with replying; "they can all see me!"
However, his words had a beneficial effect on all who heard them, and
when two weeks later another review was held and His Royal Highness the
Duke of Connaught inspected the contingent it was announced that the
First Canadian Division was ready to proceed over seas.
Begbie Lyte and other signalling officers were summoned over to
headquarters one day and received mysterious instructions from an
officer in naval uniform.
Two days later, on the 22nd of September, the ---- Battalion embarked on
a troopship, and after a wild evening's pleasure at the Chateau
Frontenac the writer, Begbie Lyte, and some others sought the narrow
confines of the ship. The rhythmic throb of the propeller woke them some
hours later as the ship moved out to anchor in mid stream.