HIS MAJESTY THE KING, AND FIELD MARSHAL THE RIGHT HONORABLE VISCOUNT
KITCHENER
"Did they bury him standing on his head, or the other way on?"
We, that is to say, Mr. J.R. Robinson, editor of the Toronto Telegram,
and I stood in Westminster Abbey at the spot in the hallowed floor
where "Rare" Ben Jonson had claimed his foot of ground, and we were
playing "Innocents Abroad" and having some fun with our guide. He told
us that he was a Swiss and that he had shown "Buffalo Bill," "Sir"
Thomas Edison, and other famous Americans about the place.
"I guess they stood him up on his feet," answered the guide.
"Was he the man who wrote the dictionary?"
"I guess that is him," answered the guide. "I understand he was a
literary man."
"Who was this chap Goldsmith? Was he the first pawnbroker, or the man
who invented watches?"
"I think he had something to do with the watches," said our guide,
awestricken by our profound knowledge.
"Who was this Salisbury?" we asked. "He must have been somebody
important to have such a fine monument?"
"He was some rich lawyer chap," was the answer we received. We were
certainly having our money's worth.
We wandered up and down the aisles; beneath whose flagstones rest
Britain's honored dead.
"What strikes me most," said Robinson, "is not the number of tombs and
monuments to the great, but the numberless monuments to nonentities
that by some means have managed to creep into the shadow of greatness,
by crowding upon the tombs of the Immortals in this Holy of Holies,
the Temple of Fame of the British race."
After we had grilled our guide to our heart's content, and fed him
till he almost fainted, we went around to have a look at Cromwell's
monument and the spot in the great hall where Charles I. stood when he
received his death sentence. Poor Charles, whose pictures look so much
like his descendant William of Germany, the Kaiser, who has caused so
much trouble for us all.
Of all the public buildings I have ever seen the great Hall of William
Rufus at Westminster impressed me most. It is of the Norman order of
architecture. The conception and simplicity of the structure is
magnificent. King William announced to the banquetting courtiers,
according to tradition, that this majestic structure was intended as
an ante-room to the great Parliament Buildings which he intended to
rear on the banks of the Thames. The person who reads the poetry of
the stones inwardly curses the careless archer whose arrow cut short
the career of this truly great king, for this is not the only great
structure that "William the Red" conceived and commenced during his
turbulent reign.
The three distinctive monuments of London are, this Hall of William
the Red, the grim dominating lineaments shown in Cromwell's statue,
and the noble well balanced head of the great Clive, the foremost of
Empire builders.
"London Bridge is falling Down" is the marching-out tune of the "Red
Watch," and many other Highland Regiments, although in the Celtic the
words of the song say "Well tak' the High Road." London Bridge had not
fallen down in spite of threatened Zeppelin raids, and from it we had
a good look at the Thames with the magnificent vista of buildings
along the embankment.
The Thames means a great deal to the Imperialist. I have seen the
Missouri River where it joins the Mississippi, the two gigantic
streams forming a symphony of liquid mud, the Detroit River rushing
between two busy cities laden with hundreds of ships representing
liquid commerce, but the Thames,--the Thames represents liquid
history.
There was great joy and rejoicing when we were informed that everybody
was to have a holiday either at Christmas or New Year, and that His
Majesty had decreed that free transportation would be provided for
such as wished a holiday to visit friends. A free trip to any place in
Great Britain or Ireland meant a great deal to our men. The Government
had taken over the British railways on an agreement to pay the
proprietors the amount of the earnings in 1913, during the period the
roads would be under control. The managers of the railways had been
formed into a Board to run the roads, and the whole thing had proved
such a great success that the Government was virtually having the work
done for nothing. In the language of the London _Statist_, this was
"the best bargain" the British government ever made.
The curse of railways is competition. Governments can and have
endeavored to adjust rates so as to cheapen the cost of service and at
the same time put a stop to rate cutting, but there is such a thing as
competition in service or operation which means running too many
trains, where control by the Government ends.
The whole matter, however, turned out to the advantage of the
soldiers. Those of our men who had friends in England chose Christmas
for their holidays. The Scotchmen selected New Year's, and the Irish
chose both and had their way, for what Commanding Officer could deny a
man a two weeks' holiday in the Green Isle when the recipient stood a
good chance of never seeing the home of his ancestors again?
The pipes of the 48th Highlanders played on New Year's Day in Glasgow,
but Scotland was too busy with the war to listen. I spent a few days
in the Hebrides. This is not the place for the description of a tour
in the Highlands. There is something about the Highland Hills that
impresses one very deeply. The peaks are not so majestic as the Saw
Tooth Rockies, the Kicking Horse Range, the Cariboo Mountain, or the
Range of the Agawa Valley on the northwest shore of Lake Superior
which is the most beautiful spot probably in the whole world, but
there is something of solemn grandeur in the Scottish Hills that
pertains to them alone. They are cathedral-like in their majesty. No
wonder they have produced poets and soldiers.
But Scotland was busy arming for the war. Every man of military age
was taking to the field. It required no conscription to send the Scots
to the war. Ninety-three per cent. of the sons of the Scottish Manse
had volunteered and gone, and only the lame, the halt and the blind of
military age remained. If this war continued very long there would be
no Scotch left, except what you get in bottles.
I spent a day in Mull and Iona motoring with a friend who was
enlisting men for the naval service. We stopped at a village on our
return, and while he went off to see a young man, I was sitting in the
automobile opposite a small cottage, at the front gate of which stood
a tall, handsome young woman, with two tiny children clinging to her
skirts. She managed to pluck up courage to speak to me.
"Perhaps you are from the war, Sir?" she said with a wistful look on
her face, and a strong Highland accent.
"My husband is in one of the Highland Regiments, perhaps you have seen
his battalion, the Argyles?"
I replied in the negative, adding that I belonged to a Canadian
Highland Regiment.
"There are only two young men left in this village who have not gone
to the war," she volunteered. "And they will have to be out of here
to-morrow, or they will hear from the women."
"You Scotch women are very hard on the men," I said in a half joking
way; "You are sending them all to the war. There won't be any left.
Why did you, with those two little children, let your husband go to
the war?"
This seemed to stagger her for a moment, then she drew herself up
scornfully and turning on me, with her eyes fairly blazing, she said:
"I am a Cameron, Sir. I would never have spoken to him again if he had
not volunteered to go to the war."
I regretted my remark, and the refrain of the old Jacobite song
recurred to me, "A Cameron never can yield." This is an example of the
spirit of the Highland Scotch people in the Great War.
It should be considered a duty of every person of Scottish blood to
see Scotland and live in it, if only for a short time, and have their
children see "Home." The people of Scotland cannot understand why
Colonials and Americans of Scottish descent to the second and third
generations, especially Canadians, should call Scotland "Home." The
reason is easily explained.
In America we are constantly struggling to attain wealth, social or
political greatness, or else we are busy all the time fighting to
prevent others from achieving success. We were only in Scotland a very
short time when the kindly spirit and homely friendship of the people
give us a new experience. It is like the feeling of good-will that
centres about one's own fireside. As a country Scotland is "Home."
Everyone there from the humblest fisherman to the highest born in the
land is anxious to show you some kindness and make you feel at home.
That is why Scotland is the cradle of soldiers, poets, statesmen and
heroes.
As soon as the holiday season was over the Canadians again settled
down to Field Training. Every morning we started off with our waggons
and enough food to do us for the day. We drilled and fought and put
into effect new lessons in tactics. Particular attention was paid to
musketry, such as training the men and the squad leaders to name and
recognize targets, also to judge distances by practical methods. Every
day we were becoming more efficient.
Before the Christmas holidays I had had the good fortune to be able to
take the "Hythe" Course and certificate in musketry and machine gun
training at Hayling Island. I went there a confirmed adherent to the
old Bisley style of deliberate shooting. I left a convert to the new
British system of musketry that turned out the formidable riflemen of
the First British Army. These soldiers overwhelmed the Germans with
the great rapidity and accuracy of their fire. The Germans would
hardly believe that the British were not armed with automatic rifles.
On the way back from Hayling Island I met with an accident which
luckily had no bad results for me. Accompanied by General Turner,
V.C., and Lt.-Colonel Burland, I was being driven in an automobile
from Salisbury city to Lark's Hill Camp, when the steering gear of the
automobile went wrong and we ran into an embankment, the car turning
turtle. I was sitting in the front seat with the driver, and the
machine, going at the rate of thirty miles an hour, crashed into the
bank. I braced myself, seeing visions ahead of a broken neck and a
sudden inglorious end to my campaigning. But Providence saved me from
even a scratch, although I was projected with such force against the
glass windshield as to smash it to atoms. As the car went over, I had
presence of mind enough to grasp the stancheons of the top, and thus
saved myself from being thrown out over the front of the car. General
Turner, V.C., who was in the rear seat with Colonel Burland, was
buried under the machine, and as I cleared myself from the broken
glass and debris I hear him groan, whilst the automobile hind wheels
continued to revolve as long as any gasoline was left in the
carburettor to feed the engine. We managed to get him out of the wreck
and commandeered another automobile to take him back to Salisbury,
where it was found that his collar bone and several ribs were broken.
He was very cheerful and his only anxiety was lest his injuries might
prevent him from going to the Front. As this book was published while
I was still "soldiering" my lips were sealed as far as saying anything
about my superior officers was concerned. All I dare say is that no
braver, better, truer man than General Turner, V.C., ever lived.
Our field training brought our men along very quickly. They were
gradually becoming seasoned. They had gone into huts at Lark Hill
which they had built themselves, and as these huts were warm and
comfortable life began to be a real pleasure.
About the last week in January Hon. Sir George H. Perley and Lord
Islington paid us a visit at Lark Hill, and we had the pleasure of
their company at an informal luncheon.
Thursday, February 4th, 1915, was one of the greatest days in the
history of the regiment. The previous week, when Sir George Perley and
Lord Islington visited us in our huts and messed with us on soldiers'
fare, the Acting High Commissioner told me that it was probable that
His Majesty the King and Lord Kitchener would be down the following
week to review the Canadian Division and say good-bye. This put
everybody in tune, even the lads who had to stay in England with the
surplus officers. On Wednesday afternoon the field officers spent some
time in going over the review ground, pegging it out, so it will not
be out of place to say a word about the grounds. Lark Hill Camp lies
on a gentle slope facing west, and from the door of my hut I could see
Stonehenge, that mighty monument to the great race that at one time
lived on these plains and raised the enormous tumuli monuments to the
heroes of their day.
The reviewing ground was selected about a mile and a half west of the
camp on the new line of railway which had been built largely by the
Canadians. The stand was placed to face north and the long lines, two
of them stretched away east and west. About a mile south Stonehenge is
visible, and from Signal Mound in the rear of the reviewing grounds
the river and Old Sarum can be seen in the distance. All about the
plains huge mounds raised by the Druidical Celts rear themselves, of
varying sizes, some twenty feet high, others smaller. This must in all
ages have been a great military centre. We are not the first comers by
any means, and this is truly historic ground that has resounded to the
tread of the warrior for thirty centuries. It was fitting that it
should be ground chosen by the King on which to review his Canadian
troops.
The morning looked very uninviting. It threatened rain, sleet and
snow. For a moment it brightened up and then we were ordered to parade
with overcoats in packs, but by the time the troops got to the ground
it was raining heavily and we were reviewed in overcoats after all.
The troops were placed in two lines, at about two hundred paces
distance, the cavalry on the right, then the artillery and the
auxiliaries, then the infantry, three brigades of them, the pick of
the contingent. They certainly looked well as they marched across the
Downs to their appointed stations. The training had had its effect.
They looked much better than at the first review, many of them on that
occasion being without parts of their uniform, and the drill was
rather loose and frayed at the ends.
However, that was an historic occasion for we had Her Gracious Majesty
with us then, as well as the King, and Lord Roberts, whose smile was
so refulgent it was worth the whole voyage to see it.
The King was to arrive at eleven o'clock, and a few minutes before
that hour the whistling of a locomotive was heard as the train wound
its way up and down over the hills of Amesbury. The road was built
along the sides of the hills without any pretence of grading to a
level. It was built by the sturdy Canadians who will leave that
monument behind them on Salisbury Plains, more useful if not more
ornamental or enduring than Stonehenge, the tumuli, or the fallen
ramparts and ditches of Celts, Saxons, Normans or Romans.
The train consisted of two locomotives and two coaches. After a few
moments it stopped and His Majesty and his Staff stepped out and
advanced along a board walk to the platform which had been erected for
him to stand on, and over which the Royal Standard was then floating.
As he took his place on the stand, a trumpet sounded and as one man
the troops came to the salute. Each double line was over a mile in
length. His Majesty and Staff, accompanied by General Alderson and
Colonel Seely, M.P., now the new Cavalry Commander, started down the
first line to the left, then back up the front of the second line to
its right. The officers commanding units dismounted as His Majesty
left the stand.
My regiment was the second from the left in the second line. His
Majesty walked between the line of officers and the front line of men.
The most prominent figure on the Staff was Lord Kitchener, who, wonder
of wonders, wore a smile like a summer morning. As His Majesty
approached the left of the regiment, I met him, saluting. He shook
hands with me, and I took my place on his left hand. He asked me very
kindly about the health of the men and expressed great pleasure to
know that we had almost recovered from the terrible epidemic of
influenza and of la grippe that had affected the troops. I assured him
that the men did not grumble, they considered it part of their work
and were quite content to "do their bit" for His Majesty and the
Empire. He repeated that it was altogether too bad that the Canadians
had had to put up with disagreeable conditions, but they were going
abroad in a few days, and he felt sure they would distinguish
themselves. He then shook hands with me, bade me good-bye and wished
myself and the regiment "good-luck." Lord Kitchener then shook hands,
and with a "Good-luck to you and your fine regiment, Colonel," they
passed along to the next battalion. Several of the other officers on
the Staff shook hands and chatted for a moment.
His Majesty looked greatly improved in health, and seemed in better
spirits than the first time we saw him at West Down South. On that
occasion he was showing the effects of the hard work he had been
giving to the Army--here to-day, miles away to-morrow. But those first
strenuous days were over. The war was well in hand. The measure of the
Germans had been taken, at sea as well as on land.
When the war broke out the one thing the people dreaded was lack of
efficient leadership. No one imagined the King would be the strongest
and best King the Empire had ever seen. To him alone is to be ascribed
the wonderful political solidarity of the British people. The masses
always had a latent feeling that King George would make a great King.
His Majesty returned to the stand, and we marched past in double
lines, the cavalry eight deep in fours, the artillery two guns
abreast, the infantry in double lines of fours, eight men abreast.
Then they defiled along the railway four deep to cheer His Majesty as
his train passed. The bonnets were placed on the muzzles of the rifles
and the men cheered like mad. His Majesty stood at the window of the
Royal Coach and waved farewells, and the second review by the King was
over. I heard the men say how much they regretted that Her Majesty had
not been there, for we enjoyed her first visit very much, and the
interest she took in the soldiers.
The frills are now all over and it is get ready to entrain and cross
over to France.
It was a great pleasure to learn from time to time that the officers
that went to Valcartier supernumerary to our establishment and were
transferred to other corps were getting along well. Lieutenants Smith
and Ian Sinclair had gone to the Royal Highlanders of Canada,
Lieutenant Bell to the 17th Battalion. They all subsequently
distinguished themselves in France.
At Salisbury Plains Captain J.W. Moffatt was transferred to our
Battalion as Chaplain. He immediately joined the officers' training
class and qualified as a combatant officer so that if need be he could
transfer to the effectives in Flanders. He was a great favorite with
us all.