LAND AHOY
On a beautiful evening in the fall, after a voyage of twenty-two days
on the water, the transports quietly stole, one by one, into the
harbor of Plymouth. None of the townspeople had the remotest idea
that the Colonials were anywhere near England, and it was not until
the _Strathcona Horse_ displayed a huge pennant from the ship, which
was anchored close to the quay, that our identity was disclosed. It
took them but a couple of seconds to grasp the fact that the
Canadians had arrived in England, and in less than half an hour the
harbor was alive with every conceivable kind of craft, loaded near to
the sinking point with cheering humanity.
I wish I could describe my sensations as I once again looked upon the
green fields of my native land. To find out how much one loves his
home he must leave it, and after my voluntary exile of six or seven
years, I wanted to shout and sing for very joy.
We English may be dense, thick-headed, slow to act, and guilty of
several other things charged to us, but I doubt if any nation could
love its country with more intensity than true Englishmen.
Steering close to our boat the crowd asked us if we needed anything.
We replied that we needed everything, and we got it; cigarettes,
tobacco, food, candy--in fact, everything that could comfort a
soldier's heart, was thrown on our decks.
I gazed at the shores of my native land, listening to the strains of
"O Canada," played by the band and echoed back by the glorious hills
of Devon, and the thrill within me was indescribable. There was also
an undercurrent of wonderful feeling that made me proud, not only
that I was a Britisher, but that our grim old mother-nation was
nursing there in one of her great harbors the robust manhood of a
virile daughter-nation that had heard the call and answered and that
I was a part, however small, of that answer.
Songs of the British nations would go floating out to sea and inland
to the hills. Following the strains of "Annie Laurie" would come
"Men of Harlech," "The British Grenadiers," "Dear Little Shamrock,"
and then the incomparable lilt of "Tipperary."
We finally received the order to disembark. Now it is an unwritten
law in the army, in the practice of that most soldierly art of
thieving, that a man must thieve from every battalion and company
except his own, and we thought we might just as well start on
anything lying around loose on the _Lapland_. The Colonel may have
wondered why we came to the "Present arms" with such alacrity when we
said farewell to that splendid ship that brought us over; but the
truth of it was we wanted to get away from the scene of our
activities before any uncomfortable questions could be asked.
After a thoroughly profane and good-natured farewell with the burly
British sailors and a rousing welcome from the people, we marched out
in force to be delivered into the hands of the citizens. And such a
welcome! It beggars description. I never had my hand shaken so much
and I never was kissed so much in all my life.
One middle-aged lady, with two beautiful daughters, exclaimed, "You
brave boy, I am going to kiss you for your mother's sake." "I will
too," said her daughters, and I was kissed by the entire family. I
couldn't help venturing, "How about a kiss for my own sake?" And I
glanced at the daughters. "Surely," said the mother, and she kissed
me again, but the girls were a little bit abashed and did not respond
to my suggestion, much to my disappointment.
At one spot in our welcome I was again the subject of an outburst of
damnable sympathy from a motherly-hearted woman who almost went into
hysterics at the idea of such a child as I going out to help stem the
on-rushing Huns. However, my comrades were filled full of the
attentions they were receiving from their male and female admirers
and my predicament passed unnoticed this time, for which I fervently
thanked God.
In the course of our parade we were taken in front of Drake's
monument and I could not help wondering what he would have thought,
had he been there in the flesh, at the sight of those hardy
adventurers. Surely he would have felt that here indeed were men
after his own heart, ready and willing to dare everything, to go
anywhere for the sake of the motherland and their own new land across
the seas.
By sheer strength we reached the depot at last and entrained for
Salisbury Plain.