box of maple sugar and packet of cigarettes from the Duchess of Connaught
with her Christmas card. All parcels for the troops came in duty free. Our
postal system is very efficient. We get our letters as regularly as we
would in a town.
People send us so many cigarettes that we sometimes have too many. I wish
we could get more tobacco and fewer cigarettes. If you remember during the
Boer War the authorities tried to break the “Tommy” of his “fags” by
giving him more tobacco. Now they really seem to encourage cigarette
smoking, although it really doesn’t matter; the same things which are
harmful in towns don’t have the same bad effects when we are living in the
open.
All leave is up by the 10th of January for everybody, officers and men.
The Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry have gone to the front to
the envy of everybody. It is a splendid battalion with fine officers. They
have been lying next to our lines and we have made many friends with the
“Pats.”
Cerebro-spinal meningitis has broken out, and in spite of all efforts to
check it, seems to be gaining ground. Several officers have died with it,
and I believe that four battalions are quarantined. We have to use
chloride of lime on the tent floors and around the lines. My friend Pat
calls it “Spike McGuiness.” The worst of a disease like this is that a
patient never recovers. Even a cure means partial paralysis for life. I
believe that Salisbury Plain is known for it, and I hear that all the
ground that troops are now occupying is to be ploughed up when we leave.
As far as that goes we have ploughed it up a bit already, but a systematic
ploughing will make it more regular. The subsoil is only four inches, then
you come to chalky clay. The tent-pegs when they are taken from the ground
are covered with chalk.
I think that the Canadian Contingent has had a pretty raw deal. We’re not
even included in the six army divisions which are going to France by the
end of March. Wish I had joined the “Princess Pats,” who are already
there. We want to fight.
We’re having a beastly time as compared with the Belgian refugees and the
German prisoners in England. We’re beginning to wonder if we are ever
going to the front. There is now some talk of billeting us in Bristol.
We’ve been under arms nearly five months and should be good fighting
material by now. With a similar number of men the Germans would have done
something by this time.
-------------------------------------
All the last week the selected few of us have been working separately on a
course of work to qualify us for commissions. We have had to study hard
every spare minute when not drilling each other.
Several dogs have attached themselves to us; sometimes they find
themselves on a piece of string, the other end being in a man’s hand. One
of these, a big bull terrier, sleeps in the canteen. The beer is quite
safe with him there, but two nights ago the canteen tent, after a great
struggle, tore itself off the tent-poles and went fifteen feet up in the
air like a balloon, then collapsed. The dog, I regret to say, did not stay
at his post, so a quantity of beer will have to be marked down as lost.
This same bull has a pal, a white bull terrier, who came out with the
officers’ class the other morning. We had not been drilling more than
fifteen minutes when he came back with a large rabbit. We stewed it at
night. It certainly was good.
One of the mechanics has forged an Iron Cross which has been presented to
the dog in recognition of his services.
I doubt if I shall ever be able to sit up to a table again regularly. I
would much sooner sleep on the floor, and I have found, when on leave,
that I preferred sitting on a hearthrug to a chair. Even while writing
this I am lying on my blankets. My pipe is burnt down on one side from
lighting it from my candle.
-------------------------------------
To-day being Sunday and as there were only two of us left in the tent, the
others being on leave, we gave it a thorough spring cleaning. It needed
it! By some oversight the sun came out to-day, so that helped. We also
washed up all our canteens and pannikins with disinfectant.
The infantry are bayonet-fighting and practicing charges every day. If you
want a thrill, see them coming over the top at you with a yell; the
bayonets catch the light and flash in a decidedly menacing fashion. They
practice on dummies, and are so enthusiastic that they need new dummies
almost every lesson.
Every man, on becoming a soldier, becomes a man with a number and an
identification disk. My number is 45555 and my “cold meat ticket,” a tag
made of red fiber, is hanging round my neck on a piece of string.
-------------------------------------
We’re packing up and expect to go away next week. Of course, it may be
another bluff, but somehow I think we really are going now, as we have
been fitted out with a “field service-dressing,” a packet containing two
bandages and safety pins, which we have to sew into the right-hand bottom
corner of our tunics. We have also been given our active service pay book,
a little account book in which we have our pay entered. We don’t get paid
much in the field. We carry this book instead.
It seems always cold and wet. We are very hardened. We look tough and feel
that way. I haven’t had a bath for a month. Since I have been soldiering I
have done every dirty job that there is in the army, and there are many.
Often when a job seemed to be too dirty and too heavy for anybody else,
they looked around for Keene and Pat.
-------------------------------------
“On guard.” Writing this in the guard tent, when we are not actually on
sentry. We keep all our equipment on, as we are liable to be called out at
any minute. We sleep with our belts and revolvers in place.
A quarter guard is three men and a noncom. The men do two hours on and
four off. When it comes to a man’s turn he has to be on his beat no matter
what the weather is like during the day or night. The cold is pretty bad
and occasionally it snows. Some units have sentry boxes, but we haven’t.
We use a bell tent. I was called this morning at five o’clock to do my
sentry from five to seven. The small oil stove which serves to heat the
guard tents had evidently been smoking for an hour, and over everything
was a thick film of lamp-black. Everybody thought it a great joke until
they looked at themselves in the mirror and caught sight of their own
equipment. We must come off guard as clean as we go on. I got out quickly
and left them swearing and cleaning up.
From five to seven is the most interesting relief. I had first to wake the
cooks at five o’clock and then I watched the gradual waking up of the
camp. At six o’clock I had to wake the orderly sergeants and then far away
in the distance the first bugle sounded reveille, then it was taken up all
around and gradually the camps all over the Plains woke up. Men came out
of the tents, the calls for the “fall in” sounded, and the rolls were
called and the usual business of the day commenced. The change from the
deadness of the night with its absolute stillness all takes place in a
very short time. To a person with any imagination it seems rather
wonderful. You must remember that we can see for miles, and in every
direction there are hundreds of tents. Each battalion is separate, and
they have great spaces between them; still wherever you look you can see
tents.
I wonder if I told you that aeroplanes are all the time flying over our
camp. With characteristic British frankness they always have two huge
Union Jacks painted on the undersides of the wings. We have become so used
to them that we scarcely trouble to look up unless they are doing stunts.
-------------------------------------
The frost makes a fine grip for the cars; when the ground freezes over we
can take the cars anywhere, but unfortunately it thaws again too quickly.
As we are a motor battery we are of course a mile from the road, and
sometimes it takes an hour and a half to get on to it.
-------------------------------------
It is a howling night, wind and rain galore. I’m wondering how long the
tent will last. I have been out three times already to look at the tent
pegs. How often it has been so since we first came on to these plains. If
you are living in tents you notice the changes in weather more than under
ordinary circumstances, and every rain-storm has meant wet feet for us.
But now we have been given new black boots, magnificent things, huge,
heavy “ammunition boots,” and the wonderful thing is they don’t let water
in. They are very big and look like punts, but it’s dry feet now. I can
tell you I am as pleased with them as if some one had given me a present
of cold cash. At first they felt something like the Dutch sabots. They
seemed absolutely unbendable and so we soaked them with castor-oil. Once
they become moulded to the feet they are fine. Of course they are not
pretty, but they keep the wet out.
We have had new tunics issued to us of the regular English pattern, much
more comfortable than our other original ones, and then instead of the
hard cap we now have a soft one, something like a big golf cap with the
flap on to pull down over the ears. These are much more comfortable. They
have one great advantage over the old kind—we can sleep in them. We can
now lie down in our complete outfits even to our hats. Once I considered
it a hardship to sleep in my clothes. Now to go to bed we don’t undress;
we put on clothes.
I managed to get a pass to Salisbury on Saturday and went to the local
vaudeville show. In the row in front of me were several young officers of
the British Army, and it was striking what a clean-cut lot they were.
England is certainly giving of her best. They were not very much different
from any others, but at the same time they are the type of Englishmen who
have done things in the past and will do things again. They are all
Kitchener’s Army. Thousands of men who have never been in the army before
threw up everything to go in the ranks. You see side by side professors,
laborers, lawyers, doctors, stevedores, carters, all classes, rich and
poor, a great democratic army, drilling to fight so that this may be a
decent world to live in.
At present it is almost impossible to use each man in his own profession
as they do in Germany, but sometimes the non-commissioned officers work it
out in this way.
Sergeant to squad of recruits:—
“Henybody ’ere know anythink abart cars?”
“Yes; I do. I own a Rolls Royce.”
“Olright; fall out and clean the major’s motor bike.”
One patriotic mother who had a son who was a butcher did her best to get
him to join the Royal Army Medical Corps, because he was proficient at
cutting up meat and would feel quite at home assisting at amputations.
-------------------------------------
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
button 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 canal, 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 sexton.
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 gassed 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 passed 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 passed 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 passes. 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 shelled 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.
-------------------------------------