ON SALISBURY PLAINS.
It was on the 15th of October that we landed in Plymouth. A few days
later the whole of the 33,000 (with the exception of a few errant
knights who had gone off on independent pilgrimages) were more or less
settled on Salisbury Plain. The force was divided into four distinct
camps miles apart. One infantry brigade and the headquarters staff was
stationed at Bustard Camp; one section was camped a couple of miles
away, at West Down South; a third at West Down North still farther
away, and the fourth at Pond Farm about five miles from Bustard.
Convenience of water supplies and arrangements for the administration
of the forces made these divisions necessary.
The plains of Salisbury, ideal for summer military camps, are rolling,
prairie-like lands stretching for miles, broken by a very occasional
farm house or by plantations of trees called "spinneys." A thin layer
of earth and turf covered the chalk which was hundreds of feet in
depth; at any spot a blow with a pick would bring up the white chalk
filled with black flints. The hills by which the plains were reached
rose sharply from the surface of Wiltshire, so that Salisbury Plain
itself could be easily distinguished miles away by the white, water
worn rifts in the hillsides.
When we first arrived the plains gave promise of being a fine camping
ground. Tents were pitched, canteens opened, work was begun and our
boys settled down impatiently to receive the further training
necessary before passing over to that Mecca to which one and all
looked forward--the battle grounds of Flanders.
For a few days all went well; then it began to rain. About the middle
of November it settled down in earnest and rained steadily for a
month; sometimes it merely drizzled, at other times it poured; but it
never stopped, except for an hour or so. The constant tramp of many
feet speedily churned into mud the clay turf overlaying the chalk, and
the rain could not percolate through this mixture as it did the
unbroken sod. In a few days the mud was one inch--four inches--and
even a foot deep. Many a time I waded through mud up to my knees.
The smooth English roads, lacking depth of road-metal, were speedily
torn to pieces by the heavy traffic of motors and steam traction
engines. Passing cars and lorries sprayed the hedges with a thin
mud-emulsion formed from the road binder, and exposed the sharp flints
which, like so much broken glass, tore to pieces the tires of the
motors.
Cold high winds, saturated with moisture, accompanied the rain and
searched one's very marrow. Nothing would exclude these sea breezes
but skin or fur coats, and though accustomed to a severe climate, we
Canadians felt the cold in England as we never had at home. Sometimes
the temperature fell below the freezing point, and occasionally we had
sleet, hail or snow for variety. Tents were often blown down by the
hundreds, and it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight watching a small
army of soldiers trying to hold and pin down some of the large mess
tents, while rope after rope snapped under the straining of the
flapping canvas. One day the post office tent collapsed, and some of
the mail disappeared into the heavens, never to return.
The officers of the headquarter staff were fairly comfortable in
comparison to the others. Our tents were pitched in a quadrangle
formed by four rows of trees and scrub, which had evidently been
planted around the site of a former house and served to break the high
winds. Each officer had a tent with a wooden floor. Mine was carpeted
with an extra blanket to exclude draughts and make it feel comfortable
under one's bare feet in the morning. The tent was heated by an oil
stove which was kept burning night and day; and at night I slept snug
and warm in the interior of a Jaeger sleeping blanket in a Wolseley
kit. My batman, Karner, had made a table from some boxes and boards
which he had picked up, I know not where. It is unwise to ask your
batman too many foolish questions as to the origin of things,--take
what he gives you and be thankful.
This table covered with another blanket, served to support a splendid
brass lamp with a green silk shade, for which I had paid a fabulous
sum in Salisbury town. It also held some books, brushes, and other
necessaries. A shelf underneath displayed a little brass kettle and
other paraphernalia for making tea, while my other books were arranged
in a neat row beneath.
The tents were wet all the time, and the clothes and blankets of the
men soon became water soaked and remained so for weeks at a stretch
for they had no stoves or other facilities for drying them. But Tommy,
the resourceful, learned that he could get warm by the simple process
of wrapping himself up in wet blankets and steaming as he would in a
Turkish bath,--with himself as the heater. He also discovered that a
pair of wet socks, well wrung out and placed next his chest at night
would be half dry in the morning. He had to sleep in a bell tent with
seven others, radiating like spokes of a wheel from the centre tent
pole. He had nothing to give him any comfort whatever.
It was impossible to do any work, even route marching, and, having
nothing to do but lie around and think of himself, Tommy began to
grouse. Each camp had become a morass with mud a foot deep, and Tommy
looked out upon it and behold it was not good, and he cursed both loud
and long whoever he thought might be responsible for the conditions,
and particularly Emperor Bill the cause of it all. The Canadian
contingent had begun a process of mildewing.
One felt sorry for the poor horses. Picketed in the open plain or in
the partial shelter of the occasional "spinneys," they stood with ears
drooping and tails to the wind, pictures of dejection. No doubt they,
too, cursed the Kaiser. Their feet became soft from standing idly in
the mud, and in a good many cases had become diseased; in general they
went off badly in condition. Standing orders prohibited the cutting
down of a bush or tree on Salisbury Plain, but in the night time we
could sometimes hear the familiar sound of an axe meeting standing
timber, and one could guess that Tommy, in his desire for wood to
build a fire, and regardless of rules, had grown desperate. As one of
them said to Rudyard Kipling when he was down visiting them, "What
were trees for if they were not to be cut down?"
Towards the middle of December, one evening there was a sharp tap on
the tent of Capt. Haywood, Medical Officer of the third (Toronto)
Battalion.
"Come in" he cried.
The laces were undone and Sergeant Kipple stepped into the tent. The
Sergeant was a good man--an old soldier and reliable as the proverbial
watch.
"Well, what is it?" said the M.O.
"I want you to give me somethink to buck me up" said the Sergeant in a
tearful voice.
"But what is the matter?" said the M.O. "Have you a cold?"
"No, I aint got no cold" he said, "I just wants somethink to buck me
up; some qui-nine or somethink."
"But what's the matter?" persisted the M.O. "What do you want it for?"
"Nothing's wrong with me" said the sergeant, "I jist want somethink to
buck me up; this rine is getting on me nerves. It rines all day, and
me clothes 'aven't been dry for a month--if I go out I get more wet.
All day long I 'ave to splash about in the blinkin' mud and rine. At
night I cawnt go to sleep. Me clothes are wet; me blankets are soaked.
I 'ears the bl---- rine coming down on the bl---- tent which leaks all
over; it makes a 'ell of a noise on the tent and I cawnt sleep. I gets
up in the morning and 'ave to do me work and do me dooty. But Doc,
it's gettin' me goat. I feel like cutting me bl---- throat. I 'ave 'ad
thirteen years in the awmy and 'ave me good conduc stripes. I 'ave a
wife and two kids at 'ome. I didn't come over 'ere to drown; I came
over to fight. I wants to do me work but I cawnt do it. If you don't
give me somethink Doc I am afraid I'll cut me bloody throat and I
don't want to die. Cawn't you give me somethink to buck me up, Doc
please?"
The Doc did give him something, and between that and a little
judicious "jollying" Kipple was a different man in a few days.
Of course there was trouble. The contingent was going through a rough
experience, and to most of us Salisbury Plain was becoming a
nightmare. A fairly large number of the men were given leave, and an
equally large number took French leave. The latter migrated in large
numbers to the little villages around the outskirts of the plain where
they settled down to a few days' comfort before they were rounded up
by the military police.
Some went to London, and, worshipping at the shrines of Venus and
Bacchus, forgot about the war, and tarried in the fascinating
metropolis. Others sought a few hours' respite and forgetfulness in
the town of Salisbury, where they hobnobbed with their British
confreres and treated them to various drinks. At times the British
Tommy, stung at the flaunting of pound notes where he had only
shillings, smote his colonial brother, and bloody battles resulted in
consequence thereof.
[Illustration: MECHANICAL TRANSPORTS IN SALISBURY FLOODS.]
It was a curious fact that it was the Englishman who had gone out to
Canada a few years before and now returned as a Canadian, who was the
chief offender in this respect. He had gained a new airiness and sense
of freedom which he was proud of, and it brought him into trouble. My
own chauffeur, an Englishman, was the invariable champion of all
American cars as compared with English cars, which he delighted in
saying were from three to four years behind the times. This same man
four years before had been working on automobiles in London, where he
was born.
At one stage it looked as if the force was undergoing a process of
decomposition, and would disintegrate. The morale of the men under the
very depressing conditions which existed, had almost gone and they did
not care what happened them. Privates, perhaps college men or wealthy
business men in Canada, frankly said when arrested, that they were
quite willing to pay the price, but that they had determined to get
warm and dry once more before they were drowned in the mud. It is an
easy matter to handle a few cases of this sort, but when you get
hundreds of them little can be done, and threats, fines and
punishments were of little avail in correcting the existing state of
affairs.
As a matter of fact, under the conditions the military authorities
were hard put to it to control the situation. Each night the motor
lorries returned loaded with men under arrest, and each day an equally
large number left the camp to undergo the same experience.
All the time the wastage went on. One soldier fell off a cart and
fractured his skull; another had his legs amputated by a lorry; a
third was accidently shot, and another committed suicide. It is
astonishing how many accidents can occur among 30,000 men.
New huts were being built at Larkhill, near the ancient Phoenician
remains called Stonehenge, but the progress made was so slow that
finally our men were put on the job, and the huts began to go up like
mushrooms. Hundreds of Canadians, belonging to Highland and other
regiments, built roads, huts, and other works, in a country apparently
filled with labouring men with no intention of ever going to war, and
who, in fact, often did not believe that there was a war. We all felt
somewhat relieved one night when we heard that the German fleet was
bombarding the English coast, hoping that it would shake the country
out of its feeling of smug self-complacency and lethargy.
On November 20th, there were 150 men in our hospital at Bulford Manor;
three weeks later there were 780. It had rained every day in the
interval, and there was a great deal of influenza and bronchial
troubles, which made splendid foundation for attacks of other
diseases.
Towards the end of the year the men began to move into the new huts at
Larkhill. We had already officially forecasted in black and white,
that the huts, being raised from the ground, would be colder to sleep
in, and whereas there had been only eight men in the tent to be
infected should one man become ill with a communicable disease, there
would now be forty in each hut; and that in consequence we should
expect a great increase in illness from such diseases. And there was.
It began to increase as soon as the men got into the huts. These huts
were heated with stoves, and fuel was provided. Consequently the men,
before going to bed, got the stoves red hot, closed and sealed the
windows with paper, contrary to standing orders, and went to bed with
the huts overheated. When the stoves went out the huts cooled down and
the usual story one heard was of the men waking at three or four in
the morning cold and shivering. The heat also served to shrink the
floor boards so that the draughts came through and made matters worse.
Then the scare came. Prior to this the report of an odd case of
cerebro-spinal meningitis had not occasioned any concern. Under these
menacing conditions cases of the disease became more numerous and when
Col. Strange died of it uneasiness culminated in real alarm.
My proposed trip to Scotland for Christmas was postponed and instead I
was sent up to London to get an expert bacteriologist on the disease
and arrange to start a laboratory. The object was to see what could be
done in locating "carriers" of the disease germ, and thereby keep the
disease from spreading. Accordingly, on the day before Christmas, I
arranged with the Director of the Lister Institute for the loan of Dr.
Arkwright of his staff and for the necessary apparatus to equip a
laboratory at Bulford Cottage Hospital. It was a forlorn hope, but it
was the only thing that could be done to try to get this elusive
disease under control. I spent Christmas day in camp, and it was a
melancholy day indeed. The men were all well looked after, and for
those in the hospitals the day was made as bright as possible. It
seemed years since we had left Canada.
When we brought down the bacteriological apparatus by passenger train
a few days later we paid excess baggage on 780 pounds but we got it
through. It took five men to shove the trucks containing the boxes,
and we held the connecting train for five minutes at Salisbury
Junction until we made the transfer. This saved time, for the London
people would not guarantee delivery for five weeks.
The epidemic of cerebro-spinal meningitis proved to be a blessing in
disguise, for it educated both combatant officers and men as to the
necessity of observing certain simple precautions to prevent the
spread of any contagious disease; and it also showed them that when
disease once got out of hand it would be possible to put whole
battalions _hors de combat_. Col. Mercer kept his brigade moving about
on the sod in tents all winter, and as a result, there was very much
less sickness in his brigade than in the other brigades housed in
huts.
Then nature came to our rescue, and took a hand in the game. The rains
grew less frequent; the sun put in an occasional appearance; training
was begun once more, and a rapid improvement was immediately apparent
in the men. Again the sound of singing was heard in the tents at night
and on route marches; and again one began to see smiling faces. With
the improvement in weather conditions, training went briskly on, and
the division began to rapidly round into shape.
Meanwhile the artillery and cavalry had gone into billets in the
surrounding villages, and were behaving splendidly. The people took to
them very kindly, and the men themselves looked so clean and happy
that it was difficult to realize that they were the same unkempt,
dirty individuals who had been seen not so long before wading through
the mud and filth of the plains.
All sorts of rumours were current. A favorite one was that we were to
go to Egypt to finish our training there. Another one whispered among
the staff was that we would shortly leave for France. The men worked
hard at their training, anxious to make good and get to the Front.
They had the old Viking spirit of adventure in their blood, and wanted
to get to the battle ground. We all knew that many of us would be
killed, but we all felt that it would be the other fellow--not
ourselves.
After the laboratory had been started, the force had to a large extent
been reassured thereby that everything possible was being done that
could be done. When, with better weather, the sickness began to abate,
I obtained permission from our Surgeon-General to try to get the rest
of our men inoculated against typhoid fever. We had arrived in England
with 65 per cent. of the men inoculated, and it was my ambition to get
them all done before the division left for France.
Accordingly I settled down in the Bear Hotel in the little Wiltshire
town of Devizes, the head-quarters of the artillery brigade, and began
my educational campaign.
The old Bear Hotel was one of the famous old coaching houses of former
days; it had seen much life in ye olden times when it had been the
chief stopping place of the bloods of London en route to the famous
City of Bath and the historic Pump Room. It was a homey-looking old
place, with the usual appearance of comfort pertaining to an English
Inn, and the maximum amount of discomfort as judged by our modern
standards. The food was good, and the fire places looked bright and
cheery, like the bar maid behind the polished bar. It was mostly in
looks. No wonder that the British people fortify themselves with
copious draughts of stimulants to help keep out the cold. There were
some magnificent pieces of old furniture and Sheffield plate in the
halls--pieces that many a collector had tried in vain to purchase. My
room lit by two candles in earthenware candlesticks; and with a fire
in a corner grate--at a shilling a day extra--looked cozy enough but
the bedroom furniture was ancient and uncomfortable.
The officers of the Artillery Headquarters lived at the hotel, and I
took my meals with them. Col. Burstall, the officer commanding, gave
me every assistance and issued orders to his officers to aid in every
possible way in the campaign.
My object was to educate all the artillery and cavalry units on the
danger of using impure water, on typhus fever and how it was conveyed
by lice, and on the value and necessity of anti-typhoid inoculation.
The following day I gave my first talk in a large shed in the town, to
about 700 artillery men of the first artillery brigade. It was a
unique experience, standing on a great stack of boxes of loaded
ammunition beside Colonel Morrison and the medical officer Lt.-Col.
McCrae, talking to the brigade drawn up at attention around us. It was
an attentive audience; the men had to listen, though as a matter of
fact, they really seemed interested. When paraded next day 370
uninoculated were discovered and given the treatment; the few who
refused were sent to the base depot and replaced by others.
The campaign begun so successfully was carried on from day to day.
Arrangements were made by telephone or wire with the O.C.'s of the
various units, to have their men paraded for my lectures. The weather
was frequently wet, and the talks were given in farm yards, village
squares, churches, schools, hay-lofts, and open fields. In some
instances the units, broken up into small sections, were scattered
about the country so that I would have to talk to 50 men at once
instead of several hundred.
One of the most unique occasions was the Sunday when I addressed the
3rd Artillery brigade, after church parade in the market square of
Market Lavingdon. We arrived early and sat and listened while, from
the little stone church high up on the hill above us, drifted the
sound of soldiers singing. It was unutterably sad to me to hear the
full mellow soldier chorus swelling out on "Onward Christian Soldiers,
Marching as to War." One felt that the words must have had to all of
them a meaning that they never had had before.
Then the brigade formed up and was played by the village band to the
market place where they were drawn up into a square with some gun
carriages in the centre. When all was ready I mounted a gun carriage
and gave my talk with all the earnestness I could muster, while the
villagers congregated at one side, stood and gaped, and wondered what
it was all about.
My talk had settled down into a 20-minute discourse, and I gave
variations of it as often as four times in an afternoon at places 10
miles apart. In this way one saw a good deal of the Wiltshire scenery
in the late winter season. It was a never-failing source of wonder and
pleasure to me to see the ivy covered banks, the ivy clad trees and
the rhododendrons and holly trees in green leaf in the middle of the
winter. In the garden at the back of the famous old Elizabethan house
in Potterne--a perfect example of the old Tudor timbered style of
architecture--cowslips and pansies were in full blossom, and I was
told the wild violets were in flower in the woods. The trim, well kept
gardens, hedges and fields of the country side and village were a
continual delight to a native of Canada where everything in comparison
looks so unfinished and in need of trimming. The winter wheat was as
green as the new grass of spring time, and many of the meadows also
were fairly green. Some shrubs, and in particular an unknown
yellow-flowered, leafless vine, were in blossom. I heard afterwards
that it was the Jasmine.
During those January days when the sun shone fitfully, some wonderful
atmospheric effects were to be seen at times on the plains. For the
painter who wanted atmosphere and light and vivid contrasts, that was
the place to be, for never did I see elsewhere such wonderful pastel
effects; never such vivid-colored banks of spray and fog.
The little straw-thatched farm houses with their small paned windows
frequently filled with flowers in bloom, nestling in gardens and
shrubberies and orchards, had a more or less comfortable and homey
look during the day time; but at dusk when the light was failing and
the lamp light shone through the windows, these farm houses took on a
wonderfully attractive and romantic appearance. It made you feel like
going to the door and asking for a glass of new milk or a cup of
cider; and you had visions of blazing fires in the great fireplace,
and brass utensils, hanging from the walls; comfy ingle nooks, old
beam ceilings and ancient oak furniture; hams suspended from the
kitchen ceilings, and old blue willow pattern plates on the walls.
That nothing can give a house such a homelike appearance as a thatched
roof and leaded panes, I am perfectly convinced.
To a Canadian the bird-life of the plain was marvellous. There were
birds by the tens of thousands. You would see crows settling on a
spring wheat field on the open plain by hundreds; you would see
starlings in great flocks following the plough, and gulls sometimes
literally covered acres of newly ploughed ground.
One day as we approached a hamlet near Netheravon, I fancied I was
witnessing an optical illusion: the whole surface of a field was
covered with black and white, vibrating as though waves were passing
over it. When we came nearer we saw that the field was covered so
thick with gulls that the ground was hidden. The gull was a small
white variety about the size of a pigeon, with a black ruff around
its neck. The wave-like motion was made by the birds digging away in
the newly turned earth for worms and larvæ; judging by the way they
worked, they must have cleaned up millions of them.
Then there were robins, thrushes, magpies, and scores of other birds
which were unfamiliar to us, while later on the larks spiralled with
delirious songs into the sky. The pheasants were so tame they would
scarcely get out of the way of a passing car.
Salisbury Plain had evidently been the site of many an armed camp and
had probably seen many a battle since the time of the Romans. The
archæologists in charge of the unearthing of "Old Sarum," perhaps the
most ancient remains of a city in Great Britain, have, during the last
ten years, found many wonderful things. Old Sarum is situated about
two miles from the present city of Salisbury on the plain. It was
built on the top of an enormous circular mound of earth several
hundred yards in diameter, and was supposed to have been surrounded by
the usual fosse and ditch. Roman, Saxon and Norman remains have been,
and are still being, found, as the stonework of walls and buildings is
being uncovered. It is supposed that much of the original stone was
used in the 12th century to build the present cathedral of Salisbury.
One day at the opposite side of the plain toward Tinhead, Colonel (now
General) Panet, of the horse artillery, took me out to see the
enormous white horse cut in the chalk in the face of the hill
ascending to Salisbury Plain. The figure, representing King Alfred's
famous white charger is supposed to have been carved in King Alfred's
time, to celebrate a famous victory in the neighborhood. The natives
have kept the figure ever since carved white on the hillside by the
simple process of digging away the surface earth and sod, and leaving
the underlying chalk exposed.
Stonehenge, situated in the middle of the plain, is one of the
weirdest and most interesting sights of England. It consists of two
series of colossal stone columns arranged in circles with the lower
ends stuck in the ground, and the upper ends supporting huge slabs of
stone placed across them. A few of the stones have fallen, and lie
prone upon the ground. Perhaps no relics in the world have caused more
wonder and evoked more speculation in the lay and scientific mind than
these curious stones standing in the middle of the plain, miles from
any town. Books have been written about them. They are supposed to be
of Phoenician origin. Each stone weighing many tons, must have been
brought a great distance, and suggest the use of powerful means of
transport not known to-day. Hundreds of thousands of people have
travelled to Stonehenge and have gone away but little wiser than when
they came. What the stones were for no man knows; he can only
speculate and wonder.
All over the plain, too, are gently rising circular mounds called
"barrows" supposed to be Roman burial places. It is against the law to
dig into them or damage them in any way, just as it is unlawful to
harm one of the rabbits or hares, which abound on the plains. England
has laws to cover all contingencies.
In about two weeks I had completed my campaign, and returned to
Bustard Camp where I rounded out my course by lecturing to the
officers of the various infantry brigades with the exception of the
Highlanders. In this way, though the returns were not quite completed
before the division left for France, it was estimated that 97 per
cent. of the men had been inoculated against typhoid fever.
During that winter the difficulties of the medical service were very
great. At the beginning of December the manor house at Bulford was
obtained as a nucleus for a hospital and was equipped and manned by
number one general hospital. Across the way from the manor was a field
which was utilized as a tent hospital for venereal diseases. Then some
new cottages just being completed about 200 yards away were obtained
and equipped; two other houses at different places about two miles
apart were requisitioned and finally the riding school at Netheravon
was taken over as well as some shacks for hospital purposes.
The hospital, therefore, consisted of six distinct units spread over a
five-mile area, and all operated by the same hospital staff. It was
very difficult from the standpoint of administration, though it was
excellent training for the personnel of the hospital. At the beginning
it was difficult to obtain drugs. The transportation of sick men from
Pond Farm camp to Netheravon a distance of about 16 miles over very
rough roads in rain and cold can be better imagined than described.
And yet it was the best that could be done under the circumstances.
Salisbury Plain is a great rolling field without town or village and
the places chosen were the nearest and in fact the only places, that
could be found reasonably close to the camp suitable for hospital
purposes.
We had been reviewed by Lord Roberts and the King early after our
arrival, and now it was rumoured that the King would review us again.
Inspections of various sorts became a daily occurrence; inspectors
from the War Office came down and condemned nearly everything we had
including motor and horse transport, harness and other equipment.
Later on we realized that it had been very wise to sacrifice a few
score thousands of dollars worth of equipment in England in order that
standard parts and replacements of equipment could be obtained at any
time in the field and the efficiency of the force thereby maintained
at all times. The authorities were much wiser than we knew.
Of course it rained on the morning of the day that the King came down
to review the Division; at breakfast the rain hammered the tin roof of
our mess room at Bustard Camp like so many hailstones and the outlook
was most gloomy. Later on it cleared, and when the guns boomed out the
royal salute announcing the arrival of His Majesty, the rain had
entirely ceased.
A review by the King in war time is a pretty sure indication that the
division will move shortly. I had an excellent point of vantage on a
little hill opposite the saluting base where the King and Lord
Kitchener stood. That review was the real thing. It lacked, perhaps,
something of the wildness of the review that took place on the sandy
plains of Valcartier, but it had a dignity that was very inspiring.
Only the division that was actually going across was reviewed. One
felt that it was the last review that many of the men were ever
destined to see and it seemed to be peculiarly fitting that before
they left for the field of battle they should see that figure,--the
head of the Empire--that stood for freedom and that intangible
something that had made them come thousands of miles to fight and,
perhaps, to die.
A young officer--Captain Klotz of the third battalion--of German
descent and a very fine boy,--sat with me and chatted for a while as
we watched the division march past. Although he was orderly officer of
his battalion he had not been able to resist the temptation to slip
away for the day to see a little of the march past. Poor chap! He was
killed at the second battle of Ypres three months afterwards. The
first Canadian division as it swung past was certainly a magnificent
spectacle and I was quite willing to agree with a General who told me
later in the day that though he had been at reviews for many years he
had never seen such a fine body of men in the whole of his career. The
King and Lord Kitchener both seemed to be greatly impressed with the
division.
Finally the time did arrive for the division to leave and one night it
disappeared--for Southampton everybody thought--though an officer who
had been left behind sick was unable to find any trace of it later on
in the day when he arrived at that port. Certainly the British do not
tell all they know.
The impedimenta left behind in camp was something to marvel at, and
included pianos, a Ford car, gramophones, bayonets, rifles and many
other things. Why a man should leave behind his rifle, and how he
managed to do so without getting caught, will probably always remain a
mystery. The first Canadian Division had passed on to the great
adventure in Flanders.