Then I went back to the main camp for a last look at that wonderful
army, where the tin-roofed messes take French conversation lessons with
the keen-faced French-Canadian officers, and where one sees
esprit-de-corps in the making. Nowhere is local sentiment stronger than
in Canada. East and West, lake and maritime provinces, prairie and
mountain, fruit district and timber lands—they each thrill to it. The
West keeps one cold blue open-air eye on the townful East. Winnipeg sits
between, posing alternately as sophisticated metropolis and simple
prairie. Alberta, of the thousand horses, looks down from her
high-peaked saddle on all who walk on their feet; and British Columbia
thanks God for an equable climate, and that she is not like Ottawa, full
of politicians and frozen sludge. Quebec, unassailable in her years and
experience, smiles tolerantly on the Nova Scotian, for he has a history
too, and asks Montreal if any good thing can come out of Brandon, Moose
Jaw, or Regina. They discuss each other outrageously, as they know each
other intimately, over four thousand miles of longitude—their fathers,
their families, and all the connections. Which is useful when it comes
to sizing up the merits of a newly-promoted non-commissioned officer or
the capacities of a quarter-master.
As their Army does and suffers, and its record begins to blaze, fierce
pride of regiment will be added to local love and the national pride
that backs and envelops all. But that pride is held in very severe check
now; for they are neither provinces nor tribes but a welded people
fighting in the War of Liberty. They permit themselves to hope that the
physique of their next contingent will not be worse than that of the
present. They believe that their country can send forward a certain
number of men and a certain number behind that, all equipped to a
certain scale. Of discomforts endured, of the long learning and
relearning and waiting on, they say nothing. They do not hint what they
will do when their hour strikes, though they more than hint their
longing for that hour. In all their talk I caught no phrase that could
be twisted into the shadow of a boast or any claim to superiority, even
in respect to their kit and outfit; no word or implication of
self-praise for any sacrifice made or intended. It was their rigid
humility that impressed one as most significant—and, perhaps, most
menacing for such as may have to deal with this vanguard of an armed
Nation.
V