in the queer little English railway (wagons) with their two seat compartments and here our excess of baggage very nearly did us out of a seat, and were off to Salisbury Plains. No boxcars here or freight trains. They are goods wagons, goods trains and they shunt instead of switching. Instead of hand or lamp signals they toot a little tinhorn. I guess that is the origin of the term (Tin Horn) meaning one horse or haywire.
We were assigned to tents in a part of the plains called West Downs and west downs south a few miles from stone-henge or Stone-henge, of the old druid temple. Mud was here, rain was here, and the roadway was of chalk. The traffic had made its surface about ankle deep with a sort of wet mortar that splashed up your shins and put your legs in a plaster cast in jig time.
Here in the wet we went to it, hammer and tongs, for the balance of the year. Drill all day rain or shine and no shine. The platoon system of drill was comparatively new to us and had to be mastered. Then there was an open order skirmish drill. I always liked this kind of drill for it seemed to me it might be of practical use in warfare. I never did think that so much time ought to be used in close order drills when there is so much to learn of real practical value. Useful training is neglected in favor of drill that does not make for efficiency in the field but has its sole object in appearances and smartness during parades. Five years in the army has only served to strengthen that belief. Three years and seven months of that was in the front lines. There is patrol work, outpost duty, bombing with all its branches, machine guns, rifle grenades, trench mortars, stokes guns, sharp shooting, map reading, map making, use of compass and protractor, director boards, signaling and all its branches, including cooperation with aero planes in attack by infantry. Observation, construction of communications, front line trenches, telegraph and telephone lines, wireless a form of radio, working in conjunction with tanks, sapping and mining operations and open or moving warfare training. Close order drill takes up a lot of the time that should be spent on the things named above.
One day while out on open warfare practice, which culminated in an attack on Yarnbury Castle, we came to a small stone bridge across the Avon River. According to the umpire’s orders this bridge was supposed to have been destroyed by the enemy. Our captain looked around and seeing no umpires in sight sent some of his men across the bridge. In no time at all there showed up a couple of imperial staff officers who inquired how he could use a bridge that had been blown up. Our captain thought quickly and replied that the stone falling from the bridge into the stream had left enough footing to be used as a ford in crossing. The staff grinned. It was Sir H. Robertson or Sir H. Wilson. I am not really sure which one it was.
We dug into scout work with both feet on the plains. Road reports, patrol reports, map making, map enlarging, panoramic sketching, observation, night marches across country by compass and by stars, distance judging, concealment and utilization of cover, semaphore signaling, etc. Our field training was given to a lieutenant ex school teacher, ex surveyor from Emo in the Rainy River district, a conscientious soul with his heart in the work all right but seeming to us to be addicted to traveling in grooves and lacking the spirit of initiative and broadness necessary to work ahead, and inclined to be fussy in a school marm sort of way that would not be so bad with boy scouts at home. Over and senior to him was (Capt.- later to become) Major Andrews of Winnipeg a grand old man. Too bad he was so old. He was really too old to be soldiering at all but too game to be left at home. He was supposed to oversee our training and did so to the limit of his physical ability. He went on a night march across country in wet weather with us. Became over heated, caught pneumonia and near died with it. He did not recover in time to go to France with the battalion but followed when recovered. To him as to a true pal we have put our fears about the lieutenant. The upshot was a decision (at an Indian Council) to put in what is known as a round robin asking for his removal and the installation of one of our number, a private named Knobel as our instructor with the rank of sergeant. This was done in a few days.
Knobel was a mining engineer of good education and world wide experience including being with Dr. Jamieson on his famous raid on the Boers in s. a., mining in the Yukon, Alaska, Northern Ontario, etc., and four years at school in Germany speaking German and French fluently. He was an expert surveyor, map man, artist and photographer etc. We now felt more confidant and looked forward to seeing things when we progressed where we could try out our system of scout work in actual practice in the field.
Putting troops in tents on the plains in the winter is not usual practice but was thought feasible in our case as we colonials were supposed to be a tough lot and physically able to survive it. Quite a few of us did live through it and quite a few did not. Spinal meningitis due to exposure and wet also pneumonia due to the same cause carried away quite a number.
A few weeks before going overseas we were transferred to wooden huts at Stone-henge. The huts were better in that it gave us some chance to keep blankets and clothing semi-dry. I know that the after affects of that exposure was the death of a lot of men during the winter and spring of 1915 by cutting down on their vitality, making them easy prey when they were again exposed to tough conditions in the front line.
The collection of huge stone slabs at Stone-henge is an interesting monument attributed to the old druid priesthood. As far as I know we have no definite history of its origin though the nearest stone of the kind is at or near the coast and the ancients must have done some engineering to get them there to the present site. We used to form a hollow square in front of it every Sunday morning for church services. The drums were piled in the centre and served as a sort of pulpit from which the padre held services. The rolling land must have looked on some strange gatherings at this spot, ancient Britons, Romans, Normans, Norse, Angles, Saxons, Danes, old English, modern British and lastly Canadian troops under arms. I am afraid I used to stand and conjure up mind pictures of these old time savage battalions against the background of the grassland instead of listening to the services. The whispering wind in the grasses seemed to tell weird tales of the doings at this historic spot and ones eyes seemed to wander back to the alter stone or sacrificial stone in the centre with each whisper of the south wind.
I caught a heavy cold and a touch of pneumonia early in December. We were put on cross country foot races, a run of six miles with whole companies and battalions in the run, up hill and down dale in the winter rain through wet grass and pools of water. We would finish the run steaming hot, soaking wet with sweat and rain water, ending up in a tent where you waded in soup ankle-deep to the door. No fires here, no change of clothes, no rub down, not even dry blankets. We would squat in the slithery mud smooched floor and get busy with a knife scraping the mud from our clothing to make it presentable on the next parade. Marksmanship tests were on now and we were sent to the ranges from 100 to 800 yards. I was subject to ague-chills and a heavy cough with eyes running water badly. The targets were a blur as far as the bulls’ eye was concerned though I could make out the square outline of the white sheet alright. I used that as a guide to centre. Maj. Andrews was an old Bisely rifleman, and had been over some years before with the Canadian Team. My shooting up to now had been a little better than the average so he challenged me to a shoot off in the finals. I was leery about the ague-chills and the watery eyes but took him on. We shot the course and I was on top by two points only.
On account of something like 52 percent of the division being of British birth or having relatives in the old country, it was decided to allow all ranks a furlough–leave or vacation to the address they specified in the period at or about Christmas or New Years. Alick McRea invited me to go with him to his home at Brora in Sutherland–Scotland. We went via London and while strolling up the Strand we had a rather amusing encounter with a military body of shining aspect. Busy with plans and jabbering like two kids we failed to notice an artillery officer in (full dress peace time parade uniform) with broad red strips on his trousers, cap, oodles of gold braid and trimmings. Failing to notice and duly salute the trimmings we were jacked up very short, questioned as to the intelligence, training, origin of our ancestors and future hopes on this earth. Quandary was here as well as some embarrassment. I stole a shy maidenly look at the broad red strips stating that I had mistook him for a Salvation Army Officer. There was a snort something like a bear makes when disturbed in a blueberry patch and the man of many colors was on his way
