in Camp
Before you hit the buffalo, find out where the rest of the herd is.
- Proverb.
This particular fold of downs behind Salis- bury might have been a hump of prairie near Winnipeg. The team that came over the rise, widely spaced between pole-bar and whiffle- trees, were certainly children of the prairie. They shied at the car. Their driver asked them dis- passionately what they thought they were doing, anyway. They put their wise heads together, and did nothing at all. Yes. Oh, yes! said the driver. They were Western horses. They weighed better than twelve hundred apiece. He himself was from Edmonton way. The Camp? Why, the camp was right ahead along up this road. No chance to miss it, and, �Sa-ay! Look out for our lorries!�
A fleet of them hove in sight going at the rate of knots, and keeping their left with a conscientiousness only learned when you come out of a country where nearly all the Provinces (except British Columbia) keep to the right. Every line of them, from steering- wheel to brake-shoes, proclaimed their nationality. Three perfectly efficient young men who were sprinkling a golf -green with sifted earth ceased their duties to stare at them. Two riding-boys (also efficient) on racehorses, their knees under their chins and their saddles between their horses� ears, cantered past on the turf. The rattle of the motors upset their catsmeat, so one could compare their style of riding with that of an officer loping along to over- take a string of buck-wagons that were trotting towards the horizon. The riding-boys have to endure sore hardship nowadays. One gentleman has already complained that his �private gallops� are being cut up by gun- wheels and �irremediably ruined.�
Then more lorries, contractors’ wagons, and in- creasing vileness of the battered road-bed, till one slid through a rude gate into a new world, of canvas as far as the eye could reach, and beyond that outlying clouds of tents. It is not a contingent that Canada has sent, but an army - horse, foot, guns, engineers, and all details, fully equipped. Taking that army’s strength at thirty-three thou- sand, and the Dominion’s population at eight million, the camp is Canada on the scale of one to two hundred and forty - an entire nation unrolled across a few square miles of turf and tents and huts. Here I could study at close hand �a Colony� yearning to shake off �the British yoke.� For, beyond question, they yearned - the rank and file unreservedly, the officers with more restraint but equal fervour - and the things they said about the Yoke were simply lamentable.
From Nova Scotia to Victoria, and every city, township, distributing-centre, and divisional point between; from subtropical White River and sultry Jackfish to the ultimate north that lies up beside Alaska; from Kootenay, and Nelson of the fruit- farms, to Prince Edward Island, where motors are not allowed; they yearned to shake it off, with the dust of England from their feet, �at once and some time before that.�
I had been warned that when Armageddon came the �Colonies� would �revolt against the Mother Country as one man’; but I had no notion I should ever see the dread spectacle with my own eyes or the �one man� so tall!
Joking apart, the Canadian Army wants to get to work. It admits that London is �some city,� but says it did not take the trip to visit London only. Armageddon, which so many people in Europe knew was bound to come, has struck Canada out of the blue, like a noonday murder in a small town. How will they feel when they actually view some of the destruction in France, these men who are used to making and owning their homes? And what effect will it have on their land�s outlook and development for the next few generations? Older countries may possibly slip back into some sort of toleration. New peoples, in their first serious war, like girls in their first real love-affair, neither forget nor forgive. That is why it pays to keep friends with the young.
And such young! They ran inches above all normal standards, not in a few companies or battalions, but through the whole corps; and it was not easy to pick out foolish or even dull faces among them. Details going about their business through the camp’s much mud; defaulters on fatigue; orderlies, foot and mounted; the pro- cession of lorry-drivers; companies falling in for inspection; battalions parading; brigades moving off for manoeuvres; batteries clanking in from the ranges; they were all supple, free, and intelligent ; and moved with a lift and a drive that made one sing for joy.
Camp Gossip
Only a few months ago that entire collection poured into
[Page 33, line 15] Armageddon The place of the final battle with the Anti-Christ named in Revelations 16. 16. Frequently used to describe the war of 1914-1918. Valcartier camp in pink shirts and straw hats, desperately afraid they might not be in time. Since then they have been taught several things. Notably, that the more independent the individual soldier, the more does he need fore- thought and endless care when he is in bulk.
�Just because we were all used to looking after ourselves in civil life,� said an officer, �we used to send parties out without rations. And the parties used to go, too! And we expected the boys to look after their own feet. But we’re wiser now.�
�They’re learning the same thing in the New Army,� I said. �Company officers have to be taught to be mothers and housekeepers and sanitary- inspectors. Where do your men come from?�
�Tell me some place that they don’t come from,� said he, and I could not. The men had rolled up from everywhere between the Arctic circle and the border, and I was told that those who could not get into the first contingent were moving heaven and earth and local politicians to get into the second.
�There’s some use in politics now,� that officer reflected. �But it’s going to thin the voting-lists at home.�
A good many of the old South African crowd (the rest are coming) were present and awfully correct. Men last met as privates between De Aar and Belmont were captains and majors now, while one lad who, to the best of his ability, had painted Cape Town pink in those fresh years, was a grim non-commissioned officer worth his disciplined weight in dollars. �I didn’t remind Dan of old times when he turned up at Valcartier disguised as a respectable citizen.� said my informant. �I just roped him in for my crowd. He’s a father to �em. He knows.�
�And have you many cheery souls coming on?� I asked.
�Not many; but it’s always the same with a first contingent. You take everything that offers and weed the bravoes out later.�
�We don’t weed,� said an officer of artillery. �Any one who has had his passage paid for by the Canadian Government stays with us till he eats out of our hand. And he does. They make the best men in the long run,� he added. I thought of a friend of mine who is now disabusing two or three �old soldiers� in a Service corps of the idea that they can run the battalion, and I laughed. The Gunner was right. �Old soldiers� after a little loving care, become valuable and virtuous.
A company of Foot was drawn up under the lee of a fir plantation behind us. They were a miniature of their army as their army was of their people, and one could feel the impact of strong personality almost like a blow.
�If you’d believe it,� said a cavalryman, �we’re forbidden to cut into that little wood-lot, yonder! Not one stick of it may we have! We could make shelters for our horses in a day out of that stuff.�
�But it’s timber!’ I gasped. �Sacred, tame trees!�
�Oh, we know what wood is! They issue it to us by the pound. Wood to burn by the pound! What’s wood for, anyway? ‘
�And
