At Suvla Bay | Page 6

and we were all starving and shivering. I had nothing but what I stood up in--shirt, shorts, and cowboy-hat, and my old haversack, which contained soap, towel and razor, and also a sketch-book and a small colour-box.
The Irish sea-winds whistled up my shorts-- but I preferred the icy wind to the stinking cattle-stalls and insect-infested straw below. We were packed in like sardines. Men were retching and groaning, cussing and growling. At last I found a coil of rope. It was a huge coil with a hole in the centre--something like a large bird's nest. I got into this hole and curled up like a dormouse. Here I did not feel the cold so much, and lying down I didn't feel sick. The moon glittered on the great gray billows. The cattle-boat heaved up and slid down the mountains. She pitched and rolled and slithered sideways down the wave-slopes. And so to Waterford.
From Waterford by train to Tipperary. It was early morning. The first thing I noticed was that the grass in Ireland was very green and that the fields were very small.
We had had no food for twenty-seven hours. I found a very hard crust of bread in my haversack, and eat it while the others were asleep in the carriage.

CHAPTER III
SNARED
"CRIMED"
"Off with his head," said the Queen.--Alice in Wonderland.
"Charge against 31963-- Failing to drink some oniony tea; Ha! Ha! What! What! I can have you SHOT! D'you realise that I can have you lashed To a wheel and smashed? What? Rot! Yes--SHOT! D'you realise this? Right--turn! DISMISS!"
Lemnos: October 1915.
Born and bred in a studio, and brought up among the cloud-swept mountains of Westmorland, amid the purple heather and the sunset in the peat-moss puddles, barrack-life soon became like penal servitude. I was like a caged wild animal. I knew now why the tigers and leopards pace up and down, up and down, behind their bars at the Zoo.
We only stayed a week in the great, gray, prison-like barracks at Tipperary. We looked about for the "sweetest girl" of the song--but the "colleens" were disappointing. My heart was not "right there." We moved to Limerick; and in Limerick we stopped for seven solid months.
For seven months we did the same old squad- drill every day, at the same time, on the same old square, until at last we all began to be unbearably "fed up." The sections became slack at drill because they were over-drilled and sickened by the awful monotony of it all.
During those seven dreary months, in that dismal slum-grown town, we learnt all the tricks of barrack-life. We knew how to "come the old soldier"; we knew how and when to "wangle out" of doing this or that fatigue; we practised the ancient art of "going sick" when we knew a long route march was coming off next day.
We knew how to "square" the guard if we came in late, and the others learnt how to dodge church parade.
"'E never goes to church parade."
"No; 'e was a fly one--'e was."
"Wotchermean?"
"Put 'isself down as Quaker."
"Lummy--that's me next time I 'list-- Quaker Oats!"
By this time I had been promoted to the rank of corporal.
Next to the regimental sergeant-major, I had the loudest drill voice on the square, and shouting at squad-drill and stretcher- drill was about the only thing I ever did well in the army--except that, having been a scout, I was able to instruct the signalling squad.
Route marches and field-days were a relief from the drill square. For five months we got no issue of khaki. Many of the men were through at the knees, and tattered at the elbows. Some were buttonless and patched. I had to put a patch in my shorts. Our civilian boots were wearing out--some were right through. Heels came off when they "right turned," others had their soles flapping as they marched.
My "batman," who cleaned my boots and swept out the bunk, had his trousers held together with a huge safety-pin. The people called us "Kitchener's Rag-time Army." We became so torn, and worn, and ragged, that it was impossible to go out in the town. Being the only one in scout rig-out I drew much attention.
"'Ere 'e comes, Moik-ell!"
"Kitchener's cowboy! Isn't he lovely!"
"Bejazus! so-it-is!"
"Come an' see Path-rick--Kitchener's cowboy!--by-the-holy-sufferin'- jazus!"
I found an old curio-shop down near the docks, and here I used to rummage among the gilded Siamese idols, and the painted African gods and drums. I discovered some odd parts of A Thousand-and-One Arabian Nights, which I bought for a penny or two, and took back to my barrack-room to read. By this means I forgot the gray square, and the gray line of the barracks outside, and the bare boards and yellow- washed walls within.
I used to practise "slipping" the guard at the guard-room gate. This form of