At Suvla Bay | Page 5

as he "knew
the ropes" I stuck to him like a leech. In the afternoon an old recruiting
sergeant with a husky voice fell us in, and we marched, a mob of
civilians, through the London streets to the railway station. Although
this was quite a short distance, the sergeant fell us out near a
public-house, and he and a lot more disappeared inside.
What a motley crowd we were: clerks in bowler hats; "knuts" in brown
suits, brown ties, brown shoes, and a horse-shoe tie-pin; tramp-like
looking men in rags and tatters and smelling of dirt and beer and rank
twist.
Old soldiers trying to "chuck a chest"; lanky lads from the country
gaping at the houses, shops and people.
Rough, broad-speaking, broad-shouldered men from the Lancashire
cotton-mills; shop assistants with polished boots, and some even with
kid gloves and a silver-banded cane. Here and there was a farm-hand in
corduroys and hob-nailed, cowdung-spattered boots, puffing at a
broken old clay pipe, and speaking in the "Darset" dialect. At the
station they had to have another "wet" in the refreshment room, and by
the time the train was due to start a good many were "canned up."
Boozy voices yelled out--

"'S long way . . . Tipper-airy . . ."
"Good-bye, Bill . . . 'ave . . . 'nother swig?"
"Don't ferget ter write, Bill . . ."
"Aw-right, Liz . . . Good-bye, Albert . . ."
We were locked in the carriage. There was much shouting and
laughing. . . . And so to Aldershot.

CHAPTER II
A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY
Aldershot was a seething swarm of civilians who had enlisted. Every
class and every type was to be seen. We found out the R.A.M.C. depot
and reported. A man sat at an old soapbox with a lot of papers, and we
had to file past him. This was in the middle of a field with row upon
row of bell-tents.
"Name?" he snapped.
I told him.
"Age?"
"Religion?"
"Quaker."
"Right!--Quaker Oats!--Section 'E,' over there."
But my old postman knew better, and, having found out where "Section
E" was camped, we went off up the town to look for lodging for the
night, knowing that in such a crowd of civilians we could not be
missed.

At last we found a pokey little house where the woman agreed to let us
stay the night and get some breakfast next day.
That night was fearful. We had to sleep in a double bed, and it was full
of fleas. The moonlight shone through the window. The shadow of a
barrack-room chimney-pot slid slowly across my face as the hours
dragged on.
We got up about 5.30 A.M., so as to get down to the parade-ground in
time for the "fall in."
We washed in a tiny scullery sink downstairs. There was a Pears'
Annual print of an old fisherman telling a story to a little girl stuck over
the mantelpiece.
We had eggs and bread-and-butter and tea for breakfast, and I think the
woman only charged us three shillings all told.
Once down at the parade-ground we looked about for "Section E" and
found their lines in the hundreds of rows of bell-tents.
Life for the next few days was indeed "hand to mouth." We had to go
on a tent-pitching fatigue under a sergeant who kept up a continual
flow of astoundingly profane oaths.
Food came down our lines but seldom. When it did come you had to
fetch it in a huge "dixie" and grope with your hands at the bits of gristle
and bone which floated in a lot of greasy water. Some one bought a box
of sardines in the next tent.
"Goin' ter share 'em round?" said a hungry voice.
"Nah blooming fear I ain't--wot yer tike me for--eh?"
Every one was starving. I had managed to fish a lump of bone with a
scrag of tough meat on it from the lukewarm slosh in our "dixie." But
some one who was very hungry and very big came along and snatched
it away before I could get my teeth in it.

We had continually to "fall in" in long rows and answer our names.
This was "roll-call," and roll-call went on morning, noon, and night.
Even when your own particular roll-call was not being called you could
hear some other corporal or sergeant shouting--
"Jones F.--Wiggins, T.--Simons, G.-- Harrison, I. . . ." and so on all day
long.
There were no ground-sheets to the tents. We squatted in the mud, and
we had one blanket each, which was simply crawling.
We were indeed in a far worse condition than many savages. Then
came the rain. We huddled into the tents. There were twenty-two in
mine, and, as a bell-tent is full