Contemptible | Page 2

sinister uncertainty of the Future brooded over them like a thunder
cloud.
Isolated houses thickened into clusters, streets sprang up, and soon they
were in Southampton.
The train pulled up at the Embarkation Station, quite close to the wharf
to which some half-dozen steamers were moored. There was little or no
delay. The Battalion fell straight into "massed formation," and began
immediately to move on to one of the ships. The Colonel stood by the
gangway talking to an Embarkation Officer. Everything was in perfect
readiness, and the Subaltern was soon able to secure a berth.
There was plenty of excitement on deck while the horses of the
regimental transport were being shipped into the hold.
To induce "Light Draft," "Heavy Draft" horses and "Officers'
Chargers"--in all some sixty animals--to trust themselves to be lowered
into a dark and evil-smelling cavern, was no easy matter. Some shied
from the gangway, neighing; other walked peaceably on to it, and, with
a "thus far and no farther" expression in every line of their bodies, took
up a firm stand, and had to be pushed into the hold with the combined
weight of many men. Several of the transport section narrowly escaped
death and mutilation at the hands, or rather hoofs, of the Officers'
Chargers. Meanwhile a sentry, with fixed bayonet, was observed
watching some Lascars, who were engaged in getting the transport on
board. It appeared that the wretched fellows, thinking that they were to
be taken to France and forced to fight the Germans, had deserted to a
man on the previous night, and had had to be routed out of their
hiding-places in Southampton.
Not that such a small thing as that could upset for one moment the
steady progress of the Embarkation of the Army. It was like a huge,
slow-moving machine; there was a hint of the inexorable in its
exactitude. Nothing had been forgotten--not even eggs for the Officers'
breakfast in the Captain's cabin.

Meanwhile the other ships were filling up. By midday they began to
slide down the Solent, and guesses were being freely exchanged about
the destination of the little flotilla. Some said Boulogne, others Calais;
but the general opinion was Havre, though nobody knew for certain, for
the Captain of the ship had not yet opened his sealed orders. The
transports crept slowly along the coast of the Isle of Wight, but it was
not until evening that the business of crossing the Channel was begun
in earnest.
The day had been lovely, and Officers and men had spent it mostly in
sleeping and smoking upon the deck. Spirits had risen as the day grew
older. For at dawn the cheeriest optimist is a pessimist, while at midday
pessimists become optimists. In the early morning the German Army
had been invincible. At lunch the Battalion was going to Berlin, on the
biggest holiday of its long life!
The Subaltern, still suffering from the after-effects of inoculation
against enteric, which had been unfortunately augmented by a
premature indulgence in fruit, and by the inability to rest during the
rush of mobilisation, did not spend a very happy night. The men fared
even worse, for the smell of hot, cramped horses, steaming up from the
lower deck, was almost unbearable. But their troubles were soon over,
for by seven o'clock the boat was gliding through the crowded docks of
Havre.
Naturally most of the Mess had been in France before, but to Tommy it
was a world undiscovered. The first impression made on the men was
created by a huge negro working on the docks. He was greeted with
roars of laughter, and cries of, "Hallo, Jack Johnson!" The red trousers
of the French sentries, too, created a tremendous sensation. At length
the right landing-stage was reached. Equipments were thrown on, and
the Battalion was paraded on the dock.
The march through the cobbled streets of Havre rapidly developed into
a fiasco. This was one of the first, if not the very first, landing of
British Troops in France, and to the French it was a novelty, calling for
a tremendous display of open-armed welcome. Children rushed from
the houses, and fell upon the men crying for "souvenirs." Ladies

pursued them with basins full of wine and what they were pleased to
call beer. Men were literally carried from the ranks, under the eyes of
their Officers, and borne in triumph into houses and inns. What with
the heat of the day and the heaviness of the equipment and the
after-effects of the noisome deck, the men could scarcely be blamed for
availing themselves of such hospitality, though to drink intoxicants on
the march is suicidal. Men "fell out," first by ones and twos, then by
whole half-dozens and dozens. The Subaltern himself was scarcely
strong enough to