On the Fringe of the Great Fight | Page 4

lines of transports buckled and the
ships see-sawed to right and left in their efforts to avoid collisions.
The man proved to be a painter who, unobserved, had fallen off the
"Royal Edward" in front of us, and but for the vigilance of the lookout
on our ship, would undoubtedly have perished.
There seemed to be about a thousand nurses aboard the Franconia--the
real number was about a hundred but they multiplied by their ubiquity;
they swarmed everywhere; sometimes they filled the lounge so that the
poor Major or Colonel could not get in for his afternoon cup of tea. The
daily lectures for officers, particularly on subjects like "artillery range

finding" had an abnormal fascination for the nurses while subjects like
"the Geneva Convention" and "Hygiene" which they might have found
useful held little attraction for them. Such is the perversity of the nurse
when given the rank of an officer and freed from all hospital restraint.
At the concerts few officers could obtain seats and a few of us were
mean enough to wish that it would get rough enough to put some of the
nurses temporarily down and out. The nurses were in a doubly
fortunate position in that they could demand the rights of both officers
and women, according to which happened to be advantageous at the
moment.
The 90th Regiment "the little black devils" of Winnipeg was a very fine
body of men indeed; they were drilled by the hour on the decks, and
were given lectures. They entertained themselves in their spare time by
getting up boxing bouts and concerts. The antics of a bear cub and a
monkey, the battalion mascots, amused the men for many hours at a
time.
One night the officers gave a dinner party. The first plan was to invite
no nurses at all. Then other counsels prevailed and invitations were to
be given to a limited number. As this would have caused all sorts of
petty jealousies and heart burnings, a compromise was effected
by--asking them all.
The dinner was a great success. An eight-piece band, for which the
instruments had been purchased the day before we left Quebec, had
been practising assiduously on the upper deck for days with effects of a
most weird character, and there made its first public appearance. With
the aid of a pipe band it helped to drown the popping of corks and the
various other noises due to the consumption of many bottles of
champagne and hock. The dinner was followed by a dance and the
nurses were allowed to stay up till midnight instead of being chased to
bed at the usual hour of ten o'clock.
One of the unique and most interesting occasions of the trip was when
the famous battle cruiser, the "Queen Mary" came up about dusk one
evening and ran through our lines amid great excitement. This was the
battle cruiser that had not long before converted the German cruiser

"Emden" into a mass of twisted iron in a few minutes. As she steamed
slowly by she presented one of the finest spectacles I have ever seen.
Somehow nothing in the world looks as efficient for its particular job as
a battle cruiser; it is the personification of power and beauty.
One morning at six o'clock a light was discovered in the distance.
Someone said it was the light-house off Land's End. So it proved. By
eight o'clock we could make out clearly the coast of Cornwall. As the
land grew nearer the famous Eddystone Lighthouse came into view,
and, making a great sweep around it, instead of running for
Southampton as we all had expected, we headed for Plymouth. A
number of torpedo boats, commonly called "Ocean Lice," accompanied
us for the last few miles, as a protection against submarines.
The approach to Plymouth was wonderfully soothing. The hills covered
with beautiful foliage in shades of brown and olive green were a most
restful change from the monotony of the sea. A marked contrast to the
peacefulness of the countryside were the fortifications everywhere
visible commanding the approach to perhaps the most strongly fortified
port in Southern England. With the possible exception of Sydney,
Australia, Plymouth is said to be the most beautiful harbour in the
Empire. One could well believe it.
Tugs puffed out to meet us, pilots climbed aboard, and we slowly
steamed up the long sinuous channel, past Edgecombe to Davenport.
All the warships being built or equipped, the forts, the training ships
and the docks, indeed every point of vantage was thronged with
cheering crowds of people,--civilians, soldiers and sailors. Cheer after
cheer from our Canadian soldiers responded to those from our English
friends as we slowly made our way up the channel. It seemed as though
everybody had gone crazy.
It was