On the Fringe of the Great Fight | Page 5

a never-to-be-forgotten reception; we felt that we were indeed a
part of the Empire in spirit as well as in name. About three o'clock we
came to anchor, and during the afternoon ship after ship followed in
and anchored alongside. At night we crowded up even closer to give
the late-comers room. For the first time on our trip the vessels were all
brilliantly illuminated, the bands played, the giddy ones danced, and all

were happy to be once again in sight of solid land. At dinner the
commandant, Col. Williams, made a speech and called for three cheers
for our Captain, and never, I suppose, did any other Captain receive
such hearty cheers and such a tremendous "tiger." It was the
culmination of a marvellous and historic trip.
The trip to Salisbury by motor next day was a dream--a dream of
hedges and great trees meeting over-head; of hills and valleys with
little thatched cottages and villages nestling in them, of beautiful
estates and sheep, of quaint old English farms, of ancient towns and
villages. Through Ivy Bridge and Honiton to Exeter, where we stopped
to see the beautiful old Cathedral, so warm and rich in colouring and
passing by one long series of beautiful pictures, in perhaps the most
charming pastoral landscape in the world, we came to the white-scarred
edge of the famous Salisbury Plain.
CHAPTER II.
ON SALISBURY PLAINS.
It was on the 15th of October that we landed in Plymouth. A few days
later the whole of the 33,000 (with the exception of a few errant knights
who had gone off on independent pilgrimages) were more or less
settled on Salisbury Plain. The force was divided into four distinct
camps miles apart. One infantry brigade and the headquarters staff was
stationed at Bustard Camp; one section was camped a couple of miles
away, at West Down South; a third at West Down North still farther
away, and the fourth at Pond Farm about five miles from Bustard.
Convenience of water supplies and arrangements for the administration
of the forces made these divisions necessary.
The plains of Salisbury, ideal for summer military camps, are rolling,
prairie-like lands stretching for miles, broken by a very occasional farm
house or by plantations of trees called "spinneys." A thin layer of earth
and turf covered the chalk which was hundreds of feet in depth; at any
spot a blow with a pick would bring up the white chalk filled with
black flints. The hills by which the plains were reached rose sharply

from the surface of Wiltshire, so that Salisbury Plain itself could be
easily distinguished miles away by the white, water worn rifts in the
hillsides.
When we first arrived the plains gave promise of being a fine camping
ground. Tents were pitched, canteens opened, work was begun and our
boys settled down impatiently to receive the further training necessary
before passing over to that Mecca to which one and all looked
forward--the battle grounds of Flanders.
For a few days all went well; then it began to rain. About the middle of
November it settled down in earnest and rained steadily for a month;
sometimes it merely drizzled, at other times it poured; but it never
stopped, except for an hour or so. The constant tramp of many feet
speedily churned into mud the clay turf overlaying the chalk, and the
rain could not percolate through this mixture as it did the unbroken sod.
In a few days the mud was one inch--four inches--and even a foot deep.
Many a time I waded through mud up to my knees.
The smooth English roads, lacking depth of road-metal, were speedily
torn to pieces by the heavy traffic of motors and steam traction engines.
Passing cars and lorries sprayed the hedges with a thin mud-emulsion
formed from the road binder, and exposed the sharp flints which, like
so much broken glass, tore to pieces the tires of the motors.
Cold high winds, saturated with moisture, accompanied the rain and
searched one's very marrow. Nothing would exclude these sea breezes
but skin or fur coats, and though accustomed to a severe climate, we
Canadians felt the cold in England as we never had at home.
Sometimes the temperature fell below the freezing point, and
occasionally we had sleet, hail or snow for variety. Tents were often
blown down by the hundreds, and it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight
watching a small army of soldiers trying to hold and pin down some of
the large mess tents, while rope after rope snapped under the straining
of the flapping canvas. One day the post office tent collapsed, and some
of the mail disappeared into the heavens, never to return.
The officers of the headquarter staff were fairly comfortable in

comparison to the others. Our tents were