One Young Man | Page 5

office. I

must decide when my thoughts were cool and collected. The second
week in November brought the climax. I knew my duty was to fight.
"So I enlisted in a London Territorial Regiment whose first battalion
was already in France and would require frequent drafts. I did not
hesitate about joining a fighting unit. Other units are very necessary,
but I wouldn't let another man do my fighting for me. I had some
difficulty about a slightly weak heart caused by a severe illness a few
years before. However, with the words that 'the life would either make
or break me,' I was accepted for active service."
I am told that Sydney Baxter omits one thing here. Unlike so many in
those early days, when he announced to the chief that he had joined, he
asked no question about any possible allowance. He asked no advice,
he suggested no help. He just joined. All he said was, "I felt I had to go,
sir, and my mother says it will be all right. She says she will be able to
manage quite well." Let me pay my tribute to this one young man's
mother. There are so many like her that I pay it to thousands. Not only
did she refuse to put obstacles in the way, but she would have no
bargaining with patriotism. "She would manage quite well." It meant
more boarders in the little home, it meant the breaking up of the old
sweet privacy and quietude of the household, but--she would manage
quite well. God knows the heartache and the sorrow behind the
sacrifice she and the thousands like her have made--surely a sacrifice
very acceptable in His sight.

One Young Man in Camp

CHAPTER III
ONE YOUNG MAN IN CAMP
Within a fortnight this one young man was in camp at Crowborough.
The contrast to his previous life as a city clerk, where mud was

unknown and wet feet a rare occurrence, was marked indeed. The camp
was sodden, the mud ankle-deep, and, what with that and the cold
November weather, times were pretty stiff. He writes home:
"Our camp is about a foot deep in mud and slosh, and every time you
go out your boots are covered and you have to be careful or you slip
over.
"Our huts are like Church Missions. There are sixty-one fellows in this
one, and all along the sides are our mattresses which we fold up. They
are made of straw and are really very comfortable. The only drawback
is that in the morning you find your toes sticking out at the other end of
the bed. I must tell you how these beds are made. There are three
planks about six feet in length, and these are placed side by side on two
trestles about ten inches high. They give us three blankets, very thick
and warm, and you can roll them round yourself.
"Right down the centre of the room are long trestled tables with forms
to sit on, and this is where we feast. We sleep, eat, drink, play games,
write letters, and do everything in this room.
"It's very funny to hear the bugle-calls. Everything is done by bugles.
At 6.30 in the morning there is the first call and everyone gets up. If
you don't--the sergeant comes along and pulls you out. To wash we
have to run down to the other end of the camp and fill our buckets.
There are only two buckets for sixty chaps, so you can imagine the
scramble. For a bathroom we have a large field, and we nearly break
our backs bending down over the basins. For about one hour before
breakfast we do physical drill with our coats off. And hard work it is.
For breakfast we have streaky greasy bacon. Funny--at home, I never
ate bacon, I couldn't stick it, but here I walk into it and enjoy it. The tea
they give us is not ideal, but so long as it is hot and wet it goes down all
right. For dinner it's stew--stew--stew, but it's not bad. Of course, some
day I get all gravy and no meat, another day meat and no gravy. Tea is
quite all right. We have plenty of bread, butter, jam, and cheese. All
food is fetched in dixeys (large boilers), and tea, stew, and bacon are all
cooked in turn in these, so if the orderlies don't wash them clean at
dinner time we have greasy, stewy tea.

"I am getting a bit used to the marching, especially when there is
anyone singing. The favourites are 'John Peel,' 'Cock Robin,' 'Oh, who
will o'er the downs so free?' 'John Brown's Body,' 'Hearts of Oak,' and
'Annie Laurie.' We all have little books of Camp Songs,