The Red Horizon | Page 3

to raise their Balaclava helmets higher over their eyes.
And so the night wore on. What did they dream of lying there? I wondered. Of their journey and the perils that lay before them? Of the glory or the horror of the war? Of their friends whom, perhaps, they would never see again? It was impossible to tell.
For myself I tried not to think too clearly of what I might see to-morrow or the day after. The hour was now past midnight and a new day had come. What did it hold for us all? Nobody knew--I fell asleep.
CHAPTER II
(p. 019)
SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE
When I come back to England, And times of Peace come round, I'll surely have a shilling, And may be have a pound; I'll walk the whole town over, And who shall say me nay, For I'm a British soldier With a British soldier's pay.
The Rest Camp a city of innumerable bell-tents, stood on the summit of a hill overlooking the town and the sea beyond. We marched up from the quay in the early morning, followed the winding road paved with treacherous cobbles that glory in tripping unwary feet, and sweated to the summit of the hill. Here a new world opened to our eyes: a canvas city, the mushroom growth of our warring times lay before us; tent after tent, large and small, bell-tent and marquee in accurate alignment.
It took us two hours to march to our places; we grounded arms at the word of command and sank on our packs wearily happy. True, a few (p. 020) had fallen out; they came in as we rested and awkwardly fell into position. They were men who had been sea-sick the night before. We were too excited to rest for long; like dogs in a new locality we were presently nosing round looking for food. Two hours march in full marching order makes men hungry, and hungry men are ardent explorers. The dry and wet canteens faced one another, and each was capable of accommodating a hundred men. Never were canteens crowded so quickly, never have hundreds of the hungry and drouthy clamoured so eagerly for admission as on that day. But time worked marvels; at the end of an hour we fell in again outside a vast amount of victuals, and the sea-sickness of the previous night, and the strain of the morning's march were things over which now we could be humorously reminiscent.
Sheepskin jackets, the winter uniform of the trenches, were served out to us, and all were tried on. They smelt of something chemical and unpleasant, but were very warm and quite polar in appearance.
"Wish my mother could see me now," Bill the Cockney remarked. "My, she wouldn't think me 'alf a cove. It's a balmy. I discovered the (p. 021) South Pole, I'm thinkin'."
"More like you're up the pole!" some one cut in, then continued, "If they saw us at St. Albans[1] now! Bet yer they wouldn't say as we're for home service."
[Footnote 1: It was at St. Albans that we underwent most of our training.]
That night we slept in bell-tents, fourteen men in each, packed tight as herrings in a barrel, our feet festooning the base of the central pole, our heads against the lower rim of the canvas covering. Movement was almost an impossibility; a leg drawn tight in a cramp disturbed the whole fabric of slumbering humanity; the man who turned round came in for a shower of maledictions. In short, fourteen men lying down in a bell-tent cannot agree for very long, and a bell-tent is not a paradise of sympathy and mutual agreement.
We rose early, washed and shaved, and found our way to the canteen, a big marquee under the control of the Expeditionary Force, where bread and butter, bacon and tea were served out for breakfast. Soldiers recovering from wounds worked as waiters, and told, when they had a moment to spare, of hair-breadth adventures in the trenches. They (p. 022) found us willing listeners; they had lived for long in the locality for which we were bound, and the whole raw regiment had a personal interest in the narratives of the wounded men. Bayonet-charges were discussed.
"I've been in three of 'em," remarked a quiet, inoffensive-looking youth who was sweeping the floor of the room. "They were a bit 'ot, but nothin' much to write 'ome about. Not like a picture in the papers, none of them wasn't. Not much stickin' of men. You just ops out of your trench and rush and roar, like 'ell. The Germans fire and then run off, and it's all over."
After breakfast feet were inspected by the medical officer. We sat down on our packs in the parade ground, took off our boots, and shivered with cold. The day was raw, the