The Red Horizon | Page 3

with hands clasped tightly over their breasts and others with their
fingers bent as if trying to clutch at something beyond their reach. A
few slumbered with their heads on their rifles, more had their heads on
the sawdust-covered floor, and these sent the sawdust fluttering
whenever they breathed. The atmosphere of the place was close and
almost suffocating. Now and again someone coughed and spluttered as
if he were going to choke. Perspiration stood out in little beads on the
temples of the sleepers, and they turned round from time to time 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