"Crumps", The Plain Story Of A Canadian Who Went Part 3

At noon every day the church bell will ring a few chimes and everybody is asked to stop whatever he is doing and offer this prayer, "Oh, Lord, help our soldiers and sailors to defeat our enemies, and let us have Peace."

(Signed) The Vicar.

Recruiting notices ten feet by six feet with the sentence "Your King and Country Need You" are to be seen everywhere in shops, on barns, trees, and even church doors.

Motorists and cyclists are warned to pull up whenever requested or the results may be serious. Most of the motors have O.H.M.S. plates above the number plate.

We billeted in a village school; all slept in our blankets on the floor.

Left the school and cleaned up before the kids came for their lessons next day.

Salisbury Plain. Arrived to-day. This part is called Bustard and takes its name from the small Bustard Inn, Headquarters of General Alderson, General Officer Commanding. Troops are here in thousands and we are no novelty.

The roads are torn up. Mud is two feet deep in places. All through the day and night motor lorries, artillery and cavalry are traveling over the ground. Aeroplanes are circling overhead and heavy artillery are firing.

We see the sh.e.l.ls bursting on the ranges every day.

Always raining. Everything is wet, and I am sleeping in a rotten tent which leaks. Still, we are all so fit that what would kill an ordinary man doesn't worry us much.

We all get three days' leave and are trying by every means possible to w.a.n.gle another day or two. Many men have to see dentists, and lots of men have grandparents in Scotland who display signs of dying suddenly. If the excuse is good enough, we get four days and sometimes five. I have a sweetheart in Scotland, but if that is played out I have to work something else.

Wonderful sight from where I am now. Miles of tents, motors and horse lines on this desolate moorland. No houses; only camps and a few trees which have been planted as wind screens. The soil is very poor, too poor for farming. It is government property and it is only used for troops. We are ten miles from a railroad. We are so isolated that we might be in Africa, except that it's so cold.

The papers are starting an agitation to get the Canadians to march through London, and are asking why they should be smuggled in and then shut up on Salisbury Plain. They want to see us, AND WE WANT TO SEE LONDON!!

Our ambulance car has been used every day since we came here, taking wounded from one hospital to another. The rest of our cars have been used to carry German prisoners.

One of the spies caught on the s.h.i.+ps is said to have been shot. Several were arrested; two were caught in Devonport while we were there, one in a Canadian officer's uniform.

Am spending seventy-two hours' leave in London. Got leave through this telegram which is from "the girl I'm engaged to":

Disappointed. Met train. Please do come. Leaving for Belgium soon.

Love.

EDYTHE.

She is a Red Cross nurse. This is a new one and it worked. McCarthy sent it to me.

London is very dismal. No electric signs, and the tops of all the street lamps are painted black so that the lights don't show from above. However, we managed to have a good time, in spite of it all. The Germans say that the Canadians are being held in England to repel the invasion.

The facilities for bathing are not very extensive. I rode into Salisbury, a distance of seventeen miles, yesterday, on top of some packing-cases in a covered transport wagon, for a bath, the first since I was last on leave. We get a Turkish bath in town for thirty cents. After that we had a large juicy steak and then started our seventeen-mile trip back through the pouring rain. Every other mile we got down and helped the driver swear and push the car out of the mud, vast quant.i.ties of which abound on the Salisbury roads, believe me!!

It is Sunday afternoon. Most of the men in camp are asleep or reading.

Outside it is raining. It seems to be always raining, and occasionally we have such a thick fog that even a trip to get water is exciting before you can get back to your own lines.

Owing to our camp having become a swamp we have had to move our quarters to drier ground. Moving the tents is not a big job, but rebuilding the cook-house is! I figure that when I leave the army I shall have a few more professions to choose from. For example, I'm a pretty hefty trench digger; then as a scavenger I am pretty good at picking up tin cans and pieces of paper; also I'm an expert in building things such as shelters from any old pieces of timber that we can steal; then as a cook I can now make that wonderful tea that I wrote you about, besides many other things which we didn't realize that we had to do when we enlisted.

To-day the paper says "Fair and Warmer." We could do with some of that.

Years ago, before I joined the army and lost my ident.i.ty, I rather liked occasionally getting wet in the refres.h.i.+ng rain; but now the trouble is that we are always wet and have nowhere to dry our things, except by sleeping on them.

Our major has an original scheme of training men in the ranks to qualify for commissions, sort of having half a dozen embryo officers ready. I have been picked as one and have to study in all my spare time. It means a great deal more work, but it's very interesting and the sort of thing I would like to do. We start to-day.

We began our instruction on the machine gun to the officers and the men who are up here for a special course; I have a boozy lieutenant, who doesn't care a hang, and a bright non-com. Some of the officers we brought over make good mascots.

It was fine to-day. We were even able to open up the tent flap to dry the place a bit. To-day the major congratulated me on the Christmas card I designed for the unit.

Our cla.s.ses of instruction to the "alien" officers finish to-morrow. Both the men I was instructing pa.s.sed.

The adjutant is very anxious to put us through our officers' training course quickly.

We are now recognized as the specialist corps in the machine-gun work with the Canadian Division, and he is anxious that we shall be ready to take commissions when casualties occur. Every battalion of infantry has a machine-gun section attached, and we have the job of training the officers and sergeants of these sections.

Owing to the bombardment of the east coast, several of our battalions are under orders to move at a moment's notice. It is thought that the bombardment was simply a ruse to draw the British fleet away from around Heligoland.

The newspaper boys in Salisbury, when you refuse to buy an "Hextra," shout "Montreal Star" and "Calgary Eyeopener," and all the shopgirls and barmaids in Salisbury say, "Some kid," "Believe muh," "Oh, Boy!"

I had been granted Christmas leave at the last minute, and as it was awkward to telegraph to Northwich, I arrived after a long journey, lasting sixteen hours, ten minutes ahead of the letter I'd sent saying I was coming. My arrival soon spread over the town. A Canadian-this was a rather unique thing for Northwich, a little Ches.h.i.+re town. Out of a population of about eighteen thousand, two thousand men have joined the colors. The men in uniform from the works are all receiving half pay. The other men who are staying are working twelve hours a day and give up part of their pay so that the jobs of the soldiers will be open when they come back.

Thirty-five Belgian refugees are being kept here. Money to keep them for twelve months has been subscribed. One huge house has been taken over as a hospital with twenty-three nurses, all volunteers from Northwich.

Everybody has done or is doing something in the great struggle. The young ladies in this neighborhood have no use for a man who is not in khaki, and with customary north of England frankness tell them so.

I expect that you know that the Government has sent around forms to every house asking the men who are going to volunteer to sign, and men long past the military age have signed the papers, "too old for the war service, but willing to serve either at home or abroad voluntary for the period of the war." Others have offered to do work to allow young men to go, to keep their jobs for them. This shows the spirit that permeates England. There is only one end and that MUST be the crus.h.i.+ng of the Germans. I don't believe people have any idea of the number of men who are at present under arms, and still the posters everywhere say that we must have more men.

I wonder if you know that the Germans are shooting British prisoners who are found with what they consider insulting post-cards of the Kaiser, and even references to His All Highest in letters are dangerous. As we are nearing the time when we shall go across I thought I would mention it.

We expect to leave England somewhere around January 15th. We have been living in the mud so long that we are getting quite web-footed.

This is a war Christmas. People are too excited and anxious to celebrate it. I wonder what sort of a Christmas the next one will be! What a terrible Christmas the Germans must have had in Germany. They admit over one million casualties. Fancy a million in less than five months. During the Napoleonic wars, which extended over twenty years, six million died, and yet one side in this war already admits one million.

The Canadian ordnance stores have been given instructions that all equipments down to the last b.u.t.ton must be ready by the 15th of January.