The Red Watch Part 9

Fortunately a long course of travel in Canada had given me the habit of sleeping sitting in my seat, and I took advantage of it. At dawn I woke up and found we were nearing Bristol of which Avonmouth is the seaport.

We arrived at our port of embarkation about seven in the morning. The green fields glistened with h.o.a.r frost and the distant hills seen through the haze were covered with snow. Through the gaps of the hills here and there could be seen the mounting flames of great blast furnaces. This is the region of coal and iron.

When we reached the station we could see the harbor filled with transports waiting to carry our Division to France.

I disembarked and asked for the R.T.O. who is the official in charge of the handling of the troops. I found that he was uptown having his breakfast. We had to wait about fifteen minutes till he arrived. Then he was apologetic and said he did not expect we would be on time. He then got busy calling for a fatigue party to unload the transport, but after he had blown off a little steam I pointed out to him that the fatigue party was waiting at the head of the column, and had been waiting for him for a quarter of an hour, and that they wanted to be shown to the unloading platform. Then he took a tumble that we "knew our job," and from that time on sugar could not have been sweeter. He told us that our transport was the _Mount Temple_, and showed me the s.h.i.+p, and in a very few minutes we had the men on board. They soon got busy and had the waggons slung into the hold. We found that on the evening before the five-inch gun battery and one unit of an ammunition column under Major McGee had gone on board. They had stowed the big guns in the lower hold, and they had enough lyddite stowed forward to insure a perfectly good explosion provided a submarine plugged us with a torpedo. Our adjutant and the steward soon had us in our cabins.

A couple of hours after we embarked Major Marshall came along with the left half battalion and reported a very successful entraining. The railway company, however, had provided a train with one coach too few, and four horses and eight mules had to be left behind to be brought by the next train. They were in charge of Sergeant Fisher, my transport sergeant, who was a very good man, one of my best non-commissioned officers. Sergeant Gratton, who had been my transport sergeant, took ill before we left Lark Hill. He had to be left behind eating his heart out like a lot of other good officers; non-commissioned officers, and men that I would have liked to have had with me, viz., Lieutenant Davidson, who had bronchial trouble and a bad knee, Lieutenant Lawson had bronchial trouble and a bad throat. Captain Marshall had pneumonia, Lieutenants Campbell, Kay and Wilson each had a touch of pneumonia. Lieutenant Art. Muir was recovering from bronchial pneumonia. Capt. Musgrave and Lieut. Malone, good steady officers, had to remain with the base company. Lieutenants Acland and Livingston had been sent several weeks before to help drill "Details"

and reinforcements for the British troops in France, and they were both at Falmouth working hard putting some polish on the English Tommies. I wrote General Alderson before I left, asking him to let me have Lieutenants Acland and Livingston back, but got "no" for an answer. They were sent to Falmouth while I was in Glasgow at New Year's. If I had been in Camp I would not have parted with them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 48TH HIGHLANDERS AT CHURCH SERVICE UNDER FIRE NEAR MESSINES, REV. F.G. SCOTT OFFICIATING]

We got through loading early in the afternoon and later on the mules arrived in charge of Sergeant Fisher and were safely tucked on board.

I had a little trouble keeping people off the dock who were intent on handing liquor to my men.

We were pretty well crowded up and I was informed that this s.h.i.+p had been wrecked once, but the good old C.P.R. flag was floating at the mast head and we took that for an omen of good luck, and it was.

During the afternoon I told the men off to the life-boat stations and received the cheerful information that the s.h.i.+p was short a few life belts. I intended to have carried an inner motor cycle tube for my personal use, but forgot to take it along, so would have had to take my chances on a hen coop or a hatch if anything had gone wrong.

The men were in great good humor. They were singing like larks. Some of them had left newly married wives at home in England. One at least, one of my best men, was too much married as he had left two wives behind. He had joined the regiment in Toronto and had given his separation allowance to a wife in Paisley. When we got to Salisbury another woman wrote from Glasgow saying she was his wife and claiming the allowance. In an unfortunate moment he had taken a trip to Paisley and wife No. 1 had pounced on him while he was visiting wife No. 2 and there was a scene. She wrote to me threatening to have him arrested for bigamy. I saw this would not do as there were three interests demanding satisfaction. First, there was his duty to the King. It had cost a lot of money to train him and bring him so far. He would be no use to the King in gaol for bigamy and would be only a further expense to the country and a good soldier would be lost to the service. So I suggested to Wife No. 1 that she leave him alone till after the war if he gave her an a.s.signment of his pay of twenty dollars a month. Like a sensible Scotch woman she saw the wisdom of Solomon in my suggestion and accepted it. Wife No. 2 received the separation allowance and the King got the services of a first cla.s.s soldier and all three interests were satisfied.

We embarked for France with not a dozen men in the regiment with entries on their conduct sheets. A better behaved lot of men it would be hard to find. We had succeeded in instilling in them the iron discipline of duty which was to prove better than the discipline of fear. It was Napoleon who said, "Show me the regiment that has the most punishments and I will show you the regiment that has the worst discipline." He was right.

We sailed during the early hours of the morning. I got up early and after some breakfast went on deck. Colonel Burchall Wood of the Divisional Staff had joined us on the previous afternoon, and as he was my senior officer I reported to him, but he said he preferred to be my guest and for me to take command. The Captain who was a Welshman named Griffith told me he wanted a guard of fifty men fore and aft with loaded rifles to look out for submarines. We also mounted two machine guns on the bridge so we pitied the submarine that would come along. The _Mount Temple_ could make ten knots in calm weather and the Captain told me that he intended, if a "sub." showed up, to go for it full tilt and run it down.

By ten o'clock we were well out in the British channel. The Welsh Hills were covered with snow and it was a delightful day, hardly a ripple on the surface. Two destroyers, Numbers "1" and "2," kept doing "stunts" back and forward ahead of us all day.

Before dealing with France or anything further, I desire to say that the Canadian Ordnance Officers were very hard worked and had to make "bricks without straw." The death of Colonel Strange made a vacancy which should have gone to Captain Donaldson, a Canadian, my Quartermaster, and no better or more experienced officer ever served the King.

A British officer, however, was called in to do the work. The difference between a British officer of the old school and the Canadian is that when the former is confronted with some work he says, "I'll call my man," that is a non-commissioned officer with a "red tape" training, to do the job. The Canadian takes the responsibility himself and sees that the matter is attended to.

The first evening was bright and clear and I tried my field gla.s.ses on the stars. The Captain told me the barometer was falling and that we were likely to have a change of weather.

The thirteenth is generally a tough day with everybody and this was no exception. I was aroused shortly after daylight by a loud noise, the banging of furniture and the sound of dishes rattling. Sure enough we were having a storm. The first officer was in the hall. His room was opposite to mine and he was trying to get in, but the drawers and chairs in his room had piled up against the door. I asked him what was wrong and he said he wanted a surgeon as he had hurt his leg. One of the boats had got loose and while fastening it he had his leg jammed.

The boat had been carried away. The s.h.i.+p was going like a pendulum, swinging nearly forty-five degrees every jump. One minute I looked down on Major Marshall who was in the top bunk over on the opposite side of our cabin, the next minute the curtains on his bunk hung straight over my head. Then the s.h.i.+p would take a turn and stand on her head, and the roar of the screw told us there was still plenty of steam in the boilers. Then the screws would submerge and the shock would send a s.h.i.+ver all over the s.h.i.+p. We were in the "chops" of the channel all right. It looked as if the storm would get us if the submarines did not. I told the first officer that the doctor was in a room in the sick bay, and he was helped away limping along the deck.

Captain Frank Perry came along as cheerful as a morning in June. He was Officer of the Day and a first cla.s.s sailor. He came to my room to report that there was a big gale outside, that the men were all right, very few sick, that an artillery horse had broken out of his stall and that he was down and likely dead; also that the waggons were loose in the hold forward with one or two waltzing around. While he was telling this he had to sit on the floor of the cabin. He had split his oil cloth coat up the back, and a stray door speeding the parting guest had slammed on a very tender part of his body, making it difficult for him even to sit down. I laughed till my sides ached.

The admiralty stevedores had stowed the waggons in the hold and a mess they had made of it. I asked him if the big guns were lashed down, fearing that if one got loose in the lower hold it would go through the side of the s.h.i.+p like paper. He a.s.sured me that the big gun las.h.i.+ngs held, and I ordered him to get a fatigue party and get baled hay and dump it among the waggons to stop the riot, then to lash the waggons. He departed on his errand.

The steward brought me in some Bovril and biscuits, and Major Marshall, who also kept to his bunk on my advice, began feeding upon hard tack to get into trench practice. Bye-and-bye Perry came back and reported that Sergeant McMaster had fallen and broken his arm. Capt.

MacLaren was up and he was a good surgeon and hastily set the injured limb. The sergeant had fallen and struck his elbow on the iron deck.

The men were all wearing their English boots with heavy iron nails in the soles and they did not hold well on a steel deck. I took a few looks out at the sea and it was a daisy. I saw the Captain who came in and reported very bad weather, but he hoped to clear Cape Ushant.

Captain Perry reported that the s.h.i.+p was making about half a knot an hour sometimes, sometimes not making anything, wouldn't steer, and half the time in the trough of the sea, if there was any trough to be found, for a cross gale had turned the sea into pyramids. He also informed me that everything had been made fast, that the men were cheerful and that there were no German submarines in sight, and the storm continued with terrible violence all day. The destroyers had sped as soon as we had left the British Coast. Several times during the day the s.h.i.+p took to her beam ends and the crew thought she would not come back, but she did. I took a bite in bed and stayed there all day. Perry looked after the rations and feeding of the men.

I woke up about seven the next morning and still the s.h.i.+p was swinging. Captain Perry came in to say that they had made a good night, another boat had gone by the board and also a bit of the rail.

The horse belonging to the artillery was dead. About nine o'clock I got up, and at ten went the rounds of the s.h.i.+p and saw the Captain who told me we were bound for St. Nazaire in Western France. This place had been used as a British base before the retreat of the Germans from the Marne.

The weather moderated during the day, and on going the rounds I found the men cheerful and that most of the horses had been moved into the centre of the s.h.i.+p which was some improvement. My horses were all well except the big mare whose leg still gave her trouble. In the afternoon the sun came out and it got so warm that we could go about without overcoats. We were 300 miles south of Salisbury Plains. No wonder the swallows follow the summer. We were not as low yet as the lat.i.tude of Sault Ste. Marie. What would it be when we got to the lat.i.tude of Toronto?

During the day several s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sed us going in the opposite direction. They were all tramp or troop s.h.i.+ps. I forgot to say that the first day out near the Irish Coast we saw a great three-masted full-rigged s.h.i.+p in the distance. She was a magnificent sight with all sails set. What a great sight a fleet of these sailing vessels must have presented in the days of Nelson. Now s.h.i.+ps only showed low black platforms and smoke stacks. No novelty nor romance about them.

In the evening the Captain said we would soon see the light houses on the French Coast. As soon as it became dark we could see in the sky the double flashes of a great light at Belle Ile forty miles away.

This is one of the most wonderful lights in the world. The sea was still high, but we were making good time. The Captain told me we would not make the harbour till the following afternoon at four o'clock when the tide was up. We came into the estuary of the Loire and halted, waiting for a pilot. Then the s.h.i.+p began to roll in earnest. I was up on the bridge with the signalmen, and one minute we were up in the air and the next the black sea yawned beneath us. I had my sea legs by this time. There were two or three lights bobbing about and a very powerful lighthouse light cast a baleful gleam every five seconds. The officer of the deck said we were about twenty miles from our destination and that we would hardly get in until after four in the morning when there was high tide, and if not then, not until the afternoon. Bye-and-bye we saw a light bobbing up and down in the swell and he said that was the pilot. He missed the s.h.i.+p the first round but came about to lee, and in the dim light we saw a c.o.c.kle sh.e.l.l of a boat with two men in it. In a few minutes a line was thrown to them, the ladder was let down over the rail, the pilot grasped the rungs and began his perilous climb. He was a French sea dog and hung on like grim death and managed to get on deck safely. He went into the wheel house and I went to bed.

I got up early the next morning to see what was doing. I learned that they were going to move the s.h.i.+p to the docks before noon and that we would start disembarking right away. The river Loire was in flood and no tide was necessary to give a sufficient depth of water.

It was a glorious morning and pretty soon we were on the quay. It was a typical French sea port, not very prepossessing, but a busy place.

French soldiers of all kinds were about, some on duty, some with their arms done up in slings, some of them apparently loafing. About noon two puffing tugs got us through the lock and tied up to a wharf. A Canadian transport officer and admiralty man came on board. We were told as soon as we were ready we could start unloading, and as soon as the "brows" (the sloping platform or gang planks for the horses) were in place we could start taking off the horses. It did not take us long getting ready. Pickets were put out on the quay and various fatigue parties manned the horses. My big mare was pretty lame but my other horse was in good shape. We had escaped the perils of the Bay of Biscay and were now in Western France. Towards evening I asked the transport officer what time we would take the train, as we had been told we were to go up country. He said that as soon as we had unloaded he would be able to tell me, as he would then order a train from the French. I then learned that the French had a wonderful system of moving troops. When you want to move troops in France you tell them and they supply you a certain number of box cars, a guard van, an officer's car and a certain number of cars to handle your men, horses and waggons. They tell you what time you are to move out, and you have to be ready to the minute. If you have not finished loading, the train moves just the same. There is no fussing among the French, but a deadly efficiency in all things.

CHAPTER XII

"SOMEWHERE IN FLANDERS"

Bah! Ba! Ba! Ba-a-a! Moo! Mo! Moo! M-o-o-o! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ba-a-a-a!

I was taking a stroll along the railway platform of a station in Northern France where the engine stopped to coal and water when this chorus of barnyard calls burst from the men packed in the box cars, reminding me of a cattle train. When they saw me halt and turn in astonishment there was a roar of laughter.

"I'm very sorry men, that you are so crowded."

"That's all right, Sir," came back the cheery answer, "that's what we are here for."

No wonder they thus amused themselves, for they had been travelling two nights and a day on the way to the front, and the accommodation; Well! only those who have been there can tell about or realize it.

The French do move troops in a wonderful manner. Each train is made up of a certain number of box cars, flat cars and pa.s.senger cars. Into a pa.s.senger car of the compartment kind the officers and staff are jammed, eight in a compartment. On the flat cars the waggons, guns and vehicles are run and lashed, and into the box cars the men and horses are crowded. On each box car there is painted the legend "Cheveaux 8, Hommes 40," which being translated means that the capacity of the car is eight horses or forty men, and we had to put 40 men into each box car which crowded them so that only eight men could lie down at a time while the rest stood up. It was thus a very trying journey, but the men did not grumble. They had to stand 48 hours of this and did it without a murmur.

They expected greater hards.h.i.+ps than this when they got to the front, and as a poor shattered warrior said to me later on when I clasped his hand and regretted his terrible wounds, "Don't you mind, Colonel.

That's what we came over here for."

When we landed we were told to march for the train at seven in the evening, and we were ready to the minute. We marched silently through the streets of Nazaire, and in a quarter of an hour we were at the station. We found the train all ready, but no crew, no conductor, no engine. An official at a water tank told us that the crew and transport officer were at the cafe dining. They came along presently and we started loading. Barnum & Bailey's circus never loaded a train as fast as we did that one.

When we were loaded I was handed my train orders and a big yellow ticket on which was marked the halts and times to eat. We had at least a twenty-four hour run ahead of us. I was told that when I got to Rouen we would get further orders. We carried three days' rations, so I climbed into my compartment, and was soon asleep. I woke shortly after the train started to find we were travelling through a big city along the banks of the River Loire. We halted about seven in the morning to feed and water the horses and make tea for the men in their dixies or oval camp kettles. It is rather a serious business looking after a thousand men and over sixty horses and mules, but our organization stood the test well. My Quartermaster, Captain Duguid, knew his work. I had Lieutenant Dansereau as our scouting and interpreting officer. He was a graduate of the R.M.C. and a good officer.

It is a beautiful country but not really to be compared with Western Ontario. Many large chateaus with square doleful looking windows were pa.s.sed and hillsides covered with vineyards. We were on red clay, soil like that of Devons.h.i.+re or Niagara. The landscape is punctuated with windmills, most of them old and without sails. At noon we came to Le Mans, a large railway centre, only about forty miles from Paris. We then turned west for Rouen. We stopped at La Hutte for dinner. It was a small wayside station with several large switches. There was an English officer at the platform. The place was right in the country.

He informed me that he enjoyed his stay there very much, but that rural France was not like Paris. He said a transport officer up the line kept calling for the 48th. A beautiful country girl of about twelve years of age came along with a big box of cigarettes which she handed to the men. This was the first demonstration we had had of any kind since we left England. Evidently the people were accustomed to seeing English officers and paid very little attention to us. We were only "Anglaise." During the afternoon when we stopped at towns the streets and approaches to the station were crowded with people. About ten o'clock at night we came to Rouen. This was as far as my ticket read. An officer, however, came on board and took my ticket, but returned in a little while with it and another one, sending us on further. We were in for another night on the train. We were now in old Brittany and back in a chalk country. There was not very much to report the next day. We arrived at Bologne about ten o'clock. The Canadian base hospital is stationed here and I did not think we were going further, but we went on. We also pa.s.sed through Calais which a noted English Queen said would be found written on her heart. They were certainly giving us a trip around the country. At St. Omar we were told we were to go to Hazebrouck, where we arrived about seven in the evening, and the R.T. Officer who kept asking for us came aboard.

It was Lieut. Russell who had sat with myself and officers at the St.

Andrew's dinner given at the Queen's Hotel, Toronto, in 1913. He had attended Varsity and knew me and most of our officers. We were delighted to see him again. He told me we had to march out five miles into the country but, if I preferred it, I could stay all night in billets in a new hospital that was in course of erection and was prepared for such use. I chose the hospital, as my men had been standing for two days and nights in box cars. We marched a quarter of a mile through the streets to the hospital, and it did not take us long to get to bed on some straw trusses.

In finding our billets here Sergeant Burness and a piper had dropped through a hole in the floor. Burness was badly hurt and was unable to go any further.

This was the evening of the 17th of February and "it is a strange thing but this regiment has ended most of its big moves on the seventeenth," remarked my orderly room sergeant.

CHAPTER XIII