I landed in on a Sunday afternoon about three o’clock and was immediately told by the quartermaster that we were leaving for France in a few hours.  He told me that I needed a complete change of equipment.  At this news I rejoiced, because so far we had all worn, in our battalion, the leather harness known as the “Oliver torture.”  I knew that the active service, or web, equipment could not be worse.

The rush for equipment issue was like a melee on the front line after a charge, as I found out later on.  There were some three hundred men newly drafted into the Third Battalion; there were some three hours in which we had to get our equipment and learn to adjust it.  As it was, many of the extreme greenhorn type marched away garbed in most sketchy fashion.  Some had parts of their equipment in bags; others utilized their pockets as holders for unexplained, and to them inexplicable, parts of the fighting kit.

Another of our trials was the new army boot.  In Canada we had been issued a light-weight, tan-colored shoe, more practicable for dress purposes than for active service.  Now we had the heavy English ammunition boot.  This is of strong—­the strongest—­black leather.  The soles are half-inch, and they are reenforced by an array of hobnails.  These again are supplemented by tickety-tacks, steel or iron headed nails with the head half-moon shape.  Each heel is outlined with an iron “horse shoe.”  Until the leather has been softened and molded with much rubbing and the unending use of dubbing, I would say, mildly, that these boots are not of the easiest.

Our departure for France was thrilling in its contrasts.  Before setting out we cleaned camp, and then we had a fine speech from our new commander, Colonel Rennie, of Toronto, of whom much was to be heard in the hard days to come.

We slipped out of the camp in silence and utter darkness.  Troops were being moved through England and into France with the utmost secrecy.  We dare not sing as we marched; we dare not speak to a neighbor.  On and on, it seemed endless, through mud and water and mud again.  At times it reached to our knees as we plowed our way to the railway, where trains with drawn blinds awaited us.

Before we were half through our march a terrific electrical storm broke over us; the thunder roared and the lightning split the sky open as though Heaven itself were making a protest against war.

We finally embarked on His Majesty’s Transport Glasgow.

CHAPTER III

BACK TO CANADA—­I DON’T THINK

It was seven in the evening before we were ready to start.  At that hour we quietly slipped our anchor and glided out of the harbor.  We all thought we would be in France before midnight.  The trip across the Channel in ordinary times is not often more than two and a half hours.  We had no bunks allotted to us, and didn’t think that any would be needed.  We all lay around in any old place, and in any old attitude.  I, for one, devoted most of the time during that evening to learning the art of putting my equipment together.  The majority of the boys were at the old familiar game, poker.