In a few hours we were steaming down the St. Lawrence, and the next day we slipped into Gaspe Bay on the eastern coast of Canada, where we joined the other transports.  Here thirty-two ships with as many thousand men aboard them were gathered together, all impatiently waiting the order to dash across the Atlantic.

We did not have to wait very long.  On Sunday, October the fourth, at three o’clock in the afternoon, we steamed slowly out of the harbor in three long lines.  Each ship was about a quarter of a mile from her companion ahead or behind, and guarded on each side by cruisers.  I have memorized the names of the transports, and at this time it is interesting to know that very few of them have been sunk by the German submarines.

The protecting cruisers were:  H.M.S.  Eclipse, Diana, Charybdis, Glory, Talbot and Lancaster.  The transports were in Line Number One:  S.S.  Manatic, Ruthenian, Bermudian, Alaunia, Irvenia, Scandinavian, Sicilia, Montzuma, Lapland, Casandia;

Line Number Two:  Carribean, Athenia, Royal Edward, Franconia, Canada, Monmouth, Manitou, Tyrolia, Tunissian, Laurentic, Milwaukee; Line Number Three:  The Scotian, Arcadian, Zeeland, Corinthian, Virginian, Andania, Saxonia, Grampian, Laconia, Montreal, The Royal George.

All the way across the Atlantic we were in sight of each other and of the cruisers.  Personally, the scene thrilled me through and through.  Here was the demonstrated fact that we, an unmilitary people, with a small population to draw on, had made a world record in sending the greatest armada that had ever sailed from one port to another in the history of man.  Personally, I felt very proud because of the thirty-three thousand soldiers on these boats only seventeen per cent. were born Canadians; five per cent.  Americans, and the other seventy-eight were made up of English, Irish and Scotch residing in Canada at the outbreak of the war.

There were no exciting scenes on the way over, except when some wild and woolly Canadian tried to jump overboard because of seasickness.  We were a long time crossing, because the fastest transport had to cut her speed down to that of the slowest, and the voyage was anything but a pleasant one.  When we finally steamed into Plymouth, the gray-backs outnumbered the soldiers by many thousands.  The invasion of England!

CHAPTER II

IN THE OLD COUNTRY

We were the first of the British Colonial soldiers to come to the aid of the Motherland.  Judging from the wonderful reception given us, it was easy to see that the people were very pleased at our coming, to put it mildly.