Then more lorries, contractors’ wagons, and in- creasing vileness of the battered road-bed, till one slid through a rude gate into a new world, of canvas as far as the eye could reach, and beyond that outlying clouds of tents. It is not a contingent that Canada has sent, but an army - horse, foot, guns, engineers, and all details, fully equipped. Taking that army’s strength at thirty-three thou- sand, and the Dominion’s population at eight million, the camp is Canada on the scale of one to two hundred and forty - an entire nation unrolled across a few square miles of turf and tents and huts. Here I could study at close hand �a Colony� yearning to shake off �the British yoke.� For, beyond question, they yearned - the rank and file unreservedly, the officers with more restraint but equal fervour - and the things they said about the Yoke were simply lamentable.
From Nova Scotia to Victoria, and every city, township, distributing-centre, and divisional point between; from subtropical White River and sultry Jackfish to the ultimate north that lies up beside Alaska; from Kootenay, and Nelson of the fruit- farms, to Prince Edward Island, where motors are not allowed; they yearned to shake it off, with the dust of England from their feet, �at once and some time before that.�
I had been warned that when Armageddon came the �Colonies� would �revolt against the Mother Country as one man’; but I had no notion I should ever see the dread spectacle with my own eyes or the �one man� so tall!
Joking apart, the Canadian Army wants to get to work. It admits that London is �some city,� but says it did not take the trip to visit London only. Armageddon, which so many people in Europe knew was bound to come, has struck Canada out of the blue, like a noonday murder in a small town. How will they feel when they actually view some of the destruction in France, these men who are used to making and owning their homes? And what effect will it have on their land�s outlook and development for the next few generations? Older countries may possibly slip back into some sort of toleration. New peoples, in their first serious war, like girls in their first real love-affair, neither forget nor forgive. That is why it pays to keep friends with the young.
And such young! They ran inches above all normal standards, not in a few companies or battalions, but through the whole corps; and it was not easy to pick out foolish or even dull faces among them. Details going about their business through the camp’s much mud; defaulters on fatigue; orderlies, foot and mounted; the pro- cession of lorry-drivers; companies falling in for inspection; battalions parading; brigades moving off for manoeuvres; batteries clanking in from the ranges; they were all supple, free, and intelligent ; and moved with a lift and a drive that made one sing for joy.
Camp Gossip
Only a few months ago that entire collection poured into
[Page 33, line 15] Armageddon The place of the final battle with the Anti-Christ named in Revelations 16. 16. Frequently used to describe the war of 1914-1918. Valcartier camp in pink shirts and straw hats, desperately afraid they might not be in time. Since then they have been taught several things. Notably, that the more independent the individual soldier, the more does he need fore- thought and endless care when he is in bulk.
�Just because we were all used to looking after ourselves in civil life,� said an officer, �we used to send parties out without rations. And the parties used to go, too! And we expected the boys to look after their own feet. But we’re wiser now.�
�They’re learning the same thing in the New Army,� I said. �Company officers have to be taught to be mothers and housekeepers and sanitary- inspectors. Where do your men come from?�
�Tell me some place that they don’t come from,� said he, and I could not. The men had rolled up from everywhere between the Arctic circle and the border, and I was told that those who could not get into the first contingent were moving heaven and earth and local politicians to get into the second.
�There’s some use in politics now,� that officer reflected. �But it’s going to thin the voting-lists at home.�
A good many of the old South African crowd (the rest are coming) were present and awfully correct. Men last met as privates between De Aar and Belmont were captains and majors now, while one lad who, to the best of his ability, had painted Cape Town pink in those fresh years, was a grim non-commissioned officer worth his disciplined weight in dollars. �I didn’t remind Dan of old times when he turned up at Valcartier disguised as a respectable citizen.� said my informant. �I just roped him in for my crowd. He’s a father to �em. He knows.�
�And have you many cheery souls coming on?� I asked.
�Not many; but it’s always the same with a first contingent. You take everything that offers and weed the bravoes out later.�
�We don’t weed,� said an officer of artillery. �Any one who has had his passage paid for by the Canadian Government stays with us till he eats out of our hand. And he does. They make the best men in the long run,� he added. I thought of a friend of mine who is now disabusing two or three �old soldiers� in a Service corps of the idea that they can run the battalion, and I laughed. The Gunner was right. �Old soldiers� after a little loving care, become valuable and virtuous.
A company of Foot was drawn up under the lee of a fir plantation behind us. They were a miniature of their army as their army was of their people, and one could feel the impact of strong personality almost like a blow.
�If you’d believe it,� said a cavalryman, �we’re forbidden to cut into that little wood-lot, yonder! Not one stick of it may we have! We could make shelters for our horses in a day out of that stuff.�
�But it’s timber!’ I gasped. �Sacred, tame trees!�
�Oh, we know what wood is! They issue it to us by the pound. Wood to burn by the pound! What’s wood for, anyway? ‘
�And when do you think we shall be allowed to go?� some one asked, not for the first time.
�By and by,� said I. �And then you’ll have to detail half your army to see that your equipment isn’t stolen from you.�
�What!’ cried an old Strathcona Horse. He looked anxiously towards the horse-lines.
�I was thinking of your mechanical transport and your travelling workshops and a few other things that you’ve got.�
I got away from those large men on their windy hill-top, and slid through mud and past mechanical transport and troops untold towards Lark Hill, On the way I passed three fresh-cut pine sticks, laid and notched one atop of the other to shore up a caving bank. Trust a Canadian or a beaver within gunshot of standing timber!
Engineers and Appliances
Lark Hill is where the Canadian Engineers live, in the midst of a profligate abundance of tools and carts, pontoon wagons, field telephones, and other mouth-watering gear. Hundreds of tin huts are being built there, but quite leisurely, by contract, I noticed three workmen, at eleven o’clock of that Monday forenoon, as drunk as Davy’s sow, reeling and shouting across the landscape. So far as I could ascertain, the workmen do not work extra shifts, nor even, but I hope this is incorrect, on Saturday afternoons; and I think they take their full hour at noon these short days.
Every camp throws up men one has met at the other end of the earth; so, of course, the Engineer C.O. was an ex-South African Canadian.
�Some of our boys are digging a trench over