The division was beginning to look and act like troops and it was decided to have an inspection by Earl Kitchener. We were all pleased at the prospect of seeing this old warrior. We had read so much, heard so much of that old lion that I think he had found a place in the corner of all of our hearts and we looked forward to seeing him in person. Our interest in him was different from the interest taken in Royalty and other celebrities. A thing distinct. I was not disappointed in him on first sight and he looked every inch the part he played in the drama of the Empire on its outer and rougher edges. There was the stamp of the deserts and raw wild lands in him. I still believe in him in spite of the carping, place seeking politicians who besmirched him before and after his death. He had an eye that seemed to look through and through you and a face like the face of the Rocky Mountains. His name will stand after his critics are mostly forgotten.
The raw lands know it and fierce suns glare
The Dervish breathes it at his evening Prayer
As well to sneer at the old Union Jack itself as at him
The poor little (street bred) people
That sputter, and fume and brag
And lift their voice in the stillness
To yelp at the British flag
We must have made a fairly favorable impression as to fitness for service for we soon heard rumors of something doing about our going overseas. We were taken on route marches with full equipment occasionally. One day we did not return to camp but were entrained and found ourselves in Avonmouth, the Port of Bristol, went aboard ship there and left Old England on the lee “sheltered”.
Crossing The Channel
We were off down the Bristol Channel, destination unknown aboard a freight tramp Ahoy! The freighter that carried us was of an all-steel construction shell with decks from top to bottom of all-steel plates. Ribs and deck girders were of all-steel I beams or T beams. Each man had his spot on the lower deck to spread his bed and equipment on the steel riveted deck floor, and there was little room to spare. All the ships were loaded to capacity. Bristol Channel, St. George’s Channel, then away south and still south until the breeze began to smell balmy and warm. I began to sniff and have visions of the Straits of Gibraltar, and hopes of seeing the Mediterranean, or perhaps Egypt, the Dardanelles or at least Marseilles. We got in the neighborhood of the Bay of Biscay and fully expected to meet a storm as that quarter has an unenviable reputation for dirty weather.
It stayed fine and sunny, and in mid afternoon our old R. S. M. brought a crock out on deck to issue our first ration of rum on active service. I sat on top of a hatch cover and watched the proceeding, which were quite interesting. Some of the boys were teetotalers, some were the opposite, some were merely curious about the old Jamaica, trying it as an experiment and gagged on it with wry faces. I took mine finding it strong enough to make me blink and swallow a few times before getting a free breath. I figure it must be 35 or 40 O. P.
We passed several queer-looking craft and met one Nova Scotia Man loping along and nearly becalmed. The “herring chokers” hurried to the rail waving greetings. It was a brig and what they were doing in these waters I don’t know. Maybe hunting subs with their old seal guns.
When I turned in at a late hour we were still pounding away to the south and it was getting to be quite warm. Awaking in the morning I had a suspicion that things had changed. I was shivering in a damp cold foggy draft and the steel plate mattress felt like an ice floe. There was a fresh breeze with a choppy sea on, a drift of scud, fog, and we were drumming away full speed to the north getting colder every minute.
In the course of the day we saw a couple of queer bunchy awkward- looking naval craft through the fog on the port bow. These turned out to be French cruisers lying outside the entrance to the Port of St.Nazaire. We soon picked up a pilot and worked our way into the roadstead and in due time swung at anchor in the inner harbor. Here was a long straggling water front of mixed shipping and a mixed looking town stretching back from it into fog and smoke.
I heard a French bugle some place on shore playing reveille. This call has the same notes as used by the U. S. Army, was no doubt introduced here by Lafayette. We sized up the grimy looking shoreline.
Here it was at last
It was the land of France
The chosen home of Chivalry
The garden of Romance
It turned out that we had slipped across the Bay of Biscay, pretty luckily, just ahead of a nasty storm that caught some of the transports close behind us nearly swamping a couple of them that were loaded with horses and forage. I believe there was a loss of some of the horses.
St. Nazaire
A Co. or No. 1 Co. was left here a couple of days on account of the battalion being over strength. For this reason they could not ship us all on the regular number of cattle cars assigned to a French battalion. 42 hommes or 10 chaveaux to a car. We had to wait and follow at earliest convenience. We eventually landed in our turn and were marched through the town to a camp of tents in the suburbs.
Now St. Nazaire is an old time seaport infested with all kinds of drifting and sea going people of many nationalities and colors. Turcos, Lasgars, Maltese, Indian, Coolies, Negroes as well as the white scum of a hundred water fronts.
There is on sale at the numerous estaminets wines of all kinds, cognac, bismuth, cride, minth beers and other drinks with a kick from Algiers, Italy and other foreign parts.
There is also plentitude of women on sale to the first bidder regardless of color, cleanliness or origin of the buyer.
We had about 300 young devils in the prime of life with coin in their pockets in a new and strange land raring to go. It was some responsibility on the hands of our O. C’s to hold them for the time of our stay here and keep them out of trouble. Some of us were detailed off to act as sentries at some of the more unsavory joints to steer the boys away. I was nailed for this, my first job in La Belle France. I only had to turn away a couple of them during the night.
The last one was a lance jack or one strip corporal out of my own platoon. He had gone into some place where the inmates were all busy, or sleeping, or out. At any rate he gravitated to the kitchen part of the house and ran up against a big sideboard or chest of drawers or shelves loaded with a variety of bottles with all kinds and all degrees of kick. Being primed to a jovial and devil may care stage he proceeded to load up all the pockets of his great coat, the inner clothing with the best that the house afforded before leaving. When he passed me he had a heavy cargo and was rolling some in a light ground swell but with all sails set. He promised to go directly to his tent and did so. I helped him a little with his cargo when off duty.
On the third day we took the train and were off on the long detour by rail, three days and three nights. We were very crowded in those stock cars and found difficulty in having enough room to stretch out for a nap at night. Most of the time we were hunched up with our knees under our chins, but occasionally found a place at the side door of our Pullman where we could get a glimpse of the country. We passed through some very beautiful valleys in what I was told was Normandy. Of course all troop movements were under a very heavy and strict censorship, and we had to guess at our route and destination at all times. We were often able to pick off information en route and take note of names. While passing through the towns and while stopped in rail yards we had a chance to view the people and donate bully beef and biscuits to the swarms of pinched looking children that crowded along side with their perpetual whine of Bulee- Bif- Biskee- Pennie-Anglais-Soldat-Plees. There must have been a lot of poverty and hardship even at that early stage of the war to judge by these Waifs. We must have passed over a height of land some where in mid-trip for we climbed for several hours on steep grades. After passing through a long tunnel we came out on a different sort of country, level and flat almost like our prairie. I suppose that was our entrance to the Flanders Plains.
Hazebrouck
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