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CHAPTER
III.
ON
SALISBURY PLAIN.
October
18th, 1914, to January 1st, 1915.
ON
Sunday the 18th, our men entrained and traveled to Patney,
and from thence marched to Westdown South, Salisbury Plain.
There tents had been prepared and we settled down to life
in our new English home. At first the situation was very
pleasant. Around us on all sides spread the lines of tents.
The weather was delightful. A ride over the mysterious
plain was something never to be forgotten. The little
villages around were lovely and quaint. The old town of
Salisbury, with its wonderful Cathedral and memories of
old England, threw the glamour of romance and chivalry
over the new soldiers in the new crusade. But winter drew
on, and such a winter it was. The rains descended, the
floods came and the storms beat upon our tents, and the
tents which were old and thin allowed a fine sprinkling
of moisture to fall upon our faces. The green sward was
soon trampled into deep and clinging mud. There was nothing
for the men to do. Ammunition was short, there was little
rifle practice. The weather was so bad that a route march
meant a lot of wet soldiers with nowhere to dry their
clothes upon their return. In some places the mud went
over my long rubber boots. The gales of heaven swept over
the plain unimpeded. Tents were blown down. On one particularly
gloomy night, I met a chaplain friend of mine in the big
Y.M.C.A. marquee. I said to him, “For goodness sake
let us do something for the men. Let us have a sing-song.”
He agreed, and we stood in the middle of the marquee with
our backs to the pole and began to sing a hymn. I do not
know what it was. I started the air and was going on so
beautifully that the men were beginning to be attracted
and were coming around us. Suddenly my friend struck in
with a high tenor note. Hardly had the sound gone forth
when, like the fall of the walls of Jericho at the sound
of Joshua’s trumpets, a mighty gale struck the building,
and with a ripping sound the whole thing collapsed. In
the rain and darkness we rushed to the assistance of the
attendants and extinguished the lamps, which had been
upset, while the men made their way to the counters and
put the cigarettes and other dainties into their pockets,
lest they should get wet. On [Page 30]
another occasion, the Paymaster’s tent blew away
as he was paying off the battalion. Five shilling notes
flew over the plain like white birds over the sea. The
men quickly chased them and gathered them up, and on finding
them stained with mud thought it unnecessary to return
them. On another night the huge marquee where Harrod’s
ran the mess for a large number of officers, blew down
just as we were going to dinner, and we had to forage
in the various canteens for tinned salmon and packages
of biscuits.
Still, in spite of all, the spirits
of our men never failed. One night when a heavy rain had
turned every hollow into a lake, and every gully into
a rushing cataract, I went down to some tents on a lower
level than my own. I waded through water nearly a foot
deep and came to a tent from which I saw a faint light
emerging. I looked inside and there with their backs to
the pole stood some stalwart young Canadians. On an island
in the tent, was a pile of blankets, on which burnt a
solitary candle. “Hello, boys, how are you getting
on?” “Fine, Sir, fine,” was their ready
response. “Well, boys, keep that spirit up,”
I said, “and we’ll win the war.”
At
first we had no “wet” canteen where beer could
be procured. The inns in the villages around became sources
of great attraction to the men, and the publicans did
their best to make what they could out of the well-paid
Canadian troops. The maintenance of discipline under such
circumstances was difficult. We were a civilian army,
and our men had come over to do a gigantic task. Everyone
knew that, when the hour for performance came, they would
be ready, but till that hour came they were intolerant
of restraint.
The
English people did not understand us, and many of our
men certainly gave them good reason to be doubtful. Rumour
had it at one time that we were going to be taken out
of the mud and quartered in Exeter. Then the rumour was
that the Exeter people said, “If the Canadians are
sent here, we’ll all leave the town.” I did
not mind, I told the men I would make my billet in the
Bishop’s Palace.
The
C.O. of one of the battalions was tempted to do what David
did with such disastrous results, namely number the people.
He called the roll of his battalion and found that four
hundred and fifty men were absent without leave. But as
I have said, we all knew that when the moment for big
things came, every man would be at his post and would
do his bit.
Just
before Christmas the 3rd Brigade were moved into huts
at Lark Hill. They were certainly an improvement upon
the tents, [Page 31] but they were draughty
and leaky. From my window I could see, on the few occasions
when the weather permitted it, the weird and ancient circles
of Stonehenge.
The calm repose of those huge
stones, which had watched unmoved the passing of human
epochs, brought peace to the mind. They called to memory
the lines;—
“Our
little systems have their day,
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.”
In
order to give Christmas its religious significance,
I asked permission of the Rector of Amesbury to use
his church for a midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve.
He gladly gave his consent and notice of the service
was sent round to the units of the Brigade. In the thick
fog the men gathered and marched down the road to the
village, where the church windows threw a soft light
into the mist that hung over the ancient burial ground.
The church inside was bright and beautiful. The old
arches and pillars and the little side chapels told
of days gone by, when the worship of the holy nuns,
who had their convent there, rose up to God day by day.
The altar was vested in white and the candles shone
out bright and fair. The organist had kindly consented
to play the Christmas hymns, in which the men joined
heartily. It was a service never to be forgotten, and
as I told the men, in the short address I gave them,
never before perhaps, in the history of that venerable
fane, had it witnessed a more striking assembly. From
a distance of nearly seven thousand miles some of them
had come, and this was to be our last Christmas before
we entered the life and death struggle of the nations.
Row after row of men knelt to receive the Bread of Life,
and it was a rare privilege to administer it to them.
The fog was heavier on our return and some of us had
great difficulty in finding our lines.
It seemed sometimes as if we
had been forgotten by the War Office, but this was not
the case. We had visits form the King, Lord Roberts
and other high officials. All these were impressed with
the physique and high spirits of our men.
The conditions under which we
lived were certainly atrocious, and an outbreak of meningitis
cast a gloom over the camp. It was met bravely and skillfully
by our medical men, of whose self-sacrifice and devotion
no praise is too high. The same is true of their conduct
all through the war. [Page 32]
Our life on the Plain was certainly
a puzzle to us. Why were we kept there? When were we
going to leave? Were we not wanted in France? These
were the questions we asked one another. I met an Imperial
officer one day, who had just returned from the front.
I asked him when we were going to train for the trenches.
“Why” he said, “what better training
could you have than you are getting here? If you can
stand the life here, you can stand the life in France.”
I think he was right. That strange experience was just
what we needed to inure us to hardship, and it left
a stamp of resolution and efficiency on the First Division
which it never lost. [Page 33]
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