A Rifleman Went to War

We travelled all that day and the next night, going by a very devious and roundabout way — probably to deceive any spies who might be trying to keep track of our movements — and finally arrived at Southampton, just about daybreak. There we were required to keep to the docks and, as much as possible, under cover during the day. Our ship (I never did know the name of it) was snug up against the side of one of the covered docks and we were able to load all our gear and horses without going outside. Right alongside was another ship on which some British troops were embarking. They said they were going to the Dardanelles, so we figured that we were probably slated for the same place.

Most of our crowd wrote letters and posted them here. I had no writing materials handy but noticed a box on the dock which contained a lot of post cards, placed there, as an inscription on the box related, by the “Missions to Seamen.” On the off chance that it might go through, I addressed one of them to my mother in Indianapolis and told her that we “don’t know where we’re going, but are on our way.” Without any stamp, but with the magic letters: “O.H.M.S.” (On His Majesty’s Service), it went straight through to her.

It was a cold and drizzly night when we pulled out, or, as I should say, “shoved off.” We had carefully stowed all our guns down in the hold of the ship, but no sooner had we cleared the harbor than a couple of us had to go down and dig out two of them and bring them up and mount them on the deck. For my sins I was one of the two and Sandy MacNab, because he was not so good either, was the other. Oh, well, what the hell! We were all so glad to be out and going somewhere that we did not worry about a little thing like that. There were “subs” in the Channel and they had been sinking everything on sight — even shooting up the crews in the small boats after torpedoing the transports, so there was a chance that we might be able to take a few “Huns” with us if they did get us with a torpedo.

So as I have said, Sandy and I finally got two machine guns and some ammunition on deck, and by dark we had them mounted, mine to starboard and Sandy’s to port. Then the ship steamed out of the harbor and we two “stood to” until daybreak, expecting anything or nothing to happen. After a few hours, we didn’t care which.

Everything was in pitch darkness, not a light showing aboard ship or elsewhere and the trip passed uneventful until about the middle of the night. Then I saw a bright glow on the horizon, just dead ahead. It was mighty puzzling, but the ship’s lookouts said or did nothing and I did likewise. I had about decided that it must be a ship afire, and was wondering what we would do about it; but the thing gradually kept taking on the appearance of an immense Christmas tree and I began to think that the English booze was sure holding up for a long time. Finally I could stand it no longer, so I sneaked over to MacNab’s side to see if he saw what I saw. He did, but we were both too bewildered to ask any questions so we waited, and a Red Cross hospital ship, lighted from stem to stern and from waterline to truck with hundreds of electric lights, swept past. There were flood lights sweeping downward to show the green stripe along its side as prescribed by the Geneva Convention, and the ship could not possibly have been mistaken for anything else in the world — yet the Germans sank all of these “Castle” liners before the war was over. Sandy MacNab, who stood by my side that night, came back on one of these ships within a month and I took my first ride to Blighty on the Carisbrook Castle a year or so later.

About daybreak we picked up a string of colored lights and dropped anchor. When daylight came on we could see that it was the harbor of Le Havre we were in; I had been there before and recognized it immediately. Then and there we knew that it was France we were headed for and that the Dardanelles was not to be our destination.

We waited around a bit for the tide to rise, and then a few tugs pushed us in against the dock and we tied up. The Promised Land at last. The docks were swarming with men, practically all in uniform and all very busy. Most of the French soldiers were still wearing that old uniform of red and blue, the new “horizon blue” not having yet been adopted. Many elderly English soldiers were about, from the so-called “Nawie’s Battalions.” But the most puzzling of all were some whose uniform was the subject of much speculation, until we happened to notice that they always kept in groups and that a poilu invariably followed them with a rifle and fixed bayonet. It was our first sight of German prisoners and it was one of the real genuine thrills of the war, which was getting closer and closer all the time.

That disembarkment was nothing but common, every-day, hard labor accompanied by an unusual amount of confusion and cussing. Occasionally we were relieved by the antics of some horse which did not want to come down the steep and narrow gangway; it had been a devil of a job to get them aboard in the first place and was even harder to get them to go ashore. But finally, about noon we got everything off, the waggons loaded and teams hitched and made our way through the city and moved into a so-called “rest camp.” Just about time for a shave and wash-up. Then a biscuit, but mighty little rest we got, as we started again at dark, in a driving rain as usual, and marched for miles across the city.

That rain never let up until after we had entrained, and it was a night of horrors. Sloshing through the mud, over unknown streets and roads, soaked to one’s skin and then loading our train for the Front. The English language is not adequate to describe the loading of that train; getting all those waggons on those dinky little flat cars and then the horses aboard. At that the horses fared better than we did because they were only eight to the car while we had to cram in forty or more, and in the very same car too — the Forty and Eights. Chevaux huite; Hommes quarante — that’s what is said on the side of each car.

While we had been loading the cars, our cooks had somehow managed to make up a mess of good hot tea, and that helped a lot. Then we got an issue of cheese, bully and biscuits which we took into the car with us. There were fifty-six in our section at that time, but we all managed to get into one of the things. There was no room to lie down or even to sit down without piling up two or three deep but we managed, somehow or other, to get along. We were soaked to the hide and all our equipment was in the same condition, but what do you suppose those birds did? Commenced to sing; yes they did, and kept it up all day long. We had some cheese and bully-beef and a few chunks of bread, so we made out nicely.

On the way up to the front, we passed through some of the most historical parts of France, but then all of France is an historical pageant. Here we were landing at Harfleur, which other British armies had done centuries earlier, then through Rouen with its memories of Jeanne d’Arc, Rollo the Norman, Duke William and Harold, all of whom had their walk across history’s pages. Although we went right through Rouen without stopping we could see the wonderful cathedral and the hospice on the river. After crossing the river one has a brief glimpse of the village of St. Adrien, with the curious church in the face of the cliff where maidens come to pray Saint Bonaventure for a husband within the year.

Then past the field of Crecy, where, several centuries earlier, another British army had made history, and on across the Somme which later on was to become such an experience to many of us. At Abbeville we joined the rest of the battalion. They had come directly across from Folkestone to Boulogne. From Abbeville the entire battalion rode on together and about three o’clock the next morning we pulled into St. Omer, at that time the British Headquarters in France. It had taken almost a year to make it, but the war was just around the corner at last.

There was no loafing at St. Omer; we immediately detrained and before daylight were on the march — headed eastward. Stopping for a couple of hours at some little town to make tea, we then headed on. This was the hardest day we had had, and that march was just about as tough an experience as I have ever endured — and I was pretty tough, myself, at that time. It was hot and we were loaded down with our packs and ammunition, everyone being overloaded, as a new soldier always is. Moreover, our packs and clothing had not dried out and we were carrying about twenty or thirty pounds of water in addition to the regulation sixty- some pounds of equipment. The roads were pave, of Belgian blocks, or cobbles, as we would call them, and our iron-shod soles slipped on them as though they were ice. On the hard smooth roads of England we would not have minded it, but this sort of going was new to us; our ankles were continually turning, our feet eternally slipping. All in all I consider this the hardest march I have ever made in my life, and I have made as much as forty-eight miles in one day over the snow of the Northwest in my time.

So far as I can remember, none of our crowd dropped out on this march, but I am sure that every one of us would have liked to. We kept going on our nerve after we were worn out physically and whenever we did stop for a short rest every man was asleep in less time than it took to lie down. About dark we halted at a farm and the word went out that we would bivouac and probably be there for a week or more. There was a large barn there with plenty of clean straw in it, and we machine gunners promptly took possession of this while the rest of the battalion were standing about waiting for the Quartermaster to assign them somewheres. This called for a fight with the signallers and scouts who were finally assigned to the barn; we compromised and let them use the poorer part of the place. There were names, inscribed on the beams, of earlier organizations who had stopped in that barn, amongst them being the Princess Pats. However, we read all those the next day, that night we were too tired to