I had an idea when I entered that recruiting office that the sergeant would receive me with open arms. He didn’t. Instead he looked me over with unqualified scorn and spat out, “Yank, ayen’t ye?”
And I in my innocence briefly answered, “Yep.”
“We ayen’t tykin’ no nootrals,” he said, with a sneer. And then: “Better go back to Hamerika and ’elp Wilson write ’is blinkin’ notes.”
Well, I was mad enough to poke that sergeant in the eye. But I didn’t. I retired gracefully and with dignity.
At the door another sergeant hailed me, whispering behind his hand, “Hi sye, mytie. Come around in the mornin’. Hi’ll get ye in.” And so it happened.
Next day my man was waiting and marched me boldly up to the same chap who had refused me the day before.
“ ’Ere’s a recroot for ye, Jim,” says my friend.
Jim never batted an eye. He began to “awsk” questions and to fill out a blank. When he got to the birthplace, my guide cut in and said, “Canada.”
The only place I knew in Canada was Campobello Island, a place where we camped one summer, and I gave that. I don’t think that anything but rabbits was ever born on Campobello, but it went. For that matter anything went. I discovered afterward that the sergeant who had captured me on the street got five bob (shillings) for me.
The physical examination upstairs was elaborate. They told me to strip, weighed me, and said I was fit. After that I was taken in to an officer—a real officer this time—who made me put my hand on a Bible and say yes to an oath he rattled off. Then he told me I was a member of the Royal Fusiliers, gave me two shillings, sixpence and ordered me to report at the Horse Guards Parade next day. I was in the British army—just like that!
I spent the balance of the day seeing the sights of London, and incidentally spending my coin. When I went around to the Horse Guards next morning, two hundred others, new rookies like myself, were waiting. An officer gave me another two shillings, sixpence. I began to think that if the money kept coming along at that rate the British army might turn out a good investment. It didn’t.
That morning I was sent out to Hounslow Barracks, and three days later was transferred to Dover with twenty others. I was at Dover a little more than two months and completed my training there.
Our barracks at Dover was on the heights of the cliffs, and on clear days we could look across the Channel and see the dim outlines of France. It was a fascination for all of us to look away over there and to wonder what fortunes were to come to us on the battle fields of Europe. It was perhaps as well that none of us had imagination enough to visualize the things that were ahead.
I found the rookies at Dover a jolly, companionable lot, and I never found the routine irksome. We were up at five thirty, had cocoa and biscuits, and then an hour of physical drill or bayonet practice. At eight came breakfast of tea, bacon, and bread, and then we drilled until twelve. Dinner. Out again on the parade ground until three thirty. After that we were free.
Nights we would go into Dover and sit around the “pubs” drinking ale, or “ayle” as the cockney says it.
After a few weeks, when we were hardened somewhat, they began to inflict us with the torture known as “night ’ops.” That means going out at ten o’clock under full pack, hiking several miles, and then “manning” the trenches around the town and returning to barracks at three a.m.
This wouldn’t have been so bad if we had been excused parades the following day. But no. We had the same old drills except the early one, but were allowed to “kip” until seven.
In the two months I completed the musketry course, was a good bayonet man, and was well grounded in bombing practice. Besides that I was as hard as nails and had learned thoroughly the system of British discipline.
I had supposed that it took at least six months to make a soldier—in fact had been told that one could not be turned out who would be ten percent efficient in less than that time. That old theory is all wrong. Modern warfare changes so fast that the only thing that can be taught a man is the basic principles of discipline, bombing, trench warfare, and musketry. Give him those things, a well-conditioned body, and a baptism of fire, and he will be right there with the veterans, doing his bit.
Two months was all our crowd got at any rate, and they were as good as the best, if I do say it.
My training ended abruptly with a furlough of five days for Embarkation Leave, that is, leave before going to France. This is a sort of goodbye vacation. Most fellows realize fully that it may be their last look at Blighty, and they take it rather solemnly. To a stranger without friends in England I can imagine that this Embarkation Leave would be either a mighty lonesome, dismal affair, or a stretch of desperate, homesick dissipation. A chap does want to say goodbye to someone before he goes away, perhaps to die. He wants to be loved and to have someone sorry that he is going.
I was invited by one of my chums to spend the leave with him at his home in Southall, Middlesex. His father, mother and sister welcomed me in a way that made me know it was my home
