when the famous battle cruiser, the "Queen Mary" came up about dusk one evening and ran through our lines amid great excitement. This was the battle cruiser that had not long before converted the German cruiser "Emden" into a mass of twisted iron in a few minutes. As she steamed slowly by she presented one of the finest spectacles I have ever seen. Somehow nothing in the world looks as efficient for its particular job as a battle cruiser; it is the personification of power and beauty.

One morning at six o'clock a light was discovered in the distance. Someone said it was the light-house off Land's End. So it proved. By eight o'clock we could make out clearly the coast of Cornwall. As the land grew nearer the famous Eddystone Lighthouse came into view, and, making a great sweep around it, instead of running for Southampton as we all had expected, we headed for Plymouth. A number of torpedo boats, commonly called "Ocean Lice," accompanied us for the last few miles, as a protection against submarines.

The approach to Plymouth was wonderfully soothing. The hills covered with beautiful foliage in shades of brown and olive green were a most restful change from the monotony of the sea. A marked contrast to the peacefulness of the countryside were the fortifications everywhere visible commanding the approach to perhaps the most strongly fortified port in Southern England. With the possible exception of Sydney, Australia, Plymouth is said to be the most beautiful harbour in the Empire. One could well believe it.

Tugs puffed out to meet us, pilots climbed aboard, and we slowly steamed up the long sinuous channel, past Edgecombe to Davenport. All the warships being built or equipped, the forts, the training ships and the docks, indeed every point of vantage was thronged with cheering crowds of people,—civilians, soldiers and sailors. Cheer after cheer from our Canadian soldiers responded to those from our English friends as we slowly made our way up the channel. It seemed as though everybody had gone crazy.

It was a never-to-be-forgotten reception; we felt that we were indeed a part of the Empire in spirit as well as in name. About three o'clock we came to anchor, and during the afternoon ship after ship followed in and anchored alongside. At night we crowded up even closer to give the late-comers room. For the first time on our trip the vessels were all brilliantly illuminated, the bands played, the giddy ones danced, and all were happy to be once again in sight of solid land. At dinner the commandant, Col. Williams, made a speech and called for three cheers for our Captain, and never, I suppose, did any other Captain receive such hearty cheers and such a tremendous "tiger." It was the culmination of a marvellous and historic trip.

The trip to Salisbury by motor next day was a dream—a dream of hedges and great trees meeting over-head; of hills and valleys with little thatched cottages and villages nestling in them, of beautiful estates and sheep, of quaint old English farms, of ancient towns and villages. Through Ivy Bridge and Honiton to Exeter, where we stopped to see the beautiful old Cathedral, so warm and rich in colouring and passing by one long series of beautiful pictures, in perhaps the most charming pastoral landscape in the world, we came to the white-scarred edge of the famous Salisbury Plain.

CHAPTER II.ToC

ON SALISBURY PLAINS.

It was on the 15th of October that we landed in Plymouth. A few days later the whole of the 33,000 (with the exception of a few errant knights who had gone off on independent pilgrimages) were more or less settled on Salisbury Plain. The force was divided into four distinct camps miles apart. One infantry brigade and the headquarters staff was stationed at Bustard Camp; one section was camped a couple of miles away, at West Down South; a third at West Down North still farther away, and the fourth at Pond Farm about five miles from Bustard. Convenience of water supplies and arrangements for the administration of the forces made these divisions necessary.

The plains of Salisbury, ideal for summer military camps, are rolling, prairie-like lands stretching for miles, broken by a very occasional farm house or by plantations of trees called "spinneys." A thin layer of earth and turf covered the chalk which was hundreds of feet in depth; at any spot a blow with a pick would bring up the white chalk filled with black flints. The hills by which the plains were reached rose sharply from the surface of Wiltshire, so that Salisbury Plain itself could be easily distinguished miles away by the white, water worn rifts in the hillsides.

When we first arrived the plains gave promise of being a fine camping ground. Tents were pitched, canteens opened, work was begun and our boys settled down impatiently to receive the further training necessary before passing over to that Mecca to which one and all looked forward—the battle grounds of Flanders.

For a few days all went well; then it began to rain. About the middle of November it settled down in earnest and rained steadily for a month; sometimes it merely drizzled, at other times it poured; but it never stopped, except for an hour or so. The constant tramp of many feet speedily churned into mud the clay turf overlaying the chalk, and the rain could not percolate through this mixture as it did the unbroken sod. In a few days the mud was one inch—four inches—and even a foot deep. Many a time I waded through mud up to my knees.

The smooth English roads, lacking depth of road-metal, were speedily torn to pieces by the heavy traffic of motors and steam traction engines. Passing cars and lorries sprayed the hedges with a thin mud-emulsion formed from the road binder, and exposed the sharp flints which, like so much broken glass, tore to pieces the tires of the motors.

Cold high winds, saturated with moisture, accompanied the rain and searched one's very marrow. Nothing would exclude these sea breezes but skin or fur coats, and though accustomed to a severe climate, we Canadians felt the cold in England as we never had at home. Sometimes the temperature fell below the freezing point, and occasionally we had sleet, hail or snow for variety. Tents were often blown down by the hundreds, and it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight watching a small army of soldiers trying to hold and pin down some of the large mess tents, while rope after rope snapped under the straining of the flapping canvas. One day the post office tent collapsed, and some of the mail disappeared into the heavens, never to return.

The officers of the headquarter staff were fairly comfortable in comparison to the others. Our tents were pitched in a quadrangle formed by four rows of trees and scrub, which had evidently been planted around the site of a former house and served to break the high winds. Each officer had a tent with a wooden floor. Mine was carpeted with an extra blanket to exclude draughts and make it feel comfortable under one's bare feet in the morning. The tent was heated by an oil stove which was kept burning night and day; and at night I slept snug and warm in the interior of a Jaeger sleeping blanket in a Wolseley kit. My batman, Karner, had made a table from some boxes and boards which he had picked up, I know not where. It is unwise to ask your batman too many foolish questions as to the origin of things,—take what he gives you and be thankful.

This table covered with another blanket, served to support a splendid