CHAPTER I
JOINING UP
Whenthe Great War struck Europe I was living with my people in Ireland. I had served in the South African campaign, so, of course, I realised that it was up to me to roll up again and do my bit towards keeping the old rag flying. It's a queer thing, but let a man once go on the war-path and it's all the odds to a strap ring he's off again, full cry, to the sound of the bugle. I reckon it's in the Britisher's blood; he kind of imbibes it along with his mother's milk. When all's said and done we are a fighting breed. A sporting crowd, too, and we tackle war much as we would a game of football—or a big round-up in the Never-Never.
When England took off the gloves to Germany I knew the Colonies wouldn't hang back long. They breed men on the fringes of our Empire. Hence I wasn't surprised when I saw a notice in the papers calling on all New Zealanders, or men who had seen service with the Maorilanders in South Africa, to roll up at the High Commissioner's office in London, to be trained for service with the "Down Under" contingents. Well, I had lived for years in New Zealand, and had fought Boers time and again side by side with New Zealand troops, so I sent in my name right away. In due course I received a polite letter of thanks, and was told to turn up at the office on a certain date, to be examined and attested. I did so, and in company with some two hundred other Colonials was put through the eye-sight, hearing, and other tests, said "ninety-nine" to the doctor's satisfaction, and was duly passed as fit for service.
And now began a period of stress andstrenuous life. Morning after morning we repaired to Wandsworth Common, there to acquaint ourselves with the intricacies of "Right turn," "Left turn," "Form fours," etc., under the tutelage of certain drill-sergeants of leathern lungs and bibulous-looking noses. At noon we knocked off for an hour and a half, repairing for refreshment to a house of entertainment which stood fairly "adjacent" to our drill ground. Here we very soon found that our instructors' looks did not belie them. However, we consoled ourselves with the reflection that English beer was cheap as drinks went, and that all things come to an end in this world. The afternoons were repetitions of the mornings, with the added attraction of a largish audience composed principally of nursemaids and infants in arms—and prams. The audience enjoyed our efforts if we, the actors, didn't. It was thirsty work.
During this period we lived in London, "finding" ourselves, but receiving a slightincrease of pay in lieu of quarters and rations. It's a gay city is the Rio London. Our pockets suffered, hence most of us, although we growled on principle (being Colonials), were secretly relieved in mind when the order came to transfer to Salisbury Plain, there to camp in tents until such time as huts should be prepared for us.
I think we all enjoyed our stay on the "Plain"—a sad misnomer, by the way, as I never ran across a hillier plain in my life. It was autumn in England, and when we first arrived, except for cold nights the weather was really good—for England! It soon broke, however, and we sampled to the full the joys of sleeping on rain-soaked blankets and ploughing our way through the sticky chalk soil that hereabouts is so strongly in evidence. Hence we weren't sorry to transfer our swags to the more kindly shelter of the huts. In fact, we took possession of them before they were quite ready for occupancy, electing to completethe work ourselves. Most of us were "bush carpenters," so the job was right into our hands.
Our camp lay within two miles of Bulford village, a kind of Sleepy Hollow inhabited by a bovine-looking breed, whose mouths seemed intended for beer-drinking but not talking—which, in a way, was just as well, for when they did make a remark it was all Greek to us. We wakened the place up a bit, however, and the Canadians, who settled down to the tune of over five thousand round about us, nobly seconded our efforts, so I reckon the power of speech was restored to the villagers—after we left! For all I know they may be talking yet. Come to think it over in cold blood, they had cause to.
Those Kanucks were a hefty lot, and blessed with real top-knotch powers of absorption. They were sports, too. We beat them at Rugby football, but they took their change back at soccer. Honours were even, I think,at drill, but they drank our canteen dry every night. You see, there were five thousand of them and only a little over two hundred of us. As they were inclined to talk a bit in their cups we were forced to mount an armed guard in the canteen. The guard's principal duty was to stop scrapping on the premises, and the first sign of "peeling" operations being indulged in was the signal to round up the mob. Once outside, however, they could do as they liked. And they generally did! Discoloured optics and flattened nasal appendages soon ceased to be objects of curiosity down our location. On the whole we got on well with them, and we had many things in common. Poor fellows, they got stuck into it cruelly in France, between German gas and overpowering numbers, but they showed real grit right through—just as we who had been camp-mates with them knew they would.
Barring the heavy frosts, the rain, and the foot-deep mud, things weren't so bad in camp.The tucker was really good and there was plenty of it; the huts were, on the whole, fairly dry, although a bit draughty; and our kit was first-rate. We slept on the usual "donkey's breakfast," of course, but it isn't the worst bed to sleep on, by a long chalk. And it felt real good to me when the "Get-out-of-bed" bugle went every morning before sun-up, and the Kanuck band made the camp rounds to the tune ofJohn Peel. How we cursed that band!
Our daily work began with the usual before-breakfast breather—a brisk march over the hills, a spell of physical exercise, a pipe-opening "double," and then a free-and-easy tramp back to camp, soap-and-water, and breakfast. The feeds we used to take! I reckon the morning programme alone in the Army would fetch a double "lunger" back from the hearse door—if it didn't kill him outright. Dyspepsia disappeared from our camp, while as for stomachs, we grew to forget that such thingsformed part of our interior works—except when they reminded us in unmistakable terms that "Nature abhorred a vacuum."
The forenoon was generally spent on the parade ground, carrying out platoon and company drill. To give the reader an idea of the size of our fellows it is only necessary to state that in my platoon (No. 4) there were six men on my right—and I stand over six feet in height. I believe there was only one man in the platoon under five feet ten. They were not "cornstalks" either; they carried weight on top of their legs.
After lunch we usually went for a route-march, a form of training which was highly popular with all. On most days we did about ten miles, but twice a week or so we put in a fifteen to twenty mile stunt, cutting out the pace at a good round bat. Considering the state of the going (in many places the roads were simply muddy swamps) and the hilly nature of the country, I reckon we'dhave given points to most fellows when it came to hitting the wallaby. Once I remember taking part in a platoon marching competition. My platoon won it by a short neck, but we were all out. The distance was just over eleven miles of as tough and dirty going as they make, and when it is borne in mind that we cut it out at an average pace of four-and-a-half miles an hour the reader will guess that we didn't sprout much moss on the trail. We lost a goodish deal of sweat that trip, but the messing contractor didn't look like saying grace over our dinner that night. (By the wish of the men the evening meal was made the principal one; it was always a solid, hot tuck-in, and the best preparation for a cold wintry night that I know of.)
For recreation we had football on Saturdays and—don't look shocked, dear reader!—Sundays; concerts and "smokers" on week-nights, etc. We rigged a spare hut up as a theatreand concert-hall, and it looked real good when completed. The stage was elevated, and fitted with kerosene lamps as foot and head lights; a nifty curtain, and the latest thing in brown-paper pillars painted like the front of a Maoripataka, with little Maori gods sitting on their heels, tongues sticking out sideways, and hands clasped on distended abdomens. The centre-piece was the gem of the show, however; it represented the War God, Tiki, chewing up the German Eagle between teeth like the tusks of an old bush wild pig. Altogether the whole outfit had a decidedly homelike air about it—although it didn't seem to strike our English visitors in that light. But, then, neither did our war-cry, even when it was chanted in their honour by two hundred healthy-lunged New Zealanders. They did seem to appreciate the concerts we gave, however, and, bragging apart, we had talent enough in the mob to make a show most anywhere. We even ran to a trick contortionist and dancer, whosefavourite mode of progression towards his nightly couch was on his hands with his feet tucked away behind his ears. Taking it all in all, we were a very happy little colony, and despite the mud, frost and snow, I fancy those of us who may escape the Long Trail will reserve a kindly spot in their hearts for the old camp down Bulford way. But, alas! our ranks are already sadly thinned.
As time went on our little force became reinforced by men joining up who had come long distances to do their bit for King and Country. We were a peculiarly heterogeneous crowd. There were men from South Africa, from the Argentine, from Canada, the United States, and even from Central America. One at least had fought in the Spanish-American War, and owned to being a naturalised Uncle Sam citizen. There were quite a few who had seen service in the late Boer War, some who had been members of the New Zealand contingents, others having gone through thecampaign in one or other of the South African irregular corps. About 65 per cent. were born Maorilanders, the remainder being mostly "Colonials" of many years' standing. I should think we had representatives from every corner in New Zealand—and allmenin every sense of the word. Men of whom Adam Lindsay Gordon, the Australian stockman poet, might have been thinking when in his "Sick Stockrider" he penned the following lines—
"I've had my share of pastime and I've done my share of toil:Life is short—the longest life a span;I care not now to tarry for the corn and for the oil,And the wine that maketh glad the heart of man.For good undone and gifts misspent and resolutions vain 'twere somewhat late to trouble—This I know, I'd live the same life over if I had to live again,And the chances are I go where most men go."
And thisIknow: a finer lot of fellows to be with, either in light-hearted frolic or the grim struggle in which they were destined to take part, I never ran across in my natural.