The next port of call was St. Vincent, reached on the 11th July, 1916. No one was allowed on shore. The run from here was through the submarine zone, and was attended with the usual discomforts. The pontoons of the Company first saw service being installed on the boat deck as emergency lifeboats.
Finally, after a long voyage, during which there was a considerable amount of sickness and the death of one member of the unit, disembarkation took place on July 21st, 1916, at Plymouth. The unit entrained to Amesbury and marched to Camp 20, Lark Hill, Salisbury Plains, joining up with the 3rd Australian Division, then slowly concentrating. The Company was the first of the Divisional Engineers to arrive, and at once came under the orders of Lieut.-Col. H. O. Clogstoun, R.E., C.R.E., of the division.
Before commencing training, the members of the unit received four days’ disembarkation leave, which was keenly enjoyed after the confinement and discomfort of the troopship. Work had barely started at Lark Hill before orders were received to proceed to Brightlingsea, in Essex, for pontoon training, in the Engineer depôt there. No camp being available, all ranks were billeted on the townspeople, and were the first Australians to visit the place. Some surprise was expressed at the lightness of complexion and English speech of the visitors, and both the military authorities and the townspeople were agreeably surprised to find that their lives and property were not appreciably jeopardised by the wild Colonial soldiery.
The visit, originally intended to last only until efficiency had been reached in pontooning, was afterwards extended to include a full course of R.E. training, and some work on the East Coast defences, and it was not until two months had elapsed that the Company rejoined the Division at Lark Hill.
The unit took part in two sports meetings at Brightlingsea. In the first it was beaten by a Highland Field Company, R.E.,
stationed in the town, and in the second carried off a silver cup in competition with the local Naval Forces and with the 10th Field Company, which had arrived for training.
After the return to the division at Lark Hill, training in field works in conjunction with infantry was undertaken; the trench system at Bustard will always be remembered by the original members of the unit. A specially interesting exercise was a route march, under tactical conditions, lasting five days, from Lark Hill, through Chitterne, Westbury, Devizes, Pusey, and back to camp.
Another interesting experience was a fifteen-mile route march of the whole division with full transport. On another occasion, officers and senior N.C.O.’s took part in a divisional tactical exercise, which was memorable chiefly for the coldness of the wind, which preluded a fall of snow—the first many members of the Company had seen.
Equipment was completed in every respect at Lark Hill, and horses and mules “taken on strength.” On the 24th November, 1916, after three months in England, the unit left for France with the 3rd Division, going by train to Southampton, and embarking there on the B.I., s.s. “Nirvana,” which reached Le Havre next morning. In pouring rain the company marched to the wretched Docks “Rest” Camp and distributed itself among sodden tents, thoroughly wet and uncomfortable. The field rations were first encountered in this camp, and the Sappers often laughed afterwards at memories of their eager search for pork in the first tins of pork and beans. The march to the railway station on the evening of the 26th was interrupted by numerous long and exasperating delays; the entraining arrangements were bad, and the journey by train very cold, and so much longer than was anticipated, that food supplies left much to be desired.
It was not until noon on the 28th that Bailleul was reached. From there the unit proceeded at once to billets at Bleu near Vieux Berquin, the transport by route march, and the Sappers in grey-painted disreputable London ’buses.