On August 5th every C.O. was handed a file of documents. In these were given the most precise directions as to times, places and dates when his unit was to leave Aldershot. For instance:
"Train No. 463Y will arrive at siding B at 12.35 A.M., August 10th.
"You will complete loading by 3.40 A.M.
"This train will leave siding C at 9.45 A.M., August 10th.
"You will march on to the platform at 9.30 A.M. and complete your entraining by 9.40."
And I believe it is a fact that every train left five minutes ahead of its scheduled time. The London and South Western Railway was given sixty hours in which to send to Southampton 350 troop-trains. They did it in forty-five hours. "Some" hustle! The astonishing efficiency of it all, and the admirable co-operation between military and civil authorities. I very much doubt if there were more than two officers of the Staff at Aldershot H.Q. who knew details of the intended movements. Fritz must have been annoyed. C.O.'s, and other individual officers, who knew when their own unit was timed for departure, entered splendidly into the spirit of the game and loyally kept the information to themselves; would not even tell their people, nor their best girls.
One day the King came down. The visit was as secret as everything else. Each unit received about a quarter of an hour's warning of His Majesty's approach, and the men turned out of their tents or broke off their work to line up by the road. A few words of "good-bye, and good luck" to the men, a warm hand-clasp to the officers, three cheers, and the Royal car slipped forward to the next unit. One could hear the ripple of cheering flow round the camps as His Majesty passed.
By the way, it is a little curious how, from the very beginning, there have been just three words used by everyone in bidding "good-bye." "Good-bye, and good luck." A kind of spontaneous, universal formula. Officers used it, the men, mothers, wives and sweethearts.
"Good-bye, and good luck" to our sailors
(It's a big debt we owe you to-day),
"Good-bye, and good luck" to our soldiers
(Some day we shall hope to repay).
Though anxious the hearts left behind you,
And a tear from the eye seems to fall,
Yet—"good-bye"—God be with you, "good luck attend you,
"Good-bye, and good luck to you all"—
as the refrain of a popular song had it later.