Thus we glided slowly past the old wooden cruisers now used as training ships, and from their crowded riggings came shrill treble cheers. To the piping of the young cadets' voices was added the screaming of sirens and the tooting of many whistles. Halyards on all sides of us broke out into brilliant bunting and semaphores wagged with a madness that even Lyte could not translate.
The clarion notes of the mess bugle called us from the decks to other duties, and there between the soup and the fish we heard the hoarse rattle of the anchor chain as we found our moorings.
Captain H——r, seizing the opportunity, rose, and in the capacity of an old Plymothian gave us greeting.
Such was our welcome to England.
In the morning we looked out and saw rows and rows of chimney pots, impressive in their similarity.
Then later we read an editorial in The Times describing us as pioneers and backwoodsmen. This provoked much comment, but the writer for one was not greatly distressed, for he had been born within sound of the shrill of a sawmill, and the perfume of cedar is still sweeter to his nostrils than the costly unguents of Araby.
CHAPTER VI
IN ENGLAND
Our stay in England was marred by the heaviest rainfall of many years, and Salisbury Plain, where we were quartered all winter, had the reputation of being the muddiest spot in the world until we struck Flanders; and even now there are patriots who maintain that the "Plain" holds the championship.