From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade

by Frederic C. Curry

The city corps consist chiefly of infantry, heavy artillery, and engineer corps, the last being generally in university towns and either affiliated with or being actually the cadet corps of the college. One might think the cadet corps would be affiliated with the Militia, but this is a case where the boy is father to the man.

City corps do fourteen nominal days' training a year in the drill-hall, and, of late years, a voluntary camp of five days. For each of these days two night drills of two hours each count as a day; the militiaman receives the sum of four shillings, with a slight increase according to his musketry ability.

The drill season commences in the middle of March, and from then on till Inspection Day—a boiling hot day in June—the voice of the drill-sergeant is heard in the land. This individual is obtained on indent from the permanent force; but more of him anon.

For two nights a week, then, at the season when a young man's fancies are supposed to turn lightly to other things, the would-be Wellington dons a suit of rifle green, or scarlet, or even the heathen kilt, according to his taste, and, disguising it with a civilian great coat (regulation coats being issued to 50 per cent. of the establishment), slinks more or less bashfully down the back way to the drill-hall. There he will learn to shift a rifle (weight nine pounds five and a few odd ounces) from one position to another in response to quite unintelligible commands that echo most absurdly from the roof. He will also learn to move around the floor in something like the formations laid down in the little red manual, practising especially those for whom our prayers are desired, the favourites of the General Officer Commanding his district.

For, though regulations wax and wane, the G.O.C. changeth not; neither does he bow down and worship the little tin gods the Army Council set up. But instead, as one by one the formations he used to know are culled from the manual, he watches the new formations with a passive eye and reserves his choleric criticisms for the old reliables' "Echelon to the right" and that maximum of military perfection the "March Past."

In rural corps, however, the season consists of fourteen actual days spent in the broiling sun in camp. Lucky indeed is the company commander who can bring a full company every year to camp, for many who come one year come not again, and such are the conditions that no man sayeth him nay lest recruiting be stopped altogether in that district. One sighs for the press gang of Merrie England and subscribes for such incendiary journals as those of the various National Service Leagues, for one has a limited area to secure the recruits from, and must recruit at least 60 per cent. each year at a season when farm labour is at a premium.

Having secured your recruits, you must assemble them at some central point where you have a large quantity of arms and equipment stored, generally at your own expense—though "Sam" Hughes is remedying this—and issue these, stave off complaints that the fit is not exactly up to West End standards, and, if you are an old "stager," give them an hour or two of drill while enthusiasm is at its maximum.

Then on the required date you marshal your little force at the railway station, shepherd them into the cars, and detrain them a few hours later, under even more trying circumstances, a few miles from camp. Then, with a mixture of patience, perspiration, and profanity, you finally march into your line of tents. Here you are met with great glee by the colonel and the adjutant, who inquire blithely as to how many men you have; this may seem useless, but as the men are strung out for at least half a mile along the route it is reassuring to learn how many there should be in the little procession.

We will take it that the colonel is pleased with your reply, in which case he will tell you that his white horse has arrived, so if you will drop around ... prohibition rules in our training camps, but a good O.C. has always something under the mat.

What follows in the remaining days of the fortnight must be endured to be appreciated. At the end of that time the shepherding begins again, and for the next month the company commander scours his district, this time locating uniforms which in defiance of his last orders, and prayers, have not been turned in. Very often the man has gone West and the uniform as well. So remote are the chances of seeing either again that the expression "Gone West" has almost the same meaning as the modern soldier's "Nah pooh!"