MECHANICAL TRANSPORTS IN SALISBURY FLOODS.[ToList]
It was a curious fact that it was the Englishman who had gone out to Canada a few years before and now returned as a Canadian, who was the chief offender in this respect. He had gained a new airiness and sense of freedom which he was proud of, and it brought him into trouble. My own chauffeur, an Englishman, was the invariable champion of all American cars as compared with English cars, which he delighted in saying were from three to four years behind the times. This same man four years before had been working on automobiles in London, where he was born.
At one stage it looked as if the force was undergoing a process of decomposition, and would disintegrate. The morale of the men under the very depressing conditions which existed, had almost gone and they did not care what happened them. Privates, perhaps college men or wealthy business men in Canada, frankly said when arrested, that they were quite willing to pay the price, but that they had determined to get warm and dry once more before they were drowned in the mud. It is an easy matter to handle a few cases of this sort, but when you get hundreds of them little can be done, and threats, fines and punishments were of little avail in correcting the existing state of affairs.
As a matter of fact, under the conditions the military authorities were hard put to it to control the situation. Each night the motor lorries returned loaded with men under arrest, and each day an equally large number left the camp to undergo the same experience.
All the time the wastage went on. One soldier fell off a cart and fractured his skull; another had his legs amputated by a lorry; a third was accidently shot, and another committed suicide. It is astonishing how many accidents can occur among 30,000 men.
New huts were being built at Larkhill, near the ancient Phœnician remains called Stonehenge, but the progress made was so slow that finally our men were put on the job, and the huts began to go up like mushrooms. Hundreds of Canadians, belonging to Highland and other regiments, built roads, huts, and other works, in a country apparently filled with labouring men with no intention of ever going to war, and who, in fact, often did not believe that there was a war. We all felt somewhat relieved one night when we heard that the German fleet was bombarding the English coast, hoping that it would shake the country out of its feeling of smug self-complacency and lethargy.
On November 20th, there were 150 men in our hospital at Bulford Manor; three weeks later there were 780. It had rained every day in the interval, and there was a great deal of influenza and bronchial troubles, which made splendid foundation for attacks of other diseases.
Towards the end of the year the men began to move into the new huts at Larkhill. We had already officially forecasted in black and white, that the huts, being raised from the ground, would be colder to sleep in, and whereas there had been only eight men in the tent to be infected should one man become ill with a communicable disease, there would now be forty in each hut; and that in consequence we should expect a great increase in illness from such diseases. And there was.