At one spot in our welcome I was again the subject of an outburst of damnable sympathy from a motherly-hearted woman who almost went into hysterics at the idea of such a child as I going out to help stem the on-rushing Huns. However, my comrades were filled full of the attentions they were receiving from their male and female admirers and my predicament passed unnoticed this time, for which I fervently thanked God.
In the course of our parade we were taken in front of Drake's monument and I could not help wondering what he would have thought, had he been there in the flesh, at the sight of those hardy adventurers. Surely he would have felt that here indeed were men after his own heart, ready and willing to dare everything, to go anywhere for the sake of the motherland and their own new land across the seas.
By sheer strength we reached the depot at last and entrained for Salisbury Plain.
CHAPTER VII
SALISBURY PLAIN
Midnight, and as dark as pitch found us shivering and blinking sleepily on the platform of a small railway station on the outskirts of Salisbury Plain. From here a truly murderous hike blistered our feet, spoiled our tempers and proved to us in no uncertain manner how stale we had become during our journey overseas. Just as day dawned we floundered wearily to a place where tents flapped sadly against tent poles as if sympathizing with our woeful plight. These tents had simply been erected and loosely staked out and were left for us to tighten and make habitable. We were too weary to bother with them; we simply dropped on the ground and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.
When we awoke we found ourselves drenched to the skin, our tents still half erected, the commissariat all disorganized and the plain hidden in solid sheets of driving rain. This was just a prelude of the terrible days to come.
In a day or two we had shaken down, with seven men to each tent, and our training began. A brief spell of fine weather followed, with a visit from the late Lord Roberts to inspect us. This visit of our great Little General left me feeling very comfortable, as he was fully an inch shorter than myself, and it seemed to me very wonderful that that slight, courteous old man should be the hero of so many exploits in India, Afghanistan, South Africa, and other parts of the world. It will be remembered of him forever that a few years before he had given Great Britain a solemn warning of the intentions of Germany. With few exceptions the newspapers, the London Times included, had branded him a scare-monger and jingo. Alas, how bitterly true was the great little man's prophecy!
He died a brief month afterwards, just as he would have wished, "in harness," and among his Indian comrades he loved so well.
Then the rains descended, the floods came, and the plain became one seething quagmire of mud. Words are powerless to describe our continual conflict with that mud; it was everywhere—in our eyes, our hair, our tents, our clothes, our grub; we often had to swallow it as well as wallow in it. Again our poet-wit got his work in and this was our universal lament: