"The Red Watch": With the First Canadian Division in Flanders

by John Allister Currie

On the way back from Hayling Island I met with an accident which luckily had no bad results for me. Accompanied by General Turner, V.C., and Lt.-Colonel Burland, I was being driven in an automobile from Salisbury city to Lark's Hill Camp, when the steering gear of the automobile went wrong and we ran into an embankment, the car turning turtle. I was sitting in the front seat with the driver, and the machine, going at the rate of thirty miles an hour, crashed into the bank. I braced myself, seeing visions ahead of a broken neck and a sudden inglorious end to my campaigning. But Providence saved me from even a scratch, although I was projected with such force against the glass windshield as to smash it to atoms. As the car went over, I had presence of mind enough to grasp the stancheons of the top, and thus saved myself from being thrown out over the front of the car. General Turner, V.C., who was in the rear seat with Colonel Burland, was buried under the machine, and as I cleared myself from the broken glass and debris I hear him groan, whilst the automobile hind wheels continued to revolve as long as any gasoline was left in the carburettor to feed the engine. We managed to get him out of the wreck and commandeered another automobile to take him back to Salisbury, where it was found that his collar bone and several ribs were broken. He was very cheerful and his only anxiety was lest his injuries might prevent him from going to the Front. As this book was published while I was still "soldiering" my lips were sealed as far as saying anything about my superior officers was concerned. All I dare say is that no braver, better, truer man than General Turner, V.C., ever lived.

Our field training brought our men along very quickly. They were gradually becoming seasoned. They had gone into huts at Lark Hill which they had built themselves, and as these huts were warm and comfortable life began to be a real pleasure.

About the last week in January Hon. Sir George H. Perley and Lord Islington paid us a visit at Lark Hill, and we had the pleasure of their company at an informal luncheon.

Thursday, February 4th, 1915, was one of the greatest days in the history of the regiment. The previous week, when Sir George Perley and Lord Islington visited us in our huts and messed with us on soldiers' fare, the Acting High Commissioner told me that it was probable that His Majesty the King and Lord Kitchener would be down the following week to review the Canadian Division and say good-bye. This put everybody in tune, even the lads who had to stay in England with the surplus officers. On Wednesday afternoon the field officers spent some time in going over the review ground, pegging it out, so it will not be out of place to say a word about the grounds. Lark Hill Camp lies on a gentle slope facing west, and from the door of my hut I could see Stonehenge, that mighty monument to the great race that at one time lived on these plains and raised the enormous tumuli monuments to the heroes of their day.

The reviewing ground was selected about a mile and a half west of the camp on the new line of railway which had been built largely by the Canadians. The stand was placed to face north and the long lines, two of them stretched away east and west. About a mile south Stonehenge is visible, and from Signal Mound in the rear of the reviewing grounds the river and Old Sarum can be seen in the distance. All about the plains huge mounds raised by the Druidical Celts rear themselves, of varying sizes, some twenty feet high, others smaller. This must in all ages have been a great military centre. We are not the first comers by any means, and this is truly historic ground that has resounded to the tread of the warrior for thirty centuries. It was fitting that it should be ground chosen by the King on which to review his Canadian troops.

The morning looked very uninviting. It threatened rain, sleet and snow. For a moment it brightened up and then we were ordered to parade with overcoats in packs, but by the time the troops got to the ground it was raining heavily and we were reviewed in overcoats after all.

The troops were placed in two lines, at about two hundred paces distance, the cavalry on the right, then the artillery and the auxiliaries, then the infantry, three brigades of them, the pick of the contingent. They certainly looked well as they marched across the Downs to their appointed stations. The training had had its effect. They looked much better than at the first review, many of them on that occasion being without parts of their uniform, and the drill was rather loose and frayed at the ends.

However, that was an historic occasion for we had Her Gracious Majesty with us then, as well as the King, and Lord Roberts, whose smile was so refulgent it was worth the whole voyage to see it.

The King was to arrive at eleven o'clock, and a few minutes before that hour the whistling of a locomotive was heard as the train wound its way up and down over the hills of Amesbury. The road was built along the sides of the hills without any pretence of grading to a level. It was built by the sturdy Canadians who will leave that monument behind them on Salisbury Plains, more useful if not more ornamental or enduring than Stonehenge, the tumuli, or the fallen ramparts and ditches of Celts, Saxons, Normans or Romans.

The train consisted of two locomotives and two coaches. After a few moments it stopped and His Majesty and his Staff stepped out and advanced along a board walk to the platform which had been erected for him to stand on, and over which the Royal Standard was then floating. As he took his place on the stand, a trumpet sounded and as one man the troops came to the salute. Each double line was over a mile in length. His Majesty and Staff, accompanied by General Alderson and Colonel Seely, M.P., now the new Cavalry Commander, started down the first line to the left, then back up the front of the second line to its right. The officers commanding units dismounted as His Majesty left the stand.