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

by John Allister Currie

In an hour we were at the station. As we approached I rode ahead into the station yard and found that our train had not yet arrived. The regiment marched on the entraining platform, and on looking over the transport I found that my spare riding horse, which was lame and carried my saddle bags, had been left behind on the roadside. I sent Private Gold, one of my orderlies, back to look them up, with instructions to bring them along with the second half of the regiment.

Our train was half an hour late, but when it backed in it did not take us long to load. The English open cars are coupled up close, and the open waggons that take our transport are all loaded from the end of the train the way circus waggons are loaded in America. We entrained horses and waggons in forty minutes. We startled the train people so that they all came to see me when we had finished to tell me how fast we had loaded. The railway transport officer came to my compartment and told me that he had been loading troops for four years there and he had never seen such a fast clean piece of work.

We had to sit for fifteen or twenty minutes before the train moved, as we were ahead of time. Our destination had not been given us. It was very cold in the compartment as there was no steam available, but the train rushed along, and soon we were in Salisbury. On we went west. Fortunately a long course of travel in Canada had given me the habit of sleeping sitting in my seat, and I took advantage of it. At dawn I woke up and found we were nearing Bristol of which Avonmouth is the seaport.

We arrived at our port of embarkation about seven in the morning. The green fields glistened with hoar frost and the distant hills seen through the haze were covered with snow. Through the gaps of the hills here and there could be seen the mounting flames of great blast furnaces. This is the region of coal and iron.

When we reached the station we could see the harbor filled with transports waiting to carry our Division to France.

I disembarked and asked for the R.T.O. who is the official in charge of the handling of the troops. I found that he was uptown having his breakfast. We had to wait about fifteen minutes till he arrived. Then he was apologetic and said he did not expect we would be on time. He then got busy calling for a fatigue party to unload the transport, but after he had blown off a little steam I pointed out to him that the fatigue party was waiting at the head of the column, and had been waiting for him for a quarter of an hour, and that they wanted to be shown to the unloading platform. Then he took a tumble that we "knew our job," and from that time on sugar could not have been sweeter. He told us that our transport was the Mount Temple, and showed me the ship, and in a very few minutes we had the men on board. They soon got busy and had the waggons slung into the hold. We found that on the evening before the five-inch gun battery and one unit of an ammunition column under Major McGee had gone on board. They had stowed the big guns in the lower hold, and they had enough lyddite stowed forward to insure a perfectly good explosion provided a submarine plugged us with a torpedo. Our adjutant and the steward soon had us in our cabins.

A couple of hours after we embarked Major Marshall came along with the left half battalion and reported a very successful entraining. The railway company, however, had provided a train with one coach too few, and four horses and eight mules had to be left behind to be brought by the next train. They were in charge of Sergeant Fisher, my transport sergeant, who was a very good man, one of my best non-commissioned officers. Sergeant Gratton, who had been my transport sergeant, took ill before we left Lark Hill. He had to be left behind eating his heart out like a lot of other good officers; non-commissioned officers, and men that I would have liked to have had with me, viz., Lieutenant Davidson, who had bronchial trouble and a bad knee, Lieutenant Lawson had bronchial trouble and a bad throat. Captain Marshall had pneumonia, Lieutenants Campbell, Kay and Wilson each had a touch of pneumonia. Lieutenant Art. Muir was recovering from bronchial pneumonia. Capt. Musgrave and Lieut. Malone, good steady officers, had to remain with the base company. Lieutenants Acland and Livingston had been sent several weeks before to help drill "Details" and reinforcements for the British troops in France, and they were both at Falmouth working hard putting some polish on the English Tommies. I wrote General Alderson before I left, asking him to let me have Lieutenants Acland and Livingston back, but got "no" for an answer. They were sent to Falmouth while I was in Glasgow at New Year's. If I had been in Camp I would not have parted with them.

48th Highlanders at Church Service Under Fire Near Messines, Rev. F.G. Scott Officiating[ToList]