CHAPTER XII[ToC]
"SOMEWHERE IN FLANDERS"
Bah! Ba! Ba! Ba-a-a! Moo! Mo! Moo! M-o-o-o! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ba-a-a-a!
I was taking a stroll along the railway platform of a station in Northern France where the engine stopped to coal and water when this chorus of barnyard calls burst from the men packed in the box cars, reminding me of a cattle train. When they saw me halt and turn in astonishment there was a roar of laughter.
"I'm very sorry men, that you are so crowded."
"That's all right, Sir," came back the cheery answer, "that's what we are here for."
No wonder they thus amused themselves, for they had been travelling two nights and a day on the way to the front, and the accommodation; Well! only those who have been there can tell about or realize it.
The French do move troops in a wonderful manner. Each train is made up of a certain number of box cars, flat cars and passenger cars. Into a passenger car of the compartment kind the officers and staff are jammed, eight in a compartment. On the flat cars the waggons, guns and vehicles are run and lashed, and into the box cars the men and horses are crowded. On each box car there is painted the legend "Cheveaux 8, Hommes 40," which being translated means that the capacity of the car is eight horses or forty men, and we had to put 40 men into each box car which crowded them so that only eight men could lie down at a time while the rest stood up. It was thus a very trying journey, but the men did not grumble. They had to stand 48 hours of this and did it without a murmur.
They expected greater hardships than this when they got to the front, and as a poor shattered warrior said to me later on when I clasped his hand and regretted his terrible wounds, "Don't you mind, Colonel. That's what we came over here for."