Then sounded that good old familiar bugle with the good old familiar:
“We can’t get ’em up,
We can’t get ’em up,
We can’t get ’em up in the morning;
We can’t get ’em up,
We can’t get ’em up,
We can’t get ’em up at all.”
Where were we? Oh yes! On our way to France. We dressed hurriedly and got up on deck. The convoy was still there but not all of it. Four ships had disappeared and various theories were propounded. But just as the official dopster had got them well sunk by a submarine and was counting the casualties, it was announced that they had put into Halifax. Apparently the convoy was too large and unwieldy, so four boats had to drop out, one of which was the “Novara” with the 301st on board. However the other two regiments were still in the convoy and we proceeded on our way. We had boat drill and we wore life preservers, and we got rather bored with both. As for guard duty and setting up exercises they bored us eight months before. Seasickness is preferable to either, and there were a good many of us sick.
While we were sailing merrily across the North Atlantic, the 301st had disembarked at Halifax and was playing with the Canadian troops there and thereabouts. But it was only for a week, when they were again on their way, this time on the “Abinsi”.
As the 301st left Canada, the other two regiments landed in England, one at Liverpool, another at Bristol, and Brigade Headquarters at Avonmouth on July 31st.