Bordeaux, France,
36 Rue Notre Dame,
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 1914.
On Election Day, Tuesday November 3rd, 1914, we left New York, from the South Brooklyn basin, on “the good ship” Orcadian with a cargo of six hundred and fifty horses for the use of the French army. There were twenty-five men, including my chum Larney and myself, who had not previously worked on ships nor around horses, and eight experienced horsemen. We twenty-five consisted of twelve Englishmen, seven Italians, two Greeks, one Spaniard, and three Americans, the third being a negro. The first day the ship was out the English and Italians started to fight, and this divided the party into two messes; at every meal thereafter there were hostilities. The third day out we ran into very rough weather, which continued during the following day: the vessel rolled and pitched in a horrible fashion, and most of us suffered severely from sea sickness.
The food furnished to us was very poor. The first nine meals consisted of Irish stew, and I believe it was made on the first day and thereafter heated at meal time.
We went en masse to the chief steward and demanded better food; there was a change, but it was no better, it was only different.
The horses were fed twice a day, the first time in the morning from half-past five to eight o’clock. We then had breakfast followed by hoisting feed from the hold, cleaning the stalls and similar duties, and then dinner. At three in the afternoon we gave the horses their second feeding, which took until nearly six o’clock when we had supper.
In rough weather life on the boat was fierce. Watering the horses as the boat rolled usually resulted in much of the water getting on the men, and the deck was always wet and slippery.
A cabin meant to hold twelve seamen held thirty-three cattlemen, so conditions can be realized. The air was foul; in fact the whole ship was foul. During the last week I slept in the lowest deck on the hay. We could not eat the food furnished, and even had it been palatable, it lacked quantity, so my appetite was not appeased once during the trip. I lost about fifteen pounds during the voyage. I could wash only twice and shave once during the trip. English warships convoyed us for the entire voyage, yet there was much uneasiness among the men. We lost eighteen horses en route.
On November 19th we were in that part of the Atlantic called the Bay of Biscay, and entering the broad Gironde river proceeded up it for about thirty miles to Pauillac, off which we laid two days, and then went up the river another thirty miles to Bordeaux where we docked at seven in the morning of Saturday November 21st. It was snowing and the city did not seem real--it looked so quaint and picturesque.