Wales was sighted on the starboard the morning of October 23 and that night at 7 o'clock, after waiting for some time in the Mersey for a pilot, the troops debarked onto Liverpool's famous floating dock, immediately boarding the queer little English trains, which waited nearby. On the trip following the men had their first sight of Englishwomen engaged in men's work and garbed in the unconventional overalls and jumpers which later became common at home. A short stop was made at Birmingham where coffee almost as bad as the White River Junction brand was handed out. Some of the men survived the crush at the lunch counter to discover later that the patriotic workers there had given them almost half as much as they had bought. At 4:30 the next morning the train stopped at Borden and the Battalion hiked about four miles through the mud in a drizzling rain to Oxley, where watersoaked, leaky tents were assigned while the cooks used all their magic to coax a fair meal out of the available rations.
Tramping around in the mud which was at all times ankle deep and often deeper, a Y. M. C. A. hut was discovered with a small stock of food and an American in charge. Here change was made from American to English money and most of the supplies available were purchased. Rest that night was more or less disturbed and wishes were expressed for that dry little bunk in the ship. The rain always found a hole just above the sleepers and there was no way of repairing the leak. At that, the men fared better than the officers, for the tents of the latter were located in a wind-swept area and the high winds of the night levelled them completely.
At 4 o'clock the following morning it was up and going again. This time the train passed down through the sunny green fields of the English countryside (for the rain had abated during the early hours) past farmhands tilling the soil behind neatly trimmed hedges, through cities which hid beneath their appearance of calm a hive of industry, to the port of Southampton, where another rest camp was the prospect. Like that at Borden, this proved to be muddy, but duck-boards helped in this difficulty. Here were American marines doing police duty, German prisoners at work on the roads and the interesting buildings of one of the oldest cities in the country. The stay here lasted until October 29. Long before this, however, cash supplies had dwindled to such an extent that but few of the men continued to patronize the restaurants, although the food served at the kitchen seemed barely sufficient to keep life in the body of a healthy soldier.
Crowded aboard the channel steamer Londonderry with British soldiers from all corners of the world, the trip across the English Channel was begun after a long tedious wait, during which the opportunity was afforded the men of seeing their first example of what a torpedo could do to the side of a ship. The Gloucester Castle lying in dry dock exhibited a wound through which a fair sized motor truck could be driven. Passing out of the harbor, the ship waited for darkness in the shelter of land and then began that leaping, bounding journey of seven hours which landed the Battalion in Le Havre, but first gave most of the men one of their worst tastes of seasickness.
Le Havre offered the troops their first sight of French soil, but it was not as pleasantly impressive as it might have been, for toiling uphill four miles with all your belongings on your back will make the most wonderful scenery in the world fade into mediocrity without the added misfortunes of scanty supplies and the same dreary weather which was encountered during the stay in England.
Hydroplanes and dirigibles were sights for the men during the twenty-four hours spent in Le Havre, but the status of "Sunny France" had received its classification along with the "Santa Claus" myth and subsequent months did not tend to disprove this impression. Funds were at the lowest possible level. Most of the spare cash scattered through the Company was made up of the few shillings which were saved from the onslaughts of the English merchants. Coupled with this was the much lamented fact that extra rations supposed to meet the Battalion in England had been side-tracked in some out-of-the-way place, and they only reached the units for which they were intended after they were well established in training camps in the Vosges.
Luckily the station platforms at Le Havre were covered with bales of cotton when the Battalion arrived to entrain at 5:30 on the afternoon of October 31, for these served as excellent beds and they were universally utilized as such until the train was ready to leave at midnight. The following day, with stops at Nantes and Versailles for coffee and various halts all along the line for reasons at no time apparent, after the manner of the French railway systems, the troop train continued its eastward journey, passing through Chateau Thierry and the scene of the first battle of the Marne, through Troyes, where coffee and rum were served by French soldiers, to the destination at Neufchateau, where the headquarters of the 26th Division were located and about which clustered the various units of that organization during the period of training which followed.