"All right, boys, we are ready for some drill in this field."
You should have seen the look on some of the boys' faces. I may mention that some of them were bankers and lawyers and even millionaires' sons. I heard one man say in a typical English way: "Oh! isn't the army beastly, old man."
SERGT. MARK L. NICHOLSON
Of course, not being used to army life, it would make any man swear, but as the days rolled on we all got used to it. They moved us from a place called "Slop Field" in Liverpool to a place called No Man's Field in Blackpool. Every day it rained we would go on this field for extended order drill. At any rate we became used to army life in, what I thought, a very short time. It was in November, 1914, about seven o'clock when we arrived at Southampton, and were put up, for the night, in stables, with damp blankets to cover ourselves. After that night I began to suspect something. I just sat down to think that they were breaking us in for France. We were in this place till December 3rd and at twelve that night we sailed for an unknown destination. We arrived at a place called Le Havre, France. There I met with an accident. A horse kicked me in the right leg, and put me out of business for a month. That was my start to see real life. I was fixed up by the Red Cross and sent to a battalion called the Lancashire Fusileers. We left France and arrived in London, January 10th. They gave us ten days leave, and packed us on a big liner called the Alaunia. We left on this liner and I did not know where I was until we arrived at Gibraltar. We were there for five hours—then set sail for Malta. We received orders not to leave the ship as we would not be there more than twelve hours, and that twelve hours seemed like twelve years. We could see all the people and shops but we could not get to them. We sailed away from Malta to an unknown destination. About one hundred miles out to sea we received orders to turn back, on account of the submarines being very active around that district, but an hour after we received that message, we had orders to proceed on our journey, and all the way we could see dead horses and boxes floating on the water. We were told later that a ship had been torpedoed a short distance in front of us. We were out three days when we sighted land, and, believe me, it was a treat, as the drill on the ship was very bad. The boys had to scrub out their bunks and the decks, and others had to keep watch all night, for the little devils in the water. Anyway, it was a great relief when we disembarked at Alexandria, Egypt. It was some place. I met people from all over the world. We were taken over to the barracks and a very funny thing happened. I was in charge of twenty-four men, and let me tell you they were all rough necks. I asked one how he liked the place and he said:
"Oh, I would like to be in the Bee Hotel, playing a game of pool." He had just time to get those words out of his mouth when a man with a big cigar in his mouth put his arm around his neck and shouted:
"Tom! my dear brother."
You should have seen how they hugged and kissed each other for about fifteen minutes. All this time the rest of the boys were trying to make out the Arabs. They were visitors, looking at us with open mouths. We had our drill on a desert and with a broiling sun on us all the time. We left Alexandria the latter end of March, 1915, and arrived at Lemnos, a Greek Island, later used as a hospital base. After we left Lemnos in a convoy of about fifteen ships we arrived at our destination, the Dardanelles. All that we could see in front of us was a great big hill. Later we found out they called it Kemara Hill. The spirit of everyone was good. We were issued 200 rounds of ammunition and carried our packs on our backs. All that I could hear from the boys was:
"We will take that hill by the morning."