taken up by the Aldershot Command Rifle Meeting, where I was busy all day, and beyond an odd word or two about the war everything went on as usual. THE first day on which The next two days were I took any serious notice of the situation in Europe was Sunday, July 26. I remember reading in the morning paper of Austria's ultimatum to Servia, but did not think anything of it until the afternoon, when we read in a special edition of 'The Sunday Times' that hostilities had already commenced. That evening in the Mess after supper everybody was talking about the chances of its developing into & big European war. Many arguments were started, both by people who knew something about it, and also by those who did not, for the average British subaltern does not bother his head much about European politics. At all events I personally went to bed that night thinking much more about the fortnight's leave, which I hoped to get in August, than about war. VOL. CXCVII.-NO, MCXCI. Then we started to carry out a mobilisation scheme which had been fixed for the 29th, 30th, and 31st since the beginning of the training season: in the afternoon we were inspected by General Murray. There was some talk in the evening of the next two days' operations being put off, as being likely to give occasion to the foreign press to say that the English army was mobilising in earnest. However, we marched off next morning to Frensham, and did not get back till 5.30 P.M. on the 31st. Those who had been left behind told us that orders to mobilise were to be expected on the morrow. Nothing, however, happened either on Saturday or A Tuesday, August 4, was yet another day of suspense, but at 5 P.M. we got our orders at last, My duty being to collect horses, I was called for at midnight just as I was going to sleep, to go down to the depôt on the Queen's Parade. I eventually got back about 5.30 A.M., and even then had not got my full complement. I do not intend to go into any details concerning the mobilisation. It is sufficient to say that it all went very smoothly, and that at the end of the third day we were ready for anything. After we had once begun mobilisation in earnest, we had no time to think of all that we were about to undergo. We spent the whole of the next three days in company training: elementary open-order drill on the square, miniature fielddays, musketry, and also fired the reservists every afternoon on the range, in order to accustom them to the new rifle. The ranges at Ash being about three miles away, this exercise also took the form of a routemarch: though short, it was quite sufficient to make the reservists puff and blow, and some of them even fell out. And yet only a fortnight later they were doing their twenty miles a-day, each day and every day! In fact they came on very quickly, and at the end of those three days one could hardly recognise them. I was inoculated against enteric on the Sunday; my arm got very stiff for a couple of days, and I had a slight headache that evening. On Tuesday, August 11, the King and Queen came down, and walked along the front of the battalion, saying a few words to the Commanding Officer: we gave them three cheers. That evening we got orders to move next morning: parade 5.30 A.M. II. PREPARATIONS IN FRANCE. "And so we are off at last we have been so busy lately, and events have moved so quickly, that it seems impossible to realise that to-night I shall sleep farther from the shores of England than I have ever slept before, and that it may be months, it may be years, before I shall return to them again: it may be that I shall never return." These were more or less my first thoughts as I rolled off my bed at 4.30 A.M. on August 12. I say "rolled off," as I lay down in my clothes, all my belongings having been sent to store the day one of which was eventually before. un However, waking thoughts are soon brushed aside, particularly if they are pleasant ones, and after a last hurried breakfast in the Mess, I soon found myself out on parade. I felt rather like an overloaded Christmas-tree, and by means mobile, as I was carrying a quantity of extra kit on my person. The weight of one's valise being strictly limited to 35 lb., it is necessary to append to one's person as much as possible, although most of this extra kit is put into the valise on the first opportunity, once we have left the weighing machine behind. I actually had on me when I marched out of barracks the following articles: a Sam Browne belt, sword, revolver in holster, 24 rounds of ammunition in case, field-glasses, water-bottle (full), a mackintosh in a waterproof bag on my back, a prismatic compass, a haversack containing notebooks, flask, air-pillow, chocolate, &c., and the "iron ration" consisting of two tins of corned beef and six biscuits. Besides all these, my pockets were bulging. We marched at 6 A.M. to Farnborough Station, three miles off, where we entrained this did not take us long, as it was only two months since we entrained before the King during his annual visit to Aldershot. I remember buying a couple of magazines at the station, worth untold gold in in the trenches on the Aisne. Finally we moved off at 8 A.M., and after a non-stop run arrived at Southampton Docks at 9.30 A.M. Here we embarked on the s.s. Irawaddy. The embarkation was carried out successfully, except for one or two of the horses who objected to the steepness of the gangway down into the hold. We eventually moved off about midday, and steamed slowly down Southampton Water to the accompaniment of cheers from dock labourers and any ships we happened to pass. They were all answered by the now famous battle-ory of Thomas Atkins, "Are we downhearted? No!" An American yacht lying at anchor, and the SouthamptonCowes boat which we passed, gave us a particularly cheery send-off. Before we entered the Solent I went down to my cabin and had a nap: when I woke up we were in Shanklin Bay: here we dropped a pilot and eventually started off about 6 P.M. into the night. So far to me it was all a pleasure trip: I had never been farther out of England than the Isle of Wight, and I went to sleep that night thinking considerably more of what France would be like than of the War. It was about 5 A.M. when I awoke, and looking out of the porthole took my first view of France. It was a perfect summer morning, without a breath French people, and you will understand I had no light task. However, after a while I got all of them on, and colleoted the worse cases in the Restaurant the Restaurant Paquier at the bottom of the hill. of wind, and the sun was just breaking through a slight haze on to the wooded slopes which fringe the estuary of Havre. Here and there the fishing boats were getting on the move, their brown sails just catching the glint of the rising sun. I soon got up on deck, and found we were moving slowly up through the wharves. A few French soldiers on duty gave us a cheer, and one or two small boys and girls ran alongside us clamouring for souvenirs that that is, 66 capbadges" or "titles." We got straight off the boat and marched away without our transport to the rest-camp at Sainte Adresse, about four miles from the docks. The people in the town were most enthusiastic, and we had the greatest difficulty in preventing them from running riot through the ranks with large bottles of beer and wine. It was excessively hot, and a good many of our men started falling out, especially along the sea-front. I was left behind with a party to round up the stragglers. This proved to be no easy task, as round each man there was a crowd of some fifteen to twenty people, all armed with water, vinegar, eau-de-cologne, wine, beer, and even tea also some of the men were really bad, whilst others were rapidly getting worse from the quantity they were consuming add to this the fact that this was my first effort at talking French to Here there were a couple of girls doing great work, and also some French ambulance corps. I went up to one of these girls and started stammering away in my best French, when she cut me short in the best "Amurrican." Not having talked English for about two hours, I was greatly pleased, and we became great friends. They gave me two very good iced drinks, and then I proceeded to continue my journey to the camp on a French ambulance. The driver of this conveyance, however, having let the horses down twice in about fifty yards, I got one of our own men to drive, and made the Frenchman walk behind, much to his disgust. We eventually arrived at the camp about 3 P.M. At 6 P.M. the Colonel read us out a message from the King, and we gave him three cheers. We all retired to bed early, after a very hot and exhausting day. The next morning gave early promise of being another "roaster," and at six o'clock we all took our men down to the sea, where we had a most refreshing bathe. The rest of the day we spent in filling water-bottles, sorting maps (of which there were some thirty |