Private Peat

across the Channel in ordinary times is not often more than two and a half hours. We had no bunks allotted to us, and didn't think that any would be needed. We all lay around in any old place, an

s known to civilians the world over as corned beef, and to the new Sammy as "red horse." But even bully beef and biscui

ing to pierce the darkness of the deep for one flash of light that might mean France ha

little mortified. Where was France? There was nothing but water, blue a

land in sight was not discussed. Some of the boys went back to poker. Others decided to be seasick, an

e. The more hopeful of us did the craning business over the deck rails for a few more hours. The pessimistic,

nsequence, were feeling pretty blue, there was a group of us standing around doing

f you may say, I believe these blinkin' English a

e seaport town near the Bay of Biscay, on the southwest coast of France. Why in the world they wanted to take us all

hem made us believe that they, at least in some former incarnation, had belonged to another little animal family known as the skunk. Ugh! The

held also in France. The populace could not have known of our coming, for the

of this article of combustion he never wants another. It is one puff

edited and the truth was established when the Forty-Eighth came up the line in a few days and reported that they had heard we, the Third, had been sunk and al

the passenger coaches provided in England and Canada. I say little trains, because they were little, and in addition

trim even I was quite a husky, but the average Canadian soldier is a much bigger man. Take into consideration what we have to carry. There is our entrenching tool which we use for digging in. To

feel like throwing away that extra pair of boots, two or three suits of extra underwear, and so many of the little things sent from home or given him just before setting out for France. As a consequence when he arrives in France he carries a ve

ration of the early days of the war was much different from the emergency ration of to-day. These rations are intended to be used only in an emergency, and, believe me,

of ammunition at any one time, and sometimes he carries much more. As a final, there is our rifle and bayonet. At that time of

empted it we sat on some one, and then there was a howl. We tried all manner of positions, all sorts of schemes. In the daytime we sought the roof of the cars, or leane

when I saw one Frenchman with both arms bound up, and with blood pouring over his face. I understood that these wounded men were coming back from the battle of Soissons. From the glimpses we caught of them in their train they seemed a funny lot of fighting men,

ame vein of thought, to judge by the seriousness of the fac

nto the station at Strazeele, we could hear in the dis