It was a curious fact that it was the Englishman who had gone out to Canada a few years before and now returned as a Canadian, who was the chief offender in this respect. He had gained a new airiness and sense of freedom which he was proud of, and it brought him into trouble. My own chauffeur, an Englishman, was the invariable champion of all American cars as compared with English cars, which he delighted in saying were from three to four years behind the times. This same man four years before had been working on automobiles in London, where he was born.
At one stage it looked as if the force was undergoing a process of decomposition, and would disintegrate. The morale of the men under the very depressing conditions which existed, had almost gone and they did not care what happened them. Privates, perhaps college men or wealthy business men in Canada, frankly said when arrested, that they were quite willing to pay the price, but that they had determined to get warm and dry once more before they were drowned in the mud. It is an easy matter to handle a few cases of this sort, but when you get hundreds of them little can be done, and threats, fines and punishments were of little avail in correcting the existing state of affairs.
As a matter of fact, under the conditions the military authorities were hard put to it to control the situation. Each night the motor lorries returned loaded with men under arrest, and each day an equally large number left the camp to undergo the same experience.
All the time the wastage went on. One soldier fell off a cart and fractured his skull; another had his legs amputated by a lorry; a third was accidently shot, and another committed suicide. It is astonishing how many accidents can occur among 30,000 men.
New huts were being built at Larkhill, near the ancient Phœnician remains called Stonehenge, but the progress made was so slow that finally our men were put on the job, and the huts began to go up like mushrooms. Hundreds of Canadians, belonging to Highland and other regiments, built roads, huts, and other works, in a country apparently filled with labouring men with no intention of ever going to war, and who, in fact, often did not believe that there was a war. We all felt somewhat relieved one night when we heard that the German fleet was bombarding the English coast, hoping that it would shake the country out of its feeling of smug self-complacency and lethargy.
On November 20th, there were 150 men in our hospital at Bulford Manor; three weeks later there were 780. It had rained every day in the interval, and there was a great deal of influenza and bronchial troubles, which made splendid foundation for attacks of other diseases.
Towards the end of the year the men began to move into the new huts at Larkhill. We had already officially forecasted in black and white, that the huts, being raised from the ground, would be colder to sleep in, and whereas there had been only eight men in the tent to be infected should one man become ill with a communicable disease, there would now be forty in each hut; and that in consequence we should expect a great increase in illness from such diseases. And there was.
It began to increase as soon as the men got into the huts. These huts were heated with stoves, and fuel was provided. Consequently the men, before going to bed, got the stoves red hot, closed and sealed the windows with paper, contrary to standing orders, and went to bed with the huts overheated. When the stoves went out the huts cooled down and the usual story one heard was of the men waking at three or four in the morning cold and shivering. The heat also served to shrink the floor boards so that the draughts came through and made matters worse.
Then the scare came. Prior to this the report of an odd case of cerebro-spinal meningitis had not occasioned any concern. Under these menacing conditions cases of the disease became more numerous and when Col. Strange died of it uneasiness culminated in real alarm.
My proposed trip to Scotland for Christmas was postponed and instead I was sent up to London to get an expert bacteriologist on the disease and arrange to start a laboratory. The object was to see what could be done in locating "carriers" of the disease germ, and thereby keep the disease from spreading. Accordingly, on the day before Christmas, I arranged with the Director of the Lister Institute for the loan of Dr. Arkwright of his staff and for the necessary apparatus to equip a laboratory at Bulford Cottage Hospital. It was a forlorn hope, but it was the only thing that could be done to try to get this elusive disease under control. I spent Christmas day in camp, and it was a melancholy day indeed. The men were all well looked after, and for those in the hospitals the day was made as bright as possible. It seemed years since we had left Canada.
When we brought down the bacteriological apparatus by passenger train a few days later we paid excess baggage on 780 pounds but we got it through. It took five men to shove the trucks containing the boxes, and we held the connecting train for five minutes at Salisbury Junction until we made the transfer. This saved time, for the London people would not guarantee delivery for five weeks.
The epidemic of cerebro-spinal meningitis proved to be a blessing in disguise, for it educated both combatant officers and men as to the necessity of observing certain simple precautions to prevent the spread of any contagious disease; and it also showed them that when disease once got out of hand it would be possible to put whole battalions hors de combat. Col. Mercer kept his brigade moving about on the sod in tents all winter, and as a result, there was very much less sickness in his brigade than in the other brigades housed in huts.
Then nature came to our rescue, and took a hand in the game. The rains grew less frequent; the sun put in an occasional appearance; training was begun once more, and a rapid improvement was immediately apparent in the men. Again the sound of singing was heard in the tents at night and on route marches; and again one began to see smiling faces. With the improvement in weather conditions, training went briskly on, and the division began to rapidly round into shape.
Meanwhile the artillery and cavalry had gone into billets in the surrounding villages, and were behaving splendidly. The people took to them very kindly, and the men themselves looked so clean and happy that it was difficult to realize that they were the same unkempt, dirty individuals who had been seen not so long before wading through the mud and filth of the plains.
All sorts of rumours were current. A favorite one was that we were to go to Egypt to finish our training there. Another one whispered among the staff was that we would shortly leave for France. The men worked hard at their training, anxious to make good and get to the Front. They had the old Viking spirit of adventure in their blood, and wanted to get to the battle ground. We all knew that many of us would be killed, but we all felt that it would be the other fellow—not ourselves.
After the laboratory had been started, the force had to a large extent been reassured thereby that everything possible was being done that could be done. When, with better weather, the sickness began to abate, I obtained permission from our Surgeon-General to try to get the rest of our men inoculated against typhoid fever. We had arrived in England with 65 per cent. of the men inoculated, and it was my ambition to get them all done before the division left for France.
Accordingly I settled down in the Bear Hotel in the little Wiltshire town of Devizes, the head-quarters of the artillery brigade, and began my educational campaign.
The old Bear Hotel was one of the famous old coaching houses of former days; it had seen much life in ye olden times when it had been the chief stopping place of the bloods of London en route to the famous City of Bath and the historic Pump Room. It was a homey-looking old place, with the usual appearance of comfort pertaining to an English Inn, and the maximum amount of discomfort as judged by our modern standards. The food was good, and the fire places looked bright and cheery, like the bar maid behind the polished bar. It was mostly in looks. No wonder that the British people fortify themselves with copious draughts of stimulants to help keep out the cold. There were some magnificent pieces of old furniture and Sheffield plate in the halls—pieces that many a collector had tried in vain to purchase. My room lit by two candles in earthenware candlesticks; and with a fire in a corner grate—at a shilling a day extra—looked cozy enough but the bedroom furniture was ancient and uncomfortable.
The officers of the Artillery Headquarters lived at the hotel, and I took my meals with them. Col. Burstall, the officer commanding, gave me every assistance and issued orders to his officers to aid in every possible way in the campaign.
My object was to educate all the artillery and cavalry units on the danger of using impure water, on typhus fever and how it was conveyed by lice, and on the value and necessity of anti-typhoid inoculation.
The following day I gave my first talk in a large shed in the town, to about 700 artillery men of the first artillery brigade. It was a unique experience, standing on a great stack of boxes of loaded ammunition beside Colonel Morrison and the medical officer Lt.-Col. McCrae, talking to the brigade drawn up at attention around us. It was an attentive audience; the men had to listen, though as a matter of fact, they really seemed interested. When paraded next day 370 uninoculated were discovered and given the treatment; the few who refused were sent to the base depot and replaced by others.
The campaign begun so successfully was carried on from day to day. Arrangements were made by telephone or wire with the O.C.'s of the various units, to have their men paraded for my lectures. The weather was frequently wet, and the talks were given in farm yards, village squares, churches, schools, hay-lofts, and open fields. In some instances the units, broken up into small sections, were scattered about the country so that I would have to talk to 50 men at once instead of several hundred.
One of the most unique occasions was the Sunday when I addressed the 3rd Artillery brigade, after church parade in the market square of Market Lavingdon. We arrived early and sat and listened while, from the little stone church high up on the hill above us, drifted the sound of soldiers singing. It was unutterably sad to me to hear the full mellow soldier chorus swelling out on "Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War." One felt that the words must have had to all of them a meaning that they never had had before.
Then the brigade formed up and was played by the village band to the market place where they were drawn up into a square with some gun carriages in the centre. When all was ready I mounted a gun carriage and gave my talk with all the earnestness I could muster, while the villagers congregated at one side, stood and gaped, and wondered what it was all about.
My talk had settled down into a 20-minute discourse, and I gave variations of it as often as four times in an afternoon at places 10 miles apart. In this way one saw a good deal of the Wiltshire scenery in the late winter season. It was a never-failing source of wonder and pleasure to me to see the ivy covered banks, the ivy clad trees and the rhododendrons and holly trees in green leaf in the middle of the winter. In the garden at the back of the famous old Elizabethan house in Potterne—a perfect example of the old Tudor timbered style of architecture—cowslips and pansies were in full blossom, and I was told the wild violets were in flower in the woods. The trim, well kept gardens, hedges and fields of the country side and village were a continual delight to a native of Canada where everything in comparison looks so unfinished and in need of trimming. The winter wheat was as green as the new grass of spring time, and many of the meadows also were fairly green. Some shrubs, and in particular an unknown yellow-flowered, leafless vine, were in blossom. I heard afterwards that it was the Jasmine.
During those January days when the sun shone fitfully, some wonderful atmospheric effects were to be seen at times on the plains. For the painter who wanted atmosphere and light and vivid contrasts, that was the place to be, for never did I see elsewhere such wonderful pastel effects; never such vivid-colored banks of spray and fog.
The little straw-thatched farm houses with their small paned windows frequently filled with flowers in bloom, nestling in gardens and shrubberies and orchards, had a more or less comfortable and homey look during the day time; but at dusk when the light was failing and the lamp light shone through the windows, these farm houses took on a wonderfully attractive and romantic appearance. It made you feel like going to the door and asking for a glass of new milk or a cup of cider; and you had visions of blazing fires in the great fireplace, and brass utensils, hanging from the walls; comfy ingle nooks, old beam ceilings and ancient oak furniture; hams suspended from the kitchen ceilings, and old blue willow pattern plates on the walls. That nothing can give a house such a homelike appearance as a thatched roof and leaded panes, I am perfectly convinced.
To a Canadian the bird-life of the plain was marvellous. There were birds by the tens of thousands. You would see crows settling on a spring wheat field on the open plain by hundreds; you would see starlings in great flocks following the plough, and gulls sometimes literally covered acres of newly ploughed ground.
One day as we approached a hamlet near Netheravon, I fancied I was witnessing an optical illusion: the whole surface of a field was covered with black and white, vibrating as though waves were passing over it. When we came nearer we saw that the field was covered so thick with gulls that the ground was hidden. The gull was a small white variety about the size of a pigeon, with a black ruff around its neck. The wave-like motion was made by the birds digging away in the newly turned earth for worms and larvæ; judging by the way they worked, they must have cleaned up millions of them.
Then there were robins, thrushes, magpies, and scores of other birds which were unfamiliar to us, while later on the larks spiralled with delirious songs into the sky. The pheasants were so tame they would scarcely get out of the way of a passing car.
Salisbury Plain had evidently been the site of many an armed camp and had probably seen many a battle since the time of the Romans. The archæologists in charge of the unearthing of "Old Sarum," perhaps the most ancient remains of a city in Great Britain, have, during the last ten years, found many wonderful things. Old Sarum is situated about two miles from the present city of Salisbury on the plain. It was built on the top of an enormous circular mound of earth several hundred yards in diameter, and was supposed to have been surrounded by the usual fosse and ditch. Roman, Saxon and Norman remains have been, and are still being, found, as the stonework of walls and buildings is being uncovered. It is supposed that much of the original stone was used in the 12th century to build the present cathedral of Salisbury.
One day at the opposite side of the plain toward Tinhead, Colonel (now General) Panet, of the horse artillery, took me out to see the enormous white horse cut in the chalk in the face of the hill ascending to Salisbury Plain. The figure, representing King Alfred's famous white charger is supposed to have been carved in King Alfred's time, to celebrate a famous victory in the neighborhood. The natives have kept the figure ever since carved white on the hillside by the simple process of digging away the surface earth and sod, and leaving the underlying chalk exposed.
Stonehenge, situated in the middle of the plain, is one of the weirdest and most interesting sights of England. It consists of two series of colossal stone columns arranged in circles with the lower ends stuck in the ground, and the upper ends supporting huge slabs of stone placed across them. A few of the stones have fallen, and lie prone upon the ground. Perhaps no relics in the world have caused more wonder and evoked more speculation in the lay and scientific mind than these curious stones standing in the middle of the plain, miles from any town. Books have been written about them. They are supposed to be of Phœnician origin. Each stone weighing many tons, must have been brought a great distance, and suggest the use of powerful means of transport not known to-day. Hundreds of thousands of people have travelled to Stonehenge and have gone away but little wiser than when they came. What the stones were for no man knows; he can only speculate and wonder.
All over the plain, too, are gently rising circular mounds called "barrows" supposed to be Roman burial places. It is against the law to dig into them or damage them in any way, just as it is unlawful to harm one of the rabbits or hares, which abound on the plains. England has laws to cover all contingencies.
In about two weeks I had completed my campaign, and returned to Bustard Camp where I rounded out my course by lecturing to the officers of the various infantry brigades with the exception of the Highlanders. In this way, though the returns were not quite completed before the division left for France, it was estimated that 97 per cent. of the men had been inoculated against typhoid fever.
During that winter the difficulties of the medical service were very great. At the beginning of December the manor house at Bulford was obtained as a nucleus for a hospital and was equipped and manned by number one general hospital. Across the way from the manor was a field which was utilized as a tent hospital for venereal diseases. Then some new cottages just being completed about 200 yards away were obtained and equipped; two other houses at different places about two miles apart were requisitioned and finally the riding school at Netheravon was taken over as well as some shacks for hospital purposes.
The hospital, therefore, consisted of six distinct units spread over a five-mile area, and all operated by the same hospital staff. It was very difficult from the standpoint of administration, though it was excellent training for the personnel of the hospital. At the beginning it was difficult to obtain drugs. The transportation of sick men from Pond Farm camp to Netheravon a distance of about 16 miles over very rough roads in rain and cold can be better imagined than described. And yet it was the best that could be done under the circumstances. Salisbury Plain is a great rolling field without town or village and the places chosen were the nearest and in fact the only places, that could be found reasonably close to the camp suitable for hospital purposes.
We had been reviewed by Lord Roberts and the King early after our arrival, and now it was rumoured that the King would review us again. Inspections of various sorts became a daily occurrence; inspectors from the War Office came down and condemned nearly everything we had including motor and horse transport, harness and other equipment. Later on we realized that it had been very wise to sacrifice a few score thousands of dollars worth of equipment in England in order that standard parts and replacements of equipment could be obtained at any time in the field and the efficiency of the force thereby maintained at all times. The authorities were much wiser than we knew.
Of course it rained on the morning of the day that the King came down to review the Division; at breakfast the rain hammered the tin roof of our mess room at Bustard Camp like so many hailstones and the outlook was most gloomy. Later on it cleared, and when the guns boomed out the royal salute announcing the arrival of His Majesty, the rain had entirely ceased.
A review by the King in war time is a pretty sure indication that the division will move shortly. I had an excellent point of vantage on a little hill opposite the saluting base where the King and Lord Kitchener stood. That review was the real thing. It lacked, perhaps, something of the wildness of the review that took place on the sandy plains of Valcartier, but it had a dignity that was very inspiring.
Only the division that was actually going across was reviewed. One felt that it was the last review that many of the men were ever destined to see and it seemed to be peculiarly fitting that before they left for the field of battle they should see that figure,—the head of the Empire—that stood for freedom and that intangible something that had made them come thousands of miles to fight and, perhaps, to die.
A young officer—Captain Klotz of the third battalion—of German descent and a very fine boy,—sat with me and chatted for a while as we watched the division march past. Although he was orderly officer of his battalion he had not been able to resist the temptation to slip away for the day to see a little of the march past. Poor chap! He was killed at the second battle of Ypres three months afterwards. The first Canadian division as it swung past was certainly a magnificent spectacle and I was quite willing to agree with a General who told me later in the day that though he had been at reviews for many years he had never seen such a fine body of men in the whole of his career. The King and Lord Kitchener both seemed to be greatly impressed with the division.
Finally the time did arrive for the division to leave and one night it disappeared—for Southampton everybody thought—though an officer who had been left behind sick was unable to find any trace of it later on in the day when he arrived at that port. Certainly the British do not tell all they know.
The impedimenta left behind in camp was something to marvel at, and included pianos, a Ford car, gramophones, bayonets, rifles and many other things. Why a man should leave behind his rifle, and how he managed to do so without getting caught, will probably always remain a mystery. The first Canadian Division had passed on to the great adventure in Flanders.
In the early part of our sojourn in England I was sent to London on duty. On the surface the city looked about as usual, except that the taxi-cabs, buildings and squares, were plastered with recruiting posters, the chief ones reading "Your King and Country need you" and "Enlist to-day." After you had read them a couple of thousand times they met your eyes with no more significance than do the bricks in a wall or the people in a crowd.
London at night, however, was much different, because the city was in darkness. The system of darkening adopted was rather amusing, as all the squares and circuses, which in other times were most brilliantly illuminated, now were darker than the streets, the contrast making them, to an aviator, as distinguishable as before. Later on more judgment was used in the control of lighting, as well as many other things in England.
Soldiers were plentiful on the streets and in the theatres, hotels and restaurants,—soldiers on leave from the various camps. But we were more inclined to notice the tens of thousands of physically fit men walking about in civilian clothes. Nobody seemed particularly disturbed about the war. Kitchener was raising his army, and "the Navy, thank God! was in excellent shape. Just wait till the Spring, and Emperor Bill would get his bumps. We are willing to go if they need us but not till they do. Why worry?"
In Clubland the difference was very marked—it had been deserted by the younger men, and the clubs sheltered only a few of the older men who had nowhere else to go. For, be it said to the eternal glory of the man-about-town,—the wealthy knut who knew little more perhaps than to run an expensive car, give expensive dinners and get into trouble—the upper class drone—that he was among the first to volunteer and get into active service. Perhaps all he could do was drive a car; if so he did it—drove a London bus out at the front, or a wagon; or did anything else at which he would be useful. Many of the idle rich young men, and the majority of the young titled men of England, rose to the occasion and went out and fought and died, and many now lie buried in Flanders for the sake of Old England—for the freedom of the world.
These posters shouting for recruits somehow did not look like England; they were too hysterical; they were not effective: London, with more posters per head of population than any other city in the Empire, recruited men less swiftly than any other place.
Thousands of sight-seers crowded to the football matches while the newspapers vainly lashed themselves into fury. It was only when Lloyd George asked for more men, and gave convincing reasons that they were needed, that the country responded. Day by day the newspapers made the best of bad news from the front, and day by day did the readers thereof conclude that England was doing well, and they "supposed that she would bungle through." No man of prophetic foresight had yet risen to say "This is a life and death struggle for us; we need every man in the country, and every shilling to win the war." The common talk was that we had stepped in to keep our treaty with France and to assist poor Belgium, whose neutrality had been violated. Englishmen did not feel that England's fall was first and last the object of Germany's ambition. They did not realize that Germany saw in England the nation which was always thwarting her and frustrating her desire for "a place in the sun."
Should the theatres be kept open? should German waiters be still allowed in the hotels? should German music be played at Queen's Hall? should horse racing be continued?—these were the questions whose discussion occupied a considerable amount of space in the newspapers. Of course the theatres kept open, German music was played, and horse racing continued: A large section of the public had to be amused, and the livelihood of the actors and actresses and their relatives depended upon it; if all German music were eliminated there would be little left to choose from; and the important racing horse industry could not be allowed to languish on account of a mere vulgar war.
So everything went on as before war-time except that gradually the German waiters disappeared. "Business as usual" was the slogan, for the ordinary business man rather fancied that he belonged to a nation great enough to carry on war as a side issue without seriously altering its daily routine.
For a while the big hotels and restaurants had a bad time of it, and the management of the Cecil and Savoy thought of closing down. At this trying juncture Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia for Canada, arrived in London and put up at the Savoy; other officers came to see him and stayed there also. Temporary offices were opened; men looking for contracts frequented the place and the Savoy quickly became the Canadian headquarters in London.
Special rates for rooms were given Canadian officers and it was possible to obtain a magnificently furnished, steam-heated room for no more than was paid at other hotels for much inferior accommodation. The Savoy Hotel, warm, comfortable and American like, located at the heart of things, close to the theatre district and the War Office, had a "homey" appeal to us, and it speedily became the centre of all things Canadian in London; and the patronage of the Canadians tided it over a bad financial period.
If you knew that one of your Canadian friends was in London, all you had to do was to sit in the rotunda of the Savoy and watch the door. You would be sure to see him come through those revolving doors some time during the day. In that rotunda I met men whom I went to school with, men who lived in my own city, but whom I had not seen for 20 years; others whom I met there had travelled all over creation since I had last seen them. It soon got to be quite the natural thing to meet old friends in this way.
In theatre land the problem play had disappeared as if by magic. Several attempts to revive former successes of this type proved absolute failures and the plays were quickly withdrawn; now there were real tragedies to think about, and the old threadbare, domestic triangle disappeared from the boards. Revues and musical comedies succeeded, and "The Man Who Stayed at Home" a war spy play was a tremendous success, as were the comedies "When Knights Were Bold" and "Potash and Perlmutter." To be a success a play had to have the merit of real comedy, or touch some national sensibility of the moment.
No new great literature had appeared, nor had the tragedy of the world yet brought forth any great poetry. Monographs on special phases of German character, thought and culture, were plentiful in the bookstalls, and translations of Bernhardi and Treitschke sold in vast numbers.
The love of music, so strong in England, was shown by the crowded attendances at the Queen's Hall and the Albert Hall concerts. A good deal of Russian music was heard, the Russian National Anthem being played on every possible occasion. At the Christmas season not a seat was empty at any of the presentations of the Messiah at Albert Hall. Yet curiously enough England had banished her military bands, one of the most effective aids to recruiting, and it was only after a violent newspaper controversy on the subject had taken place that she used them again.
Down in the city in Cheapside scarcely a uniform was to be seen; the heart of ancient London seemed to beat as usual. In the theatre district at night, particularly on the Strand, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus, crowds of women promenaded as usual, like spiders hunting for their prey. And the prey was there too, wanting to be hunted.
This is one of the great tragedies of London,—the terrible maelstrom of fallen humanity which is allowed to circulate there year after year, sweeping into its vortex tens and hundreds of thousands of boys and girls, who, but for it, might and probably would escape. In war time when soldiers were involved, it was more terrible than ever, for the results, as the medical men saw them, were disastrous from the military standpoint alone.
From this great ulcer in the heart of London a deadly poison passes far and wide into the national organism. The ulcer is there still for the knife of some strong man to excise, for there is little doubt that though restrictions will not prevent vice, it is equally true that making vice open, enticing and easy, increases it.
During that first winter, tickets for the theatre were sold at half price to men in uniform. On the other hand, an officer's uniform seemed to be the signal for increased prices in the shops, particularly in the smaller ones. A London physician, an officer, told me that when he went shopping he always dressed in civilian clothes because it was so much more economical to shop as a civilian.
The badge "Canada" of course, had been the badge for high prices from the day we landed in Plymouth. It was "Canada, our emblem dear" in very truth. It was well known that the Canadian Tommy received a dollar and ten cents a day, whereas the British Tommy received only 25 cents, and it was assumed that officers were correspondingly better paid than the British officer, while as a matter of fact, we received less, rank for rank. The question of overcharging Canadians became such a scandal that later on it was brought up in the House of Commons in an endeavour to fix prices for certain commodities in the Canadian Shorncliffe area.
The story is told of a Canadian going into a store and asking the youngster in charge the price of some article. The youngster called up stairs and the answer came back 1s. 10d. "But it is a Canadian" said the child; "Oh, 2s. 6d." came back the answer.
The war in France was but faintly felt in England in those early days. There had been no invasion of English soil such as had galvanized France into a united endeavour to repel the invader. No Zeppelins had yet dropped bombs on England. Great Britain had sent an expedition to France,—"An Expeditionary Force," it was called. The very name did not seem even to suggest a nation in arms. And yet away down underneath it all England was uneasy. Well-informed people whose sons were at the front knew the seriousness of the whole business. Casualties had returned in large numbers, and the rolls of honour published showed the terrible hammering England's wonderful little army was being subjected to on the continent. Those despised Germans had made great headway, and there were doubts as to whether the French were sufficiently well equipped to stand the tremendous pressure put upon them.
The battle off Chili had only been wiped out by Sturdee's victory, and the exploits of certain raiders and submarines made the Briton realize that the control of the oceans of the earth was a big undertaking. The rallying of the colonies to his assistance touched him greatly, and made him feel proud; on the other hand, strikes for higher pay in munition factories and ship yards angered and disgusted him.
There was no great leadership anywhere, and the Englishman in his heart of hearts knew it. Lloyd George, whom he acknowledged to be the only genius in the Government, he either idolized or cursed, according to whether he approved of his socialistic ideas or not. Englishmen I talked to, even in France later on, fairly foamed at the mouth when the little Welshman's name was mentioned, and refused to read the "Times" which they said was run by "that traitor Northcliffe." It was all very interesting to us, who hoped against hope that the man who to our perspective was the one great man of vision would be given the opportunity to become the man of action.
It was when one reached the heart of things, the War Office, that one began to realize the undercurrents which were being set up in the national life as a result of the war. In the court yard of the War Office, which was carefully guarded by policemen, were large numbers of women, young and old, waiting for news of son or husband, wounded or killed. The looks on their faces were sufficient evidence of tragedies which were increasing from day to day, and which would eventually waken England. Inside the door was a reception room where those who had business of any sort showed their credentials, signed the necessary form, and were sent on to the various departments to charge of a boy scout. Cots in the corridors, and specially walled-off offices indicated the expansion going on in the various departments.
The war office authorities were going at the problem in hand in a most unbusiness like way as far as the enlisting of recruits was concerned but already had 800,000 men in training in England. Those in training were not even equipped with rifles and uniforms.
After all the fault-finding in Canada before we left about the slowness in getting us away it was interesting to learn that our contingent had probably been more quickly outfitted and prepared for the field than any other territorial or militia unit in the Empire.
In the course of my stay I dined at many of the famous London restaurants, but the larger ones were usually empty and depressing. One had to eat somewhere and one might as well take every possible opportunity of seeing this phase of life in London in war time. One night at the "Carlton" there were not twenty others present; even the waiters seemed to be dejected, probably at the falling off of their revenue from tips, and we left as soon as possible and went over to the Royal Automobile Club in search of something brighter. There we found a cheery log fire and sat in front of it until early morning, talking of the war.
One heard the Russian and French national anthems very frequently, not only in the streets, but in the theatres and public performances, such as those in Queen's Hall. The finest playing of any national anthem that I have ever listened to was the London Symphony Orchestra's rendering of The Russian National Anthem one Monday night with Safanoff conducting; it was sublime. I had heard the same number on the preceding day in the same hall by another orchestra and the difference was remarkable;—the first one sounding like an amateur organization in comparison. No orchestra ever impressed me as did the London Symphony Orchestra, with the possible exception of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
To be in London, not sixty miles from the firing line, in a city firmly convinced of coming Zeppelin raids and prepared for naval raids, and find the press discussing the plays and the music of the day seemed strange indeed. It must have made the men in the trenches nearly mad to realize that while they were fighting under the most adverse conditions day by day and being killed in the defence of their homeland, there were 30,000 slackers at one football match at home.
England is a strange country. We felt that perhaps if a force of 50,000 or 100,000 Germans would land in England she would waken from the long sleep she had slept since her shores had been invaded by William the Conqueror. 30,000 men could watch a football match at the very moment the British line in Flanders was actually so thin that if the Germans had tried to advance there was nothing to stop them. Fortunately, for the moment, the enemy, too, was exhausted and before he could recuperate our reinforcements had arrived.
The dying session of parliament was worth going to see; Bonar Law, Beresford, McKenna, and Winston Churchill spoke. The latter made his defence of the Navy which was as famous and as reassuring to the country as Kitchener's statement in the house of Lords the day before had been in regard to the Army. Mr. Bonar Law was the smoothest of the speakers; Churchill gave one the impression of having much force of character, despite his stuttering, but Bonar Law was the man you felt could be trusted to look upon any proposition with coolness and play the safe game for his country.
When the House was adjourned until February 2nd, there were very few members left. This closing of the House of Parliament after a three weeks' session in war time and after the raising of billions of dollars of war loan by public subscription was remarkable for its simplicity. There was no fuss or feathers, no music or formality. The members just strolled out—those that happened to be there.
From the great window of the Savoy Hotel, I watched the funeral of Lord Roberts, the national hero. The Thames embankment could be seen, but, though a garden of not fifty yards in width separated the building from the embankment, the fog was thick enough to make the people as indistinct as though they had been half a mile away. Beyond the embankment the grey wall of fog shut out everything but an occasional gull which flitted out for a moment and disappeared again.
The embankment road was lined with Highland soldiers in khaki greatcoats and Scotch caps, drawn up in quarter companies, while on either side of the road stood a solid black wall of humanity—waiting, some with umbrellas up to protect them from the fine drizzle. Not a hundred yards away Cleopatra's needle stood like a tall sentinel in the mist, and one wondered what tales of battle and heroic deeds it could tell, if it could speak. One could imagine that during the long ages it must have witnessed other magnificent funerals of kings and heroes, and smiled, perhaps, at the brevity of human life.
The silence was broken by the long roll of kettledrums, and the strains of Chopin's funeral march floated to us through the heavy air; sadder than ever before they seemed to me, and yet, too, more dignified than ever before. Then along the embankment, past Cleopatra's needle, the head of the procession burst up through the fog as though coming out of the ground.
The band came first, followed by the London Scottish with arms reversed, the brass butts of the guns visible before the soldiers themselves, making a curious reflection in the fog.
Then followed other regiments of infantry, squadrons of horses, Indian troops with strangely-laden mules, guns; then, more cavalry. The horses sent out great spurts of steam from their nostrils into the cold raw air.
Then a space, and the funeral car drawn by six horses with riders approached. The coffin, covered with a Union Jack, looked very small, and a big lump came into my throat as I realized that this was all that remained of the great little soldier, whose motor car not three weeks before at Salisbury Plain had stopped beside mine, and whose deeply seamed and furrowed face I had studied with the greatest interest, remarking then that he looked very, very old.
After the car, the General's horse, with boots reversed in the stirrups, was led,—riderless.
Next came a dozen or more coaches bearing the mourners, including the King, and the pall-bearers, one of whom was Lord Kitchener. Squadron after squadron of cavalry filed past two and two, until one felt the procession was never going to end. The fog thinned somewhat, and a tug and scow whirled past down the river on the rapidly flowing tide, disappearing again into the mist.
As the last horses disappeared, the crowd began to move; motor cars appeared; and the cortege of one of the greatest British generals passed on to St. Paul's, the last resting place of the great soldiers and sailors of the Empire.
One felt that Lord Roberts was greater than all those soldiers who had gone before him, for his life had been without blemish. Seldom—indeed, never before—had any British soldier or statesman the opportunity to say to the nation "I told you so." For ten years without avail, Lord Roberts had been warning the nation about the great need of being prepared for a war that was bound to come; he had tried by every possible means to wake it from its sleep and had failed; and when the great war came as he said it would, he offered no word in the way of reproach or self glorification, but bent all his energies to help his Empire to his utmost in the hour of her greatest need. And although he "passed over" before victory had come to us, he had seen enough to know that the ultimate result would bring security to the Empire and freedom to the human race.