are rolling,
prairie-like lands stretching for miles, broken by a very occasional
farm house or by plantations of trees called "spinneys." A thin layer
of earth and turf covered the chalk which was hundreds of feet in
depth; at any spot a blow with a pick would bring up the white chalk
filled with black flints. The hills by which the plains were reached
rose sharply from the surface of Wiltshire, so that Salisbury Plain
itself could be easily distinguished miles away by the white, water
worn rifts in the hillsides.

When we first arrived the plains gave promise of being a fine camping
ground. Tents were pitched, canteens opened, work was begun and our
boys settled down impatiently to receive the further training
necessary before passing over to that Mecca to which one and all
looked forward--the battle grounds of Flanders.

For a few days all went well; then it began to rain. About the middle
of November it settled down in earnest and rained steadily for a
month; sometimes it merely drizzled, at other times it poured; but it
never stopped, except for an hour or so. The constant tramp of many
feet speedily churned into mud the clay turf overlaying the chalk, and
the rain could not percolate through this mixture as it did the
unbroken sod. In a few days the mud was one inch--four inches--and
even a foot deep. Many a time I waded through mud up to my knees.

The smooth English roads, lacking depth of road-metal, were speedily
torn to pieces by the heavy traffic of motors and steam traction
engines. Passing cars and lorries sprayed the hedges with a thin
mud-emulsion formed from the road binder, and exposed the sharp flints
which, like so much broken glass, tore to pieces the tires of the
motors.

Cold high winds, saturated with moisture, accompanied the rain and
searched one's very marrow. Nothing would exclude these sea breezes
but skin or fur coats, and though accustomed to a severe climate, we
Canadians felt the cold in England as we never had at home. Sometimes
the temperature fell below the freezing point, and occasionally we had
sleet, hail or snow for variety. Tents were often blown down by the
hundreds, and it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight watching a small
army of soldiers trying to hold and pin down some of the large mess
tents, while rope after rope snapped under the straining of the
flapping canvas. One day the post office tent collapsed, and some of
the mail disappeared into the heavens, never to retu