bt have plenty of night marching
of this kind in Flanders. The men stood up to the march with their
heavy loads splendidly, thanks to the excellent physical training they
had undergone on board ship. At the first halt a number lit up
cigarettes, and as soon as they started a chorus of coughs showed
where the seductive weed was getting in its deadly work on the lungs
and bronchial tubes. The Commanding Officers passed the word along to
try and not smoke, and not to use the water bottles, and the men did
their best for the rest of the march. About an hour before we came to
our camp we ran full tilt into a traction train and I commandeered it
at once. I turned it around and got the men to load their kit bags
into the big vans, which they did most cheerfully, as this lightened
their loads. When we reached the great Salisbury Plains, after a steep
climb, it was cold and foggy, the kind of weather to take the courage
out of a man, about five o'clock in the morning. It was daylight when
we reached our tents. There was hot tea ready for the men, and it did
not take us very long to roll up in a blanket on the ground and go to
sleep.

I made the eleven miles carrying my great coat, sword and equipment,
and how I blessed my boots. Not a chafe nor an ache, they were just
splendid. From three o'clock till seven ten is not bad for eleven
miles on a pitch dark night. We all knew very little of what happened
for the rest of the day. Captain Donaldson saw that the officers'
luggage was sent in, and by the evening we were quite comfortable, and
had a good sleep on Saturday night.

The first work we did on our arrival at Salisbury Plains was to attend
an open air church service on Sunday. All the photographers of the
London papers were on hand to get snapshots of us. We were warned to
be careful of suspicious characters, and some of the gentlemen with
cameras were questioned closely. We at last had leisure to look about
us. Salisbury Plains, where we had been sent for our training, is in
Wiltshire and is a chalk plateau, high up in the middle of England. It
is noted for its historical associations and its bad climate. Two
great trunk line railways run, one on the north, the other to the
south of these Plains which are fully twenty-five miles from north to
south and twenty-five miles from east to west. Most of the land is
taken over by the Crown for military purposes, but at the cross-roads
there are still small English villages nestling