Only another mile, boys," and our hopes revived a little;
but meeting a civilian, I asked him how far it was to Moore's Plain,
and he said, "Oh, it's about four miles." Our officer overheard and
said "Come on, boys, let's make camp here," and No. 10 platoon quit
right there. We were going through a little village at the time, and
we piled up on the lawns, rolled out our blankets and went to sleep.
Next morning the lady of the house who owned the lawn found us there;
she took pity on us, and calling us in gave us our breakfast. Later,
we were sitting on the lawn when our Colonel drove up in his
automobile. He called, "Come on, boys, hurry up and get up to the
camp." He told us how to go and then went on to round up the rest--so
we drifted on towards the camp and finally reached it, and all that day
the boys came straggling in, some of them still carrying their boots.
Well, that night we had to pack up and march down again, but this time
it wasn't so hot, and all our spare equipment went by transport. We
reached the port about dusk and we were soon loaded up; as soon as we
got on board, life-belts had to be put on, and the boat started
immediately. We watched the lights of "Old Blighty" flicker and fade
away; and every now and then we caught glimpses of destroyers as they
went by and disappeared into the darkness. Finally the last lighthouse
was passed--no more lights were to be seen, and I turned and looked
towards France, wondering what was in store for me there. Little did I
think that I would spend a year in Germany before I would see the
English shores again.

It wasn't long before the lights of France came in sight. We watched
them get clearer and clearer, and soon the command came to put our
packs on. We were all ready to march by the time the boat was docked,
and off we went. We were on the soil of France, and we all looked
around curiously. The first thing I noticed was a French soldier on
guard, and I saw that he presented arms in a different way to what we
were used to, and also that his bayonet was about twice as long as
ours. We soon passed him, and I don't remember much about the march
that followed. We were dead-tired, and after travelling for what
seemed hours over cobblestones we came to a steep hill--the boys
commenced to swear, but we stuck to it for a while. Finally I gave up
and lay down beside the road; by this time a lot of the boys had
dropped out. After resting a while I started o