ats occupied us for a while, and if a sergeant or a
comrade addressed us we answered in "goat talk": "Ba-a-a, ba-a-a-a...."

It was apparent that the secrecy of troop transportation which held in
England held also in France. The populace could not have known of our
coming, for there was no scene, nor was there a reception. We were to meet
with that later on.

Here, however, we did meet the French "fag." When Tommy gets one puff of
this article of combustion he never wants another. It is one puff too many.
Of course our first race was to buy cigarettes--but, napoo!

Before entraining we were all shocked by the dreadful tidings that the
transport carrying the Forty-Eighth Highlanders had been sunk. This news
was soon discredited 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 all drowned. Apparently it was a part of certain
propaganda to publish that all transports of British soldiers were
destroyed. So far none had even been attacked.

The evening of our arrival we boarded the little trains. To our surprise
and to our intense disgust, we had not even the passenger coaches provided
in England and Canada. I say little trains, because they were little, and
in addition the coaches were not coaches, but box cars. Painted on the side
of the "wheeled box" was "_Huit chevaux par ordinaire_."

But these are not ordinary times, so instead of eight horses they put
forty-eight of us boys in each car. Forty-eight boys all my size might have
worked out well enough, though in full fighting 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 look at it the uninitiated might well think that it
was a toy, but, as I learned afterward, when bullets are flying around you
by the thousand you can get into the ground with even a toy--or less.

There is our pack. A soldier's pack on active service in the British Army
is supposed to weigh approximately forty-five pounds, but when the average
Tommy lands in France his pack weighs nearer seventy-five pounds than
forty-five. Tommy does not 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