in France he carries a very heavy load, though
it does not stay heavy for long. After being on a route march or two the
weight will mysteriously disappear. Then Tommy carries one pair of boots,
one suit of underwear, one shirt, one pair of socks, and they are all on
him.

There is a mess tin to cook in, wash in, shave in and do all manner of
things with. There is the haversack in which is stuffed a three-day
emergency ration. The emergency ration of the early days of the war was
much different from the emergency ration of to-day. These rations are
intended to be used only in an emergency, and, believe me, only in an
emergency are they used. There was compressed beef--compressed air, we
called it; there were Oxo cubes and there was tea. In addition there were
a few hardtacks.

Then there is the bandoleer, and the soldier on active service in this war
never carries less than one hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition at any
one time, and sometimes he carries much more. As a final, there is our
rifle and bayonet. At that time of which I am speaking we Canadians carried
the now famous, or infamous, Ross rifle. This weighed nine and
three-quarters pounds.

With all this equipment to a man, and forty-eight men to each small box
car, it doesn't demand much imagination to picture our journey. We could
not sit down. If we attempted it we sat on some one, and then there was a
howl. We tried all manner of positions, all sorts of schemes. In the
daytime we sought the roof of the cars, or leaned far out the open doors.
If the country had not been so lovely, and if all our experiences had not
been new and out of the ordinary, there would have been more grousing.

The second day on the train--we were three days and three nights--while
passing through a city near Rouen, we had a glimpse of our first wounded
French soldiers. It seemed as though war came home to a lot of us then for
the first time. I was fairly sick at heart when I saw one Frenchman with
both arms bound up, and with blood pouring over his face. I understood that
these wounded men were coming back from the battle of Soissons. From the
glimpses we caught of them in their train they seemed a funny lot of
fighting men, these poilous, with their red breeches, their long blue coat
pinned back from the front, the little blue peaked cap, and their long
black whiskers. I was horrified at the whole sight. For the first time I
asked myself, "What in the world are _you_ out here