by request, made a
record of my times out there, in the way that
they appeared to me_.

BRUCE BAIRNSFATHER.

CHAPTER I

LANDING AT HAVRE--TORTONI'S--FOLLOW
THE TRAM LINES--ORDERS FOR THE FRONT

[Illustration: G]

Gliding up the Seine, on a transport crammed to the lid with troops, in
the still, cold hours of a November morning, was my debut into the war.
It was about 6 a.m. when our boat silently slipped along past the great
wooden sheds, posts and complications of Havre Harbour. I had spent most
of the twelve-hour trip down somewhere in the depths of the ship,
dealing out rations to the hundred men that I had brought with me from
Plymouth. This sounds a comparatively simple process, but not a bit of
it. To begin with, the ship was filled with troops to bursting point,
and the mere matter of proceeding from one deck to another was about as
difficult as trying to get round to see a friend at the other side of
the ground at a Crystal Palace Cup final.

I stood in a queue of Gordons, Seaforths, Worcesters, etc., slowly
moving up one, until, finally arriving at the companion (nearly said
staircase), I tobogganed down into the hold, and spent what was left of
the night dealing out those rations. Having finished at last, I came to
the surface again, and now, as the transport glided along through the
dirty waters of the river, and as I gazed at the motley collection of
Frenchmen on the various wharves, and saw a variety of soldiery, and a
host of other warlike "props," I felt acutely that now I was _in_ the
war at last--the real thing! For some time I had been rehearsing in
England; but that was over now, and here I was--in the common or garden
vernacular--"in the soup."

At last we were alongside, and in due course I had collected that
hundred men of mine, and found that the number was still a hundred,
after which I landed with the rest, received instructions and a guide,
then started off for the Base Camps.

[Illustration: "Rations"]

These Camps were about three miles out of Havre, and thither the whole
contents of the ship marched in one long column, accompanied on either
side by a crowd of ragged little boys shouting for souvenirs and
biscuits. I and my hundred men were near the rear of the procession, and
in about an hour's time arrived at the Base Camps.

I don't know that it is possible to construct anything more atrociously
hideous or uninteresting than a Base Camp. It consists, in military
par