th the feelings of
our folks as they would journey out to camp with the usual good things
to eat only to find we had gone. By this time we would be well out at
sea, en route for the Great Adventure, but it was hard luck for mothers
and wives suddenly to find us gone without warning, and having to wait
many weeks for the first letter.

It was wet, it was cold, it was dark on that wharf. If we were counted
once, we were counted fifty times, and for hours we stood in the rain
because there were two men too many. No, not men, for they were found
to be boys of fifteen who had stolen uniforms and had hidden near the
wharf for days to get away with the troops, but they were discovered,
as every man had his name called and was identified by his officer as
he passed up the gangway. One of them was not to be kept off, however:
he slipped round the stern and climbed up the mooring cables like a
monkey, and as no one gave him away he was undiscovered until rations
were issued, so, perforce, he was a member of the ship's company and
went with us to Egypt.

It's marvellous what quantities of men a troop-ship can swallow. There
were a thousand men on our ship and we wondered how we would possibly
move about, for we were marched 'tween decks, and seated on benches
ranged alongside deal tables, and when all were aboard there was not
room for a man more. It was explained to us that these were our
quarters. We could understand them as eating quarters, but where were
we to sleep? It was soon evident; above our heads were rows of black
iron hooks; these were for our hammocks, which, with a blanket apiece,
were in bins at the end of each deck. Hammock sleeping was not new to
me, so I got a good deal of fun seeing the early-to-bedders climb in
one side of their hammock, only to fall out the other, and very few
could manipulate their blankets. One could see that nearly every one
was nervous for fear of turning over in his sleep, but there was really
no danger of falling out, for when all the hammocks were up they were
packed so closely that if you did roll over, you would only roll into
the next hammock on top of some fellow who would, no doubt, think the
mast had fallen. There were a good number of men to whom life would
have been much pleasanter the next few days if they could have stayed
in their hammocks all day, as, no matter how the ship rolls, a hammock,
being swung, always keeps level. Unfortunately, all hammocks had to be