The following days we spent on the rifle ranges and in making fake
departures. I wrote home to my friends more than once that "we were leaving
for the front to-day," but when the next day arrived we were still leaving.
I sent my mother six telegrams on six different days to say that I would
start for France within the next hour, but at the end of it we were still
to be found in the same old camp.
Finally, on the first day of October, 1914, our regiment boarded the _S.S.
Zeeland_ at Quebec. The comment of the people looking on was that they had
never seen a finer body of men. And that was about right. Physically we
were perfect; morally, we were as good as the next, and, taken all in all,
there were no better shots on earth. Equipped to the minute, keen as
hunting dogs, we were "it." Surely a wonderful change this month's training
had wrought. And I say again if the credit for it all must be given to any
one man, that man is Sir Sam Hughes.
In a few hours we were steaming down the St. Lawrence, and the next day we
slipped into Gaspe Bay on the eastern coast of Canada, where we joined the
other transports.
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