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The food problem pr-esented no difficulties, the eubaar-fne campa Lgn hadn't
quite dev eloped i t s elf then. Plen ty of stuff--tubs of jam and beane ,
We had a ca nteen , but it was dry; nevertheless, the lemonade was no t
spared
after a l ong r oute march .
I am not sure that the pe ople of St. J ohn' e quite realize d that we were
eokdder-e pr eparing t o take an act ive par t 1n t he great uphea val. They seemed to
look up on u s \lith the s ame curi osit y an d wonderment
as t he y ....oul d on a party of
Brigade BO'y8 J but vhen the ne ws vas sp r ead of our intend ed departure Overseae ,
"'== op1n i on ~ ,opt imi st l c- a nd othenrlse , ":- were .f reely give n , and t he pub}';c ~ ri~l oajoh
to l et us go . No doubt many had pictured 1n their imagination great battl es
. wh.!r e _the~e ad and dying S008 of ~ ewfaund 1Jlnd were numerous; but i n our exci te-
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ment the future gav e us littl e thought .
Our Kit and equipment lacked completion, but all were l ooki ng f orward to
eometbfng better in Eng.Iand , and our appe ar -a nce wasn ' t going to mar our happdneaa-,
ve had quite made up our minds on t ha t point .
On t he af ternoon of Oct obe r
3rd . , 191 4, the "Blul'l Puttees" marched away f ro:tl
the i r ha ppy l i t t le home in Pleasantville to board the S .S . "Florizel" . Great
cr owds of pe opl e blocked t he way, and it was with much difficult y 'We got through
to the shfp,
It Was then I knew the city had realize d that we were real ly
601di er s . On the night of Oct obe r 4th., mi d t he bl oving of eyrene lind ringing of
belle, our anc hors ver-e lifted lind 'We sail ed forth on the great adve nt ure.
The f ollowing day lit
noon the Canadian Contingent wa s afght.ed on t he horizon.
Our ship pr oved to be t he smallest of the bunch, but you know the ol d saying-
"There IS good stuff i n smal l parcels" . I suppos e i t is too late now to compl ai n
about t he t r eatment a ccorde d us on our t rip a cr os s , but here is an outline : The
atevar-de 'Were selling us pies for a dollar e a ch, a pple s seventy cents a doz en , Rod
j am vater- t en cents a g.la es , How does that strike you , honest city folk ~ The
cigarette and apple issues kept us smiling in spd t.e of the r ot ten food we were