=Mobilising at Aldershot.=

Multiply this scene a hundred times.  Imagine the apparent confusion on every hand.  Listen to the tramp, tramp of the men as they march from station to camp and from camp to station, and you will have some idea of the hurry and bustle in this camp on veldt during the period when the word ‘mobilisation’ was on everybody’s lips.

Barrack rooms everywhere overcrowded, men sleeping by the side of the bed-cots as well as upon them; every available space utilised; even the H Block Soldiers’ Home turned outside into a tent, that the rooms it occupied might be used as temporary barrack rooms again.

Discipline was necessarily somewhat relaxed!  Drunkenness all too rife!  The air was full of fare-wells, and the parting word in too many cases could only be spoken over the intoxicating cup.  It was a rough-and-tumble time.  Aldershot was full of men who in recent years had been unaccustomed to the discipline and exactitude of Her Majesty’s Army, and the wonder is that things were not worse than they were.

Let us look into one of the barrack rooms.  The men are just getting dinner, and are hardly prepared to receive company, and especially the company of ladies.  They are sitting about anyhow, their tunics for the most part thrown aside, or at any rate flying open; but when they see ladies at the door, most of them rise at once.

‘Yes, it is hard work, miss, parting with them,’ says one K.O.S.B. reservist.  ’I’ve left the missus at home and three babies, one of them only a week old.  I thought she’d have cried her eyes out when I came away.  I can’t bear to think of it now.’  And the big fellow brushed the tears away.  ’It’s not that I mind being called up, or going to the war.  I don’t mind that; but, you know, miss, it’s different with us than with them young lads, and I can’t help thinking of her.’

‘Rough? yes, it is a bit rough,’ says another as we pass along.  ’I wish you could see the little cottage where I live when I’m at home, all kept as bright as a new pin.  It’s well she can’t see me now, I’m thinking.  She’d hardly know her husband.  But there, it’s rougher where we’re going, I reckon, so it’s no use worrying about this.’  And, forgetting the presence of ladies, he started whistling a merry tune.

It was just ‘a bit rough’ in those days.  But how could it be helped?  Aldershot Camp had nearly doubled its normal population, and some thirty thousand troops were crowded in.  And this population was continually changing.  As soon as one batch of troops was despatched, another took its place, with consequences that, perhaps, were not always all that could be desired, but which were nevertheless unavoidable.