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As we approached I rode ahead into the station yard and found that our train had not yet arrived. The regiment marched on the entraining platform, and on looking over the transport I found that my spare riding horse, which was lame and carried my saddle bags, had been left behind on the roadside.
It took the form of a route march to a place six miles away, where the whole Division being assembled as at sports, various demonstrations were made, including the firing of projectors tabloid gas training. Nothing more exciting happened. The Bosche offensive was over, and entraining at Aire on 7th May we were taken to Maroeuil and marched to Hills Camp in the back area behind Vimy ridge.
Boom! boom! boom! . . . Boom! boom! boom! Dirl and skirl; skirl and dirl! So to the heart-lifting, hell-raising music of pipes and drums they marched down to the railway. At the station it seemed as though they had been expected to break all records in military entraining. There was terrific haste and occasional confusion, the latter at the loading of the vans.
The ablest Southern leader, Sung Chiao-jen, just as he was entraining for Peking with a number of Parliamentarians at Shanghai, was coolly shot in a crowded railway station by a desperado who admitted under trial that he had been paid 200 pounds for the job by the highest authority in the land, the evidence produced in court including telegrams from Peking which left no doubt as to who had instigated the murder.
At the end of fifteen minutes there was not a glib staff-officer there who could have deceived him as to the numbers and destination of the force entraining. "Kerachi!" he told himself, chewing the butt of his cigar and keeping well ahead of the shadowing native. Always keep a "shadow" moving until you're ready to deal with him is one of Cocker's very soundest rules.
The train shunted back into the station, and we all went back to our billets again, but not before our officers informed us that we had done the work of entraining very smartly, and when the real call did come we would lose no time on the journey to an unknown destination.
In stations about Paris I saw regiment after regiment entraining men from the southern provinces speaking the patois of the south, men from the eastern departments whom I had seen a month before, at the beginning of the war, at Chalons, and Epernay and Nancy, and men from the southwest and centre of France in the garrisons along the Loire.
For three days it had been waiting on a siding, in the same state as when it had come from Paris, and since it had been run into the station again white flags had been waving from the foremost and hindmost of its carriages, by way of preventing any mistakes on the part of the pilgrims, whose entraining was usually a very long and troublesome affair.
The ablest Southern leader, Sung Chiao-jen, just as he was entraining for Peking with a number of Parliamentarians at Shanghai, was coolly shot in a crowded railway station by a desperado who admitted under trial that he had been paid £200 for the job by the highest authority in the land, the evidence produced in court including telegrams from Peking which left no doubt as to who had instigated the murder.
The captain in command, with his lieutenant, was pacing up and down the station platform. He now gave a command to a couple of sergeants, and the entraining began. Helter-skelter now, for it was no use losing a good seat whilst indulging in a final kiss or tear.
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