Aldershot and the next morning at an early hour, and in drenching rain, we marched to the station en route for Southampton. We were all on board Transport No. 7 by one o'clock, and by three o'clock that afternoon were clearing our decks of visitors and saying good-bye to many friends, while bands played and crowds cheered again and again on the wharf. It is always an impressive sight watching troops embark for active service, but one thing there is no doubt about—it is worse for those that are left behind on the shore than for those in the ship.
The next morning we were out of sight of Old England, and getting into what seemed like dirty weather; and so it turned out, for in a few hours our ship was kicking her heels very freely, and many of us were feeling not quite the men we did twenty-four hours before. The Bay of Biscay kept up its old character, and we got severely knocked about. The men were in a miserable condition, and the troop decks' were swamped with water and littered with every conceivable article to be found in a soldier's kit I always find it very difficult to rise to the occasion at sea. "A life on the ocean wave" seems a horrible fate. This time proved no exception to the rule, and like many others on
