Chapter III

OLD ENGLAND ON THE SEA


A cheer from the distant crowds, an increased involuntary bustle on
board ship, and then train load after train load of troops detrained
alongside the ship that was to be their home for the next three weeks.
Up and up the gangways they went in long continuous lines, hour after
hour, a procession that seemed as though it would never stop. At last
all are on board, and the bell rings for visitors to go ashore. The
troops crowd the bulwarks of the ship, they climb the rigging, many of
them like sailors. They seize every vantage point from which they can
wave a long farewell to those they are leaving behind them, and then
some one with a cornet strikes up 'Soldiers of the Queen' and 'Rule
Britannia,' and fifteen hundred voices echoed by those on shore join in
the patriotic songs. At last all is ready and the moorings are cast off.
'One song more, my lads'; it is 'Shall auld acquaintance be forgot?' and
there with the good ship already moving from the dock they sing it,
while handkerchiefs are vigorously waved and hearty cheers rend the air,
and not a few tears are shed. And so amidst excitement and sorrow,
laughter and tears, the good ship drops down the Southampton Water, past
Netley Hospital--soon to receive many of them back--and Calshott Castle,
past the Needles and out into the open Channel, and fifteen hundred
fighting men are on their way to South Africa.