We hoofed it all the way

There was an article that appeared in the Legionnaire or Legion magazine one time written by John Sweetingham, taken from the memoirs of General McNaughton. It described how we were moved from the Arras sector to Amiens, taken down by rail, bus, truck, what have you, anything but walking. Now, I read that article in the Legion magazine. I read it, I was very interested in it because I had never seen a bus and we certainly didn’t take the train. We started out on the night of August the fourth, and we marched four nights - and all night. And I answered that letter. I said I don’t know what the rest of them did. I was only a private soldier, and I said all I knew was do what I was told. But I said in the 46th, we hoofed it all the way, every damn step of it. I think we went four nights, and in the daytime we stayed under cover. That was the trip to Amiens. We got in there at around four o’clock in the morning, as far as I can recollect, it might have been a little earlier. We stopped right out in the open, that morning. That was the first we knew where we were going or anything else, we hadn’t a clue. We were just going. We weren’t told anything, told to keep our mouths shut. We weren’t allowed to smoke on the road going down. And you weren’t to talk loudly at all, or make any more noise then we had to. I said it was all done under cover of darkness, and as soon as dawn appeared we took for cover. But in that we were told that lorries would be used. There would be a lorrie used to take any unnecessary equipment along, take our packs. Well now, when they got the unnecessary equipment, all that was left in my pack was several pairs of socks and a steel mirror and a shoe brush. And that was it. And they even lost that. I never saw it again until the winter of 1922 and 1923 that was sent back to me from Ottawa. Well, the Army is honest anyhow.