Sealegs

The first thing that struck us was the little short engines. One of the English engines, you know, and two or three of our fellas looked them over and one fellow said, “Boy,” I think it was Cook, “I’d like the replacement of that one,” he says “and put one it on for a watch charm.” It was so small. Boy, but when they get on the train and they started to pull out, they’re gone, they were really nice engines. That was one thing that struck us. When we got to camp down to Liphook, I remember getting off there at the station and come out and we were lined up to march into camp. There was a great big chestnut tree, oh it must, branches was out on that thing, it must have been, oh, 60 or 80 feet around. That’s the one from the (inaudible) and that’s where it turned out to be. That was one of the first things I noticed, because, of course, there’s no lights for you, any light would be shone on the ground. We arrived in the dark and marched from Liphook into camp. And I never seen a road in my life that was waving so much. We still had sea legs when we got to camp. And we was in there, there was, they hadn’t got any word on us. We was there for three days before our regular rations started. In that length of time, I know Broadstock, and he took myself and another young fellow with him up to London. We were supposed to bring three men back, and we brought back 39, I believe it was. The fellas had to go out of camp for to get something to eat, anyway. They kept going, walked to London and all over the place. The Military police picked them up in London, took them down to, I think it was the old Bailey if I remember right, where we got them at.