Read Online Into the Blizzard by Michael Winter - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Winter
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used for lighting. Many passengers were burned alive. “The dead bodies lie in a white farm building near the railway and in a little hall in Gretna.”
One of the trains carried two companies of the Royal Scots from the 52nd Lowland Division. Three officers and 207 men were killed. Five officers and 219 other ranks were injured. It remains the worst rail disaster in British history—the
Titanic
of train wrecks.
The Royal Scots were part of the 29th Division. They were on their way to Gallipoli.
For several months after, this gap in the 29th Division remained. And then, in August 1915, Lord Kitchener arrived to inspect the troops in Edinburgh. Over twenty thousand soldiers were present, but Kitchener addressed the Newfoundlanders. You, he said, are the men we need for Gallipoli.
HAWICK AND ALDERSHOT
The soldiers were vaccinated and met up with C Company and heard stories from home from the recruits. They feltthat C Company had received“the soft end of the plank.” Then the regiment moved back into tents at Stob’s Camp, near Hawick, and the men attended dances in this small town. James Paris Lee, the man who invented the Lee-Enfield rifle, was born here in Hawick. One man was found absent without leave,selling coal from a cart. He was wearing a bowler hat. The camp was low key after Edinburgh—a half-dozensheep wandered around the tents.A detention camp next to Stob’s Camp contained ten thousand German prisoners. The Newfoundlanders did route-marches andone of the men made a movie of their march, which they watched the next night at the picture palace in Hawick. There was a rumour that Turkey was about to withdraw from the war. That Germany was using poison gas. The men killed and ate twenty rabbits.
Hawick’s war memorial in Wilton Park has been a winner of the best-kept memorial competition: a naked figure of youth by A. J. Leslie. In its day, it caused some controversy.
It was here the regiment was divided, the men split into two groups: those heading to Aldershot for afinal “polish” before being sent overseas; while the remainder—mostly the recruits—were sent to their new depot at Ayr. At Aldershot the barracks were large, and there were great gymnasiums. There were dining rooms and rooms for playing billiards and rooms for borrowing books. There was a statue of the Duke of Wellington from Hyde Park, and Caesar’s campwas nearby. The British built their airplanes here. The soldiers were told that Alfred the Great had fortified himself here eleven hundred years ago.
Dr Arthur Wakefield gave the men a lecture on how to use the gas helmet recently invented by Cluny Macpherson. The men turned in their thick-woven uniforms for lighter outfits and a St John’s man with a camera made a movie of the men taking bayonet practice. Lord Kitchener spoke to the men about the Dardanelles and the King inspected the troops and then they took a train to Devonport and sailed, on a beautiful August day, aboard the
Megantic
straight to Mudros, on the island of Lemnos east of Greece and very near Turkey. They were guided by two torpedo destroyers. Then they backtracked to Egypt where they trained near Cairo and rode camels and learned to wear tin hats and took pictures of themselves with the pyramids. They slept on stone floors and then moved into tents.
And meanwhile, the remnants of the battalion moved to Ayr, Scotland.
AYR
When I got off the train in Ayr, I found that the land was similar to the land back home. The Great Glen Fault, a hundred miles north of Ayr, was the same strike-slip thatcuts through the Long Range Mountains from White Bay, Newfoundland—the Cabot Fault. It is what makes the long lake with the island and the pond on that island and the island on that pond that my father told me about. The fault was broken up by the mid-Atlantic ridge formed two hundred million years ago.
George Ricketts was from White Bay. He signed up in the summer of 1915. He was eighteen. He marked an X for his signature.
One of the trains carried two companies of the Royal Scots from the 52nd Lowland Division. Three officers and 207 men were killed. Five officers and 219 other ranks were injured. It remains the worst rail disaster in British history—the
Titanic
of train wrecks.
The Royal Scots were part of the 29th Division. They were on their way to Gallipoli.
For several months after, this gap in the 29th Division remained. And then, in August 1915, Lord Kitchener arrived to inspect the troops in Edinburgh. Over twenty thousand soldiers were present, but Kitchener addressed the Newfoundlanders. You, he said, are the men we need for Gallipoli.
HAWICK AND ALDERSHOT
The soldiers were vaccinated and met up with C Company and heard stories from home from the recruits. They feltthat C Company had received“the soft end of the plank.” Then the regiment moved back into tents at Stob’s Camp, near Hawick, and the men attended dances in this small town. James Paris Lee, the man who invented the Lee-Enfield rifle, was born here in Hawick. One man was found absent without leave,selling coal from a cart. He was wearing a bowler hat. The camp was low key after Edinburgh—a half-dozensheep wandered around the tents.A detention camp next to Stob’s Camp contained ten thousand German prisoners. The Newfoundlanders did route-marches andone of the men made a movie of their march, which they watched the next night at the picture palace in Hawick. There was a rumour that Turkey was about to withdraw from the war. That Germany was using poison gas. The men killed and ate twenty rabbits.
Hawick’s war memorial in Wilton Park has been a winner of the best-kept memorial competition: a naked figure of youth by A. J. Leslie. In its day, it caused some controversy.
It was here the regiment was divided, the men split into two groups: those heading to Aldershot for afinal “polish” before being sent overseas; while the remainder—mostly the recruits—were sent to their new depot at Ayr. At Aldershot the barracks were large, and there were great gymnasiums. There were dining rooms and rooms for playing billiards and rooms for borrowing books. There was a statue of the Duke of Wellington from Hyde Park, and Caesar’s campwas nearby. The British built their airplanes here. The soldiers were told that Alfred the Great had fortified himself here eleven hundred years ago.
Dr Arthur Wakefield gave the men a lecture on how to use the gas helmet recently invented by Cluny Macpherson. The men turned in their thick-woven uniforms for lighter outfits and a St John’s man with a camera made a movie of the men taking bayonet practice. Lord Kitchener spoke to the men about the Dardanelles and the King inspected the troops and then they took a train to Devonport and sailed, on a beautiful August day, aboard the
Megantic
straight to Mudros, on the island of Lemnos east of Greece and very near Turkey. They were guided by two torpedo destroyers. Then they backtracked to Egypt where they trained near Cairo and rode camels and learned to wear tin hats and took pictures of themselves with the pyramids. They slept on stone floors and then moved into tents.
And meanwhile, the remnants of the battalion moved to Ayr, Scotland.
AYR
When I got off the train in Ayr, I found that the land was similar to the land back home. The Great Glen Fault, a hundred miles north of Ayr, was the same strike-slip thatcuts through the Long Range Mountains from White Bay, Newfoundland—the Cabot Fault. It is what makes the long lake with the island and the pond on that island and the island on that pond that my father told me about. The fault was broken up by the mid-Atlantic ridge formed two hundred million years ago.
George Ricketts was from White Bay. He signed up in the summer of 1915. He was eighteen. He marked an X for his signature.
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