Next morning with our equipment, men and car, we set out for
Southampton, amid the envious farewells of our brother officers, whose
call had not yet come. Everything was loaded on board the transport
at noon, and late in the afternoon we left for Havre, accompanied by
two torpedo boat destroyers.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL M.S. MERCER, C.B.
Former Officer Commanding Third Canadian Division.
Killed in action, June, 1916.]
After some delay at the Havre docks for petrol, we got away and
reported our arrival at one of the rest camps on the outskirts of the
city. Our elation at having finally arrived in France was marred only
by the news that we would probably be detained at the base for two or
three days. Having been informed that the Hotel Tortoni was the
liveliest place in town to stay, and not to go there on any account,
we went and concluded that we had been the victims of a practical
joke, for we had not seen anything so dull in all our lives; it was as
dull and as good as a hotel at Chautauqua. There was more "life" to be
seen in an English hotel in a minute than one could see in the Hotel
Tortoni in a month.
As there were no theatres or concerts to go to and nothing else to do,
we went to bed in the chilliest bedrooms that I had ever been in up to
that time. I soon learned that French hotel bedrooms in winter have
the same cold, clammy feeling as the interior of refrigerator cars in
summer.
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