The journey was uneventful and slow. The trains circled round London, and the first arrived at Folkestone Quay about 8-45 p.m. The men immediately embarked on S.S. “Invicta,” which the Battalion had all to itself, and were soon at sea. The night was quiet and the crossing calm. Soon after 10-0 p.m. the vessel arrived at Boulogne, and the Battalion had its first sight of the “promised land.” At last it was really on active service, and was to take its place side by side with the men who had made history at Mons, the Marne, Ypres, and a score of other battles. CHAPTER II. FLEURBAIX. The Battalion was in France. On arrival at Boulogne it disembarked at once and marched to St. Martin’s Camp, which was on a hill a mile or two outside the town. This camp had only recently been started and the arrangements were far from ideal. A few tents for the officers, and bivouacs for the men, were the only accommodation. No one had had a proper meal since he left Doncaster, but no food was provided at the camp until the following morning. One blanket per man--sewn up to form a sort of cloak, with a hole in the top for the owner to put his head through if he felt so inclined--was the only covering provided. Tired and hungry the Battalion turned in, but not to sleep. It was a cold and frosty night. After their comfortable billets at Doncaster the men were not in good training for such rigorous conditions, and the memory of that night still lives in the minds of some of the “old-timers” of the Battalion. By a very early hour nearly everyone was out on the road, stamping up and down in an attempt to get warm. Breakfast time was very welcome. After breakfast, rations for the day were drawn and iron rations issued, and then the Battalion started on one of the hardest marches it ever had to make. A late change in the orders had caused a delay of more than two hours so that, when the men at length moved off, the march was much more strenuous than it would otherwise have been. It was a very hot day, with a blazing sun. Most of the men were tired before they started. They had had a long railway journey and a sea crossing the previous day, and few had been able to get any sleep during the night. Clad in their thick winter underclothing, and with packs much heavier than they had been used to in training, they were none too suitably equipped for a long tramp. But, worst of all, were the new boots with which everyone had been supplied before leaving Doncaster; these had not yet become fitted to the feet, and before long many men were suffering severely. Men who had never fallen out on a march before were compelled to do so then, and there were soon many stragglers on the road, gamely trying to struggle along. It was a very jaded battalion which at length arrived at the little wayside station of Hesdigneul.