Most of the company had not even been in the service long enough to master the manual of arms, and part of the day was used in instilling the rudiments of this essential into them. Time was still left for a short ramble about Folkestone, however; and the promenade, town, pubs, Tommies and Waacs were all investigated enthusiastically and as thoroughly as time and opportunity permitted. The next morning the battalion was formed at 6 A. M. and marched along cobbled streets to the pier, where we were sardined into a fast channel steamer, and donned those confounded lifebelts again for a short farewell wearing. Then, with an American destroyer racing along on either side, we slipped swiftly down under the Dover Cliffs, then swerving out and across the channel to Calais. A dock, a Red Cross train on the other side of it, a fisherman in a little boat alongside us--France at last. CHAPTER IV THE ENGLISH SECTOR The company filed off the boat, and crossing the dock stumbled into formation down the railroad track by the hospital train, and was introduced to a bit of backwash from the drive. Some English wounded were being carried from the train to the boat by German prisoners. We looked curiously at the latter. These were the Huns we were taught to hate, whom we were to kill. They were husky, blonde chaps, in faded greenish gray uniforms, with their little flat caps. They paid scant attention to us, but carried the English very carefully and gently. Maybe the Tommy who walked near by with fixed bayonet had something to do with it. At any rate, I didn’t feel any very lusty rage or horror at them, and though one or two of our men cursed at them under their breath, it didn’t seem at all convincing, but rather forced. Most of the wounded men whose faces I saw glared at us with the usual British “What the devil do you mean by looking at me, sir?” so I suppose they were officers. I don’t blame them for not liking to be stared at. One or two fellows couldn’t help groaning when their stretchers were lifted. But “C” Co. is moving off, and we swing into column of squads and hike off behind them, our great heavy packs, religiously packed with all the items prescribed for us and much besides, getting heavier and heavier. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Calais was quiet; the cobbled streets apparently peopled only by a few little gamins of both sexes who greeted us with the cries that accompanied us through France--“Souvenir,” “Bis-keet,” “Chocolat.” We passed through the outskirts of the town and into a dusty, sandy road between green dikes or ramparts dotted with anti-aircraft guns. Then we passed by a group of weather-worn barracks, dusty and dreary, labeled--doubtless by some wag, we thought--“Rest Camp,” surrounded by wire fences.