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the sweetest girl I know!
    Goodbye Picadilly,
    Farewell, Leicester Square,
    It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
    But my heart's right there!"
     
    Paddy wrote a letter to his Irish Molly O',
    Saying, "Should you not receive it, write and let me know!
    "If I make mistakes in "spelling," Molly dear," said he,
    "Remember it's the pen that's bad, don't lay the blame on me"
     
    "It's a long way to Tipperary,
    It's a long way to go;
    It's a long way to Tipperary,
    To the sweetest girl I know!
    Goodbye Picadilly,
    Farewell, Leicester Square,
    It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
    But my heart's right there!"
     
    Molly wrote a neat reply to Irish Paddy O',
    Saying, "Mike Maloney wants to marry me, and so
    Leave the Strand and Piccadilly, or you'll be to blame,
    For love has fairly drove me silly--hoping you're the same!"
     
    "It's a long way to Tipperary,
    It's a long way to go;
    It's a long way to Tipperary,
    To the sweetest girl I know!
    Goodbye Picadilly,
    Farewell, Leicester Square,
    It's a long, long way to Tipperary,
    But my heart's right there!"
     
    “That’s a nice one, lads.”
    Robbie McGlashan shouted from two carriages up, “Let’s have that again.  I like that one.”
    The journey seemed much shorter as they sang their way south.  When we stopped at Crewe to change engines, Sergeant Armstrong came down the platform with a bottle of beer for each of us. “Compliments of the major.” He winked at me.  “He reckons you lads are doing a good job keeping them quiet.”
    “What is it like in the carriages?”
    “The usual.  They are all playing cards and most of them are losing. They’re mugs. We can hear you singing sometimes when we stop at the points.  Your lads are good singers.”
    “It calms the horses and they enjoy it.”
    We chose the quieter, country sections of track to clean out the horses.  I imagine the farmers were happy to have their fields fertilised but we were happier to have rid ourselves of the smell. It was getting towards dark when we reached the siding close to our new camp.  We were not far from the sea; we could smell it.  The horses were led down the ramps and each section collected their own.  We were the last off the train.  I hoped that wouldn’t mean we had the worst tents.
    I knew that the Quartermaster Sergeant didn’t particularly like me.  It had been ever since John and Tom had spoiled our Christmas.  It seems they had got into a fight in Burscough village and the sergeant’s brother had received a black eye. He didn’t deliberately go out of his way to make life hard but if he had a choice then we would always get second best.
    Luckily for us Major Harrison had made sure that our tents were on a dry part of the camp. Sergeant Armstrong and the major got on better than the major and some of the officers. In this instance we were looked after.
    I had never spent much time under canvas and it was an interesting experience.  I knew that this would be the future.  There would be no comfortable billets or barracks.  The camp bed was no hardship but I wondered how it would stand up to the rigours of campaigning. We had no idea how long we would have to put up with these conditions.  Perhaps peace would break out and this tension would not lead to war. The griffin suggested that this was serious and we wouldn’t be going home any time soon.
    The next day we received even more equipment.  We all had a gas mask or as it soon became known, the ’google eyed booger with the tit ’. They had a strange rubbery smell and I wondered if we would ever have to use them.  When they brought the ones for the horses my heart sank. Even Caesar, a placid and docile horse, baulked when we had to put them on.
    “Sarge, if we have to put these on in a hurry then how do we do it?”
    I think old Sergeant Armstrong felt the same as we did but he had been obeying orders for years and he shrugged, “The same way as we do anything, practice and more practice.”
    In the end we did