In a few hours we were steaming down the St. Lawrence, and the next day we
slipped into Gaspé Bay on the eastern coast of Canada, where we joined the
other transports. Here thirty-two ships with as many thousand men aboard
them were gathered together, all impatiently waiting the order to dash
across the Atlantic.

We did not have to wait very long. On Sunday, October the fourth, at three
o'clock in the afternoon, we steamed slowly out of the harbor in three long
lines. Each ship was about a quarter of a mile from her companion ahead or
behind, and guarded on each side by cruisers. I have memorized the names of
the transports, and at this time it is interesting to know that very few of
them have been sunk by the German submarines.

The protecting cruisers were: _H.M.S. Eclipse_, _Diana_, _Charybdis_,
_Glory_, _Talbot_ and _Lancaster_. The transports were in Line Number One:
_S.S. Manatic_, _Ruthenian_, _Bermudian_, _Alaunia_, _Irvenia_,
_Scandinavian_, _Sicilia_, _Montzuma_, _Lapland_, _Casandia_;

Line Number Two: _Carribean_, _Athenia_, _Royal Edward_, _Franconia_,
_Canada_, _Monmouth_, _Manitou_, _Tyrolia_, _Tunissian_, _Laurentic_,
_Milwaukee_; Line Number Three: _The Scotian_, _Arcadian_, _Zeeland_,
_Corinthian_, _Virginian_, _Andania_, _Saxonia_, _Grampian_, _Laconia_,
_Montreal_, _The Royal George_.

All the way across the Atlantic we were in sight of each other and of the
cruisers. Personally, the scene thrilled me through and through. Here was
the demonstrated fact that we, an unmilitary people, with a small
population to draw on, had made a world record in sending the greatest
armada that had ever sailed from one port to another in the history of man.