Saturday, Dec 15th, 1917
Reveille 6. Sea rough and boat rocking a bit. Still anchored out. Mounted guard 3:30. Third relief went on 8 till 10 and 2 on, 4 off. Tuckered out. Sick in night. Sick with motion of the boat.
The Kashmir remained moored out in the harbour at Marseilles. Frank still hasn’t found his sea legs.
It is unclear what Frank was guarding, but guard duty was a routine activity for soldiers. A soldier would ‘mount guard’ for a period of 24 hours. He would be on guard for two hours and then off for four. Each shift would be under the command of a corporal.
Changing the guard was and still is a formal process. The corporals responsible for the current and next guards would march the relief guard to the various stations around the ship, picking up the old guards and depositing their replacements. Just like changing the guard at Buckingham Palace but without the bearskin helmets, the bright red vests or a poem by AA Milne. Here is some lovely footage of changing the guards outside Windsor Castle, England during the Great War²:
It was the responsibility of the guard being relieved to brief the new guard on any issues regarding the post or location. A guard could be court marshalled for falling asleep at his post or for other derelictions of duty. The maximum penalty was death. ‘A soldier’s life is terrible hard,’ Says Alice¹
Frank was the third relief, which means that for the initial four hours of his shift he would be waiting to go on guard for the first time. His shift will finish at 4:00 on Sunday.
References & further reading
¹ From the poem ‘Buckingham Palace’ by AA Milne
² Changing Guards at Windsor Castle (1914-1918), copyright British Pathé
Camp Devens – Relieving the Guard, WW1 Cantonment, 1918 in GG Archives