After all this rearrangement had been made, it was only a few days till
the rumor flew about that the battalions might leave for France at any time
now. It seemed to us poor devils of the old Ninth that everything was going
wrong. The unit lying next to us, the Seventeenth Battalion, was
quarantined with that terrible disease, cerebro-spinal-meningitis. For a
few days we buried our lads by the dozen. Speaking for myself, my nerves
were absolutely unstrung, and I am sure that most of the men were in the
same condition. It can be easily understood then that when drafts were
asked for, to bring up the regiments leaving for France to full strength,
there was a mad scramble to get away.
Without even passing the surgeon, I finally drifted into the Third
Battalion, ordinarily known as the "Dirty Third." This battalion was made
up of the Queen's Own, the Bodyguards and Grenadier Regiments of Toronto.
I landed in on a Sunday afternoon about three o'clock and was immediately
told by the quartermaster that we were leaving for France in a few hours.
He told me that I needed a complete change of equipment.
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