Day after day many of the leading women would come in,
duchesses and others of title, and seek for Canadian lads to whom they
could show kindnesses. Luxurious cars waited to drive us out for the air;
flowers, fruits and books reached us, and quantities of cigarettes.
When the boys of the U.S.A. reach British hospitals in England, as no doubt
they shall, they will find the same enthusiasm, the same attention bestowed
upon them from the first ladies of the land and from the humblest who may
only be able to give a smile, a cheery word or maybe a bunch of fragrant
violets.
Two weeks before I was wounded I was recommended for a commission by my
former colonel, Maynard Rogers, and the official document came to me while
I was in the English hospital suffering from my wounds. It was a great
source of pride and satisfaction that my commission, which I prize so
highly to-day, was signed by the late Sir Charles Tupper, father of the
Canadian Confederation and one of the Dominion's greatest statesmen.
But my fighting days are over. I am "out of it," but out with memories of
good fellowship, real comrades, kindness, sympathy and friendships that dim
the recollection of death, of destruction, of blood, of outrage, of murder
and brutality.
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