nce or twice in the Great War, have I longed to be a
combatant officer with enemy scalps to my credit. Our men had been
absolutely guiltless of war ambitions. It was not their fault that
they were over here. That the Kaiser's insatiable, mad lust for power
should be able to launch destruction upon Canadian hearts and homes
was intolerable. I looked down the Ypres road, and there, to my
horror, saw the lovely City lit up with flames. The smoke rolled up
into the moonlit sky, and behind the dull glow of the fires I saw the
Cloth Hall tower stand out in bold defiance. There was nothing for us
to do then and for nearly four years more but keep our heads cool, set
our teeth and deepen our resolve.

The dressing station had received more stretcher cases, and still more
were coming in. The Medical Officer and his staff were working most
heroically. I told him I had given instructions about cabling home
should I be taken prisoner, and then I suddenly remembered that I had
a scathing poem on the Kaiser in my pocket. I had written it in the
quiet beauties of Beaupre, below Quebec, when the war first began.
When I wrote it, I was told that if I were ever taken prisoner in
Germany with that poem in my pocket, I should be shot or hanged. At
that time, the German front line seemed so far off that it was like
saying, "If you get to the moon the man there will eat you up." But
the changes and chances of war had suddenly brought me face to face
with the fact that I had resolved to be taken prisoner, and from what
I heard and saw the event was not unlikely. So I said to the M.O. "I
have just remembered that I have got in my pocket a printed copy (p. 065)
of a very terrible poem which I wrote about the Kaiser. Of course you
know I don't mind being shot or hanged by the Germans, but, if I am,
who will write the poems of the War?" The M.O. laughed and thinking it
unwise on general principles to wave a red rag in front of a mad bull,
advised me to tear up my verses. I did so with great reluctance, but
the precaution was unnecessary as the Germans never got through after
all.

All along those terrible fields of death the battle raged. Young
Canadians, new to war, but old in the inheritance of the blood of
British freedom, were holding the line. The dressing station was soon
full again, and, later on, a despatch rider came from the 3rd Infantry
Brigade Headquarters in Shell-Trap Farm to tell us that more help was
needed there. One of the M