. They said I had drunk up all the men's rum
issue. A General wrote to me later on to say he had been terribly
shocked to hear I was wounded, but that it was nothing in comparison
with the shock he felt when he heard that I had taken to drinking rum.
Everyone in the dressing station was as usual most kind. The (p. 317)
bitter thought to me was that I was going to be separated from the old
1st Division. The nightmare that had haunted me for so long had at
last come true, and I was going to leave the men before the war was
over. For four years they had been my beloved companions and my
constant care. I had been led by the example of their noble courage
and their unhesitating performance of the most arduous duties, in the
face of danger and death, to a grander conception of manhood, and a
longing to follow them, if God would give me grace to do so, in their
path of utter self-sacrifice. I had been with them continuously in
their joys and sorrows, and it did not seem to be possible that I
could now go and desert them in that bitter fight. When the doctors
had finished binding up my wounds, I was carried off immediately to an
ambulance in the road, and placed in it with four others, one of whom
was dying. It was a long journey of four hours and a half to No. 1
C.C.S. at Agnez-les-Duisans, and we had to stop at Queant on the way.
Our journey lay through the area over which we had just made the great
advance. Strange thoughts and memories ran through my mind. Faces of
men that had gone and incidents that I had forgotten came back to me
with great vividness. Should I ever again see the splendid battalions
and the glad and eager lives pressing on continuously to Victory?
Partly from shell holes, and partly from the wear of heavy traffic,
the road was very bumpy. The man above me was in terrible agony, and
every fresh jolt made him groan. The light of the autumn afternoon was
wearing away rapidly. Through the open door at the end of the
ambulance, as we sped onward, I could see the brown colourless stretch
of country fade in the twilight, and then vanish into complete
darkness, and I knew that the great adventure of my life among the
most glorious men that the world has ever produced was over.

CHAPTER XXXV. (p. 318)

VICTORY.

_November 11th, 1918._

They took me to the X-ray room and then to the operating-tent that
night, and sent me off on the following aft