all the casinos in France, had been
converted into a hospital.

After two days of killing time, our orders came through to leave for
the front, two of us to go by motor and the rest by train. Our
experience with the British officer at the base had certainly been
pleasant and proved to be a happy augury of our future relationships
with them. The British officer in France is quite a different man from
the same officer in England, and does not impress you with the fact
that the war is being carried on by his individual efforts.

At the base we learned for the first time that we had been a great
source of anxiety to some of the officials of the British army three
weeks before, when the war office had announced our departure from
England. When we had failed to report our arrival at Havre the
authorities had assumed that we, being Canadians and more or less
independent, had gone off on a little trip of our own into the
interior of France. In their efforts to locate us they had telegraphed
far and wide; consequently when we did arrive everybody knew of us as
"The Lost Canadian Laboratory" and seemed to be quite pleased that we
had been found. When anything goes astray in the army it causes a
tremendous amount of consternation and trouble until it is located;
the easiest thing to lose is a soldier in hospital but as he can talk
this matter usually rights itself sooner or later.

The morning on which we set out on our first day's "march" to the
front was misty and raw, and motoring was very cold. Even this early
in the season--mid March, 1915--the fields were being ploughed, but
the ploughing and harrowing was being done by women, old men and
boys. Hardly one able-bodied man was to be seen, the contrast with
England in this respect at that time being very marked. A crowd of
schoolboys pleading for souvenirs were made to earn them and amuse us
by running races while we had a tire replaced.

The banks on the roadside were yellow with the first primroses, and
patches of golden daffodils could be seen in the woods, though spring
seemed to be far enough away that chilly day. It was characteristic of
one's experience in France that, as we sat down to dinner that evening
in an Abbeville hotel I had beside me an officer in the British army
who had been in Canada for a number of years and who had, during that
time, been a frequent caller at my home in Toronto. The spontaneous
manner in which the two of us rose and rushed at each othe