g the hottest phase of the second
battle of Ypres. My headquarters were in a trench on the top of the bank
of the Ypres Canal, and John had his dressing station in a hole dug in
the foot of the bank. During periods in the battle men who were shot
actually rolled down the bank into his dressing station. Along from us
a few hundred yards was the headquarters of a regiment, and many times
during the sixteen days of battle, he and I watched them burying their
dead whenever there was a lull. Thus the crosses, row on row, grew
into a good-sized cemetery. Just as he describes, we often heard in the
mornings the larks singing high in the air, between the crash of the
shell and the reports of the guns in the battery just beside us. I have
a letter from him in which he mentions having written the poem to pass
away the time between the arrival of batches of wounded, and partly as
an experiment with several varieties of poetic metre. I have a sketch of
the scene, taken at the time, including his dressing station; and during
our operations at Passchendaele last November, I found time to make a
sketch of the scene of the crosses, row on row, from which he derived
his inspiration."

The last letter from the Front is dated June 1st, 1915. Upon that day he
was posted to No. 3 General Hospital at Boulogne, and placed in charge
of medicine with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel as of date 17th April,
1915. Here he remained until the day of his death on January 28th, 1918.

III. The Brand of War

There are men who pass through such scenes unmoved. If they have
eyes, they do not see; and ears, they do not hear. But John McCrae was
profoundly moved, and bore in his body until the end the signs of his
experience. Before taking up his new duties he made a visit to the
hospitals in Paris to see if there was any new thing that might be
learned. A Nursing Sister in the American Ambulance at Neuilly-sur-Seine
met him in the wards. Although she had known him for fifteen years she
did not recognize him,--he appeared to her so old, so worn, his face
lined and ashen grey in colour, his expression dull, his action slow and
heavy.

To those who have never seen John McCrae since he left Canada this
change in his appearance will seem incredible. He was of the Eckfords,
and the Eckford men were "bonnie men", men with rosy cheeks. It was
a year before I met him again, and he had not yet recovered from the
strain. Although he was upwards of forty ye