d fifty feet. The man below on the rope
broke his leg and on top of him I fell. Although my drop was twenty or
thirty feet longer than his, on account of the space between us being
that much greater, I was none the worse except for a bad shaking-up.
Like all the men in Canada's First Division, my pal was in excellent
physical shape, and it was not long before his leg mended and he was
himself again. Nothing of further moment happened until we heard the
welcome call of land!

The different batteries were ordered to remove their guns, limbers and
horses from the boat, and I had charge of one party unloading guns and
limbers. A derrick and cable was used to lift our pets from the vessel's
hold, swing them up across the side of the boat and over on to the dock.
In my duty I was stationed on the dock, catching hold of the guns and
wagons as they were swung out and over by the derrick, and pulling them
across on to the dock. While pulling over a gun, the cable skidded and
the gun, coming on top of me, caught me partly under it, knocking me
unconscious. Luckily the weight of the gun did not fall on me in its
entirety; if it had, I would not be telling this story; it caught me on
the hip, dislocating the hip bone. I was removed to the ship's hospital
and was under the doctor's care till morning, and from there I went to a
hospital in Plymouth City for six weeks. From there I was removed to the
field general hospital in Salisbury Plain, where I tarried an
additional ten days. While here I had a two-fold adventure.

The hospital was in a tent where I reclined with forty other patients,
and directly opposite our tent was another in which were confined under
guard a number of patients who were subject to fits, some of a very
serious nature. Lying in bed, my leg encased in its plaster-of-paris
cast, about ten o'clock one night, when just dozing off, I was
frightened into wakefulness by a scream. A man, who turned out to be an
escaped epileptic, was standing in the doorway screaming, his eyes
bulging out of his head. He had escaped by striking the sentry over the
head with the fire brazier, used to keep the sentry warm. Staring wildly
about the room for a couple of seconds, he made a leap for the nearest
man and bit him in the arm; he then jumped at the next patient, biting
him; I was the following recipient of his devotions, getting a bite on
the wrist. Utterly unable to help or defend myself, as I was bound down
in my plaster-of-p