matic creaking as it brought
up the stream of water was music in my ears. We went out in turns and
drank like thirsty cattle. I drank until my jaws were stiff as if
with mumps, and my ears ached, and in a few minutes my legs were tied
in cramps.

While I was vainly trying to rub them out with my one good hand, Fred
McKelvey came up and told me a sure cure for leg-cramp. It is to turn
the toes up as far as possible, and straighten out the legs, and it
worked a cure for me. He said he had taken the cramps out of his legs
this way when he was in the water.

I remember some of the British Columbia boys who were there.
Sergeants Potentier, George Fitz, and Mudge, of Grand Forks; Reid,
Diplock, and Johnson, of Vancouver; Munroe and Wildblood, of
Rossland; Keith, Palmer, Larkins, Scott, and Croak. Captain
Scudamore, my Company Captain, came over to where I sat, and kindly
inquired about my wounds. He wrote down my father's address, too,
and said he would try to get a letter to him.

There was a house next door--quite a fine house with a neat paling
and long, shuttered windows, at which the vines were beginning to
grow. It looked to be in good condition, except that part of the
verandah had been torn away. The shutters were closed on its long,
graceful windows, giving it the appearance of a tall, stately woman
in heavy mourning.

When we were at the pump, we heard a gentle tapping, and, looking up,
we saw a very handsome dark-eyed Belgian woman at one of the windows.
Instinctively we saluted, and quick as a flash she held a Union Jack
against the pane!

A cheer broke from us involuntarily, and the guards sprang to
attention, suspecting trouble. But the flag was gone as quickly as
it came, and when we looked again, the shutters were closed and the
deep, waiting silence had settled down once more on the stately house
of shutters.

But to us it had become suddenly possessed of a living soul! The
flash of those sad black eyes, as well as the glimpse of the flag,
seemed to call to us to carry on! They typified to us exactly what
we were fighting for!

After the little incident of the flag, it was wonderful how bright
and happy we felt. Of course, I know, the ministrations of the pump
helped, for we not only drank all we wanted, but most of the boys had
a wash, too; but we just needed to be reminded once in awhile of what
the real issues of the war were.

Later in the day, after we had been examined by another medical man