My friends were very good to me, and several Americans entertained me a good deal.  I had a permanent walking-out pass good from nine in the morning until nine at night.  I saw almost every show in the city, and heard a special performance of the Messiah at Westminster Abbey.  Also I enjoyed a good deal of restaurant life.

London is good to the wounded men.  There is entertainment for all of them.  A good many of these slightly wounded complain because they cannot get anything to drink, but undoubtedly it is the best thing for them.  It is against the law to serve men in the blue uniform of the wounded.  Men in khaki can buy all the liquor they want, the public houses being open from noon to two-thirty and from six P.M. to nine-thirty.  Treating is not allowed.  Altogether it works out very well and there is little drunkenness among the soldiers.

I eventually brought up in a Convalescent Hospital in Brentford, Middlesex, and was there for three weeks.  At the end of that time I was placed in category C 3.

The system of marking the men in England is by categories, A, B, and C. A 1, 2, and 3 are for active service.  A 4 is for the under-aged.  B categories are for base service, and C is for home service.  C 3 was for clerical duty, and as I was not likely to become efficient again as a soldier, it looked like some kind of bookkeeping for me for the duration of the war.

Unless one is all shot to pieces, literally with something gone, it is hard to get a discharge from the British army.  Back in the early days of 1915, a leg off was about the only thing that would produce a discharge.

When I was put at clerical duty, I immediately began to furnish trouble for the British army, not intentionally, of course, but quite effectively.  The first thing I did was to drop a typewriter and smash it.  My hands had spells when they absolutely refused to work.  Usually it was when I had something breakable in them.  After I had done about two hundred dollars’ damage indoors they tried me out as bayonet instructor.  I immediately dropped a rifle on a concrete walk and smashed it.  They wanted me to pay for it, but the M.O. called attention to the fact that I shouldn’t have been put at the work under my category.

 [Illustration:  CORPORAL HOLMES WITH COMPANY OFFICE FORCE, AT
 WINCHESTER, ENGLAND, A WEEK PRIOR TO DISCHARGE.]

They then put me back at bookkeeping at Command Headquarters, Salisbury, but I couldn’t figure English money and had a bad habit of fainting and falling off the high stool.  To cap the climax, I finally fell one day and knocked down the stovepipe, and nearly set the office afire.  The M.O. then ordered me back to the depot at Winchester and recommended me for discharge.  I guess he thought it would be the cheapest in the long run.

The adjutant at Winchester didn’t seem any too pleased to see me.  He said I looked as healthy as a wolf, which I did, and that they would never let me out of the army.  He seemed to think that my quite normal appearance would be looked upon as a personal insult by the medical board.  I said that I was sorry I didn’t have a leg or two gone, but it couldn’t be helped.