At this hospital I was operated on and it was shown that it was an explosive bullet that hit me.  Several pieces were taken out of me, and these I keep as grim souvenirs.  Several other pieces are still in my body, and not infrequently by certain twinges I am made aware of their presence.

I have never seen an explosive bullet, and few of the Allied soldiers believe that many of us have felt them.  Should one of the Allies be found making an explosive or Dum-Dum bullet, he is liable to be court-martialed and shot.  There are those of us who would like to use them, but it is not what we like, it is what we may or may not do.  It is discipline, and discipline forbids a brutal warfare.  Thank God that we are fighting this war on the square, that our leaders are making us fight it on the square.  Thank God that no attempt has ever been made to brutalize the troops of the Allies.

Part of the four months I was incapacitated was spent at Dobson Volunteer Red Cross Hospital, and here I was again struck with the marvelous devotion of the women.  Day after day many of the leading women would come in, duchesses and others of title, and seek for Canadian lads to whom they could show kindnesses.  Luxurious cars waited to drive us out for the air; flowers, fruits and books reached us, and quantities of cigarettes.

When the boys of the U.S.A. reach British hospitals in England, as no doubt they shall, they will find the same enthusiasm, the same attention bestowed upon them from the first ladies of the land and from the humblest who may only be able to give a smile, a cheery word or maybe a bunch of fragrant violets.

Two weeks before I was wounded I was recommended for a commission by my former colonel, Maynard Rogers, and the official document came to me while I was in the English hospital suffering from my wounds.  It was a great source of pride and satisfaction that my commission, which I prize so highly to-day, was signed by the late Sir Charles Tupper, father of the Canadian Confederation and one of the Dominion’s greatest statesmen.

But my fighting days are over.  I am “out of it,” but out with memories of good fellowship, real comrades, kindness, sympathy and friendships that dim the recollection of death, of destruction, of blood, of outrage, of murder and brutality.

CHAPTER XVI

GERMAN TERMINOLOGICAL INEXACTITUDES

Some years ago a British statesman, then great, put on record a phrase which at once is polite and convincing.  He wished to convey that a certain statement was a d——­ lie, but as he himself had made the statement he was in somewhat of an awkward situation.  He got out of the difficulty by calling it a “terminological inexactitude.”