The First Canadians in France

"It's difficult to believe what one cannot prove," he returned evasively.

"But," I ventured argumentatively, "I can imagine that if the total matter in the universe is indestructible and cannot be added to or taken from, the soul too is indestructible – it may be changed, but cannot be destroyed."

"Ah!" he exclaimed quickly, "you are assuming the reality of the abstract. Suppose I do not agree with your hypothesis, and deny the existence of the soul! You cannot prove me wrong. Sometimes I fear," he continued more softly, "the soul, or what we conceive to be the soul, is merely the reflection of poor Humanity beating its anxious wings against the horror of extinction."

"Or the shadow of a poor physician scuttling away from the terrors of your philosophy," I laughed. "You iconoclasts would pull our castles-in-the-air about our ears and leave us standing in the ruins."

"I'll build another castle for you," he returned with a queer, sad smile, as though he sympathised with my dilemma.

"But not to-night," I urged, as I arose to go; "you must wait until you are stronger; you have been talking too much already for one so ill, and I must say good night."

It was several days later, and the youthful philosopher was making good progress on the road to recovery, when another young officer, very similar in appearance to our patient, drove up to the door of the hospital in a motor car. He was attended by two senior officers of distinguished appearance and very military bearing, and who showed considerable deference towards their young companion.

Apparently they had come from the front and, as the colonel showed them about the various wards, took the keenest interest in the patients. At last they came to the young Welshman's room. As they entered he turned to look at them, and, dropping his arms, suddenly lay at "attention" in bed.

"Llewellyn, by Jove!" exclaimed the youngest of the trio, as he stepped forward and shook our patient warmly by the hand. "I had no idea you were here. How are you?"

"Much better, thank you, your Royal Highness," said Llewellyn, with his ready smile, "and greatly honoured by your visit, sir."

"I hope it is nothing serious," said the Prince of Wales kindly – for it was he – "you are looking quite bright!"

"It isn't very serious, I believe, sir – a touch of pleurisy, that's all. But the doctors insist on sending me home on account of it. That is my chief grievance."

The young Prince smiled understandingly. It was not so long since he too had unwillingly been detained at home by illness. His blue eyes lit up with a quick sympathy as he remarked:

"I hadn't expected to find an old class-mate here; I hope you will soon be quite well again and able to return to France."

"I shall do my best to get well soon," Llewellyn answered thoughtfully; "but the doctors seem to consider my constitution too delicate for trench life, sir. I have the consolation, though, of knowing that our college is well represented at the front, for of the seventy-five students at Magdalen only five are home, and three of those were physically unfit."

"Isn't that a splendid record!" cried the Prince with enthusiasm. "It makes one feel proud of one's college."

They chatted on various topics for a few moments longer, and then as his Royal Highness turned to go he exclaimed:

"This is a wonderful hospital; a great credit to Canada! I must write father and tell him about it. I consider it one of the finest in France. I am sure you will do well here. Good-bye, dear chap, and the best of good luck to you!"

The kindly and earnest good wishes of his Royal young friend touched Llewellyn deeply, and there was a suspicious trace of moisture in his eyes as he returned:

"Good-bye, sir, and many, many thanks for your kindness in coming to see me."

CHAPTER XVII

The senior major bought a motor car. It was his supreme extravagance. If there were others who frittered away their substance in riotous living, at least the major could not be accused of such frivolity. He had none of the petty vices which eat like a wicked moth into the fabric of one's income. Any vice that got at his income bit it off in large chunks and bolted it before you could say "Jack Robinson." The motor car was the greatest of these. There may be some who do not consider a motor car a vice. The only answer I can give them is that they never saw the major's car. When he first unearthed its skeletal remains in the hospital garage, it bore a remote resemblance to a vehicle. It had part of an engine, four tireless wheels, and places which were meant for seats. A vision of its possibilities immediately arose before his mind's eye, and he could see it, rehabilitated and carefully fed, growing into a "thing of beauty and a joy forever."

Some of the officers argued it was German, because no such thing could have been made by human beings. Others maintained it had been left on the hospital grounds centuries before and the garage had grown up around it. The maker, out of modesty, had omitted to inscribe his name, but it had a number whose hieroglyphics antedated "Bill Stump's Mark." The original owner sacrificed it, from a spirit of patriotism, no doubt, for the paltry sum of three hundred dollars, and in the course of time, with the trifling expenditure of three hundred and fifty more, two mechanics succeeded in getting it started.

That was a memorable day when, with a noise like an asthmatic steam-roller, it came ambling out of the hospital yard, peered around the corner of the fence, and struck off down the road at a clip of three good English miles an hour.

We rushed to the door to see it, and when the smoke of the exhaust cleared a little, there sat the major ensconced in the front seat. There was a beatific smile about his mouth and a gleam of pride in his eye – the pride of possession. He wasn't quite sure what it was he possessed, but it was something which moved, something instinct with life.

"Sounds a bit noisy yet," he murmured confidentially to himself, "but it will loosen up when it gets running a while."

What prophetic sagacity there was in this remark! It did loosen up, and to such good purpose that several parts fell off upon the road. Little by little it got going, and in less than a month you might have heard it almost any bright afternoon, groaning in the garage preparatory to sallying forth upon its quest.

But about this time another event of such importance occurred that the major's car was thrust into the background. We had in our hospital a venerable old sergeant of peripatetic propensities, who had two claims to recognition: first, that he was, and is, the oldest soldier in the Canadian force in France; and secondly – but this was never proved – that he could "lick," according to his own testimony, any man within fifteen years of his age in that part of the world.

Sergeant Plantsfield, our postman and general messenger, travelled into Boulogne and back from once to thrice daily – in other words, inside the year he accomplished a motor trip of sufficient length to encompass the earth. His stock of rumours was inexhaustible, for he developed and launched upon an unappreciative world at least one new tale daily.

Now if there is one thing a soldier loves more than another it's a "rumour"; and the more glaringly absurd, the more readily he will listen to it. So when the worthy old sergeant burst into the hospital with excited eyes, flushed cheeks and cap all awry after his latest trip from Boulogne, the boys crowded round to hear the news.

"They're here! By gosh! They're here at last!" he shouted, as he deposited his overflowing mail bag in the hall and looked triumphantly from one to another of his listeners.

"Who's here," demanded Barker, "the Germans?"

"Germans be blowed!" declared the sergeant with scornful emphasis. "They won't never be here!"

"Put a little pep in it, dad!" said Huxford. "Wot is it?"

The sergeant waited a full minute to give impress to his announcement, and then in a tense whisper ejaculated: "The rest of the Canadians are in France – the whole division's at the front!"

There was a dead silence for a moment, and then a wild cheer went up that shook the hall until the windows rattled.

"Ye ain't stuffin' us again?" Wilson queried anxiously, when the noise had died away. "Ye done it so often afore."

Plantsfield looked at him with withering contempt. That his word – the word of the chief "rumourist" of the unit – should be doubted was almost too much for human endurance.

"I'll stuff you, ye young cub, if ye dare to doubt a man old enough to be yer grandfather," he returned scathingly; and then turning to the others he continued: "I seen the Mechanical Transport near Boulogne and was talkin' to them."

"Oh, I'll bet you wos talkin', all right," Wilson came back vindictively, "if ye got within fifty yards uv 'em."

Plantsfield's garrulity was proverbial. He had been known to buttonhole generals and draw them to one side to whisper a choice bit of scandal in their unwilling ears – his age excusing him from reprimand.

He looked wrathfully at Wilson, but that wily youth kept his rosy cheeks carefully out of arm-shot. Turning back to his more respectful auditors, and for the nonce ignoring the disrespectful one, he pursued:

"The Supply Column on their way to the front saw a German aeroplane over them, forgot discipline in their excitement, jumped down off their waggons and blazed away at it with their rifles."

"Without orders, I'll bet?" exclaimed Jogman, slapping his knee.

"Of course," grinned Plantsfield.

Honk had been standing with his mouth open, listening intently and taking in every word orally. He opened it a shade wider as Jogman finished speaking, and was about to make an observation, when Huxford, who was somewhat of a mimic, took the words out of his mouth:

"Just like them blawsted Canydians – 'avin' their poke at th' bleedin' Hun. W'y cawn't they wyte fer h'orders like h'everybody h'else – wyte until 'e gits aw'y?"

Honk's indignant protest was drowned in the general clamour which followed this sally, but his eyes – individually – said wonders.

At the outset discipline was a sore point with the Canadians. Like the peoples of all free-born countries, it took a long time to suppress the desire for individual initiative and an innate independence resented authority. But as the war progressed, Tommy and his seniors came to realise the absolute necessity for discipline, and bowed with what grace they might before its yoke. Perhaps what reconciled them most was the acquired knowledge that it pervaded all ranks from the generals down. They soon saw that the chain of responsibility must have no missing link.

In the early days of the war, however, on Salisbury Plains in the rain and mud, discipline was almost an impossibility, and officers seeking to inculcate this quality in their men had many strange experiences.