Corporal Pare, a red-headed Irish boy, was for a long time my sanitary corporal in the lines and out. He had been serving in the lines for sixteen months at the time of which I write, and was tired of it. He frankly said he was afraid to do certain things, but when ordered to do them, he carried them out cheerfully and smilingly. At the Somme he won great praise as a runner for carrying messages through heavy barrages, always appearing terrified at the prospect, but always getting through. Many a time inspecting the trenches with me he would say, respectfully: "Those pineapples are dropping in just ahead of us, sir. Hadn't we better turn back?" Perhaps to tease him, I would go on, telling him to "come along." "Very good, sir," he would say with a cheerful smile on his red face, and he would trudge along like a faithful dog. He was "homely" in looks, red-headed, not clever, and said he was afraid, but no more faithful or more dependable soldier ever went to the front than Corporal Pare. Sergeant Gascrain was a small, shriveled, sharp-tongued, five-foot-high, French Canadian who assisted me for some time. He was cynical as to the illnesses of the men, and treated them usually like so many cattle, believing them all to be malingerers, till one day I reminded him that a man may often malinger, but that did not prevent him from occasionally getting sick. He apparently did not believe it, though he often cursed the rheumatism that afflicted his own joints. He said they all had "frigidity of the feet, with a big F." He was at times addicted to alcohol and every few months he lost his stripes because of intoxication. Then he would labor incessantly till, by his good work, he won them back again. And when he did regain them he was as proud as if he had won his marshal's baton, until the next occasion when the great god Bacchus put him back to the ranks with one fell swoop. With all his faults he had an absolute disregard of danger. I sincerely believe that he thought that if a shell should strike him--well, so much the worse for the shell. At the Somme his cool, courageous work under heavy shell fire won for him, at the recommendation of a British colonel who had observed it, the military medal. But one deed he performed which I think deserved more praise than any other. While working on the field a Lieutenant Colonel was brought to him on a stretcher. The Lieutenant Colonel's wound was so slight as to cause a sneer to hover about the sergeant's lips as he dressed it. A stretcher squad carried the colonel to the rear, and another squad, under the sergeant's direction, carried a badly-wounded Tommy. An ambulance came for them. The sergeant had the soldier put in first and then the colonel. But the colonel angrily protested against the Tommy being allowed to go in the same ambulance with him.