The favourite rendezvous of the officers of the Mersey garrison was the Adelphi Hotel. It had a cocktail bar and a swimming bath. The cocktail bar was generally crowded with Russian naval officers, always very drunk. One day I met a major of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers there. I saluted him. He told me confidentially, taking me aside: ‘It’s nice of you to salute me, my boy, but I must confess that I am not what I seem. I wear a crown on my sleeve and so does a company sergeant-major; but then he’s not entitled to wear these three cuff bands and the wavy border. Look at them, aren’t they pretty? As I was saying, I’m not what I seem to be. I’m a sham. I’ve got a sergeant-major’s stomach.’ I was quite accustomed to drunken senior officers, so I answered respectfully: ‘Really, major, and how did you come to get that?’ He said: ‘You think I’m drunk. Well, I am if you like, but it’s true about my stomach. You see I was in that Beaumont-Hamel show and I got shot in the guts. It hurt like hell, let me tell you. They got me down to the field-hospital. I was busy dying; there was a company sergeant-major in the hospital at the time and he had got it through the head, and _he_ was busy dying, too, and he did die. Well, as soon as the sergeant-major died they took out that long gut, whatever you call the thing, the thing that unwinds—they say it’s as long as a cricket pitch—and they put it into me, grafted it on somehow. Wonderful chaps these medicos. They can put in spare parts as if one was a motor-car. Well, this sergeant-major seems to have been an abstemious man; the lining of the new gut is much better than my old one; so I’m celebrating it. I only wish I had his kidneys too.’ An R.A.M.C. captain was sitting by. He broke into the conversation. ‘Yes, major, I know what a stomach wound’s like. It’s the worst of the lot. You were lucky to reach the field-ambulance alive. The best chance is to lie absolutely still. I got mine out between the lines, bandaging a fellow. I flopped into a shell-hole. My stretcher-bearers wanted to carry me back, but I wasn’t having any. I kept everyone off with a revolver for forty-eight hours. That saved my life. I couldn’t count on a spare gut waiting for me at the dressing-station. My only chance was to lie still and let it heal.’ In December I attended a medical board; they examined my wound and asked me how I was feeling. The president wanted to know whether I wanted a few months more home service. I said: ‘No, sir, I should be much obliged if you would pass me fit for service overseas.’ In January I went out again.