There were plenty of the trench ladders lying about, and one of these was got, and I was put on it by my chums and carried to a trench at the back, to the medical officer. Water was either not obtainable or they would not give it to me--I dare say that was it, because later I had empyema--so the medical officer gave me an acid drop; and I made the best of it. When I reached the trench it started to rain, and I got soaked, for the soil was chalk stuff and the water could not get through. So I had to lie in the water for some hours, and it was not until next morning that I got to the first-aid dressing-station. I was two days more before I got down to the Canadian Hospital, where, afterwards, the medical officer, Captain Parnis, who had been kindness itself to me, told me that I had been recommended for the D.C.M. By this time I knew that I had been shot through the lungs, and that the wound was dangerous. It was a very narrow squeak; but a miss is as good as a mile, though in my case it meant a long spell in hospital. But everything that it was possible to do for us was done, and outside people also are very kind; they write to you and come and see you, and they send you things--sometimes tracts, which you don’t want. My picture was given in the papers and kind things were written about me, and the idea got about that I was a mere youngster. I dare say that was the reason why some children sent me a Christmas-box--thinking, perhaps, that I was their own age. They sent me half a dozen cigars--real cigars; a little wooden horse, and a “platter” dog, as we call that sort of crockery in Staffordshire, filled with chocolates. I valued the children’s gift all the more because I _am_ young--just out of my teens; I was in them when I enlisted--so I have a lot in my favour, and hope soon to be quite well again. Here’s a letter from one of the officers of my regiment--he wrote to my dad, too--saying how proud they are because I’ve got the D.C.M. Well, I do feel proud, too, naturally; but it came as a great surprise to me, for never did I think of such a thing; and when people speak to me about it, I simply say, “I only did my duty, as others have done.” CHAPTER XVI A FUSILIER IN FRANCE [The following story of a baptism of fire and subsequent experiences at Loos and in France is told by Private Fred. Knott, who, soon after the war broke out, left civil life at the call of duty and enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers. Like so many present-day soldiers Private Knott kept a record, under fire, of many of his experiences, until he was wounded and invalided home. From this selection we become more intimately acquainted with the life of our men not only in the trenches but also, which is equally interesting, with their doings when they are resting and able to share in the foreign life around them. We have had abundant proof during the war of the considerable powers of observation and description which so many of our fighting men possess.]