He swayed and stumbled against the platoon commander. Dick supported him with an arm. "Hit?" asked Dick. "Just what you'd notice," said the captain, straightening himself and reeling away. "Go after him and do what you can for him," said Dick to one of his men. "Bandage him and then go look for an M. O." Dick hurried on toward the forward edge of the village, strengthening his following as he went. The shelling was still heavy and the noise deafening, but the hand-to-hand fighting among the houses had lessened. Dick led his men through one wall of a house that had been hit by a heavy shell and through the other wall into a little garden. There were bricks and tiles and iron shards in that garden; and in the middle of it, untouched, a little arbor of grapevines. Dick passed through the arbor on his way to the broken wall at the foot of the garden. There were two benches in it and a small round table. Dick went through the arbor in a second, and then he sprang to the broken crest of the wall. He had scarcely mounted upon it before something red burst close in front of his eyes. * * * * * Dick was not astonished to find himself in the old garden at Beaver Dam. The lilacs were in flower and full of bees and butterflies. He still wore his shrapnel helmet. It felt very uncomfortable, and he tried to take it off--but it stuck fast to his head. Even that did not astonish him. He saw an arbor of grapevines and entered it and sat down on a bench with his elbows on a small round table. He recognized it as the arbor he had seen that evening in Courcelette--the evening of September 15. "I must have brought it home with me," he reflected. "The war must be over." Flora entered the arbor then and asked him why he was wearing an officer's jacket. He thought it queer that she had not heard about his commission. "I was promoted on the Somme--no, it was before that," he began, and then everything became dark. "I can't see," he said. "Don't worry about that," replied a voice that was not Flora's. "Your eyes are bandaged for the time being. They'll be as well as ever in a few days." "I must have been dreaming. Where am I--and what is wrong with me?" "You are in No. 2 Canadian General Hospital and have been dreaming for almost a week. But you are doing very well." "What hit me? And have I all my legs and arms?" "It must have been a whiz-bang," replied the unknown voice. "You are suffering from head wounds that are not so serious as we feared and from broken ribs and a few cuts and gashes. You must drink this and stop talking." Dick obediently drank it, whatever it was. "I wish you could give me some news of the battalion, and then I'd keep quiet for a long time," he said. "Do you want me to open and read this letter that your brother left for you two days ago?" asked the Sister. She read as follows: