"Just walkin’ up an’ down," Tommy replied nonchalantly, forgetting, or at least omitting that important suffix: "sir." "Just walking up and down," the officer reiterated, with annoyance. "What do you suppose you’re walking up and down for?" "To see that none of them guys comes in soused an’ disorderly, I s’pose," he replied, but without any apparent interest in his occupation. "Don’t you know who I am?" the officer demanded testily, exasperated beyond endurance by such slackness. "No," Tommy answered shortly. The absence of the "sir" was striking, and the tone implied further that he didn’t care. "_I’m the commanding officer of your battalion!_" Each word dropped like an icicle from the official lips. "Holy—Jumpin’—Judas!" Tommy exclaimed, doing the "present arms" in three distinct movements—one to each word; "court-martial fer me!" It was too much for the gravity of the most hardened disciplinarian. The colonel turned and fled from the spot until he was far enough away that the God of Discipline might not be incensed at his shouts of laughter. Tommy escaped the court-martial, but he wondered all evening what a sentry really was supposed to do. It was almost a month after Plantsfield’s momentous announcement before the Canadians commenced arriving at our hospital. They came in twos and threes, scattered amongst large numbers of other British troops, but they were mostly cases of illness or slight wounds—and we had little opportunity for comparing the stoicism of our own boys with that of the English, Irish and Scotch who arrived in droves. What would our lads be like when they too came back broken and torn? Would they be as patient and brave as the other British Tommies? Could they measure up to the standard of heroism set by these men of the Bull Dog breed? We waited, we watched and we wondered. There was only desultory fighting during the month of March, and most of the wounds were from "snipers" or shrapnel. The first seriously wounded Canadian to reach the hospital was an artillery officer, from Alberta. A small German shell had dropped into his dug-out and exploded so close to him that it was a miracle he escaped at all. When he arrived with his head completely swathed in bandages, and fifty or more wounds about his body, he looked more like an Egyptian mummy than a man. His mouth and the tip of his nose were the only parts of his body exposed to view, and they were burned and swollen to such an extent that, apart from their position, they conveyed no impression of their true identity. It was somewhat gruesome to hear a deep bass voice, without the slightest tremour, emerge from this mass of bandages. It was as if the dead had suddenly come to life. "Would you be kind enough to put a cigarette in my mouth, sir?" he asked. One is tempted to believe that after this war the eternal question will no longer be "Woman," but "Cigarette." "Do you think you can smoke?" I asked him doubtfully.