On Sunday morning, the 4th of May, 1919, on the Empress of Britain, after an absence of four years and seven months, I returned to Quebec. On board were the 16th Battalion with whom I had sailed away in 1914, the 8th Battalion, the Machine Gun Battalion, the 3rd Field (p. 319) Ambulance and some of the Engineers. Like those awaking from a dream, we saw once more the old rock city standing out in the great river. There was the landing and the greeting of loving friends on the wharf within a stone's throw from the place whence we had sailed away. While I was shaking hands with my friends, an officer told me I had to inspect the Guard of Honour which the kind O.C. of the vessel had furnished. I did not know how to do this properly but I walked through the rows of stalwart, bronzed men and looked into their faces which were fixed and immovable. Each man was an original, and every unit in the old 1st Division was represented. For four years and seven months, they had been away from home, fighting for liberty and civilization. Many of them wore decorations; many had been wounded. No General returning victor from a war could have had a finer Guard of Honour. The troops had to wait on board the ship till the train was ready. All along the decks of the great vessel, crowded against the railings in long lines of khaki, were two thousand seven hundred men. Their bright faces were ruddy in the keen morning air. On their young shoulders the burden of Empire had rested. By their willing sacrifice Canada had been saved. It made a great lump come in my throat to look at them and think of what they had gone through. I went back to the gangway for a last farewell. In one way I knew it must be a last farewell, for though some of us will meet again as individuals it will be under altered conditions. Never again but in dreams will one see the great battalions marching on the battle-ploughed roads of France and Flanders. Never again will one see them pouring single file into the muddy front trenches. All that is over. Along the coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific, among our cities, by the shores of lakes and rivers and in the vast expanse of prairies and mountain passes the warrior hosts have melted away. But there on the vessel that day the fighting men had come home in all their strength and comradeship. I stood on the gangway full of conflicting emotions. The men called out "Speech," "Speech," as they used often to do, half in jest and half in earnest, when we met in concert tents and estaminets in France. I told them what they had done for Canada and what Canada owed them and how proud I was to have been with them. I asked them to continue to play the game out here as they had played it in France. Then, (p. 320) telling them to remove their caps, as this was our last church parade, I pronounced the Benediction, said, "Good-bye, boys", and turned homewards. INDEX (p. 321) A