being open from noon to two-thirty and from
six P.M. to nine-thirty. Treating is not allowed. Altogether it
works out very well and there is little drunkenness among the
soldiers.

I eventually brought up in a Convalescent Hospital in Brentford,
Middlesex, and was there for three weeks. At the end of that time I
was placed in category C 3.

The system of marking the men in England is by categories, A, B,
and C. A 1, 2, and 3 are for active service. A 4 is for the
under-aged. B categories are for base service, and C is for home
service. C 3 was for clerical duty, and as I was not likely to
become efficient again as a soldier, it looked like some kind of
bookkeeping for me for the duration of the war.

Unless one is all shot to pieces, literally with something gone, it
is hard to get a discharge from the British army. Back in the early
days of 1915, a leg off was about the only thing that would produce
a discharge.

When I was put at clerical duty, I immediately began to furnish
trouble for the British army, not intentionally, of course, but
quite effectively. The first thing I did was to drop a typewriter
and smash it. My hands had spells when they absolutely refused to
work. Usually it was when I had something breakable in them. After
I had done about two hundred dollars' damage indoors they tried me
out as bayonet instructor. I immediately dropped a rifle on a
concrete walk and smashed it. They wanted me to pay for it, but the
M.O. called attention to the fact that I shouldn't have been put at
the work under my category.

[Illustration: CORPORAL HOLMES WITH COMPANY OFFICE FORCE, AT
WINCHESTER, ENGLAND, A WEEK PRIOR TO DISCHARGE.]

They then put me back at bookkeeping at Command Headquarters,
Salisbury, but I couldn't figure English money and had a bad habit
of fainting and falling off the high stool. To cap the climax, I
finally fell one day and knocked down the stovepipe, and nearly set
the office afire. The M.O. then ordered me back to the depot at
Winchester and recommended me for discharge. I guess he thought it
would be the cheapest in the long run.

The adjutant at Winchester didn't seem any too pleased to see me.
He said I looked as healthy as a wolf, which I did, and that they
would never let me out of the army. He seemed to think that my
quite normal appearance would be looked upon as a personal insult
by the medical board. I said that I was sorry I didn't have a leg
or two gone, but it couldn't b