ttany and back in a chalk country. There was not very much to
report the next day. We arrived at Bologne about ten o'clock. The
Canadian base hospital is stationed here and I did not think we were
going further, but we went on. We also passed through Calais which a
noted English Queen said would be found written on her heart. They
were certainly giving us a trip around the country. At St. Omar we
were told we were to go to Hazebrouck, where we arrived about seven in
the evening, and the R.T. Officer who kept asking for us came aboard.
It was Lieut. Russell who had sat with myself and officers at the St.
Andrew's dinner given at the Queen's Hotel, Toronto, in 1913. He had
attended Varsity and knew me and most of our officers. We were
delighted to see him again. He told me we had to march out five miles
into the country but, if I preferred it, I could stay all night in
billets in a new hospital that was in course of erection and was
prepared for such use. I chose the hospital, as my men had been
standing for two days and nights in box cars. We marched a quarter of
a mile through the streets to the hospital, and it did not take us
long to get to bed on some straw trusses.

In finding our billets here Sergeant Burness and a piper had dropped
through a hole in the floor. Burness was badly hurt and was unable to
go any further.

This was the evening of the 17th of February and "it is a strange
thing but this regiment has ended most of its big moves on the
seventeenth," remarked my orderly room sergeant.

CHAPTER XIII

WITH FIELD MARSHAL SIR JOHN FRENCH

"I am the Commander of the British Army in France," said a thick-set
ruddy-faced, grey-haired officer in staff cap and uniform.

"Yes, Sir John," I answered, saluting.

"I have had the pleasure of seeing you and your battalion before in
Toronto. Have you all the Toronto Highlanders with you?"

"Yes, Sir John," I replied, "most of them."

Our Brigade was being reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief in a hop yard
not far from Caestre.

It was raining as usual. We had not yet been reviewed, from the time
we first went to Valcartier, that it had not rained.

"Is your establishment complete?"

"Yes, Sir John. In fact we are twenty over strength, and I am afraid
you will 'wig' me for it, but we marched out at night and some of the
men in the base company, hearing we were leaving, stole away from
their quarters, marched five miles and smuggled themselves into the