aw a country which seethed with discontent--Hyde Park agitators
who railed at everything British, women who set fire to empty
buildings, and destroyed mail-boxes as a protest against unfair
social conditions--and they made the mistake of thinking that these
discontented citizens were traitors who would be glad of the chance
to stab their country to the heart. They knew that the average
English found golf and cricket much more interesting than foreign
affairs, so they were not quite prepared for that rush of men to the
recruiting offices at the first call for volunteers! Englishmen may
abuse their own country, but it is a different matter when the enemy
is at the door. So they came,--the farmer, the clerk, the bank boy,
the teacher, the student, the professional man, the writer, the
crossing-sweeper, the cab-man,--high and low, rich and poor, old and
young, they flocked to the offices, like the land-seekers in the West
who form queues in front of the Homestead offices, to enter their
land.

I thought of these first recruits--the "contemptible little
army"--who went over in those first terrible days, and,
insufficiently equipped as they were, went up against the
overwhelming hosts of Germany with their superior numbers and
equipment that had been in preparation for forty years.... and how
they held back the invaders--though they had but one shell to the
Germans' hundred--by sheer force of courage and individual bravery...
and with such losses. I thought of these men as I stepped on the
wharf at Newcastle, and it seemed to me that every country lane in
England and every city street was hallowed by the unseen presence of
the glorious and unforgotten dead!

CONCLUSION

I have been at home for more than a year now, and cannot return to
the front. Apparently the British Government have given their word to
the neutral countries that prisoners who escape from Germany, and are
assisted by the neutral countries, will not be allowed to return to
the fighting line. So even if my shoulder were well again, I could
not go back to fight.

Ted and I parted in London, for I came back to Canada before he did.
He has since rejoined his family in Toronto. I have heard from a
number of the boys in Germany. Bromley tried to escape again, but was
captured, and is now at a camp called Soltau. John Keith and Croak
also tried, but failed. Little Joe, the Italian boy who enlisted with
me at Trail, has been since exchanged--insane! Percy