A Surgeon in Arms

by R. J. Manion

A few minutes after this the accidental explosion of a Mills bomb killed one man, wounded two officers severely, and six men almost as severely, and I was kept busy for some time attending to them. Having finished, I found Major Peters near me, looking longingly toward Vimy, into the ruins of which our scout officer, Lieutenant A——; our O.C. battalion, Major E——; and a platoon in charge of ever-smiling Lieutenant G—— had all disappeared. Major Peters was apparently impatient to go across, though he had no right to do so without orders. Leaving the wounded to be evacuated by my always trustworthy and fearless assistants, Corporal H—— and Private B——, M.M., and their stretcher bearers, I joined him. Though I had even less right to go across than he, we dared each other to go, and off we went. An odd shell was falling about and it was quite characteristic for Pete to remark, slowly and seriously,—

"I don't mind dodging shells, but I do hate dodging that damned orderly room of ours."

But he was as joyously gay as if he were a schoolboy going on some forbidden picnic.

Without encountering a Boche we leisurely strolled through the ruined and deserted streets, passing here and there a dead German, and one Canadian who must have got lost, and been killed while looking for his own lines. On the main road was a wagon of heavy shells with its wheels interlocked with those of another wagon—both apparently deserted in a hurry by the fleeing Germans, for an officer's complete kit lay beside them. We passed the station and went on out 500 yards to where our platoon was "digging in." We joined them, and then wandered on for one hundred yards into what was to be the new No Man's Land, without ever having encountered a German. They had deserted the village by dark, and had not left even the proverbial corporal's guard behind. Guided by the major through the streets which were now in the shadows of evening we unerringly found our way back whence we had come, for he had the path-finding instincts of the North American Indian. On arrival we found that, while my absence had been unnoticed, poor Pete's had been, and for some minutes in the orderly room he was in hot water explaining matters. His explanations ended, as they usually did, by being unsatisfactory, and our strict disciplinarian adjutant, Major P——, turned aside to hide a smile, and murmur,—

"Poor Pete! Always in trouble." No matter what breach he ever made in the rules, Peters was always forgiven, for his sterling worth was too well known to allow anyone in authority to hold anger against him.

One of the best stories told of him is so droll, and yet so typical, that it is worth repeating: He was attending a course of instruction with a number of other officers on measures to be taken during a gas attack. The gas expert had shown carefully how the gas masks should be put on quickly and correctly, and the officers were applying them. They were instructed to take off the masks, and to see which of them could have his on in the shortest time. To the surprise of all present the slow-moving major had his mask on before any of the others. On inquiring of him how it happened, he admitted with that humorous dry smile of his that he had not bothered taking his mask off after the first trial.

CAPT. J. A. CULLUM, C.A.M.C.

Some twelve years ago when I was studying in Edinburgh, at Scotland's famous university, I occupied rooms at the apartment house of a bonnie little Scotch woman on Marchmont Road. Miss Anderson was a mother to us all. How well I remember her smiling, sweet face, above which her white hair made an appropriate halo, as she came in to do for us some kindly, thoughtful act. May she still be in the land of the living and happy!

In the next suite of rooms lived Jack Cullum of Regina, Canada, and for the last month before examinations, the regular lessees of his rooms having returned, he and I occupied the same suite. He was a square-jawed, firm-mouthed, good-looking chap, with a strong arm and leg, made strong by breaking bronchos on the western Canadian ranch where he grew to manhood and prosperity. He was blunt, almost to a fault, but his word was good, his mind fair, and his manners sociable. Other Canadians who were post-graduating there at the same time will remember many a gay evening we passed in the old R.B. on Princes Street, that most magnificent thoroughfare in Scotland, with the old Castle which saw many of the happy and unhappy hours of poor Mary Queen of Scots as a background, Calton Hill and its unfinished Grecian architecture at one end, and that fine Gothic monument to Sir Walter Scott in the center. In all these jolly evenings dear old Cullum was foremost in pay-times and gay-times.

In serious moments and in times of leisure, however, his mind often carried him back in happy reminiscence to his homeland where a pretty Canadian girl, whose photo he carried and often showed, was anticipating his return.