In Flanders Fields And Other Poems [21]
Corps had been engaged --
all ended in failure; and to a sensitive and foreboding mind
there were sounds and signs that it would be given to this generation to hear
the pillars and fabric of Empire come crashing into the abysm of chaos.
He was not at the Somme in that October of 1916, but those who returned
up north with the remnants of their division from that place of slaughter
will remember that, having done all men could do, they felt like deserters
because they had not left their poor bodies dead upon the field
along with friends of a lifetime, comrades of a campaign.
This is no mere matter of surmise. The last day I spent with him
we talked of those things in his tent, and I testify that it is true.
IV
Going to the Wars
John McCrae went to the war without illusions. At first,
like many others of his age, he did not "think of enlisting",
although "his services are at the disposal of the Country
if it needs them."
In July, 1914, he was at work upon the second edition of
the `Text-Book of Pathology' by Adami and McCrae, published by Messrs.
Lea and Febiger, and he had gone to Philadelphia to read the proofs.
He took them to Atlantic City where he could "sit out on the sand,
and get sunshine and oxygen, and work all at once."
It was a laborious task, passing eighty to a hundred pages
of highly technical print each day. Then there was the index,
between six and seven thousand items. "I have," so he writes,
"to change every item in the old index and add others.
I have a pile of pages, 826 in all. I look at the index,
find the old page among the 826, and then change the number.
This about 7000 times, so you may guess the drudgery." On July 15th,
the work was finished, registered, and entrusted to the mail
with a special delivery stamp. The next day he wrote the preface,
"which really finished the job." In very truth his scientific work was done.
It was now midsummer. The weather was hot. He returned to Montreal.
Practice was dull. He was considering a voyage to Havre and "a little trip
with Dr. Adami" when he arrived. On July 29th, he left Canada
"for better or worse. With the world so disturbed," he records,
"I would gladly have stayed more in touch with events, but I dare say
one is just as happy away from the hundred conflicting reports." The ship
was the `Scotian' of the Allan Line, and he "shared a comfortable cabin
with a professor of Greek," who was at the University in his own time.
For one inland born, he had a keen curiosity about ships and the sea.
There is a letter written when he was thirteen years of age
in which he gives an account of a visit to a naval exhibition in London.
He describes the models which he saw, and gives an elaborate table of names,
dimensions, and tonnage. He could identify the house flags and funnels
of all the principal liners; he could follow a ship through
all her vicissitudes and change of ownership. When he found himself
in a seaport town his first business was to visit the water front
and take knowledge of the vessels that lay in the stream or by the docks.
One voyage he made to England was in a cargo ship. With his passion for work
he took on the duties of surgeon, and amazed the skipper with a revelation
of the new technique in operations which he himself had been accustomed
to perform by the light of experience alone.
On the present and more luxurious voyage, he remarks that the decks
were roomy, the ship seven years old, and capable of fifteen knots an hour,
the passengers pleasant, and including a large number of French.
All now know only too well the nature of the business which sent
those ardent spirits flocking home to their native land.
Forty-eight hours were lost in fog. The weather was too thick
for making the Straits, and the `Scotian' proceeded by Cape Race
on her way to Havre. Under date of August 5-6 the first reference
to the war appears: "All is excitement; the ship runs without lights.
Surely the German kaiser has his head in the noose at last:
it will
all ended in failure; and to a sensitive and foreboding mind
there were sounds and signs that it would be given to this generation to hear
the pillars and fabric of Empire come crashing into the abysm of chaos.
He was not at the Somme in that October of 1916, but those who returned
up north with the remnants of their division from that place of slaughter
will remember that, having done all men could do, they felt like deserters
because they had not left their poor bodies dead upon the field
along with friends of a lifetime, comrades of a campaign.
This is no mere matter of surmise. The last day I spent with him
we talked of those things in his tent, and I testify that it is true.
IV
Going to the Wars
John McCrae went to the war without illusions. At first,
like many others of his age, he did not "think of enlisting",
although "his services are at the disposal of the Country
if it needs them."
In July, 1914, he was at work upon the second edition of
the `Text-Book of Pathology' by Adami and McCrae, published by Messrs.
Lea and Febiger, and he had gone to Philadelphia to read the proofs.
He took them to Atlantic City where he could "sit out on the sand,
and get sunshine and oxygen, and work all at once."
It was a laborious task, passing eighty to a hundred pages
of highly technical print each day. Then there was the index,
between six and seven thousand items. "I have," so he writes,
"to change every item in the old index and add others.
I have a pile of pages, 826 in all. I look at the index,
find the old page among the 826, and then change the number.
This about 7000 times, so you may guess the drudgery." On July 15th,
the work was finished, registered, and entrusted to the mail
with a special delivery stamp. The next day he wrote the preface,
"which really finished the job." In very truth his scientific work was done.
It was now midsummer. The weather was hot. He returned to Montreal.
Practice was dull. He was considering a voyage to Havre and "a little trip
with Dr. Adami" when he arrived. On July 29th, he left Canada
"for better or worse. With the world so disturbed," he records,
"I would gladly have stayed more in touch with events, but I dare say
one is just as happy away from the hundred conflicting reports." The ship
was the `Scotian' of the Allan Line, and he "shared a comfortable cabin
with a professor of Greek," who was at the University in his own time.
For one inland born, he had a keen curiosity about ships and the sea.
There is a letter written when he was thirteen years of age
in which he gives an account of a visit to a naval exhibition in London.
He describes the models which he saw, and gives an elaborate table of names,
dimensions, and tonnage. He could identify the house flags and funnels
of all the principal liners; he could follow a ship through
all her vicissitudes and change of ownership. When he found himself
in a seaport town his first business was to visit the water front
and take knowledge of the vessels that lay in the stream or by the docks.
One voyage he made to England was in a cargo ship. With his passion for work
he took on the duties of surgeon, and amazed the skipper with a revelation
of the new technique in operations which he himself had been accustomed
to perform by the light of experience alone.
On the present and more luxurious voyage, he remarks that the decks
were roomy, the ship seven years old, and capable of fifteen knots an hour,
the passengers pleasant, and including a large number of French.
All now know only too well the nature of the business which sent
those ardent spirits flocking home to their native land.
Forty-eight hours were lost in fog. The weather was too thick
for making the Straits, and the `Scotian' proceeded by Cape Race
on her way to Havre. Under date of August 5-6 the first reference
to the war appears: "All is excitement; the ship runs without lights.
Surely the German kaiser has his head in the noose at last:
it will