![]() West was avid to serve in battle, I do not mean to imply that he was either naturally warlike or anxious for the safety of civilisation. ![]() There were reasons why I would have been glad to let the war separate us reasons why I found the practice of medicine and the companionship of West more and more irritating but when he had gone to Ottawa and through a colleague’s influence secured a medical commission as Major, I could not resist the imperious persuasion of one determined that I should accompany him in my usual capacity. ![]() West had been avid for a chance to serve as surgeon in a great war, and when the chance had come he carried me with him almost against my will. I had not entered the army on my own initiative, but rather as a natural result of the enlistment of the man whose indispensable assistant I was-the celebrated Boston surgical specialist, Dr. In 1915 I was a physician with the rank of First Lieutenant in a Canadian regiment in Flanders, one of many Americans to precede the government itself into the gigantic struggle. Some of these things have made me faint, others have convulsed me with devastating nausea, while still others have made me tremble and look behind me in the dark yet despite the worst of them I believe I can myself relate the most hideous thing of all-the shocking, the unnatural, the unbelievable horror from the shadows. Many men have related hideous things, not mentioned in print, which happened on the battlefields of the Great War. ![]()
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