A. Sti’zvm‘! MacDonald D.F.C., M.D. C..M.

hot sun in August. I put myself in the middle row as they sized us up every day; I landed in the exact middle each day. At the end of the month, we were given a 48 hour pass and when I went to get my pass signed, the Sergeant said, “Are you in the right place? I don’t remember ever seeing you before.” All I had to do was follow the one before me. We marched through the streets of Toronto on a visiting band parade. The fellow ahead of me was rather a show- off. He was marching at attention when a gull above him decided to defecate and the faeces landed on his shoulders. It was one of the hardest times I ever had to keep marching at attention and not laugh. I often wonder if that still is a problem in Toronto - does one have to make sure the gulls are not defecating overhead?

On the hot days we used to run to the cold buttermilk truck on any breaks we would get. We did not get to love the Sergeant Majors - they were in a class of their own and were they ever sarcastic.

I had the pleasure of watching one of the toughest Sergeant Majors who either enrolled, or was sent to England as a Sergeant. At the time that I was in the hospital in England, when I lost my hearing, I was looking at that Sergeant shovelling snow outside the window, and enjoying seeing him work. One day when I was going to do something in my room, he said, ”You seemed to enjoy seeing me work, Sir.” I informed him that my experience of him in Toronto was the cause of my glee. We became good friends and he was not such a bad fellow.

Another Sergeant Major, a very big man, could fool with the men before a parade was called, but when he called attention, he was a different man. I later met him on a small bridge in Dumfries in Scotland; at that time he was a Sergeant Gunner. I felt bad when I heard that he was killed in action. I thought some were tyrants in Toronto,

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