Chapter Two Sounds from Faraway When Dad was posted to Halifax in 1914,1 was barely a year old. My sister Marianne was born there in October 1917, about six weeks before the tragic Halifax explosion. To help with the house Dad hired a maid, a girl named Sylvia Publicover who came from a place with the strange old name of Ecum Secum . We had an apartment within walking distance of the Citadel on , which meant Dad could live at home when he was not on duty. At that time the Citadel was a military intelligence center so it is difficult to ascertain precisely what Dad 's duties were there. I know from his papers that he continued his research and experimentation in wire¬ less. From a receiving apparatus of his own construction, he was able to pull in, directly from Berlin and Paris, official communiques of the German and French general staffs. These were logged daily, and the information was forwarded to Ottawa. So it seems, through the years 1915-17, he was involved in some sort of wireless surveillance— probably one of the earliest forms of electronic surveillance in the history of warfare. His routine duty at the Citadel was the maintainance of commu¬ nications by visual telegraph—lamps and flags—and wireless telegraph with the various units comprising the fortress. During this period he was also seconded to the Royal School of Infantry and the Royal School of Artillery to train wireless operators. At age 23, he was promoted to Captain and placed in charge of all communications including the 15