Organisations > Roll of honour of Caxton House Printing Office, Dundee

Andrew Towns
ordered again into action. When the guns ceased
fire the next time, two of these men were found dead
at their post, while the third man had lost his hand !
From Tilloy the battery started on a fortnight's
trekking to Ypres. Andrew set forth along with his
comrades, but he found himself unable to accompany
them further than Fr event, for there, alas, he was
stricken down with appendicitis. He was sent to
hospital in Frevent for a Aveek, to Boulogne for a
week, then to Norwich for an operation. He recovered
from the operation, and he judged himself to be on
the way to restored health when pneumonia laid its
dread hand upon him and claimed him as its prisoner
for the next three months.
Andrew will ever treasure as a pleasant memory
the manifold kindness he received in Norwich Hospital
from nurses, physicians, and visitors — all of whom
seemed to vie with one another in showing kindness
to the patients.
Discharged from Norwich, Andrew came home on
a ten days' leave, after which he was sent to Ripon
Convalescent Camp, a crowded establishment where
thousands of men who had come out of hospital Avere
drilled and marched into a state of physical fitness.
Three months in Ripon — then Andrew was trans-
ferred for the next five months to the old military
barracks at Woolwich, a depot he by no means liked.
As at that time there happened to be a demand for
signallers, Andrew volunteered for this branch of the
service, and he thereupon received a course of instruc-
tion in the various branches of the art — Morse, sema-
phore, flag, lamp, and disc. After successfully passing
his examinations, he was drafted for overseas, and once
more, on the 18th of June 1918, he was shipped to
Le Havre. There he .was ordered to join a flying
column of artillery, 70th Battery.
At Edinfer, on the right of Arras, he found his
337