Self-inflicted wounds

A party of twenty of us went back to get food for the whole company and there was a scout leading us, Gilles Grey, the cook and he took us straight to where Gilles was about a mile back. Gilles was sitting among the rations, cursed us for being late and half drunk as if he was going somewhere. So we started to back up and two fellows were missing after we got back, “Where is Stevens and Pratt?” Nobody knew. So but four months later my buddy had been wounded and he went into a recovery thing and there was Stevens and he said, “When you fellows were gathering up the rations, we beat it back to an old trench and we decided to shoot one another. We couldn’t get too close together because we’d show powder marks. We got about fifteen feet apart." And Pratt says, “You shoot first!” And he hit me in here, an artery and he got his pants down and hard to stop, it it was slippery, you know, and he was losing a lot of blood and at last we got it stopped. “Now it’s your turn.” Pratt said, “No, I can’t. I’m in shock!” “Well you can’t leave me here.” “Alright.” “One second he was aiming at my heart and the next at my balls. I died ten times. At last he let drift and just gave me a flesh wound but I died ten times.”

Mr. Morrison describes how his rationing party arrives back at the front minus two men. Later, he meets one of the two men, who explains to him that they had wounded one another to get out of the front lines

Alex Morrison

Mr. Morrison was born March 17, 1897. His father had a men's wear store in Sydney, NS. He started working with his father when he was a boy of eight years. He enlisted in 1916 at the age of 19. He trained at Aldershot, Nova Scotia for 6 months, then left Canada from Halifax bound for England. He was on the 13th voyage of the SS Olympic and eventually arrived in Liverpool. He proceeded to Whitley Camp for further training and was held there for a year until he turned 21. Mr. Morrison was then moved to France in February, 1918. He took part in battles at Amiens, Cambrai and Mons. At the end of the war, he returned to Canada, arriving in February 1919. He returned to work with his father in his men's wear store for three years before joining the work force in the automobile industry in Detroit, Michigan.