First leave

Well, I was sixteen months before I got my first leave. So I went up to Scotland. I liked the Scottish people more so than the English. We stopped off at London, got into the bank there in London to get some more money and then we took the Flying Scotchman to Waterloo Station for Edinburgh. And the first thing that meets you when you get up to Edinburgh and get out is the big Edinburgh castle way up in the heavens and from there we went to the Maple Leaf club. We got washed up and got our breakfast and one thing and another. We started to do the town and walked around, we was thinking a nice restaurant there, we thought we’d have our dinner there when the time come. So we went to the restaurant at dinner time. I hung up my coat and cap, so did the other fella. When we had our dinner we come out. He got his coat and cap and I got my cap and I couldn’t find me coat. My coat was gone, somebody had stolen it. “Well,” he said, “what are you going to do now? ” “Well,” I said, “there is some nice coats here. Wait until I try some of those on.” I got a nice coat out of it alright. It had no stripes on it. I said, “Let’s get to a tailor shop and get a couple of stripes on it so they can’t claim it.”