They drove first from Edmonton to Jasper, where they enjoyed some golf under the clear summer skies. From Jasper they turned south, weaving through the spectacular scenery of the Rocky Mountains until they came to Banff, where they stayed at the Banff Springs Hotel and played more golf. Then they drove south again to the Waterton Lakes National Park, an area of superb natural beauty nestled in the right angle of the British Columbia-Alberta-US border. There they checked into the grand old Prince of Wales Hotel, a massive wooden structure atop a knoll overlooking the narrows where two of the three lakes meet.
    The date was July 29, 1969.
    Later, Charlotte would recall that her husband had seemed edgy for the last few days. On the drive to Waterton Lakes, he strained his back while changing a flat tire, which further upset him. He grew still more agitated when, on arriving at the hotel, they were told they had just missed a boat tour of the lakes and would have to wait at least an hour until the next departure. Then, while waiting in the car, he accidentally spoiled a roll of film in his camera. Gone were shots from a recent vacation in Tahiti. This last incident had sent him into a rage, and he stormed away. Long afterwards it would be suggested by family members that he had merely returned to the hotel to fetch a book for Charlotte.
    In any event, he was never seen again. Colin Scott Dafoe, at fifty-nine, successful surgeon, late of Edmonton, had disappeared into the forests of southern Alberta. The circumstances were as mysterious as the man — the surroundings most appropriate.
    For years, rumours persisted. Was it an accident — an innocent walk in the woods that led him to some bizarre tragedy? Or was it something more sinister? Was foul play involved? Was it suicide? Was he in hiding? Had he embarked on a "CIA deal," as some suspected?
    Most important: was he alive or dead?
    In Yugoslavia, where the memory of this remarkable Canadian is assiduously preserved by a nation that cannot — will not — forget its recent past, news of his disappearance shocked and distressed the men and women who had served alongside "Sir Major Dafoe," whom they still considered a legend — a hero of the revolution.
    It was Miki who provided Dafoe's most eloquent epitaph: "We saved him in Hell," he said tearfully, "but we could not protect him in Paradise."
    What happened on that warm summer's day in July 1969? What clues, if any, exist in the pattern of his post-war life to shed light on his final adventure?

Among the few extant items of memorabilia from Dafoe's wartime service is a faded, well-creased Movement Order that he had tucked inside one of the seven journals. It was sent from Adm. Echelon, HQ SO (M), to Dafoe in Italy. In it, he was ordered to proceed to Rome via Ravello and Naples on Sunday, 15 October 1944. On arrival in Rome he was to report immediately to the No 1 Special Force, No 5 Detachment. On completion of his temporary duty there, he was to return without delay to the aforementioned HQ.
    The purpose and duration of Dafoe's posting to the No 1 Special Force are not known, although it seems likely that he underwent some kind of debriefing following his mission into Yugoslavia. According to his military service file (which is instructive mainly in what it doesn't reveal), he returned to the UK on or about December 4, 1944. His posting there is not made clear by his file. Sometime in early January 1945, he was invited to speak to the Inter-Allied Conference on War Medicine, convened by the Royal Society of Medicine in London. In a letter to Charlotte from Gardner E Cooper, a brother-in-law then with the RCAMC attached to the 22nd Canadian General Hospital, it is noted that Dafoe was "rather embarrassed by the honour." Nevertheless, he gave his speech, entitled "The Experiences of a British Medical Officer in Yugoslavia, 1944," to an interested audience. Afterwards he went to dinner with "several bigwigs."
    The speech reflected the extent to which Dafoe's political awareness had expanded and hardened while serving among the Partisans. Moreover, it revealed his eagerness to champion the cause of Yugoslavia's right to self-determination in the post-war era. He wrote:

The military exploits of Tito's Liberation Movement have won the admiration of the world, yet his achievements on the political front are, if less spectacular, no less important. For the new Yugoslav constitution is based on the national brotherhood and equality of rights of all peoples living in Yugoslavia. The historic provinces of Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Macedonia were granted complete self-government, within the framework of a federal democratic Yugoslav state. Tito would never have had the overwhelming support of the Yugoslav peoples, even after his military triumphs, if the ideas he represents did not correspond to the aspirations entertained by hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs long before the war. The new Yugoslavia brings freedom, democracy and social justice not only to Yugoslavia, but to the Balkans.

In virtually every subsequent account of his adventures in Yugoslavia, Dafoe returned to the text of that January 1945 address and revised it minimally. One curious point was that he stated that he had "parachuted into Yugoslavia on a bright, moonlit night in April 1944." He would repeat this in articles and in a CBC radio broadcast despite firm evidence that he landed on the night of May 12, 1944. His reasons for doing so are unknown.
    According to Cooper's letter to Charlotte, while in England Dafoe concerned himself mainly with getting back to Canada. He had called on several generals until finally he was granted permission to travel, and got as far as the boat train when he was recalled. "The Yugoslavs had asked for his return, so the guys here gave him the choice of going back or to Burrna," Cooper exclaimed. "He went back. He was to fly back today or tomorrow."
    The circumstances of Dafoe's return to Yugoslavia are confusing, to say the least. Having tried unsuccessfully to rejoin the Partisans in Tuzla, he was now returning on an ultimatum. A travel permit was granted by the Supreme HQ of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia on January 7, 1945. It read: "Major Dafoe, who is also a physician, and who is now in Bari, is permitted to enter Yugoslavia. This is to inform all military authorities that they should be attentive towards Major Dafoe." It was signed by a well-known Partisan officer, Colonel Mirko Krdzic. Gardner Cooper's letter suggested that Dafoe went to Yugoslavia on January 17 or 18, returning within a few days. Precisely where he went, what he did, and how long he stayed, remain unknown, although Charlotte Dafoe recalls that he may have worked briefly in a hospital.
    Cooper's letter also reveals something of the shock of reorientation Dafoe experienced once back in England. "He got quite a kick out of hearing the Canadian nurses talk," Cooper related. "It was a little strange for him to hear their 'accent.' He has a few Yugoslav nurses in the hospital and can talk to them in their own tongue. His account of life down there was mighty interesting. He really has a deep interest in those people and I wouldn't be surprised if he called for you to go over there with him for a while after the war, although he didn't say so and hasn't any definite plans."
    Of Dafoe's health, Cooper added that he looked well and was "full of pep." Then he related some news he hoped would cheer his sister-in-law: "I suspect he still cares for you a little. He sure was counting on getting home, although he has been away so long he is starting to get used to it."
    Dafoe had not seen his wife since the summer of 1940.
    According to his service records, he was next posted to No 37 Military Mission — otherwise known as "MacMis" or "M" Mission, after Fitzroy Maclean — somewhere in Italy on February 7, 1945. His duties there are not known. But Ian McGregor, the "parachute pimpernel" who had helped establish the airfield in Osmaci, recalled that Dafoe and Lindsay Rogers arrived in Otok, Slovenia, sometime in March or April 1945 aboard a DC3 accompanied by a squadron of P38 Mustangs. Both in a holiday mood for once, they set out to look up a few old friends. However no British movement order or Yugoslav entry permit survives to clarify this episode. Archival sources make no reference to it. The only certainty is that it was the last time Colin Scott Dafoe would set foot on Yugoslav soil.
    He returned to England on May 3, 1945. The war in Europe ended five days later and as VE day celebrations erupted around him, Dafoe renewed his efforts to return to Canada. Here he encountered a snag experienced by hundreds of Canadian servicemen in the British forces: "home leave" was considered leave within the UK. However, he would be allowed to return to Canada if he agreed to go to Burma afterwards.
    In the early months of 1945, Burma was one of the last theatres of war where guerrillas remained active. Force 136, as the SOE contingent there was known, was actively attempting to dislodge the Japanese occupation. Gardner Cooper told Charlotte: "Most of the stray MOs are going to Burma, I think. So far it is voluntary for Canadians." Dafoe might well have disputed the latter point.
    Yet it would not have been unusual for him to have actually wanted to go, and there is some circumstantial evidence to that effect. In a letter to Dafoe at "MacMis" in Italy, postmarked April 20, 1945, Lindsay Rogers wrote: "By the way, I had some news re China — satisfactory, in a way. I can't tell you in this, but will tell you when we meet again." In the same letter, Rogers added: "Oh, I had a letter from Gen. Goyko Nickolis the other day telling me how wonderful you were [in Yugoslavia]. Has the Marshall decorated you yet???" He was referring to Major-General Gojko Nikolis, the young commander of the Partisan Medical Service, and, of course, to Tito. Rogers went on to describe his own mission with the Partisans and referred to their mutual friend, Bill Gillanders: "He got the Military Medal for our show at Drvar. Indeed, as far as I can find out everyone at Drvar got something except yours truly." And then: "We trekked into Drvar the same night hunting for the Mission which we heard was decimated. It was even worse than our adventure at the Mareth Line."
    Perhaps while in Italy or Yugoslavia, Dafoe and Rogers had discussed their prospects and agreed to embark on "a dangerous mission to Asia." In any event, Dafoe agreed to the deal offered in Britain. He must have considered it a small price to pay to see Charlotte and his family again.
    He sailed to Halifax late in June 1945. There he boarded a train for Belleville. He arrived at 2:00 a.m., still wearing his RAMC battledress. Instead of going straight to Charlotte's flat, he sat in a taxi and discussed with the driver whether or not he should wake his wife at such an early hour. The driver thought Charlotte wouldn't mind. Dafoe was not easily persuaded, perhaps recalling the reaction of Nada Dragic in Tuzla, when her husband returned unannounced. Typically, Dafoe had not let Charlotte know of his plans in advance.
    In a somewhat comical scene, Dafoe drove around town a while longer as he considered his dilemma. Later he went to an all-night diner, where he drank coffee with his driver for several hours. When he finally took the taxi back to Charlotte's flat, one of her roommates, a girl from Madoc, recognized Dafoe and sent him up to his wife's room.
    Charlotte was scheduled to give anaesthetics during an operation at nine that morning. Dafoe accompanied her to the hospital, still clad in battledress. It was all he had to wear, and caused some excitement at the hospital, as many among the staff had heard of him. Later, Charlotte's supervisor, a Dr Stobie, gave a small party, at which Dafoe provided a shortened version of his experiences in Yugoslavia.
    With her husband unexpectedly home again, Charlotte requested some time off, and they returned to Madoc almost at once. It was typical of their relationship, she felt, that they could pick up where they had left off in the summer of 1940. Charlotte found her husband little changed despite his arduous tour of duty: "amazingly in control of himself," she said.
    The reunion with his family, however, had a few surprises. Dafoe's brother Roswald was running the family hardware store, now called "R F Dafoe Ltd." Their father had sold it to him "for a favourable price" earlier that year, and he and his wife, Audrey, were making the business prosper.
    In Madoc, Dafoe settled down almost at once to write an account of his adventures in Yugoslavia. He wrote whenever he found time, scribbling away furiously in his hurried, almost indecipherable handwriting in the rush to get it all down on paper while the images were still fresh in his mind. It was a monumental task, yet he managed a day-to-day account that is sometimes short on detail, but a remarkable rendering of the drama just the same. When he was not writing, he often spoke of the Partisans, his tremendous admiration for the women, in particular, a recurring theme. He soon became known to friends and newspaper reporters alike as an ardent "Yugophile."
    Dafoe spent some time travelling that summer. He drove to Toronto to see his sister, Eleanor. Later, he and Charlotte visited Timmins, where his youngest brother, Eric, was employed as a mining engineer at the Hollinger Mine. Seeing Eric again came as quite a shock to Dafoe. Eric was only fourteen when Dafoe last saw him; now he was a mature twenty-one-year-old and built like a bear. He had attended the University of Toronto, where he became a boxing champion — despite a few setbacks. Roswald recalled his brother returned one day with his jaw wired shut.
    "Who did you mix it up with this time?" Roswald had asked.
    "Well, he was good, anyway," Eric answered evasively. Roswald subsequently learned that he had gone several rounds with Little Arthur King, a well-known welterweight.
    In Timmins, the local Yugoslav community celebrated Dafoe's visit as news of his work with the Partisans spread. This led to an article in the Timmins Daily Press, his first public notice. Headlined "British [sic] Doctor Visiting Timmins Praises Brave Yugoslav Partisans," it was published on July 19, 1945.
    As a result of his visit to Timmins, Dafoe was invited to attend a "Tito Day" in Niagara Falls, Ontario. There was food, drink (including rakija), and a kolo during the celebration.
    The Dafoes had just turned to Madoc when Jack Karr, an up-and-coming young reporter with the Toronto Daily Star, telephoned, explaining that he had seen the Daily Press article, and wanted to do a follow-up. Dafoe agreed. Karr was impressed by Dafoe's handsome, movie-star good looks and quiet intensity. His article, which appeared in the Star on July 31, 1945, was entitled "Tito's Girls' Stamina Amazing to Canadian." In it he reported: "He was not talking for himself, he said, but for the Partisans. 'They have had too little recognition,' was the way he put it. 'Not enough people know of the magnificent part they played in helping to defeat Germany.' "
    Both articles attracted unwelcome attention, too, in the form of RCMP investigators who turned up at the cottage in Madoc one day. They asked Dafoe to refrain from making public statements about his work in Yugoslavia, reminding him of his status with SOE — and the wording of the Official Secrets Act.
    In August, in anticipation of his return to England, Dafoe took Charlotte to Toronto. He was to record a twelve-minute radio broadcast for the program "Our Special Speaker," on August 13, 1945. He and Charlotte revised the London speech and he read it on air with great sensitivity and conviction — and, strangely, the voice of an apparently much older man. The recording, still extant on a twelve-inch transcription disc, is the only known record of Dafoe's voice. It was also his last public acknowledgement of his mission into Yugoslavia — despite the RCMP cautions — before he returned to England and active duty as a medical officer with SOE.
    Only when they arrived at Union Station in Toronto did he tell Charlotte of his forthcoming mission to Burma. Typically, it was a matter-of-fact announcement in which he tried to allay her fears, assuring her of his safe return. He then boarded a train for New York, arriving on August 15, 1945 — VJ Day. He joined the riotous celebrations in Times Square, then sailed for England as scheduled.

Almost from the outset, he felt an acute sense of confinement. The period is described in a series of letters he wrote to Charlotte in Belleville. He grumbled a lot, mainly about the delay in being demobilized. Writing on September 25 from London House on Guilford Street where he was staying, he complained of being "still on the same track and no word from the War Office." The war was over, he would not be going to Burma, and he expected confirmation of his "demobbed" status daily.
    In the meantime he was dividing his energy between visiting the Royal College Museum, reading medical texts, attending lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons, and fretting over the many Canadians he saw going home. His friend from Queen's University, Hugo T Ewart, had left months earlier, and this further depressed Dafoe. He wrote to Charlotte: "The weather is typically English now with frequent showers and wind. I find that I am definitely not a Canadian and to get back to Canada will have to go through the Immigration Authorities." This involved a medical examination, about which he was particularly apprehensive. Born and raised in Canada with Canadian parents, Dafoe was nevertheless considered British because of the documents he had signed in 1939, his commission in the RAMC, and his job with SOE.
    On October 7, he wrote again to Charlotte. "Nothing new," he said. "Still pursuing my usual course. I had a letter from Rogers — pretty fed up with doing nothing. Managed to get away for a while and crossed the Himalayas into Tibet but back in Kandy and expects to start for England presently to be demobbed. Yesterday in the street I ran into McCoubrey....I was with him in Yugoslavia — a public health chap — had only been 2 days in transit overland from Milan....They are all having a pretty soft and easy time in northern Italy. Bags of sun, fruit, food and women and beautiful country. He gave me the news that of all the medical officers in operational duties in occupied countries...only Rogers got a decoration and that only a mention in dispatches. The Colonel ADMS — the drunkard who was sent home in disgrace and spent his time in the luxury of Cairo and Italy doing nothing except keep a harem — was decorated with the OBE. The other base wallah who spent his time on his fat buttocks in Algiers was given the MBE. So much for the British Army and the British system."
    Two days later, on October 9, he wrote again and included several letters he had received from Lindsay Rogers. He told Charlotte, "I am afraid he is going to have a rough time settling down and actually believe underneath it all he will miss the Army."
    One of the letters from Lindsay Rogers was particularly revealing of the special relationship the two men shared. The salutation, "Dear Daffy," was followed by text written with great candour and the knowledge that it would not miss its mark on a kindred spirit. It is worth quoting.

I have now established the fact that I have been appointed as Prof Surgery to the Royal School of Medicine Baghdad. Curse it. I have been trying to get out for months now. The Iraqi Govt asked for me and yet I am still here. This morning, being Monday, I decided to go to the SEAC HQ and ask myself....In the meantime, the Merry-Go-Round keeper will have oiled the wheels for another circuit. So here I am, happy as Hell.

Dafoe had no difficulty sympathizing with Rogers' mood, as he was caught in a similar bureaucratic nightmare. Rogers continued:

Yesterday, being Sunday, when everything closed down, I took a canoe on the river and went a few miles up against the swollen tide. It was damn hard work for we had had torrential rain the night before and it was flooded. But I worked off some surplus energy and thought about the time when I canoed up the Athabasca. Came home in drenching rain, wrote to my sweety, telling her we must get married at once and no nonsense, drank some Cyprian plonk, too much, and went to bed....The only thing that keeps me sane is thinking about it all, planning lectures and demonstrations and the grim determination to leave it better than I find it. I shall work like hell there notwithstanding the heat for I am determined to do a good job, and I think I can.

As Rogers writes, we can see him sitting in the oppressive heat of a small room in faraway Ceylon, a man in sweat-stained khaki aching to return to London and its theatres, music, and books. He told Dafoe of his longing to "meet again and listen to the intellects." Meanwhile, he was trying to enjoy his exotic surroundings as best he could, adventuring into the jungle, visiting ruins, occasionally climbing mountains.

It looks as if it is going to rain again and a cold hush stirs the cocoa leaves and makes the coconut sabres clack together like castanets, but nevertheless I shall go....I must end this now and start for Kandy by the usual 'thumb up' method. When I do get to London I shall expect some high pressure teaching from you all about the modern methods. I shall expect the odd beer and odd theatre in the two or three days I shall have before departing again into the bloody tropics.
    All the best while the Merry-Go-Round goes round and round and round.

Yours, bushed,
Lindsay S Rogers

Rogers exerted wide and varying influences on Dafoe throughout their years of friendship: intellectual stimulation, contempt for the base wallahs and regulations that conspired to make their lives miserable, and the ever-present wanderlust that inevitably found both men in faraway places. Rogers was perhaps the more eccentric, while Dafoe was reserved, wound tight like a watch-spring, inscrutable. Both men grew volatile when faced by the prospect, real or imagined, of confinement.
    Dafoe complained to Charlotte of some troubles he had had in converting dollars to pounds and with securing passage to Canada along with "40,000 wives or so here clamouring to go back in priority." He related that he had worked out a scheme by which he might fly back with some Americans. "The next bloody thing to come along was the Canadians turned down my application for post-graduate work, saying to take the British. On inquiring into the British scheme they have the generous offer of a 2-week refresher course. I will beat the bastards yet, but I must say the Anglophobia is rising."
    He wrote again, describing the misadventures he was enduring daily while encouraging Charlotte to take a vacation in Florida. "So take lots of sun and get in shape for the beating you will take when I see you again," he pronounced.
    On October 15, he wrote: "Just a line to say that they have caught up with me at last and that I am at Aldershot at present in a military hospital." In this letter he described as well an old friend from the 15th CCS who was eager to send him to Southampton where he would be employed examining repatriated PoWs from the Far East.
    On October 18: "Just a line to let you know that I am still on the merry-go-round. No new developments. I am in Southampton at a big reception camp for returned PoWs from the Far East with about 20-30 other fellows — some I haven't seen since the beginning of the war."
    On October 21, he wrote to say that he had returned to London House on Guilford Street. Several letters from Charlotte were waiting for him, for which he was grateful.
    In a letter dated October 25, he said: "The last bunch [of PoWs] were not so good as the previous bunch, perhaps because they didn't get a chance at the Canadian and American food. They have all had malaria ranging from 5 or 6 times up to 40...amoebic dysentery...beri-beri very common...[as was] cholera. Mentally they are better than one would expect but many of them are pretty jittery. Some amazing tales they tell. I have learned a lot about...my destination that was. That was a narrow escape. Large numbers of them worked on the railroad between Burma and Thailand where so many died."
    Having left London again, he wrote: "We are living in a strange place called the Wilderness." The building was an enormous mansion set in bucolic surroundings. "Seems to me some ATS [Army Territorial Service] ground commanded by an officer with a wooden leg. You see them sometimes along the corridors, darting in and out of rooms but that is about all. We are seldom there except to sleep and away by 7 a.m. but some kind soul always puts out a big pitcher of beer and some cheese sandwiches at night when we get back."
    At the end of his letter, Dafoe sent encouraging words regarding Charlotte's forthcoming vacation in Florida, adding that "everything should be straightened out by spring as far as I am concerned."
    On October 30, Dafoe sent a NAAFI letter postmarked in Southampton, in which he explained he was "still in the same spot," although he had travelled to London for a day to collect mail again and make an appearance at his lodgings. "Glad things are OK," he wrote. "Please have a good holiday, Charlotte — sky the limit, plenty of sun, even male companions."
    Then Dafoe raised another matter. "I was called up to the War Office (Intelligence Side) and presented with a report of my activities in Canada. I thought they would have an eye on me there — and it was quite thorough. A bit peeved at the broadcast, etc, but not so bad. In fact, generally OK. Don't talk too much of some of the things I told you, but as a matter of fact I didn't tell you much of the things they might object to discussing. One or two things have straightened out of my weird position. One is that I must return to Canada within a year of de-mob to claim my Canadian gratuities — as the sum is considerable I must get back somehow...Another thing as far as assistance here for post-graduate work — the British tell me to go to the Canadians, the Canadians to the British — the old merry-go-round. It will probably end up with my telling both of them to go to Hell."
    On November 1: "Well, sweetheart, I hope the days of this paper marriage are drawing to a close. I must admit that with all the practice my form hasn't improved much. Love Colin."
    On November 5, he wrote enclosing several snapshots. Others he had taken in Luxor, Assam, Palestine, and Suez he promised to send as well. He asked Charlotte to make a few purchases of classical recordings, including a list recommending Borodin's Prince Igor Choral Dance No 17, Rossini's William Tell Overture, selections from Carmen, La Boheme, La Traviata, Madame Butterfly, and Rachmaninov's Symphony for Piano and Orchestra. Then he added that Lindsay Rogers was expected in London any day. "Things are going slowly," he said of his own predicament. "It is difficult to have a sequence of study until I get released from the Prison, for I am in various places according to the whims of some clerk or old fogey in the Boer War days...There is big friction here between the EMS [Emergency Medical Service] and the returning service men....
    "I am in close touch with the Yugoslav Embassy. Conditions are improving rapidly — much better than the British papers and politicians would lead you to believe. It must be a certain disappointment to them for they are not too keen to have Tito and his boys succeed. However, from the true facts it seems as if they are attacking the peace and tremendous difficulties with the same vigour as they pursued the war. Nothing like a bit of peasant blood with its simplicity and force making up for its inexperience to replace the old decadent system whose so-called experience was mainly in the art of graft. Anyway, my friends tell me to come back in two years and things will be very good and more like peace-time conditions. I wonder if England could offer such hope, which has hardly been touched by war compared to Yugoslavia."

Dafoe returned to London on November 21, 1945 — his thirty-sixth birthday — to learn that Lindsay Rogers had flown in from Cairo. Dafoe told Charlotte: "He is in the process of getting demobbed and then some visiting and then Baghdad. It certainly was good to see him." He related as well that his friend was on a collision course with the authorities again. "He believes it is about the book he wrote, in which he did some plain speaking — including some choice words about the British Army. However, nothing has come of it yet, for when he went down to the War Office they found that they had lost his file and didn't know what they wanted to see him about."
    If Lindsay's letters to Dafoe are an indication of the language he used in his manuscript, one can understand why the British were upset with him. Later, Dafoe explained that SOE operatives were prohibited from publishing accounts of their experiences for a minimum of seven years after the war. Rogers' memoirs were in limbo as a result — no doubt to the satisfaction of the British wallahs.
    Dafoe related that he had taken on an interesting caseload while in Southampton, most of it tropical surgery. Meanwhile, he was eager to resume post-graduate work. "A Hell of a lot to learn and find I have to go back to the fundamentals in order to build," he said. He was beginning to realize that the years he had spent in military hospitals in England and Scotland, the Middle East, North Africa, and Yugoslavia had kept him out of the normal progression other doctors and surgeons usually made.
    He wrote more about Lindsay Rogers: "You will like him immediately, Charlotte, when you meet him. He is going to spend his honeymoon in Canada if he gets married."
    Dafoe mentioned that he had been presented with a portrait of himself in recognition of his work in Yugoslavia. It is not known if this was the finished sketch by Ismet Mujezinovic or if another Yugoslav artist had been commissioned. There was already a magnificent rendering of Lindsay Rogers by the celebrated Yugoslav painter Jakac (a reproduction of which was the frontispiece of the New Zealander's memoirs published years later, while the original found its way to the Dafoes' house in Edmonton, where it was a treasured memento). In any case, the only extant drawing of Dafoe is Ismet's, which for years was reported as hanging in the Museum of the Revolution in Sarajevo (in fact, it was filed in its archives).
    Finally, Dafoe addressed a worrying matter. "I got around to having my amoebic dysentery checked. I hope nothing comes of it, for I haven't the time for treatment." He mentioned progress on the memoirs he had started in Madoc. "I have managed to write more in the book. In fact, enough so that I can complete it with ease. You will have to help me rewrite it — sometime when you are sitting about pregnant. I haven't the time. The time factor is creeping in, I am beginning to realise, and I have to make up for about seven years."
    In London, Dafoe had moved into Millbanks Military Hospital where he was fitfully awaiting demobilization. "The first day has consisted of sitting on boards estimating degrees of disability for pensions," he told Charlotte. He had heard that he might be released from the RAMC by the spring, adding that he wanted to travel to Edinburgh to study before returning to Canada.
    The paper marriage would continue for a while yet, it seemed.
    On November 25, he wrote to say that Lindsay Rogers had returned from holidays in the Hebrides; and on December 4, that no new developments had occurred. "Rogers is still here but on 12 hours' notice. Last Sunday we went down to an agent's home and had a pleasant time discussing old experiences and got a lot of inside dope on the working of things all over the world."
    Then, on December 22, he wrote from Edinburgh: "I am in this fair city again — on my way out of the army. I had a choice of where to be demobilised and this seemed the most logical. It looks just about the same as ever — beautiful when the sun shines....It certainly is much colder than London. Rogers is still foaming at the mouth at the delay but expects to go any time. I wonder when I will see him again. I certainly won't meet many men like him in the future. An amazing man and a touch of the genius in him. I hope things go all right in Baghdad for him but I expect he will make them right."
    Dafoe commented on the number of Canadians and Poles in Edinburgh. They seemed to dominate the city. He expressed some concern for the local inhabitants. The shops were virtually empty and anything sold went at outrageous prices. "It seems strange," he remarked, "when the Scots can't get hold of a bottle of Scotch whiskey when they make the stuff." In Edinburgh he often encountered old friends from the desert campaign, many of whom he noted were "lost with the strangeness of civilian life." He wondered if he would feel the same way when he finally shed his uniform.
    By December 24, 1945, he had been demobilized.
    "And so ends the long sojourn of almost six years — an experience I somehow wouldn't have liked to have missed, but some very lazy dull monotonous times with little amenities of life. I hope I won't have to repeat the performance," he said.
    "I can't say that I have developed that lost feeling yet that they talk about when you are discharged from the army, and don't expect to," he added in a subsequent letter to Charlotte.
    Truth was, he did not have time to feel lost. Dafoe embraced personal freedom with the unnerving realization that he had much to catch up with and scant time in which to do it.
    But at least the merry-go-round had stopped.