title: Alexander Walker, ‘a Soldier's Friendship’, Hours Off and on Sentry or Personal Recollections of Military Adventure in Great Britain, Portugal and Canada (Montreal: Jn. Lovell, 1859), PP. 10-63.
abstract: Perhaps because it was published in Quebec, relatively little attention has been paid to this book. Its nature is also somewhat puzzling. While the title clearly indicates it is a military memoir and much within it would indicate this, the excerpt below is clearly fictionalised. In it, Walker rehearses many of the gender assumptions of the period, especially with respect to Mary. His portrayal of the two soldiers, however, operates against the grain of received assumptions: Thorburn and Wilson d