[Transcriber's note:
-Obvious printer's errors have been corrected.
-Variable spelling of hyphenated words has been made consistent.
-Missing page numbers correspond to blank pages.
-Punctuation conventions of the original have been retained.
-Inconsistent spelling of place names has been retained.]

The Great War as I Saw It

The Great War as I Saw It

by
Canon Frederick George Scott, C.M.G., D.S.O.

Late Senior Chaplain
First Canadian Division, C.E.F.

Author of "Later Canadian Poems," and "Hymn of the Empire."

F. D. GOODCHILD COMPANY
Publishers - - - Toronto

Copyright, Canada, 1922
by Frederick George Scott

CONTENTS

Chapter I.
[How I got into the War—July to September, 1914]

Chapter II.
[The Voyage to England—September 29th to October 18th, 1914]

Chapter III.
[On Salisbury Plain—October 18th, 1914 to January 1st, 1915]

Chapter IV.
[Off to France—January to March, 1915]

Chapter V.
[Before the Storm—March and April, 1915]

Chapter VI.
[The Second Battle of Ypres—April 22nd, 1915]

Chapter VII.
[Festubert and Givenchy—May and June, 1915]

Chapter VIII.
[A Lull in Operations—Ploegsteert, July to December, 1915]

Chapter IX.
[Our First Christmas in France]

Chapter X.
[Spring, 1916]

Chapter XI.
[The Attack on Mount Sorrel—Summer, 1916]

Chapter XII.
[The Battle of the Somme—Autumn, 1916]

Chapter XIII.
[Our Home at Camblain l'Abbé—November, 1916]

Chapter XIV.
[My Search is Rewarded]

Chapter XV.
[A Time of Preparation—Christmas, 1916 to April, 1917]

Chapter XVI.
[The Capture of Vimy Ridge—April 9th, 1917]

Chapter XVII.
[A Month on the Ridge—April and May, 1917]

Chapter XVIII.
[A Well-earned Rest—May and June, 1917]

Chapter XIX.
[Paris Leave—June, 1917]

Chapter XX.
[We take Hill 70—July and August, 1917]

Chapter XXI.
[Every day Life—August and September, 1917]

Chapter XXII.
[A Tragedy of War]

Chapter XXIII.
[Visits to Rome and Paschendaele—Oct. and Nov., 1917]

Chapter XXIV.
[Our Last War Christmas]

Chapter XXV.
[Victory Year Opens—January and February, 1918]

Chapter XXVI.
[The German Offensive—March, 1918]

Chapter XXVII.
[In Front of Arras—April, 1918]

Chapter XXVIII.
[Sports and Pastimes—May and June, 1918]

Chapter XXIX.
[The Beginning of the End]

Chapter XXX.
[The Battle of Amiens—August 8th to August 16th, 1918]

Chapter XXXI.
[We Return to Arras—August, 1918]

Chapter XXXII.
[The Smashing of the Drocourt-Quéant Line—Sept. 2nd, 1918]

Chapter XXXIII.
[Preparing for the Final Blow—September, 1918]

Chapter XXXIV.
[The Crossing of the Canal du Nord—September 27th, 1918]

Chapter XXXV.
[VICTORY—November 11th, 1918]

[Index]

TO
THE OFFICERS AND MEN
OF THE
FIRST CANADIAN DIVISION, C.E.F.

FOREWORD

It is with great pleasure I accede to the request of Canon Scott to write a foreword to his book.

I first heard of my friend and comrade after the second battle of Ypres when he accompanied his beloved Canadians to Bethune after their glorious stand in that poisonous gap—which in my own mind he immortalised in verse:—

O England of our fathers, and England of our sons,
Above the roar of battling hosts, the thunder of the guns,
A mother's voice was calling us, we heard it oversea,
The blood which thou didst give us, is the blood we spill for thee.

Little did I think when I first saw him that he could possibly, at his time of life, bear the rough and tumble of the heaviest fighting in history, and come through with buoyancy of spirit younger men envied and older men recognized as the sign and fruit of self-forgetfulness and the inspiration and cheering of others.

Always in the thick of the fighting, bearing almost a charmed life, ignoring any suggestion that he should be posted to a softer job "further back," he held on to the very end.

The last time I saw him was in a hospital at Etaples badly wounded, yet cheery as ever—having done his duty nobly.

All the Canadians in France knew him, and his devotion and fearlessness were known all along the line, and his poems will, I am bold to prophesy, last longer in the ages to come than most of the histories of the war.

I feel sure that his book—if anything like himself—will interest and inspire all who read it.

LLEWELLYN H. GWYNNE.

PREFACE

It is with a feeling of great hesitation that I send out this account of my personal experiences in the Great War. As I read it over, I am dismayed at finding how feebly it suggests the bitterness and the greatness of the sacrifice of our men. As the book is written from an entirely personal point of view, the use of the first personal pronoun is of course inevitable, but I trust that the narration of my experience has been used only as a lens through which the great and glorious deeds of our men may be seen by others. I have refrained, as far as possible, except where circumstances seemed to demand it, from mentioning the names of officers or the numbers of battalions.

I cannot let the book go out without thanking, for many acts of kindness, Lieut.-General Sir Edwin Alderson, K.C.B., Lieut.-General Sir Arthur Currie, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., and Major-General Sir Archibald Macdonell, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., who were each in turn Commanders of the First Canadian Division. In all the efforts the chaplains made for the welfare of the Division, they always had the backing of these true Christian Knights. Their kindness and consideration at all times were unbounded, and the degree of liberty which they allowed me was a privilege for which I cannot be too thankful, and which I trust I did not abuse.

If, by these faulty and inadequate reminiscences, dug out of memories which have blended together in emotions too deep and indefinable to be expressed in words, I have reproduced something of the atmosphere in which our glorious men played their part in the deliverance of the world, I shall consider my task not in vain.

May the ears of Canada never grow deaf to the plea of widows and orphans and our crippled men for care and support. May the eyes of Canada never be blind to that glorious light which shines upon our young national life from the deeds of those "Who counted not their lives dear unto themselves," and may the lips of Canada never be dumb to tell to future generations the tales of heroism which will kindle the imagination and fire the patriotism of children that are yet unborn.

The Great War as I Saw It

CHAPTER I.

How I Got Into The War.
July to September, 1914.

It happened on this wise. It was on the evening of the 31st of July, 1914, that I went down to a newspaper office in Quebec to stand amid the crowd and watch the bulletins which were posted up every now and then, and to hear the news of the war. One after another the reports were given, and at last there flashed upon the board the words, "General Hughes offers a force of twenty thousand men to England in case war is declared against Germany." I turned to a friend and said, "That means that I have got to go to the war." Cold shivers went up and down my spine as I thought of it, and my friend replied, "Of course it does not mean that you should go. You have a parish and duties at home." I said, "No. I am a Chaplain of the 8th Royal Rifles. I must volunteer, and if I am accepted, I will go." It was a queer sensation, because I had never been to war before and I did not know how I should be able to stand the shell fire. I had read in books of people whose minds were keen and brave, but whose hind legs persisted in running away under the sound of guns. Now I knew that an ordinary officer on running away under fire would get the sympathy of a large number of people, who would say, "The poor fellow has got shell shock," and they would make allowance for him. But if a chaplain ran away, about six hundred men would say at once, "We have no more use for religion." So it was with very mingled feelings that I contemplated an expedition to the battle-fields of France, and I trusted that the difficulties of Europe would be settled without our intervention.

However, preparations for war went on. On Sunday, August 2nd, in the afternoon, I telephoned to Militia Headquarters and gave in my name as a volunteer for the Great War. When I went to church that evening and told the wardens that I was off to France, they were much surprised and disconcerted. When I was preaching at the service and looked down at the congregation, I had a queer feeling that some mysterious power was dragging me into a whirlpool, and the ordinary life around me and the things that were so dear to me had already begun to fade away.

On Tuesday, August the Fourth, war was declared, and the Expeditionary Force began to be mobilized in earnest. It is like recalling a horrible dream when I look back to those days of apprehension and dread. The world seemed suddenly to have gone mad. All civilization appeared to be tottering. The Japanese Prime Minister, on the night war was declared, said, "This is the end of Europe." In a sense his words were true. Already we see power shifted from nations in Europe to that great Empire which is in its youth, whose home is in Europe, but whose dominions are scattered over the wide world, and also to that new Empire of America, which came in to the war at the end with such determination and high resolve. The destinies of mankind are now in the hands of the English-speaking nations and France.

In those hot August days, a camp at Valcartier was prepared in a lovely valley surrounded by the old granite hills of the Laurentians, the oldest range of mountains in the world. The Canadian units began to collect, and the lines of white tents were laid out. On Saturday, August 22nd, at seven in the morning, the detachment of volunteers from Quebec marched off from the drill-shed to entrain for Valcartier. Our friends came to see us off and the band played "The Girl I Left Behind Me," in the traditional manner. On our arrival at Valcartier we marched over to the ground assigned to us, and the men set to work to put up the tents. I hope I am casting no slur upon the 8th Royal Rifles of Quebec, when I say that I think we were all pretty green in the matter of field experience. The South African veterans amongst us, both officers and men, saved the situation. But I know that the cooking arrangements rather "fell down", and I think a little bread and cheese, very late at night, was all we had to eat. We were lucky to get that. Little did we know then of the field kitchens, with their pipes smoking and dinners cooking, which later on used to follow up the battalions as they moved.

The camp at Valcartier was really a wonderful place. Rapidly the roads were laid out, the tents were run up, and from west and east and north and south men poured in. There was activity everywhere. Water was laid on, and the men got the privilege of taking shower-baths, beside the dusty roads. Bands played; pipers retired to the woods and practised unearthly music calculated to fire the breast of the Scotsman with a lust for blood. We had rifle practice on the marvellous ranges. We had sham battles in which the men engaged so intensely that on one occasion, when the enemy met, one over-eager soldier belaboured his opponent with the butt end of his rifle as though he were a real German, and the poor victim, who had not been taught to say "Kamarad", suffered grievous wounds and had to be taken away in an ambulance. Though many gales and tempests had blown round those ancient mountains, nothing had ever equalled the latent power in the hearts of the stalwart young Canadians who had come so swiftly and eagerly at the call of the Empire. It is astonishing how the war spirit grips one. In Valcartier began that splendid comradeship which spread out to all the divisions of the Canadian Corps, and which binds those who went to the great adventure in a brotherhood stronger than has ever been known before.

Valcartier was to me a weird experience. The tents were cold. The ground was very hard. I got it into my mind that a chaplain should live the same life as the private soldier, and should avoid all luxuries. So I tried to sleep at night under my blanket, making a little hole in the ground for my thigh bone to rest in. After lying awake for some nights under these conditions, I found that the privates, especially the old soldiers, had learnt the art of making themselves comfortable and were hunting for straw for beds. I saw the wisdom of this and got a Wolesley sleeping bag, which I afterwards lost when my billet was shelled at Ypres. Under this new arrangement I was able to get a little rest. A kind friend in Quebec provided fifty oil stoves for the use of the Quebec contingent and so we became quite comfortable.

The dominating spirit of the camp was General Hughes, who rode about with his aides-de-camp in great splendour like Napoleon. To me it seemed that his personality and his despotic rule hung like a dark shadow over the camp. He was especially interesting and terrible to us chaplains, because rumour had it that he did not believe in chaplains, and no one could find out whether he was going to take us or not. The chaplains in consequence were very polite when inadvertently they found themselves in his august presence. I was clad in a private's uniform, which was handed to me out of a box in the drill-shed the night before the 8th Royal Rifles left Quebec, and I was most punctilious in the matter of saluting General Hughes whenever we chanced to meet.

The day after we arrived at the camp was a Sunday. The weather looked dark and showery, but we were to hold our first church parade, and, as I was the senior chaplain in rank, I was ordered to take it over. We assembled about three thousand strong, on a little rise in the ground, and here the men were formed in a hollow square. Rain was threatening, but perhaps might have held off had it not been for the action of one of the members of my congregation, who in the rear ranks was overheard by my son to utter the prayer—"O Lord, have mercy in this hour, and send us now a gentle shower." The prayer of the young saint was answered immediately, the rain came down in torrents, the church parade was called off, and I went back to my tent to get dry.

Day after day passed and more men poured in. They were a splendid lot, full of life, energy and keen delight in the great enterprise. Visitors from the city thronged the camp in the afternoons and evenings. A cinema was opened, but was brought to a fiery end by the men, who said that the old man in charge of it never changed his films.

One of the most gruesome experiences I had was taking the funeral of a young fellow who had committed suicide. I shall never forget the dismal service which was held, for some reason or other, at ten o'clock at night. Rain was falling, and we marched off into the woods by the light of two smoky lanterns to the place selected as a military cemetery. To add to the weirdness of the scene two pipers played a dirge. In the dim light of the lanterns, with the dropping rain over head and the dripping trees around us, we laid the poor boy to rest. The whole scene made a lasting impression on those who were present.

Meanwhile the camp extended and improvements were made, and many changes occurred in the disposition of the units. At one time the Quebec men were joined with a Montreal unit, then they were taken and joined with a New Brunswick detachment and formed into a battalion. Of course we grew more military, and I had assigned to me a batman whom I shall call Stephenson. I selected him because of his piety—he was a theological student from Ontario. I found afterwards that it is unwise to select batmen for their piety. Stephenson was a failure as a batman. When some duty had been neglected by him and I was on the point of giving vent to that spirit of turbulent anger, which I soon found was one of the natural and necessary equipments of an officer, he would say, "Would you like me to recite Browning's 'Prospice'?" What could the enraged Saul do on such occasions but forgive, throw down the javelin and listen to the music of the harping David? Stephenson was with me till I left Salisbury Plain for France. He nearly exterminated me once by setting a stone waterbottle to heat on my stove without unscrewing the stopper. I arrived in my tent quite late and seeing the thing on the stove quickly unscrewed it. The steam blew out with terrific force and filled the tent. A moment or two more and the bottle would have burst with disastrous consequences. When I told Stephenson of the enormity of his offence and that he might have been the cause of my death, and would have sent me to the grave covered with dishonour for having been killed by the bursting of a hot waterbottle—an unworthy end for one about to enter the greatest war the world has ever known—he only smiled faintly and asked me if I should like to hear him recite a poem.

News from overseas continued to be bad. Day after day brought us tidings of the German advance. The martial spirits amongst us were always afraid to hear that the war would be over before we got to England. I, but did not tell the people so, was afraid it wouldn't. I must confess I did not see in those days how a British force composed of men from farms, factories, offices and universities could get together in time to meet and overthrow the trained legions of Germany. It was certainly a period of anxious thought and deep foreboding, but I felt that I belonged to a race that has never been conquered. Above all, right and, therefore, God was on our side.

The scenery around Valcartier is very beautiful. It was a joy now and then to get a horse and ride away from the camp to where the Jacques Cartier river comes down from the mountains, and to dream of the old days when the world was at peace and we could enjoy the lovely prospects of nature, without the anxious care that now gnawed at our hearts. The place had been a favorite haunt of mine in the days gone by, when I used to take a book of poems and spend the whole day beside the river, reading and dozing and listening to the myriad small voices of the woods.

Still, the centre of interest now was the camp, with its turmoil and bustle and indefinite longing to be up and doing. The officer commanding my battalion had brought his own chaplain with him, and it was plainly evident that I was not wanted. This made it, I must confess, somewhat embarrassing. My tent, which was at the corner of the front line, was furnished only with my bed-roll and a box or two, and was not a particularly cheerful home. I used to feel rather lonely at times. Now and then I would go to Quebec for the day. On one occasion, when I had been feeling particularly seedy, I returned to camp at eleven o'clock at night. It was cold and rainy. I made my way from the station to my tent. In doing so I had to pass a Highland Battalion from Vancouver. When I came to their lines, to my dismay I was halted by a sentry with a fixed bayonet, who shouted in the darkness, "Who goes there?" I gave the answer, but instead of being satisfied with my reply, the wretched youth stood unmoved, with his bayonet about six inches from my body, causing me a most unpleasant sensation. He said I should have to come to the guardroom and be identified. In the meantime, another sentry appeared, also with a fixed bayonet, and said that I had to be identified. Little did I think that the whole thing was a game of the young rascals, and that they were beguiling the tedious moments of the sentry-go by pulling a chaplain's leg. They confessed it to me months afterwards in France. However, I was unsuspecting and had come submissive into the great war. I said that if they would remove their bayonets from propinquity to my person—because the sight of them was causing me a fresh attack of the pains that had racked me all day—I would go with them to the guardroom. At this they said, "Well, Sir, we'll let you pass. We'll take your word and say no more about it." So off I went to my dripping canvas home, hoping that the war would be brought to a speedy termination.

Every night I used to do what I called "parish visiting." I would go round among the tents, and sitting on the ground have a talk with the men. Very interesting and charming these talks were. I was much impressed with the miscellaneous interests and life histories of the men who had been so quickly drawn together. All were fast being shaken down into their places, and I think the great lessons of unselfishness and the duty of pulling together were being stamped upon the lives that had hitherto been more or less at loose ends. I used to sit in the tents talking long after lights were out, not wishing to break the discussion of some interesting life problem. This frequently entailed upon me great difficulty in finding my way back to my tent, for the evenings were closing in rapidly and it was hard to thread one's way among the various ropes and pegs which kept the tents in position. On one occasion when going down the lines, I tripped over a rope. Up to that moment the tent had been in perfect silence, but, as though I had fired a magazine of high explosives, a torrent of profanity burst forth from the inhabitants at my misadventure. Of course the men inside did not know to whom they were talking, but I stood there with my blood curdling, wondering how far I was personally responsible for the language poured forth, and terrified lest anyone should look and find out who had disturbed their slumbers. I stole off into the darkness as quickly as I could, more than ever longing for a speedy termination of the great war, and resolving to be more careful in future about tripping over tent ropes.

We had church parades regularly now on Sundays and early celebrations of the Holy Communion for the various units. Several weeks had gone by and as yet we had no definite information from General Hughes as to which or how many chaplains would be accepted. It was very annoying. Some of us could not make satisfactory arrangements for our parishes, until there was a certainty in the matter. The question came to me as to whether I ought to go, now that the Quebec men had been merged into a battalion of which I was not to be the chaplain. One evening as I was going to town, I put the matter before my friend Colonel, now General, Turner. It was a lovely night. The moon was shining, and stretching far off into the valley were the rows of white tents with the dark mountains enclosing them around. We stood outside the farmhouse used as headquarters, which overlooked the camp. When I asked the Colonel whether, now that I was separated from my men, I ought to leave my parish and go, he said to me, "Look at those lines of tents and think of the men in them. How many of those men will ever come back? The best expert opinion reckons that this war will last at least two years. The wastage of human life in war is tremendous. The battalions have to be filled and refilled again and again. Don't decide in a hurry, but think over what I have told you." On the next evening when I returned from Quebec, I went to the Colonel and said, "I have thought the matter over and I am going."

The time was now drawing near for our departure and at last word was sent round that General Hughes wished to meet all the chaplains on the verandah of his bungalow. The time set was the cheerful hour of five a.m. I lay awake all night with a loud ticking alarm clock beside me, till about half an hour before the wretched thing was to go off. With great expedition I rose and shaved and making myself as smart as possible in the private's uniform, hurried off to the General's camp home. There the other chaplains were assembled, about twenty-five or thirty in all. We all felt very sleepy and very chilly as we waited with expectancy the utterance which was going to seal our fate. The General soon appeared in all the magnificence and power of his position. We rose and saluted. When he metaphorically told us to "stand easy", we all sat down. I do not know what the feelings of the others were, but I had an impression that we were rather an awkward squad, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. The General gave us a heart to heart talk. He told us he was going to send us with "the boys." From his manner I inferred that he looked upon us a kind of auxiliary and quite dispensable sanitary section. I gathered that he did not want us to be very exacting as to the performance of religious duties by the men. Rather we were to go in and out amongst them, make friends of them and cheer them on their way. Above all we were to remember that because a man said "Damn", it did not mean necessarily that he was going to hell. At the conclusion of the address, we were allowed to ask questions, and one of our number unadvisedly asked if he would be allowed to carry a revolver. "No," said Sam with great firmness, "take a bottle of castor oil." We didn't dare to be amused at the incident in the presence of the Chief, but we had a good laugh over it when we got back to our tents.

Two Sundays before we left, the most remarkable church parade in the history of the division was held, at which fully fifteen thousand men were present. The Senior Chaplain asked me to preach. A large platform had been erected, on which the chaplains stood, and on the platform also were two signallers, whose duty it was to signal to the battalions and bands the numbers of the hymns. On the chairs in front of the platform were seated the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, the Princess Patricia, Sir Robert Borden, and other notables. Beyond them were gathered the men in battalions. At one side were the massed bands. It was a wonderful sight. The sun was shining. Autumn tints coloured the maple trees on the sides of the ancient mountains. Here was Canada quickening into national life and girding on the sword to take her place among the independent nations of the world. It had been my privilege, fifteen years before, to preach at the farewell service in Quebec Cathedral for the Canadian Contingent going to the South African war. It seemed to me then that never again should I have such an experience. Yet on that occasion there were only a thousand men present, and here were fifteen times that number. At that time the war was with a small and half-civilized nation in Africa, now the war was with the foremost nations of Europe. On that occasion I used the second personal pronoun "you", now I was privileged to use the first personal pronoun "we". Almost to the last I did not know what text to choose and trusted to the inspiration of the moment what to say. My mind was confused with the vastness of the outlook. At last the words came to me which are the very foundation stone of human endeavour and human progress, "He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." I do not know exactly what I said, and I do not suppose it mattered much, for it was hard to make oneself heard. I was content if the words of the text alone were audible. We sang that great hymn, "O God our help in ages past," which came into such prominence as an imperial anthem during the war. As we sang the words—

"Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame"—

I looked at the everlasting mountains around us, where the sound of our worship died away, and thought how they had watched and waited for this day to come, and how, in the ages that were to dawn upon Canadian life and expansion, they would stand as monuments of the consecration of Canada to the service of mankind.

Things began to move rapidly now. People from town told us that already a fleet of liners was waiting in the harbour, ready to carry overseas the thirty-three thousand men of the Canadian contingent.

At last the eventful day of our departure arrived. On September 28th, with several other units, the 14th Battalion, to which I had been attached, marched off to the entraining point. I took one last look at the great camp which had now become a place of such absorbing interest and I wondered if I should ever see again that huge amphitheatre with its encompassing mountain witnesses. The men were in high spirits and good humour prevailed.

We saw the three companies of Engineers moving off, each followed by those mysterious pontoons which followed them wherever they went and suggested the bridging of the Rhine and our advance to Berlin. Someone called out, "What are those boats?" and a voice replied, "That's the Canadian Navy." We had a pleasant trip in the train to Quebec, enlivened by jokes and songs. On our arrival at the docks, we were taken to the custom-house wharf and marched on board the fine Cunard liner "Andania", which now rests, her troubles over, at the bottom of the Irish Sea. On the vessel, besides half of the 14th Battalion, there was the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion, chiefly from Vancouver, and the Signal Company. Thus we had a ship full to overflowing of some of the noblest young fellows to whom the world has given birth. So ended our war experience in Valcartier Camp.

Nearly five years passed before I saw that sacred spot again. It was in August 1919. The war was ended, peace had been signed, and the great force of brother knights had been dispersed. Little crosses by the highways and byways of France and Belgium now marked the resting-place of thousands of those whose eager hearts took flame among these autumn hills. As I motored past the deserted camp after sunset, my heart thrilled with strange memories and the sense of an abiding presence of something weird and ghostly. Here were the old roads, there were the vacant hutments. Here were the worn paths across the fields where the men had gone. The evening breeze whispered fitfully across the untrodden grass and one by one the strong mountains, as though fixing themselves more firmly in iron resolve, cast off the radiant hues of evening and stood out black and grim against the starlit sky.

CHAPTER II.

The Voyage To England.
September 29th to October 18th, 1914.

The "Andania" moved out to mid-stream and anchored off Cape Diamond. The harbour was full of liners, crowded with men in khaki. It was a great sensation to feel oneself at last merged into the great army life and no longer free to come and go. I looked at the City and saw the familiar outline of the Terrace and Château Frontenac and, over all, the Citadel, one of my favourite haunts in times past. A great gulf separated us now from the life we had known. We began to realize that the individual was submerged in the great flood of corporate life, and the words of the text came to me, "He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it."

The evening was spent in settling down to our new quarters in what was, especially after the camp at Valcartier, a luxurious home. Dinner at night became the regimental mess, and the saloon with its sumptuous furnishings made a fine setting for the nightly gathering of officers. We lay stationary all that night and on the next evening, Sept. the 29th, at six o'clock we weighed anchor and went at slow speed down the stream. Several other vessels had preceded us, the orders to move being sent by wireless. We passed the Terrace where cheer after cheer went up from the black line of spectators crowded against the railing. Our men climbed up into the rigging and their cheers went forth to the land that they were leaving. It was a glorious evening. The sun had set and the great golden light, fast deepening into crimson, burnt behind the northern hills and lit up the windows of the houses on the cliffs of Levis opposite. We moved down past the Custom House. We saw the St. Charles Valley and the Beauport shore, but ever our eyes turned to the grim outline of Cape Diamond and the city set upon the hill. Beside me on the upper deck stood a young officer. We were talking together and wondering if we should ever see that rock again. He never did. He and his only brother were killed in the war. We reached the end of the Island of Orleans, and looking back saw a deeper crimson flood the sky, till the purple mists of evening hid Quebec from our view.

We had a lovely sail down the St. Lawrence in superb weather and three days later entered the great harbour of Gaspé Basin. Here the green arms of the hills encompassed us, as though Canada were reluctant to let us go. Gaspé Basin has historical memories for Canada, for it was there that Wolfe assembled his fleet on his voyage to the capture of Quebec. We lay at anchor all day, and at night the moon came up and flooded the great water with light, against which stood out the black outline of thirty ships, so full of eager and vigorous life. About midnight I went on deck to contemplate the scene. The night was calm and still. The vessels lay dark and silent with all lights screened. The effect was one of lonely grandeur. What was it going to mean to us? What did fate hold in store? Among those hills, the outline of which I could now but faintly see, were the lakes and salmon rivers in the heart of the great forests which make our Canadian wild life so fascinating. We were being torn from that life and sent headlong into the seething militarism of a decadent European feudalism. I was leaning on the rail looking at the track of moonlight, when a young lad came up to me and said, "Excuse me, Sir, but may I talk to you for a while? It is such a weird sight that it has got on my nerves." He was a young boy of seventeen who had come from Vancouver. Many times afterwards I met him in France and Belgium, when big things were being done in the war, and we talked together over that night in Gaspé Basin and the strange thoughts that crowded upon us then. He was not the only one in that great fleet of transports who felt the significance of the enterprise.

On Saturday afternoon we resumed our journey and steamed out of the narrows. Outside the bay the ships formed into a column of three abreast, making a line nine miles in length. Several cruisers, and later a battleship and battle cruiser, mounted guard over the expedition. Off Cape Race, the steamship "Florizel" joined us, bringing the Newfoundland troops. Our family party was now complete.

It was indeed a family party. On every ship we had friends. It seemed as if Canada herself were steaming across the ocean. Day after day, in perfect weather, keeping our relative positions in absolute order, we sped over the deep. There was none of the usual sense of loneliness which characterizes the ocean voyage. We looked at the line of vessels and we felt that one spirit and one determination quickened the whole fleet into individual life.

On board the "Andania" the spirit of the men was excellent. There was physical drill daily to keep them fit. There was the gymnasium for the officers. We had boxing matches for all, and sword dances also for the Highlanders. In the early morning at five-thirty, the pipers used to play reveille down the passages. Not being a Scotsman, the music always woke me up. At such moments I considered it my duty to try to understand the music of the pipes. But in the early hours of the morning I made what I thought were discoveries. First I found out that all pipe melodies have the same bass. Secondly I found out that all pipe melodies have the same treble. On one occasion the pipers left the security of the Highlanders' quarters and invaded the precincts of the 14th Battalion, who retaliated by turning the hose on them. A genuine battle between the contending factions was only averted by the diplomacy of the O.C.

I had made friends with the wireless operators on board the ship, and every night I used to go up to their cabin on the upper deck and they would give me reports of the news which had been flashed out to the leading cruiser. They told me of the continued German successes and of the fall of Antwerp. The news was not calculated to act as a soothing nightcap before going to bed. I was sworn to secrecy and so I did not let the men know what was happening at the front. I used to look round at the bright faces of the young officers in the saloon and think of all that those young fellows might have to endure before the world was saved. It gave everyone on board a special sacredness in my eyes, and one felt strangely inadequate and unworthy to be with them.

The men lived below decks and some of them were packed in pretty tightly. Had the weather been rough there would have been a good deal of suffering. During the voyage our supply of flour gave out, but as we had a lot of wheat on board, the men were set to grind it in a coffee mill. More than fifty per cent of the men, I found, were members of the Church of England, and so I determined to have a celebration of Holy Communion, for all who cared to attend, at five o'clock every morning. I always had a certain number present, and very delightful were these services at that early hour. Outside on deck we could hear the tramp and orders of those engaged in physical drill, and inside the saloon where I had arranged the altar there knelt a small gathering of young fellows from various parts of Canada, who were pleased to find that the old Church was going with them on their strange pilgrimage. The well-known hymn—

"Eternal Father strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave"

had never appealed to me much in the past, but it took on a new meaning at our Sunday church parade, for we all felt that we were a rather vulnerable body in any determined attack that might be made upon us by the German navy. Now and then vessels would be sighted on the horizon and there was always much excitement and speculation as to what they might be. We could see the cruisers making off in the direction of the strangers and taking a survey of the ocean at long range.

One day a man on the "Royal George" fell overboard, and a boat was instantly lowered to pick him up. The whole fleet came to a standstill and all our glasses were turned towards the scene of rescue. Often in our battles when we saw the hideous slaughter of human beings, I have thought of the care for the individual life which stopped that great fleet in order to save one man.

Our destination, of course, was not known to us. Some thought we might go directly to France, others that we should land in England. When at last, skirting the south coast of Ireland, we got into the English Channel, we felt more than ever the reality of our adventure. I believe we were destined for Southampton; but rumour had it that a German submarine was waiting for us in the Channel, so we turned into the harbour of Plymouth. It was night when we arrived. A low cloud and mist hung over the dark choppy waves of the Channel. From the forts at Plymouth and from vessels in the harbour, long searchlights moved like the fingers of a great ghostly hand that longed to clutch at something. We saw the small patrol boats darting about in all directions and we felt with a secret thrill that we had got into that part of the world which was at war. We arrived at Plymouth on the evening of October 14th, our voyage having lasted more than a fortnight. Surely no expedition, ancient or modern, save that perhaps which Columbus led towards the undiscovered continent of his dreams, was ever fraught with greater significance to the world at large. We are still too close to the event to be able to measure its true import. Its real meaning was that the American continent with all its huge resources, its potential value in the ages to come, had entered upon the sphere of world politics, and ultimately would hold in its hands the sceptre of world dominion. Even the British thought that we had come merely to assist the Mother Country in her difficulties. Those who were at the helm in Canada, however, knew that we were not fighting for the security of the Mother Country only, but for the security of Canadian nationalism itself. Whatever the ages hold in store for us in this great and rich Dominion which stretches from sea to sea and from the river unto the world's end, depended upon our coming out victors in the great European struggle.

CHAPTER III.

On Salisbury Plain.
October 18th, 1914, to January 1st, 1915.

On Sunday the 18th, our men entrained and travelled to Patney, and from thence marched to Westdown South, Salisbury Plain. There tents had been prepared and we settled down to life in our new English home. At first the situation was very pleasant. Around us on all sides spread the lines of tents. The weather was delightful. A ride over the mysterious plain was something never to be forgotten. The little villages around were lovely and quaint. The old town of Salisbury, with its wonderful Cathedral and memories of old England, threw the glamour of romance and chivalry over the new soldiers in the new crusade. But winter drew on, and such a winter it was. The rains descended, the floods came and the storms beat upon our tents, and the tents which were old and thin allowed a fine sprinkling of moisture to fall upon our faces. The green sward was soon trampled into deep and clinging mud. There was nothing for the men to do. Ammunition was short, there was little rifle practice. The weather was so bad that a route march meant a lot of wet soldiers with nowhere to dry their clothes upon their return. In some places the mud went over my long rubber boots. The gales of heaven swept over the plain unimpeded. Tents were blown down. On one particularly gloomy night, I met a chaplain friend of mine in the big Y.M.C.A. marquee. I said to him, "For goodness sake let us do something for the men. Let us have a sing-song." He agreed, and we stood in the middle of the marquee with our backs to the pole and began to sing a hymn. I do not know what it was. I started the air and was going on so beautifully that the men were beginning to be attracted and were coming around us. Suddenly my friend struck in with a high tenor note. Hardly had the sound gone forth when, like the fall of the walls of Jericho at the sound of Joshua's trumpets, a mighty gale struck the building, and with a ripping sound the whole thing collapsed. In the rain and darkness we rushed to the assistance of the attendants and extinguished the lamps, which had been upset, while the men made their way to the counters and put the cigarettes and other dainties into their pockets, lest they should get wet. On another occasion, the Paymaster's tent blew away as he was paying off the battalion. Five shilling notes flew over the plain like white birds over the sea. The men quickly chased them and gathered them up, and on finding them stained with mud thought it unnecessary to return them. On another night the huge marquee where Harrod's ran the mess for a large number of officers, blew down just as we were going to dinner, and we had to forage in the various canteens for tinned salmon and packages of biscuits.

Still, in spite of all, the spirits of our men never failed. One night when a heavy rain had turned every hollow into a lake, and every gully into a rushing cataract, I went down to some tents on a lower level than my own. I waded through water nearly a foot deep and came to a tent from which I saw a faint light emerging. I looked inside and there with their backs to the pole stood some stalwart young Canadians. On an island in the tent, was a pile of blankets, on which burnt a solitary candle. "Hello, boys, how are you getting on?" "Fine, Sir, fine," was their ready response. "Well, boys, keep that spirit up," I said, "and we'll win the war."

At first we had no "wet" canteen where beer could be procured. The inns in the villages around became sources of great attraction to the men, and the publicans did their best to make what they could out of the well-paid Canadian troops. The maintenance of discipline under such circumstances was difficult. We were a civilian army, and our men had come over to do a gigantic task. Everyone knew that, when the hour for performance came, they would be ready, but till that hour came they were intolerant of restraint.

The English people did not understand us, and many of our men certainly gave them good reason to be doubtful. Rumour had it at one time that we were going to be taken out of the mud and quartered in Exeter. Then the rumour was that the Exeter people said, "If the Canadians are sent here, we'll all leave the town." I did not mind, I told the men I would make my billet in the Bishop's Palace.

The C.O. of one of the battalions was tempted to do what David did with such disastrous results, namely number the people. He called the roll of his battalion and found that four hundred and fifty men were absent without leave. But as I have said, we all knew that when the moment for big things came, every man would be at his post and would do his bit.

Just before Christmas the 3rd Brigade were moved into huts at Lark Hill. They were certainly an improvement upon the tents, but they were draughty and leaky. From my window I could see, on the few occasions when the weather permitted it, the weird and ancient circles of Stonehenge.

The calm repose of those huge stones, which had watched unmoved the passing of human epochs, brought peace to the mind. They called to memory the lines;—

"Our little systems have their day,
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they."

In order to give Christmas its religious significance, I asked permission of the Rector of Amesbury to use his church for a midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve. He gladly gave his consent and notice of the service was sent round to the units of the Brigade. In the thick fog the men gathered and marched down the road to the village, where the church windows threw a soft light into the mist that hung over the ancient burial ground. The church inside was bright and beautiful. The old arches and pillars and the little side chapels told of days gone by, when the worship of the holy nuns, who had their convent there, rose up to God day by day. The altar was vested in white and the candles shone out bright and fair. The organist had kindly consented to play the Christmas hymns, in which the men joined heartily. It was a service never to be forgotten, and as I told the men, in the short address I gave them, never before perhaps, in the history of that venerable fane, had it witnessed a more striking assembly. From a distance of nearly seven thousand miles some of them had come, and this was to be our last Christmas before we entered the life and death struggle of the nations. Row after row of men knelt to receive the Bread of Life, and it was a rare privilege to administer it to them. The fog was heavier on our return and some of us had great difficulty in finding our lines.

It seemed sometimes as if we had been forgotten by the War Office, but this was not the case. We had visits from the King, Lord Roberts and other high officials. All these were impressed with the physique and high spirits of our men.

The conditions under which we lived were certainly atrocious, and an outbreak of meningitis cast a gloom over the camp. It was met bravely and skilfully by our medical men, of whose self-sacrifice and devotion no praise is too high. The same is true of their conduct all through the war.

Our life on the Plain was certainly a puzzle to us. Why were we kept there? When were we going to leave? Were we not wanted in France? These were the questions we asked one another. I met an Imperial officer one day, who had just returned from the front. I asked him when we were going to train for the trenches. "Why" he said, "what better training could you have than you are getting here? If you can stand the life here, you can stand the life in France." I think he was right. That strange experience was just what we needed to inure us to hardship, and it left a stamp of resolution and efficiency on the First Division which it never lost.

CHAPTER IV.

Off To France.
January To March, 1915.

Towards the end of January, rumors became more frequent that our departure was close at hand, and we could see signs of the coming movement in many quarters. The disposition of the chaplains was still a matter of uncertainty. At last we were informed that only five chaplains were to proceed with the troops to France. This was the original number which the War Office had told us to bring from Canada. The news fell like a thunderbolt upon us, and we at once determined to get the order changed. The Senior Roman Catholic Chaplain and myself, by permission of the General, made a special journey to the War Office. The Chaplain-General received us, if not coldly, at least austerely. We told him that we had come from Canada to be with the men and did not want to leave them. He replied by saying that the Canadians had been ordered by Lord Kitchener to bring only five chaplains with them, and they had brought thirty-one. He said, looking at me, "That is not military discipline; we must obey orders." I explained to him that since the Canadian Government was paying the chaplains the people thought it did not matter how many we had. Even this did not seem to convince him. "Besides", he said, "they tell me that of all the troops in England the Canadians are the most disorderly and undisciplined, and they have got thirty-one chaplains." "But", I replied, "you ought to see what they would have been like, if we had brought only five." We succeeded in our mission in so far that he promised to speak to Lord Kitchener that afternoon and see if the wild Canadians could not take more chaplains with them to France than were allotted to British Divisions. The result was that eleven of our chaplains were to be sent.

Early in February we were told that our Division was to go in a few days. In spite of the mud and discomfort we had taken root in Salisbury Plain. I remember looking with affection one night at the Cathedral bathed in moonlight, and at the quaint streets of the dear old town, over which hung the shadow of war. Could it be possible that England was about to be crushed under the heel of a foreign tyrant? If such were to be her fate, death on the battlefield would be easy to bear. What Briton could endure to live under the yoke or by the permission of a vulgar German autocrat?

On entering the mess one evening I was horrified to read in the orders that Canon Scott was to report immediately for duty to No. 2 General Hospital. It was a great blow to be torn from the men of the fighting forces. I at once began to think out a plan of campaign. I went over to the G.O.C. of my brigade, and told him that I was to report to No. 2 General Hospital. I said, with perfect truth, that I did not know where No. 2 General Hospital was, but I had determined to begin the hunt for it in France. I asked him if he would take me across with the Headquarters Staff, so that I might begin my search at the front. He had a twinkle in his eye as he told me that if I could get on board the transport, he would make no objection. I was delighted with the prospect of going over with the men.

When the time came to pack up, I was overwhelmed by the number of things that I had accumulated during the winter. I disposed of a lot of useless camp furniture, such as folding tables and collapsible chairs, and my faithful friend the oil stove. With a well-filled Wolseley kit-bag and a number of haversacks bursting with their contents, I was ready for the journey. On February 11th, on a lovely afternoon, I started off with the Headquarters Staff. We arrived at Avonmouth and made our way to the docks. It was delightful to think that I was going with the men. I had no batman and no real standing with the unit with which I was travelling. However, I did not let this worry me. I got a friend to carry my kit-bag, and then covering myself with haversacks, till I looked, as the men said, like a Christmas tree, I made my way to the ship with a broad grin of satisfaction on my face. As I went up the gangway so attired and looking exceedingly pleased with myself, my appearance excited the suspicion of the officer in command of the ship, who was watching the troops come on board. Mistaking the cause of my good spirits, he called a captain to him and said, "There is an officer coming on board who is drunk; go and ask him who he is." The captain accordingly came over and greeting me pleasantly said, "How do you do, Sir?" "Very well, thank you," I replied, smiling all the more. I was afraid he had come up to send me back. Having been a teetotaler for twenty-two years, I knew nothing of the horrible suspicion under which I lay at the moment. The captain then said, "Who are you, Sir?" and I, thinking of my happy escape from army red tape, answered quite innocently, with a still broader grin, "I'm No. 2, General Hospital." This, of course confirmed the captain's worst suspicions. He went back to the O.C. of the ship. "Who does he say he is?" said the Colonel. "He says he is No. 2 General Hospital," the Captain replied. "Let him come on board" said the Colonel. He thought I was safer on board the ship than left behind in that condition on the wharf. With great delight I found all dangers had been passed and I was actually about to sail for France.

The boat which took us and the 3rd Artillery Brigade, was a small vessel called "The City of Chester." We were horribly crowded, so my bed had to be made on the table in the saloon. A doctor lay on the sofa at the side and several young officers slept on the floor. We had not been out many hours before a terrific gale blew up from the West, and we had to point our bow towards Canada. I told the men there was some satisfaction in that. We were exceedingly uncomfortable. My bed one night slid off the table on to the sleeping doctor and nearly crushed him. I squeezed out some wonderfully religious expressions from him in his state of partial unconsciousness. I replaced myself on the table, and then slid off on to the chairs on the other side. I finally found a happy and safe haven on the floor. On some of the other transports they fared even worse. My son, with a lot of other privates, was lying on the floor of the lowest deck in his boat, when a voice shouted down the gangway, "Lookout boys, there's a horse coming down." They cleared away just in time for a horse to land safely in the hold, having performed one of those miraculous feats which horses so often do without damage to themselves.

On the 15th of February we arrived off the west coast of France and disembarked at St. Nazaire. Our life now took on fresh interest. Everything about us was new and strange. As a Quebecer I felt quite at home in a French town. A good sleep in a comfortable hotel was a great refreshment after the voyage. In the afternoon of the following day we entrained for the front. I spread out my Wolesley sleeping bag on the straw in a box car in which there were several other officers. Our progress was slow, but it was a great thing to feel that we were travelling through France, that country of romance and chivalry. Our journey took more than two days, and we arrived at Hazebrouck one week after leaving Salisbury Plain. The town has since been badly wrecked, but then it was undamaged. The Brigadier lent me a horse and I rode with his staff over to Caestre where the brigade was to be billeted. In the same town were the 15th and 16th Battalions and the 3rd Field Ambulance. I had a room that night in the Château, a rather rambling modern house. The next morning I went out to find a billet for myself. I called on the Mayor and Mayoress, a nice old couple who not only gave me a comfortable room in their house, but insisted upon my accepting it free of charge. They also gave me breakfast in the kitchen downstairs. I was delighted to be so well housed and was going on my way rejoicing when I met an officer who told me that the Brigade Major wanted to see me in a hurry. I went over to his office and was addressed by him in a very military manner. He wanted to know why I was there and asked what unit I was attached to. I told him No. 2 General Hospital. He said, "Where is it?" "I don't know", I replied, "I came over to France to look for it." He said, "It is at Lavington on Salisbury Plain," and added, "You will have to report to General Alderson and get some attachment till the hospital comes over." His manner was so cold and businesslike that it was quite unnerving and I began to realize more than ever that I was in the Army. Accordingly that afternoon I walked over to the General's Headquarters, at Strazeele, some five miles away, and he attached me to the Brigade until my unit should come to France. I never knew when it did come to France, for I never asked. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" was my motto. I held on to my job at the front. But the threat which the Brigadier held over me, that if I went into the trenches or anywhere out of his immediate ken I should be sent back to No. 2 General Hospital, was something which weighed upon my spirits very heavily at times, and caused me to acquire great adroitness in the art of dodging. In fact, I made up my mind that three things had to be avoided if I wished to live through the campaign—sentries, cesspools, and generals. They were all sources of special danger, as everyone who has been at the front can testify. Over and over again on my rambles in the dark, nothing has saved me from being stuck by a sentry but the white gleam of my clerical collar, which on this account I had frequently thought of painting with luminous paint. One night I stepped into a cesspool and had to sit on a chair while my batman pumped water over me almost as ill-savoured as the pool itself. On another occasion, when, against orders, I was going into the trenches in Ploegsteert, I saw the General and his staff coming down the road. Quick as thought, I cantered my horse into an orchard behind a farm house, where there was a battery of Imperials. The men were surprised, not to say alarmed, at the sudden appearance of a chaplain in their midst. When I told them, however, that I was dodging a general, they received me with the utmost kindness and sympathy. They had often done the same themselves, and offered me some light refreshments.

On the following Sunday we had our first church parade in the war zone. We were delighted during the service to hear in the distance the sound of guns and shells. As the war went on we preferred church parades when we could not hear guns and shells.

After a brief stay in Caestre the whole brigade marched off to Armentieres. Near Flêtre, the Army Commander, General Smith-Dorrien, stood by the roadside and took the salute as we passed. I went with the 15th Battalion, and, as I told the men, being a Canon, marched with the machine gun section. We went by the delightful old town of Bailleul. The fields were green. The hedges were beginning to show signs of spring life. The little villages were quaint and picturesque, but the pavé road was rough and tiring. Bailleul made a delightful break in the journey. The old Spanish town hall, with its tower, the fine old church and spire and the houses around the Grande Place, will always live in one's memory. The place is all a ruin now, but then it formed a pleasant home and meeting place for friends from many parts. We skirted the borders of Belgium and arrived at Armentieres in the afternoon. The place had been shelled and was partly deserted, but was still a populous town. I made my home with the Brigade transport in a large school. In the courtyard our horses and mules were picketed. I had never heard mules bray before and I had a good sample next morning of what they can do, for with the buildings around them the sound had an added force. The streets of Armentieres were well laid out and some of the private residences were very fine. It is astonishing how our camp life at Salisbury had made us love cities. Armentieres has since been destroyed and its church ruined. Many of us have pleasant memories of the town, and the cemetery there is the resting place of numbers of brave Canadians.

I ran across an imperial Chaplain there, whom I had met in England. He told me he had a sad duty to perform that night. It was to prepare for death three men who were to be shot at daybreak. He felt it very keenly, and I afterwards found from experience how bitter the duty was.

We were brought to Armentieres in order to be put into the trenches with some of the British units for instruction. On Wednesday evening, February the 24th, the men were marched off to the trenches for the first time and I went with a company of the 15th Battalion, who were to be attached to the Durham Light Infantry. I was warned to keep myself in the background as it was said that the chaplains were not allowed in the front line. The trenches were at Houplines to the east of Armentieres. We marched down the streets till we came to the edge of the town and there a guide met us and we went in single file across the field. We could see the German flare-lights and could hear the crack of rifles. It was intensely interesting, and the mystery of the war seemed to clear as we came nearer to the scene of action. The men went down into the narrow trench and I followed. I was welcomed by a very nice young captain whom I never heard of again till I saw the cross that marked his grave in the Salient. The trenches in those days were not what they afterwards became. Double rows of sandbags built like a wall were considered an adequate protection. I do not think there was any real parados. The dugouts were on a level with the trench and were roofed with pieces of corrugated iron covered with two layers of sandbags. They were a strange contrast to the dugouts thirty feet deep, lined with wood, which we afterwards made for our trench homes.

I was immensely pleased at having at last got into the front line. Even if I were sent out I had at least seen the trenches. The captain brought me to his tiny dugout and told me that he and I could squeeze in there together for the night. He then asked me if I should like to see the trench, and took me with him on his rounds. By this time it was dark and rainy and very muddy. As we were going along the trench a tall officer, followed by another met us and exchanged a word with the captain. They then came up to me and the first one peered at me in the darkness and said in abrupt military fashion, "Who are you?" I thought my last hour had come, or at least I was going to be sent back. I told him I was a chaplain with the Canadians. "Did you come over with the men?" "Yes", I said. "Capital", he replied, "Won't you come and have lunch with me tomorrow?" "Where do you live?" I said. The other officer came up to my rescue at this moment and said, "The General's Headquarters are in such and such a place in Armentieres," "Good Heavens", I whispered in a low tone to the officer, "Is he a general?" "Yes" he said. "I hope my deportment was all that it ought to have been in the presence of a general," I replied. "It was excellent, Padré," he said, with a laugh. So I arranged to go and have luncheon with him two days afterwards, for I was to spend forty-eight hours in the trenches. The first officer turned out to be General Congreve, V.C., a most gallant man. He told me at luncheon that if he could press a button and blow the whole German nation into the air he would do it. I felt a little bit shocked then, because I did not know the Germans as I afterwards did. I spent nearly four years at the front hunting for that button.

The captain and I had very little room to move about in his dugout. I was very much impressed with the unostentatious way in which he said, "If you want to say your prayers, Padré, you can kneel over in that corner first, because there is only room for one at a time. I will say mine afterwards"—and he did. He was a Roman Catholic, and had lived in India, and was a very fine type of man. When I read the words two years afterwards on a cross in a cemetery near Poperinghe, "Of your charity pray for the soul of Major Harter, M.C.," I did it gladly and devoutly.

I had brought with me in a small pyx, the Blessed Sacrament, and the next morning I gave Communion to a number of the men. One young officer, a boy of eighteen, who had just left school to come to the front, asked me to have the service in his dugout. The men came in three or four at a time and knelt on the muddy floor. Every now and then we could hear the crack of a bullet overhead striking the sandbags. The officer was afterwards killed, and the great promise of his life was not fulfilled in this world.

There was a great deal of rifle fire in the trenches in those days. The captain told me the Canadians were adepts in getting rid of their ammunition and kept firing all night long. Further down the line were the "Queen's Own Westminsters." They were a splendid body of young men and received us very kindly. On my way over to them the next morning, I found in a lonely part of a trench a man who had taken off his shirt and was examining the seams of it with interest. I knew he was hunting for one of those insects which afterwards played no small part in the general discomfort of the Great War, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn privately what they looked like. So I took a magnifying glass out of my pocket and said, "Well, my boy, let me have a look for I too am interested in botany." He pointed to a seam in his shirt and said, "There, Sir, there is one." I was just going to examine it under the glass when, crack! a bullet hit the sandbags near-by, and he told me the trench was enfiladed. I said, "My dear boy, I think I will postpone this scientific research until we get to safer quarters, for if I am knocked out, the first question my congregation will ask will be, "What was our beloved pastor doing when he was hit?" If they hear that I was hunting in a man's shirt for one of these insects, they will not think it a worthy ending to my life." He grinned, put on his shirt, and moved down the trench.

That afternoon a good many shells passed over our heads and of course the novelty of the thing made it most interesting. After a war experience of nearly four years, one is almost ashamed to look back upon those early days which were like war in a nursery. The hideous thing was then only in its infancy. Poison gas, liquid fire, trench mortars, hand grenades, machine guns, (except a very few) and tanks were then unknown. The human mind had not then made, as it afterward did, the sole object of its energy the destruction of human life. Yet with a deepening knowledge of the instruments of death has come, I trust, a more revolting sense of the horrors and futility of war. The romance and chivalry of the profession of arms has gone forever. Let us hope that in the years to come the human mind will bend all its energies to right the wrongs and avert the contentions that result in bloodshed.

On the following Sunday, we had a church parade in the square in Armentieres. Two or three men watched the sky with field glasses lest an enemy plane should come up. We had now finished our instruction in trench warfare and were going to take over part of the front line. We were marched off one afternoon to the village of Bac St. Maur, where we rested for the night. I had dinner with the officers of the 15th Battalion, and went out afterwards to a big factory at the end of the straggling brick village to see my son, whose battalion was quartered there. On returning I found the night was very dark, and every door and window in the long rows of houses was tightly closed. No lights were allowed in the town. Once more my faculty for losing my way asserted itself, and I could not tell which was the house where I had dined. It was to be my billet for the night. The whole place was silent, and I wandered up and down the long street. I met a few soldiers and when I asked if they could tell me where I had had dinner they naturally began to eye me with suspicion. At the same time it was no laughing matter. I had had a long walk in the afternoon and had the prospect of another on the following day. I was separated from my kit-bag and my safety razor, which always, at the front, constituted my home, and the night was beginning to get cold. Besides it was more or less damaging to one's character as a chaplain to be found wandering aimlessly about the streets at night asking where you had dined. My habits were not as well known to the men then as they were after a few years of war. In despair I went down the road behind the village, and there to my joy I saw a friendly light emerging from the door of a coach house. I went up to it and entered and found to my relief the guard of the 16th Battalion. They had a big fire in the chimney-place, and were smoking and making tea. It was then about one o'clock, and they were both surprised and amused at my plight, but gave me a very glad welcome and offered me a bed and blankets on the floor. I was just going to accept them when I asked if the blankets were "crummy". The men burst out laughing. "You bet your life they are, Sir," they cried. "Well, boys," I said, "I think that I prefer to spend the night walking about the village and trying to compose a poem." Once more I made my way down the dark street, examining closely every door and window. At last I found a crack of light which came from one of the houses. I knocked at the door and it was opened by an officer from Quebec, who had been engaged with some others in a quiet game of cards. He was amused at my homeless condition and kindly took me in and gave me a comfortable bed in his own room. On the next morning of course I was "ragged" tremendously on my disappearance during the night.

The next day we marched off to the village of Sailly-sur-Lys, which was to become our rear headquarters during our occupation of the trenches. The little place had been damaged by shells, but every available house was occupied. Our battalion moved up the country road and was dispersed among the farm houses and barns in the neighbourhood.

I made my home with some officers in a small and dirty farm house. The novelty of the situation, however, gave it a certain charm for the time. We were crowded into two or three little rooms and lay on piles of straw. We were short of rations, but each officer contributed something from his private store. I had a few articles of tinned food with me and they proved to be of use. From that moment I determined never to be without a tin of bully beef in my haversack, and I formed the bully beef habit in the trenches which lasted till the end and always amused the men. The general cesspool and manure heap of the farm was, as usual, in the midst of the buildings, and was particularly unsavoury. A cow waded through it and the family hens fattened on it. Opposite our window in one of the buildings dwelt an enormous sow with a large litter of young ones. When any of the ladies of the family went to throw refuse on the manure heap, the old sow, driven by the pangs of hunger, would stand on her hind legs and poke her huge face out over the half door of her prison appealing in pig language for some of the discarded dainties. Often nothing would stop her squeals but a smart slap on her fat cheeks by the lady's tender hand. In the hayloft of the barn the men were quartered. Their candles made the place an exceedingly dangerous abode. There was only one small hole down which they could escape in case of fire. It is a wonder we did not have more fires in our billets than we did.

The trenches assigned to our Brigade were to the right of Fleurbaix. They were poorly constructed, but as the time went on were greatly improved by the labours of our men. The Brigadier assigned to me for my personal use a tiny mud-plastered cottage with thatched roof and a little garden in front. It was in the Rue du Bois, a road which ran parallel with the trenches about 800 yards behind them. I was very proud to have a home all to myself, and chalked on the door the word "Chaplain". In one room two piles of straw not only gave me a bed for myself but enabled me to give hospitality to any officer who needed a billet. Another room I fitted up as a chapel. An old box covered with the silk Union Jack and white cloth and adorned with two candles and cross served as an altar. There were no chairs to be had, but the plain white walls were not unsuited to the purpose to which the room was dedicated.

In this chapel I held several services. It was a fine sight to see a group of tall and stalwart young Highlanders present. Their heads almost reached to the low ceiling, and when they sang, the little building trembled with the sound.

Every night when there were any men to be buried, I used to receive notice from the front line, and after dark I would set out preceded by my batman, Murdoch MacDonald, a proper young Highlander, carrying a rifle with fixed bayonet on his shoulder. It made one feel very proud to go off down the dark road so attended. When we got to the place of burial I would hold a short service over the open graves in which the bodies were laid to rest. Our casualties were light then, but in those days we had not become accustomed to the loss of comrades and so we felt the toll of death very bitterly.

It made a great difference to me to have a house of my own. Previously I had found it most difficult to get any place in which to lay my head. On one occasion, I had obtained permission from a kind-hearted farmer's wife to rent one corner of the kitchen in her two-roomed house. It was on a Saturday night and when the family had retired to their room I spread my sleeping bag in the corner and went to bed. I got up when the family had gone to Mass in the morning. All through the day the kitchen was crowded, and I saw that if I went to bed that night I should not have the opportunity of getting up again until the family went to Mass on the following Sunday. So I paid the woman five francs for my lodging and started out in pursuit of another. I managed to find a room in another little farmhouse, somewhat larger and cleaner. My room was a small one and had an earth floor. The ceiling was so low that I could touch the beams with my head when I stood on my toes. But in it were two enormous double beds, a table and a chair. What more could one want? A large cupboard full of straw furnished a billet for Murdoch and he was allowed to do my simple cooking on the family stove.

Small as my billet was, I was able on one occasion to take in and house three officers of the Leicesters, who arrived one night in preparation for the battle of Neuve Chapelle. I also stowed away a sergeant in the cupboard with Murdoch. My three guests were very hungry and very tired and enjoyed a good sleep in the ponderous beds. I saw a photo of one of the lads afterwards in the Roll of Honour page of the "Graphic," and I remembered the delightful talk I had had with him during his visit.

At that time we were all very much interested in a large fifteen-inch howitzer, which had been placed behind a farmhouse, fast crumbling into ruins. It was distant two fields from my abode. To our simple minds, it seemed that the war would soon come to an end when the Germans heard that such weapons were being turned against them. We were informed too, that three other guns of the same make and calibre were being brought to France. The gun was the invention of a retired admiral who lived in a farmhouse nearby and who, when it was loaded, fired it off by pressing an electric button. The officer in charge of the gun was very pleasant and several times took me in his car to interesting places. I went with him to Laventie on the day of the battle of Neuve Chapelle, and saw for the first time the effects of an attack and the wounded being brought back in ambulances.

There was one large barn not far off full of beautiful yellow straw which held several hundred men. I had a service in it one night. The atmosphere was smoky and mysterious, and the hundreds of little candles propped up on mess-tins over the straw, looked like a special illumination. A large heap of straw at the end of the barn served as a platform, and in lieu of an organ I had a mandolin player to start the hymns. The service went very well, the men joining in heartily.

The night before the battle of Neuve Chapelle, I went over to see the captain in charge of the big gun, and he showed me the orders for the next day, issued by the British General. He told me that at seven o'clock it would be "Hell let loose", all down the line. Next morning I woke up before seven, and blocked up my ears so that I should not be deafened by the noise of artillery. But for some reason or other the plans had been changed and I was quite disappointed that the Germans did not get the hammering it was intended to give them. We were on the left of the British line during the battle of Neuve Chapelle, and were not really in the fight. The British suffered very heavily and did not meet with the success which they had hoped for.

My son was wounded in this engagement and was sent out with the loss of an eye. On returning from seeing him put into a hospital train at Merville, I was held up for some hours in the darkness by the British Cavalry streaming past in a long line. I was delighted to see them for I thought we had broken through. On the next day to our great disappointment we saw them going back again.

Near Canadian Headquarters at Sailly there was a large steam laundry which was used as a bath for our men. It was a godsend to them, for the scarcity of water made cleanliness difficult. The laundry during bath hours was a curious spectacle. Scores of large cauldrons of steaming water covered the floor. In each sat a man with only his head and shoulders showing, looking as if he were being boiled to death. In the mists of the heated atmosphere and in the dim light of candles, one was reminded of Doré's illustrations of Dante's Inferno. In one of them he represents a certain type of sinner as being tormented forever in boiling water.

We had now finished our time in this part of the line and the Division was ordered back for a rest. The General was troubled about my transportation as I had no horse, but I quoted my favourite text, "The Lord will provide." It made him quite angry when I quoted the text, and he told me that we were engaged in a big war and could not take things so casually. When, however, he had seen me on various occasions picked up by stray motor cars and lorries and get to our destination before he did, he began to think there was more in the text than he had imagined. I was accused of helping Providence unduly by base subterfuges such as standing in the middle of a road and compelling the motor to stop until I got in. I considered that my being able to stop the car was really a part of the providing. In fact I found that, if one only had courage to stand long enough in the middle of the road without moving, almost any car, were it that of a private or a general, would come to a standstill. It was only a natural thing, when the car had stopped, to go to the occupants and say, "I know the Lord has sent you for the purpose of giving me a lift." It was quite a natural consequence of this for me to be taken in. One day at Estaires I tried to commandeer a fine car standing in the square, but desisted when I was informed by the driver that it was the private property of the Prince of Wales. I am sure that if the Prince had been there to hear the text, he would have driven me anywhere I wanted to go.

On the present occasion, I had not gone far down the road before a car picked me up and took me on my way—an incident which I narrated to the General afterwards with intense satisfaction.

CHAPTER V.

Before The Storm.
March to April, 1915.

Our rest-time at Estaires at the end of March was a delightful period of good fellowship. The beautiful early spring was beginning to assert its power over nature. The grass was green. The trees and hedgerows were full of sap and the buds ready to burst into new life. As one walked down the roads in the bright sunshine, and smelt the fresh winds bearing the scent of springtime, an exquisite feeling of delight filled the soul. Birds were singing in the sky, and it was pitiful to think that any other thoughts but those of rapture at the joy of living should ever cross the mind.

A sergeant found me a comfortable billet in a house near the Church. A dear old man and his two venerable daughters were the only occupants. Like all the French people we met, their little home was to them a source of endless joy. Everything was bright and clean, and they took great pleasure in showing off its beauties. There was a large room with glass roof and sides, like a conservatory. On the wall was the fresco of a landscape, drawn by some strolling artist, which gave my hosts infinite delight. There was a river flowing out of some very green woods, with a brilliant blue sky overhead. We used to sit on chairs opposite and discuss the woodland scene, and I must say it brought back memories to me of many a Canadian brook and the charming home life of Canadian woods, from which, as it seemed then, we were likely to be cut off forever.

The Bishop of London paid a visit to our men, and addressed them from the steps of the Town Hall in the Grande Place. The officers and men were charmed with his personality.

It was a joy to me that we were to spend Easter at such a convenient place. On Good Friday afternoon we had a voluntary service in front of the Town Hall. It seemed very fitting that these men who had come in the spirit of self-sacrifice, should be invited to contemplate, for at least an hour, the great world sacrifice of Calvary. A table was brought out from an estaminet nearby and placed in front of the steps. I mounted on this and so was able to address the crowd which soon assembled there. We sang some of the Good Friday hymns, "When I survey the wondrous Cross", and "Jesu, Lover of my Soul." There must have been several hundred present. I remember specially the faces of several who were themselves called upon within a few weeks to make the supreme sacrifice. Like almost all other religious services at the front, this one had to struggle with the exigencies of war. A stream of lorries at the side of the Grande Place and the noisy motor cycles of despatch riders made an accompaniment to the address which rendered both speaking and hearing difficult.

Easter Day rose bright and clear. I had a hall situated down a narrow lane, which had been used as a cinema. There was a platform at one end and facing it, rows of benches. On the platform I arranged the altar, with the silk Union Jack as a frontal and with cross and lighted candles for ornaments. It looked bright and church-like amid the sordid surroundings. We had several celebrations of the Holy Communion, the first being at six a.m. A large number of officers and men came to perform their Easter duties. A strange solemnity prevailed. It was the first Easter spent away from home; it was the last Easter that most of those gallant young souls spent on earth. The other chaplains had equally large attendances. We sang the Easter hymn at each service, and the music more than anything else carried us back to the days that were.

But our stay in Estaires was only for a time, and soon orders came that we were to move. On April 7th, a bright and lovely spring morning, the whole Division began its fateful journey to Ypres and marched off to Cassel, about thirty miles behind the Salient. The men were in good spirits, and by this time were becoming accustomed to the pavé roads. We passed through Caestre, where I saw my old friends, the Mayor and Mayoress. That afternoon I was taken by two British officers to the little hotel in Cassel for luncheon. The extensive view over the country from the windows reminded me of dear old Quebec. After luncheon my friends motored me to Ypres. The city at that time had not been heavily shelled, except the Cloth Hall and Cathedral. The shops around the square were still carrying on their business and people there were selling post-cards and other small articles. We went into the Cathedral, which had been badly damaged. The roof was more or less intact and the altar and pulpit in their places. I saw what an impressive place it must have been. The Cloth Hall had been burnt, but the beautiful stone façade was still undamaged. A fire engine and horses were quartered under the central tower. There was a quiet air of light and beauty in the quaint old buildings that suggested the mediaeval prosperity of the city. Behind the better class of houses there were the usual gardens, laid out with taste, and often containing fountains and rustic bridges. The French and the Belgians delighted in striving to make a landscape garden in the small area at their command.

I shall always be thankful that I had the opportunity of paying this visit to Ypres while it still retained vestiges of its former beauty. Dark and hideous dreams of drives on ambulances in the midnight hours haunt me now when the name of Ypres is mentioned. I hear the rattle of lorries and motorcycles and the tramp of horses on the cobblestones. The grim ruins on either side of the road stand out hard and sombre in the dim light of the starry sky. There is the passing of innumerable men and the danger of the traffic-crowded streets. But Ypres, as I saw it then, was full of beauty touched with the sadness of the coming ruin.

In the afternoon, I motored back to our brigade on the outskirts of Cassel. After dinner I started off to find my new billet. As usual I lost my way. I went off down the country roads. The farms were silent and dark. There was no one to tell me where my battalion was. I must have gone a long distance in the many detours I made. The country was still a place of mystery to me, and "The little owls that hoot and call" seemed to be the voice of the night itself. The roads were winding and lonely and the air was full of the pleasant odours of the spring fields. It was getting very late and I despaired of finding a roof under which to spend the night. I determined to walk back to the nearest village. As I had marched with the men that day all the way from Estaires, a distance of about twenty miles, I was quite reasonably tired and anxious to get a bed. I got back to the main road which leads to St. Sylvestre. On approaching the little village I was halted by a British sentry who was mounting guard over a line of Army Service Corps lorries. I went on and encountered more sentries till I stood in the town itself and made my difficulty known to a soldier who was passing. I asked him if he knew where I could get a lodging for the night. He told me that some officers had their headquarters in the Curé's house, and that if I were to knock at the door, very probably I could find a room in which to stay. I went to the house which was pointed out to me and knocked. There was a light in a window upstairs so I knew that my knocking would be heard. Presently a voice called out from the hollow passage and asked me to open the door and come in. I did so, and in the dim light saw at the end of the hall a white figure which was barely distinguishable and which I took to be the individual who had spoken to me. Consequently I addressed my conversation to it. The shadowy form asked me what I wanted and I explained that I had lost my way and asked where the headquarters of my battalion were. The being replied that it did not know but invited me to come in and spend the night. At that moment somebody from the upstairs region came with an electric torch, and the light lit up the empty hall. To my surprise I found that I had been addressing my conversation to the life-sized statue of some saint which was standing on a pedestal at the foot of the stairs. I rather mystified my host by saying that I had been talking to the image in the hall. However, in spite of this, he asked me to come upstairs where he would give me a bed. By this time several of the British officers who occupied the upper flat had become interested in the arrival of the midnight visitor, and were looking over the bannisters. I can remember feeling that my only chance of receiving hospitality depended on my presenting a respectable appearance. I was on my best behaviour. It was greatly to my confusion, therefore, as I walked upstairs under the inspection of those of the upper flat, that I stumbled on the narrow steps. In order to reassure my would-be friends, I called out, "Don't be alarmed, I am a chaplain and a teetotaller". They burst out laughing and on my arrival at the top greeted me very heartily. I was taken into a long bedroom where there were five beds in a row, one of which was assigned to me. Not only was I given a bed, but one of their servants went and brought me a hot-cross bun and a glass of milk. In return for such wholehearted and magnificent hospitality, I sat on the edge of the bed and recited poems to my hosts, who at that hour of the morning were not averse to anything which might be conducive to sleep. On the next day I was made an honorary member of their mess. I should like to bear testimony here to the extraordinary cordiality and kind hospitality which was always shown to us by British officers.

Later on in the day, I found the 13th Battalion just a few miles outside Cassel at a place called Terdeghem. It was a quaint little village with an interesting church. I got a billet in a farmhouse. It was a curious building of brick and stood on the road where a little gate opened into a delightful garden, full of old-fashioned flowers. My room was reached by a flight of steps from the kitchen and was very comfortable. I disliked, however, the heavy fluffy bed. Murdoch MacDonald used to sleep in the kitchen.

There were some charming walks around Terdeghem. One which I liked to take led to a very old and picturesque chateau, surrounded by a moat. I was immensely impressed with the rows of high trees on which the rooks built their noisy cities. Sometimes a double line of these trees, like an avenue, would stretch across a field. Often, as I have walked home in the dark after parish visiting, I have stood between the long rows of trees and listened to the wind sighing through their bare branches and looked up at the stars that "were tangled in them". Then the dread mystery of war and fate and destruction would come over me. It was a relief to think how comfortable and unconcerned the rooks were in their nests with their children about them in bed. They had wings too wherewith to fly away and be at rest.

Cassel was used at that time by the French Army, so we were excluded from it unless we had a special permit. It was a delightful old town, and from its commanding position on a rock has been used as a fortress more or less since the days of Julius Caesar. The Grand Place is delightful and quaint. From it, through various archways, one looks down upon the rich verdure of the fields that stretch far off into the distance.

We had a parade of our four battalions one day, when General Smith-Dorrien came to inspect us. The place chosen was a green slope not far from the entrance to the town. The General reviewed the men, and then gave a talk to the officers. As far as I can recollect, he was most sanguine about the speedy termination of the war. He told us that all we had to do was to keep worrying the Germans, and that the final crushing stroke would be given on the east by the Russians. He also told us that to us was assigned the place of honour on the extreme left of the British line next to the French Colonial troops. I overheard an irreverent officer near me say, "Damn the place of honour", and I thought of Sam Hughes and his warning about not objecting to swearing. The General, whom I had met before, asked me to walk with him up to his car and then said, "I have had reports about the Canadian Artillery, and I am delighted at their efficiency. I have also heard the best accounts of the Infantry, but do you think, in the event of a sudden onslaught by the Germans, that the Canadians will hold their ground? They are untried troops." I told him that I was sure that one thing the Canadians would do would be to hold on. Before a fortnight had passed, in the awful struggle near Langemarcke, the Canadians proved their ability to hold their ground.

Shortly after the General's visit we were ordered to move, and by some oversight on Murdoch MacDonald's part, my kit was not ready in time to be taken by the Brigade transport. In consequence, to my dismay, I saw the men march off from Terdeghem to parts unknown, and found myself seated on my kit by the wayside with no apparent hope of following. I administered a rebuke to Murdoch as sternly as was consistent with the position of a chaplain, and then asked him to see if he could find any sort of vehicle at all to carry my stuff off in the direction towards which the battalion had marched. I must say I felt very lonely and a "bit out of it", as I sat by the wayside wondering if I had lost the Brigade for good. In the meantime, Murdoch scoured the village for a horse and carriage. Suddenly, to my surprise, a despatch rider on a motorcycle came down the road and stopped and asked me if I knew where Canon Scott was. I said, "I'm the man", and he handed me a letter. It turned out to be one from General Smith-Dorrien, asking me to allow him to send a poem which I had written, called "On the Rue du Bois" to "The Times." It was such a kind friendly letter that at once it dispelled my sense of loneliness, and when Murdoch arrived and told me that there was not a horse in the place at my disposal, I replied that I did not mind so much now since I had the British General for a friend. I left Murdoch to guard my goods and chattels and went off myself down the road to the old Château and farmhouse. There I was lucky enough to obtain a cart with three wheels. It was an extremely long and heavily built vehicle and looked as if it dated from the 17th century. The horse that was put into it looked as if it had been born about the same period. The old man who held the solitary rein and sat over the third wheel under the bow looked to be of almost equal antiquity. It must have been about thirty feet from the tip of the old horse's nose to the end of the cart. However I was glad to get any means of transportation at all, so I followed the thing to the road where my kit was waiting, Murdoch MacDonald put all my worldly possessions on the equipage. They seemed to occupy very little room in the huge structure. Murdoch, shouldering his rifle, followed it, and I, rather ashamed of the grotesque appearance of my caravan, marched on as quickly as I could in front, hoping to escape the ridicule which I knew would be heaped upon me by all ranks of my beloved brigade. A man we met told us that the battalion had gone to Steenvoorde, so thither we made our way. On our arrival I was taken to the Château and kindly treated by the laird and his family, who allowed me to spread out my bed-roll on the dining room floor.

On the following morning an Imperial officer very kindly took me and my kit to Ypres. There at the end of Yser Canal, I found a pleasant billet in a large house belonging to a Mr. Vandervyver, who, with his mother, gave me a kind reception and a most comfortably furnished room. Later on, the units of our brigade arrived and I marched up with the 14th Battalion to the village of Wieltje. Over it, though we knew it not, hung the gloom of impending tragedy. Around it now cluster memories of the bitter price in blood and anguish which we were soon called upon to pay for the overthrow of tyranny. It was a lovely spring evening when we arrived, and the men were able to sit down on the green grass and have their supper before going into the trenches by St. Julien. I walked back down that memorable road which two years later I travelled for the last time on my return from Paschendaele. The great sunset lit the sky with beautiful colours. The rows of trees along that fateful way were ready to burst into new life. The air was fresh and invigorating. To the south, lay the hill which is known to the world as Hill 60, afterwards the scene of such bitter fighting. Before me in the distance, soft and mellow in the evening light, rose the towers and spires of Ypres—Ypres! the very name sends a strange thrill through the heart. For all time, the word will stand as a symbol for brutal assaults and ruthless destruction on the one hand and heroic resolve and dogged resistance on the other. On any grim monument raised to the Demon of War, the sole word "YPRES" would be a sufficient and fitting inscription.

CHAPTER VI.

The Second Battle of Ypres.
April 22nd, 1915.

Behind my house at Ypres there was an old-fashioned garden which was attended to very carefully by my landlady. A summerhouse gave a fine view of the waters of the Yser Canal, which was there quite wide. It was nice to see again a good-sized body of water, for the little streams often dignified by the name of rivers did not satisfy the Canadian ideas as to what rivers should be. A battalion was quartered in a large brick building several stories high on the east side of the canal. There was consequently much stir of life at that point, and from my summerhouse on the wall I could talk to the men passing by. My billet was filled with a lot of heavy furniture which was prized very highly by its owners. Madame told me that she had buried twelve valuable clocks in the garden in case of a German advance. She also told me that her grandfather had seen from the windows the British going to the battle of Waterloo. She had both a piano and a harmonium, and took great pleasure in playing some of the hymns in our Canadian hymn book. I was so comfortable that I hoped our residence at Ypres might be of long duration. At night, however, desultory shells fell into the city. We could hear them ripping along with a sound like a trolley on a track, and then there would be a fearful crash. One night when returning from Brigade Headquarters near Wieltje, I saw a magnificent display of fireworks to the South. I afterwards heard that it was the night the British attacked Hill 60.

On Sunday, the 18th of April, I had a service for the 15th Battalion in one of the stories of the brick building beside the canal. Something told me that big things were going to happen. I had a feeling that we were resting on the top of a volcano. At the end of the service I prepared for any sudden call to ministration on the battlefield by reserving the Blessed Sacrament.

On Monday some men had narrow escapes when a house was shelled and on the following day I went to the centre of the town with two officers to see the house which had been hit. They appeared to be in a hurry to get to the Square, so I went up one of the side streets to look at the damaged house. In a cellar near by I found an old woman making lace. Her hunchback son was sitting beside her. While I was making a few purchases, we heard the ripping sound of an approaching shell. It grew louder, till at last a terrific crash told us that the monster had fallen not far off. At that moment a number of people crowded into an adjoining cellar, where they fell on their knees and began to say a litany. I stood at the door looking at them. It was a pitiful sight. There were one or two old men and some women, and some little children and a young girl who was in hysterics. They seemed so helpless, so defenceless against the rain of shells.

I went off down the street towards the Square where the last shell had fallen, and there on the corner I saw a large house absolutely crushed in. It had formerly been a club, for there were billiard tables in the upper room. The front wall had crashed down upon the pavement, and from the debris some men were digging out the body of an officer who had been standing there when the shell fell. His was the first terribly mangled body that I had ever seen. He was laid face downwards on a stretcher and borne away. At that moment a soldier came up and told me that one of the officers with whom I had entered the town about half an hour ago had been killed, and his body had been taken to a British ambulance in the city. I walked across the Square, and there I saw the stretcher-bearers carrying off some civilians who had been hit by splinters of the shell. In the hospital were many dead bodies and wounded men for there had been over one hundred casualties in the city that day. We had hardly arrived when once again we heard the ripping sound which had such a sinister meaning. Then followed a terrific explosion. The final and dreadful bombardment of Ypres had begun. At intervals of ten minutes the huge seventeen-inch shells fell, sounding the death knell of the beautiful old town.

On the next morning, the brother-in-law of the officer who had been killed called on me and asked me to go and see the Town Major and secure a piece of ground which might be used for the Canadian Cemetery. The Town Major gave us permission to mark off a plot in the new British cemetery. It was in an open field near the jail, known by the name of the Plain d'Amour, and by it was a branch canal. Our Headquarters ordered the Engineers to mark off the place, and that night we laid the body to rest.

The following morning was Thursday, the memorable 22nd of April. The day was bright and beautiful. After burying another man in the Canadian lot, I went off to have lunch and write some letters in my billet. In the afternoon one of the 16th Battalion came in and asked me to have a celebration of the Holy Communion on the following morning, as some of the men would like to attend. I asked him to stay to tea and amuse himself till I had finished my letters. While I was writing I heard the ripping sound of an approaching shell, quickly followed by a tremendous crash. Some building quite close by had evidently been struck. I put on my cap and went out, when the landlady followed me and said, "I hope you are not going into the town." "I am just going to see where the shell has struck", I replied, "and will come back immediately." I never saw her again. As I went up the street I saw the shell had hit a large building which had been used as a hospital. The smoke from the shell was still rolling up into the clear sky. Thinking my services might be needed in helping to remove the patients, I started off in the direction of the building. There I was joined by a stretcher-bearer and we went through the gate into the large garden where we saw the still smoking hole in the ground which the shell had made. I remember that, as I looked into it, I had the same sort of eerie feeling which I had experienced when looking down the crater of Vesuvius. There was something uncanny about the arrival of shells out of the clear sky. They seemed to be things supernatural. The holes made by the seventeen inch shells with which Ypres was assailed were monstrous in size. The engineers had measured one in a field; it was no less than thirty-nine feet across and fifteen feet deep. The stretcher-bearer who was with me said as he looked at this one, "You could put three ambulances into it." We had not contemplated the scene very long before once again there was the ripping sound and a huge explosion, and we found ourselves lying on the ground. Whether we had thrown ourselves down or had been blown down I could not make out. We got up and the man went back to his ambulance and I went into the building to see if I could help in getting out the wounded. The place I entered was a large chapel and had been used as a ward. There were rows of neat beds on each side, but not a living soul was to be seen. It seemed so ghostly and mysterious that I called out, "Is anyone here?" There was no reply. I went down to the end of the chapel and from thence into a courtyard, where a Belgian told me that a number of people were in a cellar at the other end of a glass passage. I walked down the passage to go to the cellar, when once again there was the ominous ripping sound and a shell burst and all the glass was blown about my ears. An old man in a dazed condition came from the cellar at the end of the passage and told me that all the people had gone. I was helping him across the courtyard towards a gateway when a man came in from the street and took the old fellow on his back and carried him off. By the gateway was a room used as a guardroom. There I found a sentry with three or four Imperials. One of the lads had lost his nerve and was lying under a wooden bench. I tried to cheer them by telling them it was very unlikely that any more shells would come in our direction. I remembered reading in one of Marryatt's books that an officer in the Navy declared he had saved his life by always sticking his head into the hole in the ship which a cannon ball had made, as it was a million chances to one against another cannon ball striking that particular place. Still, at regular intervals, we heard the ripping sound and the huge explosion of a shell. Later on, two members of the 14th Battalion came in, and a woman and a little boy carrying milk. We did our best to restore the lady's courage and hoped that the bombardment would soon cease.

It was about seven p.m., when all of a sudden, we heard the roar of transports and the shouting of people in the street, and I went out to see what was the matter. To my horror I saw a battery of artillery galloping into the town. Civilians were rushing down the pavements on each side of the road, and had even filled the limbers. I called out to one of the drivers and asked him what it meant. "It is a general retreat", he shouted. "The Germans are on our heels." "Where are the infantry?" I called out. "They have all gone." That was one of the most awful moments in my life. I said to myself, "Has old England lost the War after all?" My mouth became suddenly dry as though filled with ashes. A young fellow on horseback stopped and, dismounting, very gallantly said, "Here, Sir, take my horse." "No thank you," I said, but I was grateful to him all the same for his self-sacrifice. I returned to the guardroom and told the sentries what had happened. The lady and the young boy disappeared and the men and I debated as to what we should do. The words, "The Germans are on our heels", were still ringing in my ears. I did not quite know what they signified. Whether they meant in military language that the Germans were ten miles away or were really round the next corner, I did not know, but I took the precaution of looking up the street before entering the gateway. On talking the matter over, the men and I thought it might be the part of discretion to make our way down past the Railway Station to the Vlamertinghe road, as none of us wanted to be taken prisoners. We therefore went down some side streets and crossed the bridge on the road that leads to Vlamertinghe. There I found an ammunition column hurrying out of the town, and the man riding one of the horses on a limber invited me to mount the other, which was saddled. It is so long, however, since I left the circus ring that I cannot mount a galloping horse unless I put my foot into the stirrup. So after two or three ineffectual attempts at a running mount, I climbed up into the limber and asked the driver if it was a general retreat. "No", he said, "I don't think so, only the Germans are close at hand and we were ordered to put the ammunition column further off." "Well", I said, "If it isn't a general retreat, I must go back to my lines or I shall be shot for desertion." I got off the limber and out of the crowd of people, and was making my way back, when I saw a car with a staff officer in it coming up in the direction of the City. I stopped the car and asked the officer if he would give me a ride back to Ypres. When I got in, I said to him quite innocently, "Is this a general retreat?" His nerves were evidently on edge, and he turned on me fiercely, saying, "Padré, never use such a word out here. That word must never be mentioned at the front." I replied, in excuse, that I had been told it was a retreat by a battery that was coming back from the front. "Padré," he continued, "that word must never be used." I am not sure that he did not enforce his commands by some strong theological terms. "Padré, that word must never be used out here." "Well," I said, "this is the first war I have ever been at, and if I can arrange matters it is the last, but I promise you I will never use it again." Not the least flicker of a smile passed over his face. Of course, as time went on and I advanced in military knowledge, I came to know the way in which my question ought to have been phrased. Instead of saying, "Is this a general retreat?", I ought to have said, "Are we straightening the line?" or "Are we pinching the Salient?" We went on till we came to a general who was standing by the road waiting to "straighten the line". I got out of the car and asked him where I should go. He seemed to be in a great hurry and said gruffly, "You had better go back to your lines." I did not know where they were, but I determined to go in their direction. The general got into the car which turned round and made off towards Vlamertinghe, and I, after a long and envious look in his direction, continued my return to Ypres.

People were still pouring out of the City. I recrossed the bridge, and making my way towards the cemetery, met two men of one of our battalions who were going back. I handed them each a card with my address on it and asked them, in case of my being taken prisoner, to write and tell my family that I was in good health and that my kit was at Mr. Vandervyver's on the Quai. The short cut to my billet led past the quiet cemetery where our two comrades had been laid to rest. It seemed so peaceful that I could not help envying them that their race was won.

It was dark now, but a bright moon was shining and lit up the waters of the branch canal as I walked along the bank towards my home. The sound of firing at the front was continuous and showed that a great battle was raging. I went by the house where the C.O. of the 16th Battalion had had his headquarters as I passed that afternoon. It was now quite deserted and the windows in it and in the houses round the square were all shattered. Not a living thing could I see. I walked across to my billet and found the shutters of the house closed. On the table where my letters were, a smoky oil lamp was burning. Not a human being was there. I never felt so lonely in my life, and those words, "The Germans are on our heels", still kept ringing in my ears. I took the lamp and went upstairs to my room. I was determined that the Germans should not get possession of the photographs of my family. I put them in my pocket, and over my shoulder the pair of glasses which the Bishop and clergy of Quebec had given me on my departure. I also hung round my neck the pyx containing the Blessed Sacrament, then I went out on the street, not knowing what way to take. To my infinite delight, some men came marching up in the moonlight from the end of the canal. I recognized them as the 16th Battalion, Canadian Scottish, and I called out, "Where are you going, boys?" The reply came glad and cheerful. "We are going to reinforce the line, Sir, the Germans have broken through." "That's all right, boys", I said, "play the game. I will go with you." Never before was I more glad to meet human beings. The splendid battalion marched up through the streets towards St. Jean. The men wore their overcoats and full kits. I passed up and down the battalion talking to officers and men. As I was marching beside them, a sergeant called out to me, "Where are we going, Sir?" "That depends upon the lives you have led." A roar of laughter went up from the men. If I had known how near the truth my words were, I probably would not have said them. When we got to St. Jean, a sergeant told me that the 14th Battalion was holding the line. The news was received gladly, and the men were eager to go forward and share the glory of their comrades. Later on, as I was marching in front of the battalion a man of the 15th met us. He was in a state of great excitement, and said, "The men are poisoned, Sir, the Germans have turned on gas and our men are dying." I said to him very sternly, "Now, my boy, not another word about that here." "But it's true, Sir." "Well, that may be, but these men have got to go there all the same, and the gas may have gone before they arrive, so promise me not another word about the poison." He gave me his promise and when I met him a month afterwards in Bailleul he told me he had never said a word about the gas to any of the men that night.

We passed through Weiltje where all was stir and commotion, and the dressing stations were already full, and then we deployed into the fields on a rise in the ground near St. Julien. By this time, our men had become aware of the gas, because, although the German attack had been made a good many hours before, the poisonous fumes still clung about the fields and made us cough. Our men were halted along the field and sat down waiting for orders. The crack of thousands of rifles and the savage roar of artillery were incessant, and the German flare-lights round the salient appeared to encircle us. There was a hurried consultation of officers and then the orders were given to the different companies. An officer who was killed that night came down and told us that the Germans were in the wood which we could see before us at some distance in the moonlight, and that a house from which we saw gleams of light was held by German machine guns. The men were told that they had to take the wood at the point of the bayonet and were not to fire, as the 10th Battalion would be in front of them. I passed down the line and told them that they had a chance to do a bigger thing for Canada that night than had ever been done before. "It's a great day for Canada, boys." I said. The words afterwards became a watchword, for the men said that whenever I told them that, it meant that half of them were going to be killed. The battalion rose and fixed bayonets and stood ready for the command to charge. It was a thrilling moment, for we were in the midst of one of the decisive battles of the war. A shrapnel burst just as the men moved off and a man dropped in the rear rank. I went over to him and found he was bleeding in the neck. I bound him up and then taking his kit, which he was loath to lose, was helping him to walk towards the dressing station when I saw what I thought were sandbags in the moonlight. I called out, "Is anybody there?" A voice replied, "Yes, Sir, there is a dying man here." I went over and there I found two stretcher-bearers beside a young fellow called Duffy, who was unconscious. He had been struck by a piece of shrapnel in the head and his brain was protruding. Duffy was a well-known athlete and had won the Marathon race. We tried to lift him, but with his equipment on he was too heavy, so I sent off the wounded man to Wieltje with one of the stretcher-bearers who was to return with a bearer party. The other one and I watched by Duffy. It was an awful and wonderful time. Our field batteries never slackened their fire and the wood echoed back the crackling sound of the guns. The flare lights all round gave a lurid background to the scene. At the foot of the long slope, down which the brave lads had gone to the attack, I saw the black outline of the trees. Over all fell the soft light of the moon. A great storm of emotion swept through me and I prayed for our men in their awful charge, for I knew that the Angel of Death was passing down our lines that night. When the bearer party arrived, we lifted Duffy on to the stretcher, and the men handed me their rifles and we moved off. I hung the rifles on my shoulder, and I thought if one of them goes off and blows my brains out, there will be a little paragraph in the Canadian papers, "Canon Scott accidentally killed by the discharge of a rifle," and my friends will say, "What a fool he was to fuss about rifles, why didn't he stick to his own job?" However, they were Ross rifles and had probably jammed. There were many wounded being carried or making their way towards Wieltje. The road was under shell fire all the way. When we got to the dressing station which was a small red-brick estaminet, we were confronted by a horrible sight. On the pavement before it were rows and rows of stretcher cases, and inside the place, which was dimly lighted by candles and lamps, I found the doctor and his staff working away like Trojans. The operating room was a veritable shambles. The doctor had his shirt sleeves rolled up and his hands and arms were covered with blood.

The wounded were brought in from outside and laid on the table, where the doctor attended to them. Some ghastly sights were disclosed when the stretcher-bearers ripped off the blood-stained clothes and laid bare the hideous wounds. At the end of the room, an old woman, with a face like the witch of Endor, apparently quite unmoved by anything that was happening, was grinding coffee in a mill and making a black concoction which she sold to the men. It was no doubt a good thing for them to get a little stimulant. In another room the floor was covered with wounded waiting to be evacuated. There were many Turcos present. Some of them were suffering terribly from the effects of the gas. Fresh cases were being brought down the road every moment, and laid out on the cold pavement till they could be attended to.

About two in the morning a despatch rider arrived and meeting me at the door asked if I could speak French. He said, "Tell the Turcos and every one else who can walk to clear off to Ypres as soon as they can; the Germans are close at hand." Indeed it sounded so, because the rifle fire was very close. I went into the room and delivered my message, in French and English, to the wounded men. Immediately there was a general stampede of all who could possibly drag themselves towards the city. It was indeed a piteous procession which passed out of the door. Turcos with heads bandaged, or arms bound up or one leg limping, and our own men equally disabled, helped one another down that terrible road towards the City. Soon all the people who could walk had gone. But there in the room, and along the pavement outside, lay helpless men. I went to the M.O. and asked him what we were to do with the stretcher cases. "Well" he said, "I suppose we shall have to leave them because all the ambulances have gone." "How can we desert them?" I said. The Medical Officer was of course bound by orders to go back with his men but I myself felt quite free in the matter, so I said, "I will stay and be made prisoner." "Well," he said, "so will I. Possibly I shall get into trouble for it, but I cannot leave them to the enemy without any one to look after them." So we made a compact that we would both stay behind and be made prisoners. I went over to another Field Ambulance, where a former curate of mine was chaplain. They had luckily been able to evacuate their wounded and were all going off. I told him that I should probably be made a prisoner that night, but asked him to cable home and tell my family that I was in good health and that the Germans treated chaplains, when they took them prisoners, very kindly. Then I made my way back. There was a tremendous noise of guns now at the front. It was a horrible thought that our men were up there bearing the brunt of German fury and hatred. Their faces passed through my mind as individuals were recalled. The men whom I knew so well, young, strong and full of hope and life, men from whom Canada had so much to expect, men whose lives were so precious to dear ones far away, were now up in that poisoned atmosphere and under the hideous hail of bullets and shells. The thought almost drove a chaplain to madness. One felt so powerless and longed to be up and doing. Not once or twice in the Great War, have I longed to be a combatant officer with enemy scalps to my credit. Our men had been absolutely guiltless of war ambitions. It was not their fault that they were over here. That the Kaiser's insatiable, mad lust for power should be able to launch destruction upon Canadian hearts and homes was intolerable. I looked down the Ypres road, and there, to my horror, saw the lovely City lit up with flames. The smoke rolled up into the moonlit sky, and behind the dull glow of the fires I saw the Cloth Hall tower stand out in bold defiance. There was nothing for us to do then and for nearly four years more but keep our heads cool, set our teeth and deepen our resolve.

The dressing station had received more stretcher cases, and still more were coming in. The Medical Officer and his staff were working most heroically. I told him I had given instructions about cabling home should I be taken prisoner, and then I suddenly remembered that I had a scathing poem on the Kaiser in my pocket. I had written it in the quiet beauties of Beaupré, below Quebec, when the war first began. When I wrote it, I was told that if I were ever taken prisoner in Germany with that poem in my pocket, I should be shot or hanged. At that time, the German front line seemed so far off that it was like saying, "If you get to the moon the man there will eat you up." But the changes and chances of war had suddenly brought me face to face with the fact that I had resolved to be taken prisoner, and from what I heard and saw the event was not unlikely. So I said to the M.O. "I have just remembered that I have got in my pocket a printed copy of a very terrible poem which I wrote about the Kaiser. Of course you know I don't mind being shot or hanged by the Germans, but, if I am, who will write the poems of the War?" The M.O. laughed and thinking it unwise on general principles to wave a red rag in front of a mad bull, advised me to tear up my verses. I did so with great reluctance, but the precaution was unnecessary as the Germans never got through after all.

All along those terrible fields of death the battle raged. Young Canadians, new to war, but old in the inheritance of the blood of British freedom, were holding the line. The dressing station was soon full again, and, later on, a despatch rider came from the 3rd Infantry Brigade Headquarters in Shell-Trap Farm to tell us that more help was needed there. One of the M.O.'s assistants and a sergeant started off and I followed. We went down the road and then turned to the right up to the moated farmhouse where the Brigade was. As we went forward towards the battle front, the night air was sharp and bracing. Gun-flashes lit up the horizon, but above us the moon and stars looked quietly down. Wonderful deeds of heroism were being done by our men along those shell-ploughed fields, under that placid sky. What they endured, no living tongue can tell. Their Maker alone knows what they suffered and how they died. The eloquent tribute which history will give to their fame is that, in spite of the enemy's immense superiority in numbers, and his brutal launching of poisonous gas, he did not get through.

In a ditch by the wayside, a battalion was waiting to follow up the charge. Every man among the Canadians was "on the job" that night. We crossed the field to the farmhouse which we found filled to overflowing. Ambulances were waiting there to carry the wounded back to Ypres. I saw many friends carried in, and men were lying on the pavement outside. Bullets were cracking against the outer brick walls. One Highlander mounted guard over a wounded German prisoner. He had captured him and was filled with the hunter's pride in his game. "I got him myself, Sir, and I was just going to run him through with my bayonet when he told me he had five children. As I have five children myself, I could not kill him. So I brought him out here." I looked down at the big prostrate German who was watching us with interest largely rooted in fear. "Funf kinder?" (five children) "Ja, ja." I wasn't going to be beaten by a German, so I told him I had seven children and his face fell. I found out afterwards that a great many Germans, when they were captured, said they had five children. The Germans I think used to be put through a sort of catechism before they went into action, in case they should be taken prisoners. For example, they always told us they were sure we were going to win the war. They always said they were glad to be taken prisoners. When they were married men, they said they had five children and so appealed to our pity. People do not realize even yet how very thorough the Germans were in everything that they thought was going to bring them the mastership of the world. When a German soldier saw the game was up, he surrendered at once and thus was preserved to fight for his country in the next war.

In the stable of the farm, I found many seriously wounded men lying on the straw, and I took down messages which they were sending to their relatives at home. On the other side of the wall, we could hear the bullets striking. As I had the Blessed Sacrament with me I was able to give communion to a number of the wounded. By this time the grey of approaching day began to silver the eastern sky. It was indeed a comfort to feel that the great clockwork of the universe went on just as if nothing was happening. Over and over again in the war the approach of dawn has put new life into one. It was such a tremendous and glorious thing to think that the world rolled on through space and turned on its axis, whatever turmoil foolish people were making upon its surface.

With the dawn came the orders to clear the wounded. The ambulances were sent off and one of the doctors told me to come with him, as the General had commanded the place to be cleared of all but the necessary military staff. It was about four in the morning when we started. There was a momentary quieting down in the firing as we crossed the bridge over the moat, but shells were still crashing in the fields, and through the air we heard every now and then the whistling of bullets. We kept our heads low and were hurrying on when we encountered a signaller with two horses, which he had to take back to the main road. One of these he offered to me. I had not been wanting to mount higher in the air, but I did not like the fellow to think I had got "cold feet." So I accepted it graciously, but annoyed him very much by insisting upon lengthening the stirrups before I mounted. He got impatient at what he considered an unnecessary delay, but I told him I would not ride with my knees up to my chin for all the Germans in the world. When I was mounted, we started off at a good gallop across the fields to the Ypres road. It was an exciting ride, and I must confess, looking back upon it, a thoroughly enjoyable one, reminding me of old stories of battles and the Indian escapes of my boyhood's novels. When we arrived at the main road, I had to deliver up my horse to its owner, and then I decided to walk to Ypres, as by so doing I could speak to the many Imperial men that were marching up to reinforce the line. I refused many kind offers of lifts on lorries and waggons. The British battalions were coming up and I was sorry for them. The young fellows looked so tired and hungry. They had been in France, I think, only twenty-four hours. At any rate, they had had a long march, and, as it turned out, were going up, most of them, to their death, I took great pleasure in hailing them cheerfully and telling them that it was all right, as the Canadians had held the line, and that the Germans were not going to get through. One sergeant said, "You put a lot of braces in my tunic when you talk like that, Sir." Nothing is more wonderful than the way in which men under tense anxiety will respond to the slightest note of cheer. This was the case all through the war. The slightest word or suggestion would often turn a man from a feeling of powerless dejection into one of defiant determination. These young Britishers whom I met that morning were a splendid type of men. Later on the machine-gun fire over the fields mowed them down in pitiful and ruthless destruction. As I journeyed towards Ypres I saw smoke rolling up from various parts of the city and down the road, in the air, I saw the flashes of bursting shrapnel. I passed St. Jean and made my way to my house by the canal.

The shutters were still shut and the door was open. I entered and found in the dining room that the lamp was still burning on the table. It was now about seven o'clock and Mr. Vandervyver had returned and was upstairs arranging his toilet. I went out into the garden and called one of the sentries to tell Murdoch MacDonald to come to me. While I was talking to the sentry, an officer came by and warned me to get away from that corner because the Germans were likely to shell it as it was the only road in the neighbourhood for the passage of troops to and from the front. When Murdoch arrived, I told him I wanted to have breakfast, for I had had nothing to eat since luncheon the day before and had done a lot of walking. He looked surprised and said, "Fancy having breakfast when the town is being shelled." "Well," I said, "don't you know we always read in the papers, when a man is hanged, that before he went out to the gallows he ate a hearty breakfast? There must be some philosophy in it. At any rate, you might as well die on a full stomach as an empty one." So Murdoch began to get breakfast ready in the kitchen, where Mr. Vandervyver's maid was already preparing a meal for her master. I shaved and had a good clean up and was sitting in the dining room arranging the many letters and messages which I had received from men who asked me to write to their relatives. Breakfast had just been set on the table when I heard the loudest bang I have ever heard in my life. A seventeen inch shell had fallen in the corner of the garden where the sentry had been standing. The windows of the house were blown in, the ceiling came down and soot from the chimneys was scattered over everything. I suddenly found myself, still in a sitting posture, some feet beyond the chair in which I had been resting. Mr. Vandervyver ran downstairs and out into the street with his toilet so disarranged that he looked as if he were going to take a swim. Murdoch MacDonald disappeared and I did not see him again for several days. A poor old woman in the street had been hit in the head and was being taken off by a neighbour and a man was lying in the road with a broken leg. All my papers were unfortunately lost in the debris of the ceiling. I went upstairs and got a few more of my remaining treasures and came back to the dining room. There I scraped away the dust and found two boiled eggs. I got some biscuits from the sideboard and went and filled my waterbottle with tea in the damaged kitchen. I was just starting out of the door when another shell hit the building on the opposite side of the street. It had been used as a billet by some of our men. The sentry I had been talking to had disappeared and all they could find of him were his boots with his feet in them. In the building opposite, we found a Highlander badly wounded and I got stretcher-bearers to come and carry him off to the 2nd Field Ambulance in the Square nearby. Their headquarters had been moved to Vlamertinghe and they were evacuating that morning. The civilians now had got out of the town. All sorts of carts and wheelbarrows had been called into requisition. There were still some wounded men in the dressing station and a sergeant was in charge. I managed to commandeer a motor ambulance and stow them in it. Shells were falling fast in that part of the town. It was perfectly impossible to linger any longer. A certain old inhabitant, however, would not leave. He said he would trust to the good God and stay in the cellar of his house till the war was over. Poor man, if he did not change his mind, his body must be in the cellar still, for the last time I saw the place, which henceforth was known as "Hell Fire Corner," there was not one stone left upon another. Only a little brick wall remained to show where the garden and house of my landlord had been. I collected the men of the Ambulance and started off with them to Vlamertinghe. On the way we added to our numbers men who had either lost their units or were being sent back from the line.

As we passed through the Grande Place, which now wore a very much more dilapidated appearance than it had three days before, we found a soldier on the pavement completely intoxicated. He was quite unconscious and could not walk. There was nothing to do but to make him as comfortable as possible till he should awake next day to the horrors of the real world. We carried him into a room of a house and laid him on a heap of straw. I undid the collar of his shirt so that he might have full scope for extra blood pressure and left him to his fate. I heard afterwards that the house was struck and that he was wounded and taken away to a place of safety. When we got down to the bridge on the Vlamertinghe road, an Imperial Signal Officer met me in great distress. His men had been putting up telegraph wires on the other side of the canal and a shell had fallen and killed thirteen of them. He asked our men to carry the bodies back over the bridge and lay them side by side in an outhouse. The men did so, and the row of mutilated, twisted and bleeding forms was pitiful to see. The officer was very grateful to us, but the bodies were probably never buried because that part of the city was soon a ruin. We went on down the road towards Vlamertinghe, past the big asylum, so long known as a dressing station, with its wonderful and commodious cellars. It had been hit and the upstairs part was no longer used.

The people along the road were leaving their homes as fast as they could. One little procession will always stand out in my mind. In front one small boy of about six years old was pulling a toy cart in which two younger children were packed. Behind followed the mother with a large bundle on her back. Then came the father with a still bigger one. There they were trudging along, leaving their home behind with its happy memories, to go forth as penniless refugees, compelled to live on the charity of others. It was through no fault of their own, but only through the monstrous greed and ambition of a despot crazed with feudal dreams of a by-gone age. As I looked at that little procession, and at many other similar ones, the words of the Gospel kept ringing in my ears, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." These words I felt sounded the doom of the Kaiser. Many and many a time when the war from our point of view has been going badly, and men would ask me, "How about the war, Sir?" or, "Are we winning the war, Sir?" I would reply, "Boys, unless the devil has got into heaven we are going to win. If he has, the German Emperor will have a good friend there. But he hasn't, and any nation which tramples on the rights and liberties of humanity, glories in it, makes it a matter of national boasting, and casts medals to commemorate the sinking of unprotected ships—any nation which does that is bound to lose the war, no matter how badly things may look at the present time." It was nothing but that unflinching faith in the power of right which kept our men so steadfast. Right is after all only another name for the will of God. Men who knew no theology, who professed no creed, who even pretended to great indifference about the venture of eternity, were unalterably fixed in their faith in the power of right. It gives one a great opportunity of building the higher edifice of religion when one discovers the rock foundation in a man's convictions.

When we reached Vlamertinghe we found that a school house had been taken over by the 2nd Field Ambulance.

There was a terrible shortage of stretchers and blankets, as most of the equipment had been lost at Ypres. All that day and night the furious battle raged, and many fresh British battalions passed up to reinforce the line. As soon as it was dark, the wounded began to come in, and by midnight the school-house was filled to overflowing. The men were lying out in rows on the cold stone floor with nothing under them. Ambulances were coming and going as hour after hour passed by. I went among the sufferers, many of whom I knew. The sergeant would come to me and tell me where the worst cases were. He whispered to me once, "There is a dying man over here." We trod softly between the prostrate forms till we came to one poor fellow who looked up with white face under the candle light. I saw he was dying. He belonged to one of the British battalions that I had passed on the road. I asked him if he would like to receive the Holy Communion. He was pleased when I told him I could give it to him. He had been a chorister in England, and he felt so far from the ministrations of his church now. He made his confession and I pronounced the absolution. Then I gave him the Blessed Sacrament. Like many severely wounded men, he was not suffering much, but was dying of shock. We were now compelled to use the church and it also soon became a scene of suffering. The building to-day is a ruin, but then it had been untouched by shells and was large and impressive. We had only a few candles with which to light it. The wounded were laid out, some on the floor, some on chairs, and some sat up waiting for the convoys of ambulances that were to take them to the Base. It was a strange scene. In the distance we heard the roar of the battle, and here, in the dim light of the hollow-sounding aisles, were shadowy figures huddled up on chairs or lying on the floor. Once the silence was broken by a loud voice shouting out with startling suddenness, "O God! stop it." I went over to the man. He was a British sergeant. He would not speak, but I think in his terrible suffering he meant the exclamation as a kind of prayer. I thought it might help the men to have a talk with them, so I told them what great things were being done that night and what a noble part they had played in holding back the German advance and how all the world would honour them in after times. Then I said, "Boys, let us have a prayer for our comrades up in that roar of battle at the front. When I say the Lord's Prayer join in with me, but not too loudly as we don't want to disturb those who are trying to sleep." I had a short service and they all joined in the Lord's Prayer. It was most impressive in that large, dim church, to hear the voices, not loudly, but quite distinctly, repeating the words from different parts of the building, for some of the men had gone over to corners where they might be by themselves. After the Lord's Prayer I pronounced the Benediction, and then I said, "Boys, the Curé won't mind your smoking in the church tonight, so I am going to pass round some cigarettes." Luckily I had a box of five hundred which had been sent to me by post. These I handed round and lit them. Voices from different parts would say, "May I have one, Sir?" It was really delightful to feel that a moment's comfort could be given to men in their condition. A man arrived that night with both his eyes gone, and even he asked for a cigarette. I had to put the cigarette into his mouth and light it for him. "It's so dark, Sir," he said, "I can't see." I was not going to tell him he would never see again, so I said, "Your head is all bandaged up. Of course you can't." He was one of the first to be taken off in the ambulance, and I do not know whether he is alive or dead. Our Canadians still held on with grim determination, and they deserved the tribute which Marshal Foch has paid them of saving the day at Ypres.

When they came out of the line, and I was living once again among them, going from battalion to battalion, it was most amusing to hear them tell of all their adventures during the great attack. The English newspapers reached us and they were loud in their praise of "the gallant Canadians." The King, General Joffre, and Sir Robert Borden, sent messages to our troops. One man said, amid the laughter of his comrades, "All I can remember, Sir, was that I was in a blooming old funk for about three days and three nights and now I am told I am a hero. Isn't that fine?" Certainly they deserved all the praise they got. In a battle there is always the mixture of the serious and the comic. One Turco, more gallant than his fellows, refused to leave the line and joined the 16th Battalion. He fought so well that they decided to reward him by turning him into a Highlander. He consented to don the kilt, but would not give up his trousers as they concealed his black legs.

The Second Battle of Ypres was the making of what grew to be the Canadian Corps. Up to that time, Canadians were looked upon, and looked upon themselves, merely as troops that might be expected to hold the line and do useful spade work, but from then onward the men felt they could rise to any emergency, and the army knew they could be depended upon. The pace then set was followed by the other divisions and, at the end, the Corps did not disappoint the expectations of General Foch. What higher praise could be desired?

My billet in Vlamertinghe was in a neat little cottage owned by an old maid, who took great pride in making everything shine. The paymaster of one of our battalions and I had a cheerful home there when the poor old lady fled. Her home however did not long survive her absence, for, some days after she left, it was levelled by a shell. The church too was struck and ruined. Beside it is the military cemetery within which lie the mortal remains of many gallant men, amongst them the two Grenfells, one of whom got the V.C. There I buried poor Duffy and many more. The other chaplains laid to rest men under their care.

One picture always comes to my mind when I think of Vlamertinghe. In the road near the church was a Crucifix. The figure was life size and hung on a cross planted upon a rocky mound. One night when the sun had set and a great red glow burnt along the horizon, I saw the large black cross silhouetted against the crimson sky, and before it knelt an aged woman with grey hair falling from beneath the kerchief that was tied about her head. It was dangerous at all times to stay at that place, yet she knelt there silently in prayer. She seemed to be the embodiment of the old life and quiet contented religious hope which must have been the spirit of Vlamertinghe in the past. The village was an absolute ruin a few days later, and even the Sisters had to flee from their convent. The Crucifix, however, stood for a long time after the place was destroyed, but I never passed by without thinking of the poor old woman who knelt at its foot in the evening light and laid her burden of cares upon the heart of Eternal Pity.

CHAPTER VII.

Festubert and Givenchy.
May and June, 1915.

When our men came out of the line, the 2nd Field Ambulance was ordered back for rest and reorganization to a village called Ouderdom, three miles to the Southwest, and their O.C. invited me to follow them. It was late in the evening when I started to walk. The light was fading and, as I had no map, I was not certain where Ouderdom was. I went down the road, delighting in the sweet smells of nature. It was with a sense of unusual freedom that I walked along with all my worldly possessions in my haversack. I thought how convenient it was to lose one's kit. Now I could lie down beside any haystack and feel quite at home. The evening air grew chillier and I thought I had better get some roof over my head for the night. I asked various men that I met where Ouderdom was. None of them knew. I was forced once again to take my solitary journey into the great unknown. It was therefore with much satisfaction that, when quite dark, I came upon some wooden huts and saw a number of men round a little fire in a field. I went up to one of the huts and found in it a very kind and courteous middle-aged lieutenant, who was in charge of a detachment of Indian troops. When he heard I was looking for the Field Ambulance and going towards Ouderdom, he told me it was much too late to continue my journey that night. "You stay with me in my hut, Padré," he said, "and in the morning I will give you a horse to take you to your men." He told me that he had been living by himself and was only too delighted to have a companion to talk to. He treated me as bounteously as circumstances would permit, and after a good dinner, he gave me a blanket and straw bed on the floor of his hut. It was very pleasant to come out of the darkness and loneliness of the road and find such a kind host, and such good hospitality. We discussed many things that night, and the next day I was shown over the camp. Later on, the Lieutenant sent me on horseback to Ouderdom. There I found the Ambulance encamped in a pleasant field beside a large pond, which afforded us the luxury of a bath. I shall never forget those two restful days I spent at Ouderdom. I blamed the blankets, however, for causing an irritation of the skin, which lasted till I was able to have another wash and change.

Pleasant as my life was with the Ambulance, I felt I ought to go back and join my Brigade. I got a ride to the transport at Brielen, and there, under a waggon cover, had a very happy home. Near us an Imperial battery fired almost incessantly all night long. While lying awake one night thinking of the men that had gone, and wondering what those ardent spirits were now doing, the lines came to me which were afterwards published in "The Times":

The Quartermaster of the 3rd Brigade furnished me with a change of underwear, for which I was most grateful. I felt quite proud of having some extra clothes again. The battalions were moved at last out of the area and we were ordered off to rest. Our first stop was near Vlamertinghe. We reached it in the afternoon, and, chilly though it was, I determined to have a bath. Murdoch MacDonald got a bucket of water from a green and slimy pond and put it on the other side of a hedge, and there I retired to have a wash and change. I was just in the midst of the process when, to my confusion, the Germans began to shell the adjoining field, and splinters of shell fell in the hedge behind me. The transport men on the other side called out to me to run and take cover with them under the waggons. "I can't, boys", I replied, "I have got no clothes on." They roared with laughter at my plight. Though clothes are not at all an impregnable armour, somehow or other you feel safer when you are dressed. There was nothing for it but to complete my ablutions, which I did so effectually in the cold spring air that I got a chill. That night I was racked with pains as I rode on the horse which the M.O. lent me, on our march to Bailleul.

We arrived in the quaint old town about two in the morning, and I made my way in the dark to the hotel in the Square. I was refused admission on the reasonable plea that every bed was already occupied. I was just turning away, wondering where I could go, for I was hardly able to stand up, when an officer came out and said I might go up to a room on the top storey and get into his bed as he would need it no more. It was quite delightful, not only to find a bed, but one which had been so nicely and wholesomely warmed. I spent a most uncomfortable night, and in the morning I wondered if my batman would find out where I was and come and look after me. About ten o'clock I heard a knock at the door and called out "Come in." To my astonishment, a very smart staff officer, with a brass hat and red badges, made his way into my room, and startled me by saying, "I am the Deputy-Judge-Advocate-General." "Oh", I said, "I was hoping you were my batman." He laughed at that and told me his business. There had been a report that one of our Highlanders had been crucified on the door of a barn. The Roman Catholic Chaplain of the 3rd Brigade and myself had tried to trace the story to its origin. We found that the nearest we could get to it was, that someone had told somebody else about it. One day I managed to discover a Canadian soldier who said he had seen the crucifixion himself. I at once took some paper out of my pocket and a New Testament and told him, "I want you to make that statement on oath and put your signature to it." He said, "It is not necessary." But he had been talking so much about the matter to the men around him that he could not escape. I had kept his sworn testimony in my pocket and it was to obtain this that the Deputy-Judge-Advocate-General had called upon me. I gave it to him and told him that in spite of the oath, I thought the man was not telling the truth. Weeks afterwards I got a letter from the Deputy-Judge telling me he had found the man, who, when confronted by a staff officer, weakened, and said he was mistaken in swearing that he had seen the crucifixion he had only been told about it by someone else. We have no right to charge the Germans with the crime. They have done so many things equally bad, that we do not need to bring charges against them of which we are not quite sure.

The Brigade was quartered in the little village of Steenje. It was a pretty place, and it was delightful to be back in the peaceful country again. May was bringing out the spring flowers and the trees wore fresh green leaves. There was something about the exhilarating life we were leading which made one extremely sensitive to the beauties of nature. I have never cared much for flowers, except in a general way. But now I noticed a great change. A wild flower growing in a ditch by the wayside seemed to me to be almost a living thing, and spoke in its mute way of its life of peace and contentment, and mocked, by its very humility, the world of men which was so full of noise and death. Colour too made a most powerful appeal to the heart. The gleam of sunlight on the moss that covered an old thatched roof gave one a thrill of gladness. The world of nature putting on its fresh spring dress had its message to hearts that were lonely and anxious, and it was a message of calm courage and hope. In Julian Grenfell's beautiful poem "Into Battle," he notes this message of the field and trees. Everything in nature spoke to the fighting man and gave him its own word of cheer.

Of course all the men did not show they were conscious of these emotional suggestions, but I think they felt them nevertheless. The green fields and shining waters around Steenje had a very soothing effect upon minds that had passed through the bitterest ordeal in their life's experience. I remember one morning having a service of Holy Communion in the open air. Everything was wonderful and beautiful. The golden sunlight was streaming across the earth in full radiance. The trees were fresh and green, and hedges marked out the field with walls of living beauty. The grass in the meadow was soft and velvety, and, just behind the spot where I had placed the altar, a silver stream wandered slowly by. When one adds to such a scene, the faces of a group of earnest, well-made and heroic young men, it is easily understood that the beauty of the service was complete. When it was over, I reminded them of the twenty-third Psalm, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters." There too was the table prepared before us in the presence of our enemies.

At Steenje, as no billet had been provided for me, the Engineers took me in and treated me right royally. Not only did they give me a pile of straw for a bed in the dormitory upstairs, but they also made me an honorary member of their mess. Of the work of the "Sappers", in the Great War, one cannot speak too highly. Brave and efficient, they were always working and co-operating enthusiastically with the infantry. Every week now that passed was deepening that sense of comradeship which bound our force together. The mean people, the men who thought only of themselves, were either being weeded out or taught that there was no place for selfishness in the army. One great lesson was impressed upon me in the war, and that is, how wonderfully the official repression of wrong thoughts and jealousies tends to their abolition. A man who lets his wild fancies free, and gives rein to his anger and selfishness, is going to become the victim of his own mind. If people at home could only be prevented, as men were in the war, from saying all the bitter and angry things they feel, and from criticising the actions of their neighbours, a different temper of thought would prevail. The comradeship men experienced in the Great War was due to the fact that everyone knew comradeship was essential to our happiness and success. It would be well if all over Canada men realized that the same is true of our happiness and success in times of peace. What might we not accomplish if our national and industrial life were full of mutual sympathy and love!

Our rest at Steenje was not of long duration. Further South another attack was to be made and so one evening, going in the direction whither our troops were ordered, I was motored to the little village of Robecq. There I managed to get a comfortable billet for myself in the house of a carpenter. My bedroom was a tiny compartment which looked out on the backyard. It was quite delightful to lie in a real bed again and as I was enjoying the luxury late in the morning I watched the carpenter making a baby's coffin. Robecq then was a very charming place. The canal, on which was a hospital barge, gave the men an opportunity for a swim, and the spring air and the sunshine put them in high spirits.

It was at Robecq, that I had my first sight of General Haig. I was standing in the Square one afternoon when I saw the men on the opposite side spring suddenly to attention. I felt that something was going to happen. To my astonishment, I saw a man ride up carrying a flag on a lance. He was followed by several other mounted men. It was so like a pageant that I said to myself, "Hello, here comes Joan of Arc." Then a general appeared with his brilliant staff. The General advanced and we all saluted, but he, spying my chaplain's collar, rode over to me and shook hands and asked if I had come over with the Canadians. I told him I had. Then he said, "I am so glad you have all come into my Army." I did not know who he was or what army we were in, or in fact what the phrase meant, but I thought it was wise to say nice things to a general, so I told him we were all very glad too. He seemed gratified and rode off in all the pomp and circumstance of war. I heard afterwards that he was General Haig, who at that time commanded the First Army. He had from the start, the respect of all in the British Expeditionary Force.

A sudden call "to stand to", however, reminded us that the war was not yet won. The Brigadier told me that we had to move the next morning at five. Then he asked me how I was going and I quoted my favourite text, "The Lord will provide." My breakfast at 3.30 next morning consisted of a tin of green peas without bread or other adulterations and a cup of coffee. At five a.m. I started to walk, but it was not long before I was overtaken by the car of an artillery officer, and carried, in great glory, past the General and his staff, whose horses we nearly pushed into the ditch on the narrow road. The Brigadier waved his hand and congratulated me upon the way in which Providence was looking after me. That afternoon our brigade was settled in reserve trenches at Lacouture. There were a number of Ghurka regiments in the neighbourhood, as well as some Guards battalions. I had a service for the bomb-throwers in a little orchard that evening, and I found a billet with the officers of the unit in a particularly small and dirty house by the wayside.

Some of us lay on the floor and I made my bed on three chairs—a style of bed which I said I would patent on my return to Canada. The chairs, with the middle one facing in the opposite direction to prevent one rolling off, were placed at certain distances where the body needed special support, and made a very comfortable resting place, free from those inhabitants which infested the ordinary places of repose. Of course we did not sleep much, and somebody, amid roars of laughter called for breakfast about two-thirty a.m. The cook who was sleeping in the same room got up and prepared bacon and coffee, and we had quite an enjoyable meal, which did not prevent our having a later one about nine a.m., after which, I beguiled the time by reading aloud Leacock's "Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich." Later in the day, I marched off with our men who were going into the trenches, for the battle of Festubert. We passed the place called Indian Village and went to the trenches just beyond.

We met a bearer-party bringing out a young German prisoner who was badly wounded. I went over to him and offered him a cigarette. This he declined, but asked for some water, putting out his dry tongue to show how parched it was. I called to some of our men to know if they could spare him a drink. Several gladly ran across and offered their water-bottles. They were always kind to wounded prisoners. "If thine enemy thirst give him drink." Just before the men went into the trenches, I shook hands with one or two and then, as they passed up, half the battalion shook hands with me. I was glad they did, but at the same time I felt then that it was not wise for a chaplain to do anything which looked as if he were taking matters too seriously. It was the duty of everyone to forget private feelings in the one absorbing desire to kill off the enemy. I saw the different battalions going up and was returning towards headquarters when whom should I meet but the dreaded Brigadier coming up the road with his staff. It was impossible to dodge him; I could see already that he was making towards me. When he came up to me, he asked me what I was doing there, and ordered me back to Headquarters on pain of a speedy return to No. 2 General Hospital. "If you come east of my Headquarters," he said, "you will be sent back absolutely certainly." That night I took my revenge by sleeping in his deserted bed, and found it very comfortable.

Our Brigade Headquarters were at Le Touret in a large farm surrounded by a moat. We were quite happy, but on the next day, which I spent in censoring the letters of the 13th Battalion, I was told that the 2nd Brigade were coming to occupy the billet and that I had to get out and forage for myself. At half past six in the evening I saw from my window the giant form of General Currie followed by his staff, riding across the bridge over the moat. He looked very imposing, but I knew it meant that the bed I had slept in was no longer mine. I called my friend Murdoch MacDonald and I got him to pack my haversack. "Murdoch", I said, "once more we have to face the big, black world alone, but—'the Lord will provide'". The sun had set, the air was cool and scented richly with the fermented manure spread upon the land. Many units were scattered through the fields. We went from one place to another, but alas there was no billet for us. It was tiring work, and both Murdoch and I were getting very hungry and also very grumpy. The prospect of sleeping under the stars in the chilly night was not pleasant. I am ashamed to say my faith began to waver, and I said to Murdoch MacDonald, "Murdoch, my friend, the Lord is a long time providing for us tonight." We made our way back to the main road and there I saw an Imperial Officer who was acting as a point man and directing traffic. I told him my difficulty and implored him, as it was now getting on towards eleven p.m., to tell me where I could get a lodging for the night. He thought for a while and then said, "I think you may find a bed for yourself and your man in the prison." The words had an ominous sound, but I remembered how often people at home found refuge for the night in the police station. He told me to go down the road to the third farmhouse, where I should find the quarters of some Highland officers and men. The farm was called the prison, because it was the place in which captured Germans were to be held until they were sent down the line. Followed by Murdoch, I made my way again down the busy road now crowded with transports, troops and ambulances. It was hard to dodge them in the mud and dark. I found the farmhouse, passed the sentry, and was admitted to the presence of two young officers of the Glasgow Highlanders. I told them who I was and how I had been bidden by the patrol officer to seek refuge with them. They received me most cordially and told me they had a spare heap of straw in the room. They not only said they would arrange for me for the night, but they called their servant and told him to get me some supper. They said I looked worn out. A good dish of ham and eggs and a cup of strong tea at that time were most refreshing and when I had finished eating, seeing a copy of the Oxford Book of Verse on the table, I began to read it to them, and finally, and quite naturally, found myself later on, about one a.m., reciting my own poems. It was most interesting meeting another set of men. The barn, which was kept as a prison for Germans was large and commodious. As we took only five or six prisoners at that time, it was more than sufficient for the purpose. The officers told me that the reason why so few prisoners turned up was that the Canadians got tired of their charges before they arrived at the prison, and only handed over a few as souvenirs. I really think the Scotsmen believed it. The Glasgow men moved away and were succeeded by a company of Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders. The tables were now turned, for as I had kept on inhabiting the large room with the three heaps of straw in it, the two officers who came "to take over" asked my permission to make their billet in the prison.

In the meantime, the fighting in the trenches was very fierce. I spent my days in parish visiting and my nights at the various dressing stations. The batteries of artillery were all round us in the fields and orchards, and there was great concentration of British and Canadian guns. In spite of the brigadier's orders, I often went east of Headquarters. One lovely Sunday evening I had a late service for men of the 16th Battalion in an orchard. They were going off later into No Man's Land on a working party. The service, which was a voluntary one, had therefore an underlying pathos in it. Shells were falling in the fields on both sides of us. The great red sunset glowed in the west and the trees overhead cast an artistic gray green light upon the scene. The men were facing the sunset, and I told them as usual that there lay Canada. The last hymn was "Abide with Me", and the words, "Hold Thou Thy Cross before my closing eyes", were peculiarly touching in view of the fact that the working party was to start as soon as the service was ended. At Festubert our Cavalry Brigade, now deprived of their horses, joined us, and I remember one morning seeing Colonel, now General, Macdonell, coming out of the line at the head of his men. They were few in number and were very tired, for they had had a hard time and had lost many of their comrades. The Colonel, however, told them to whistle and keep step to the tune, which they were doing with a gallantry which showed that, in spite of the loss of their horses, the spirit of the old squadron was still undaunted.

Our batteries round Le Touret were very heavily and systematically shelled, and of course rumour had it that there were spies in the neighbourhood. The French Police were searching for Germans in British uniforms, and everyone felt that some of the inhabitants might be housing emissaries from the German lines. Some said lights were seen flashing from farmhouses; others averred that the French peasants signalled to the enemy by the way they ploughed their fields and by the colour of the horses used. In Belgium we were told that the arrangement of the arms of windmills gave away the location of our troops. At any rate everyone had a bad attack of spy-fever, and I did not escape it. One night about half past ten I was going down a dark road to get my letters from the post office, when an officer on a bicycle came up to me and, dismounting, asked me where a certain British Artillery Brigade was. I was not concerned with the number of the brigade, but I was horrified to hear the officer pronounce his "rs" in the back of his throat. Of course, when we are not at war with Germany, a man may pronounce his "rs" however he pleases, but when we are at war with the great guttural hordes of Teutons it is different. The moment I heard the sepulchral "r" I said, "This man is a German". He told me he had come from the Indian Army and had a message for the artillery brigade. I took him by subtlety, thinking all was fair in war, and I asked him to come with me. I made for the billet of our signallers and told the sentry that the officer wanted a British brigade. At the same time I whispered to the man to call out the guard, because I thought the stranger was a spy.

The sentry went into the house, and in a few seconds eager Canadians with fixed bayonets came out of the building and surrounded the unfortunate officer. Canadians were always ready for a bit of sport. When I saw my man surrounded, I asked him for his pass. He appeared very much confused and said he had none, but had come from the Indian Army. What made us all the more suspicious was the fact that he displayed a squared map as an evidence of his official character. I told him that anybody could get a squared map. "Do you take me for a spy?" he said. I replied gently that we did, and that he would have to come to Headquarters and be identified. He had an ugly looking revolver in his belt, but he submitted very tamely to his temporary arrest. I was taking him off to our Headquarters, where strange officers were often brought for purposes of identification, when a young Highland Captain of diminutive stature, but unbounded dignity, appeared on the scene with four patrol men. He told me that as he was patrolling the roads for the capture of spies, he would take over the custody of my victim. The Canadians were loath to lose their prey. So we all followed down the road. After going a short distance, the signallers had to return to their quarters, much to my regret, for it seemed to me that the safety of the whole British Army depended on our capturing the spy, and I knew I could depend upon the Canadians. However I made up my mind that I would follow to the bitter end.

The Highlander put the officer between us and, followed by the four patrol men, we went off down a lonely road. The moon had now risen. After walking about half a mile we came to a large barn, outside of which stood a sentry. It was the billet of a battalion of Highlanders. I told the man privately, that we had arrested the officer under suspicion of his being a spy, and if the sentry on duty should see him coming back along the road, he was to detain him and have him identified. As we walked along, a number of men who had been concealed in the ditches on each side of the road rose up and followed us. They were men of the patrol commanded by the young Highlander on the other side of our prisoner. It was a delightfully weird experience. There was the long quiet moonlit road and the desolate fields all around us. While I was talking to one of the men, the patrol officer, unknown to me, allowed the spy to go off on his wheel, and to my astonishment when I turned I saw him going off down the road as hard as he could. I asked the officer why he had let him go. He said he thought it was all right and the man would be looked after. Saying this, he called his patrol about him and marched back again. The thing made me very angry. It seemed to me that the whole war might depend on our capturing the spy. At least, I owed it to the British Army to do my best to be certain the man was all right before I let him go. So I continued to follow him by myself down the road. The next farm I came to was about a mile off. There I was halted by a sentry, and on telling my business I was shown into a large barn, where the sergeant-major of a Scottish battalion got out of the straw and came to talk to me. He told me that an officer riding a wheel had passed sometime before, asking his way to a certain artillery brigade. I told the sergeant-major my suspicions and while we were talking, to our astonishment, the sentry announced that the officer, accompanied by a Black Watch despatch rider, had turned up again, having heard that the brigade he wanted was in the other direction.

The sergeant and I went out and challenged him and said that he had to come to the colonel and be identified. The colonel was in the back room of a little cottage on the other side of the road. I made my way through the garden and entered the house. The colonel, an oldish man, was sitting at a table. In front of him was an empty glass and an empty whisky bottle. It struck me from a superficial glance that the colonel was the only full thing in the room. He seemed surprised at having so late a visitor. I told him my suspicions. "Show the man in, Padré," he said, and I did.

The spy seemed worried and excited and his "rs" were more guttural than ever. The old Colonel, who had himself been in India, at once put the suspect through his facings in Hindustani. Then the Colonel came out to me, and taking me aside said, "It's all right, Padré, he can talk Hindustani. I never met a German who could do that." Though still not quite satisfied, I said "Good night," and went out into the garden to return home. Immediately the young despatch rider came up to me and said, "Who are you, who are stopping a British officer in the performance of his duty? I arrest you. You must come in to the Colonel and be identified." This was a turning of the tables with a vengeance, and as I had recently laid stress on its being the duty of every officer to prove his identity whenever called upon, I had nothing to do but to go back into the presence of the Colonel and be questioned. I noticed this time that a full bottle of whiskey and another tumbler had been provided for the entertainment of the Indian Officer. The despatch rider saluted the Colonel and said, "I have brought in this officer, Sir, to be identified. He says he is a Canadian chaplain but I should like to make sure on the point." I stood there feeling rather disconcerted. The Colonel called to his adjutant who was sleeping in a bed in the next room. He came out in a not very agreeable frame of mind and began to ask me who I was. I immediately told my name, showed my identification disc and engraved silver cigarette case and some cablegrams that I had just received from home. The Colonel looked up with bleary eyes and said, "Shall I put him in the guardroom?" but the adjutant had been convinced by my papers that I was innocent and he said, "I think we can let him go, Sir." It was a great relief to me, because guard-rooms were not very clean. I was just making my way from the garden when out came the young despatch rider. I bore him no malice for his patriotic zeal. I felt that his heart was in the right place, so I said to him, "You have taken the part of this unknown officer, and now that you are sure I am all right, may I ask you what you know about him?" "I don't know anything", he said, "only that I met him and he asked me the way to the Brigade, and as I was going there myself I told him I would act as his guide." "Well", I said, "we are told that there are spies in the neighbourhood reporting the location of our batteries to the Germans, so we ought to be very careful how we give these locations away." "I tell you what, Sir," he replied, "I'll go and examine his wheel and see what the make is; I know a good deal about the wheels used in the army." We went over to the wheel and by the aid of my flashlight he examined it thoroughly and then said, "This is not an English wheel, I have never seen one like it before. This wheel was never in use in our army." The despatch rider now got an attack of spy-fever. It was decided that he should ride on to the Brigade Headquarters and find out if an Indian officer was expected there. He promised to come back as soon as possible and meet me in the road. We trusted that the bottle of whiskey in the Colonel's billet would cause sufficient delay for this to be accomplished. The night was cool and beautiful and the sense of an adventure added charm to the situation. I had not gone far down the road when to my horror I heard a wheel coming behind me, and turning, I saw my spy coming towards me as fast as he could. I was not of course going to let him get past. The added information as to the character of the wheel gave me even greater determination to see that everything was done to protect the army from the machinations of a German spy.

I stood in the road and stopped the wheel. The poor man had to dismount and walk beside me. I wished to delay him long enough for the despatch rider to return with his message from the Brigade. Our conversation was a trifle forced, and I remember thinking that if my friend was really a British officer he would not have submitted quite so tamely to the interference of a Padré. Then I looked at the revolver in his belt, and I thought that, if, on the other hand, he was a German spy he would probably use his weapon in that lonely road and get rid of the man who was impeding his movements. We went on till we came to the sentry whom I had warned at first. At once, we were challenged, "Halt, who are you?" and the suspected spy replied "Indian Army." But the sentry was not satisfied, and to my delight he said, "You will both have to come in and be identified". We were taken into the guardroom and told that we should have to stay there for the night. My friend got very restless and said it was too bad to be held up like this. I looked anxiously down the road to see if there were any signs of the returning despatch rider. The sentries were obdurate and said they wouldn't let us go till we could be identified in the morning. Then the officer requested that he might be sent to the Brigade under escort. The sergeant asked me if that would meet with my approval. I said, "Certainly", and so, turning out three members of the guard with fixed bayonets, they marched us off towards the Brigade. The spy had a man with a fixed bayonet on each side of him: they gave me only one. I felt that this was a slight upon my manhood, and asked why they did not put a soldier on each side of me too, as I was as good a man as the other. It was a queer procession in the moonlight. At last we came to the orchard in which stood the billet of the General commanding the Artillery Brigade. I was delighted to find that some Canadian Batteries were there, and told the men what my mission was. They instantly, as true Canadians, became fired with interest and spy-fever. When we got to the house I asked to see the General. He was asleep in a little room off the kitchen. I was shown in, and he lit a candle and proceeded to get up. I had never seen a general in bed before, so was much interested in discovering what he looked like and how he was dressed. I found that a general in war time goes to bed in his underclothes, like an ordinary private. The General got up and went outside and put the spy through a series of questions, but he did so in a very sleepy voice, and with a perfunctory manner which seemed to me to indicate that he was more concerned about getting back to bed than he was in saving the army from danger. He told the officer that it was too late then to carry on the business for which he had come, but that he would see about it in the morning. The spy with a guttural voice then said, "I suppose I may go, Sir?" and the General said, "Certainly." Quickly as possible, fearing a further arrest, the stranger went out, took his wheel, and sped down the road. When I went into the garden, I found a number of men from one of our ambulances. They had turned up with stolen rifles and were waiting with the keenest delight to join in "Canon Scott's spy hunt." Imagine therefore, their disappointment when the officer came out a free man, answered the sentry's challenge on the road, and disappeared in the distance.

On the following day, the French military police came to my billet and asked for particulars about the Indian officer. They told Murdoch MacDonald that they were on the lookout for a German spy who was reported to be going about through our lines dressed in a British uniform. He had been seen at an observation post, and was making enquiries which aroused suspicions. This of course made me more sorry than ever that I had allowed the spy to get through my fingers. Like the man the French police were after, the officer was fair, had a light moustache and was of good size and heavily built.

My adventures with my friend did not end there. When we had left Festubert and got to the neighbourhood of Bethune, I took two young privates one day to have lunch with me in a French hotel near the Square. We were just beginning our meal when to my astonishment the suspected spy, accompanied by a French interpreter, sat down at an opposite table. He looked towards me but made no sign of recognition—a circumstance which I regarded as being decidedly suspicious. I naturally did not look for any demonstration of affection from him, but I thought he might have shown, if he were an honest man, that he remembered one who had caused him so much inconvenience. Once more the call of duty came to my soul. I felt that this man had dodged the British authorities and was now giving his information to a French interpreter to transmit it at the earliest possible moment to the Germans. I told my young friends to carry on as if nothing had happened, and excusing myself, said I would come back in a few minutes. I went out and inquired my way to the Town Major's office. There, I stated the object of my journey and asked for two policemen to come back with me and mount guard till I identified a suspicious looking officer. I then returned and finished my lunch. When the officer and the interpreter at the conclusion of their meal went out into the passage, I followed them and asked for their identification. The officer made no attempt to disguise or check his temper. He said that there must be an end to this sort of work. But the arrival of the two policemen in the passage showed that he had to do what I asked him. This he did, and the interpreter also, and the police took their names and addresses. Then I let my friends go, and heard them depart into the street hurling denunciations and threats of vengeance upon my devoted and loyal head.

It was about a week or ten days afterwards that I was called into our own Brigadier's office. He held a bundle of letters in his hand stamped with all sorts of official seals. The gist of it all was that the G.O.C. of the Indian Division in France had reported to General Alderson the extraordinary and eccentric conduct of a Canadian Chaplain, who persisted in arresting a certain British officer whenever they happened to meet. He wound up with this cutting comment, "The conduct of this chaplain seems to fit him rather for a lunatic asylum than for the theatre of a great war." Of course explanations were sent back. It was explained to the General that reports had reached us of the presence in our lines of a German spy in British uniform, who from the description given, resembled the Indian officer in all particulars.

It is needless to say that every one was immensely amused at "the Canon's spy story," and I mentally resolved that I would be more careful in the future about being carried away by my suspicions. I told people however that I would rather run the risk of being laughed at over making a mistake than to let one real spy escape.

Festubert made a heavy toll upon our numbers, and we were not sorry when we were ordered out of the line and found ourselves quartered in the neighbourhood of Bethune. Bethune at that time was a delightful place. It was full of people. The shops were well provided with articles for sale, and a restaurant in the quaint Grande Place, with its Spanish tower and Spanish houses, was the common meeting ground of friends. The gardens behind private residences brought back memories of pre-war days. The church was a beautiful one, built in the 16th century. The colours of the windows were especially rich. It was always delightful to enter it and think how it had stood the shock and turmoil of the centuries.

One day when I was there the organ was being played most beautifully. Sitting next to me in a pew, was a Canadian Highlander clad in a very dirty uniform. He told me that a friend of his had been killed beside him drenching him in blood. The Highlander was the grandson of a British Prime Minister. We listened to the music till the recital was over, and then I went up to the gallery and made myself known to the organist. He was a delicate young fellow, quite blind, and was in a state of nervous excitement over his recent efforts. I made a bargain with him to give us a recital on the following evening. At the time appointed, therefore, I brought some of our men with me. The young organist met us at the church and I led him over to a monastery in which a British ambulance was making its headquarters. There, in the chapel, the blind man poured out his soul in the strains of a most beautiful instrument. We sat entranced in the evening light. He transported us into another world. We forgot the shells, the mud, the darkness, the wounded men, the lonely graves, and the hideous fact of war. We wandered free and unanxious down the avenues of thought and emotion which were opened up before us by the genius of him whose eyes were shut to this world. It was with deep regret that, when the concert was over, we heard him close the keyboard. Three years later the organist was killed by a shell while he was sitting at his post in the church he loved so well and had never seen.

When we were at Bethune a very important event in my military career took place. In answer to repeated requests, Headquarters procured me a horse. I am told that the one sent to me came by mistake and was not that which they intended me to have. The one I was to have, I heard, was the traditional padré's horse, heavy, slow, unemotional, and with knees ready at all times to sink in prayer. The animal sent to me, however, was a high-spirited chestnut thoroughbred, very pretty, very lively and neck-reined. It had once belonged to an Indian general, and was partly Arab. Poor Dandy was my constant companion to the end. After the Armistice, to prevent his being sold to the Belgian army, he was mercifully shot, by the orders of our A.D.V.S. Dandy certainly was a beauty, and his lively disposition made him interesting to ride. I was able now to do much more parish visiting, and I was rather amused at the way in which my mount was inspected by the different grooms in our units. I had to stand the fire of much criticism. Evil and covetous eyes were set upon Dandy. I was told he was "gone" in the knees. I was told he had a hump on the back—he had what is known as the "Jumper's bump." Men tickled his back and, because he wriggled, told me he was "gone" in the kidneys. I was told he was no proper horse for a padré, but that a fair exchange was always open to me. I was offered many an old transport hack for Dandy, and once was even asked if I would change him for a pair of mules. I took all the criticisms under consideration, and then when they were repeated I told the men that really I loved to ride a horse with a hump on its back. It was so biblical, just like riding a camel. As for bad kidneys, both Dandy and I were teetotallers and we could arrest disease by our temperance habits. The weakness of knees too was no objection in my eyes. In fact, I had so long, as a parson, sat over weak-kneed congregations that I felt quite at home sitting on a weak-kneed horse.

Poor dear old Dandy, many were the rides we had together. Many were the jumps we took. Many were the ditches we tumbled into. Many were the unseen barbed wires and overhanging telephone wires which we broke, you with your chest and I with my nose and forehead. Many were the risks we ran in front of batteries in action which neither of us had observed till we found ourselves deafened with a hideous explosion and wrapped in flame. I loved you dearly, Dandy, and I wish I could pull down your soft face towards mine once again, and talk of the times when you took me down Hill 63 and along Hyde Park corner at Ploegsteert. Had I not been wounded and sent back to England at the end of the war, I would have brought you home with me to show to my family—a friend that not merely uncomplainingly but cheerfully, with prancing feet and arching neck and well groomed skin, bore me safely through dangers and darkness, on crowded roads and untracked fields. What dances we have had together, Dandy, when I have got the bands to play a waltz and you have gone through the twists and turns of a performance in which you took an evident delight! I used to tell the men that Dandy and I always came home together. Sometimes I was on his back and sometimes he was on mine, but we always came home together.

A few days later my establishment was increased by the purchase of a well-bred little white fox-terrier. He rejoiced in the name of Philo and became my inseparable companion. The men called him my curate. Dandy, Philo and I made a family party which was bound together by very close ties of affection. Though none of us could speak the language of the others, yet the sympathy of each enabled us to understand and appreciate one another's opinions. I always knew what Dandy thought and what he would do. I always knew too what Philo was thinking about. Philo had a great horror of shells. I put this down to the fact that he was born at Beuvry, a place which had been long under shell-fire. When he heard a shell coming in his direction, Philo used to go to the door of the dugout and listen for the explosion, and then come back to me in a state of whining terror. He could not even stand the sound of our own guns. It made him run round and round barking and howling furiously.

It was while we were out in rest at Bethune that I was told I could go on a week's leave to London. I was glad of this, not only for the change of scene, but for the sake of getting new clothes. I awoke in the early morning and listened to the French guns pounding away wearily near Souchez. At noon I started with a staff officer in a motor for Boulogne. It was a lovely day, and as we sped down the road through little white unspoilt villages and saw peaceful fields once again, it seemed as if I were waking from a hideous dream. That evening we pulled in to Victoria Station, and heard the Westminster chimes ringing out half past eight.

CHAPTER VIII.

Ploegsteert—A Lull in Operations.
July to December, 1915.

Leave in London during the war never appealed to me. I always felt like a fish out of water. When I went to concerts and theatres, all the time amid the artistic gaiety of the scene I kept thinking of the men in the trenches, their lonely vigils, their dangerous working parties, and the cold rain and mud in which their lives were passed. And I thought too of the wonderful patrol kept up on the dark seas, by heroic and suffering men who guarded the life and liberty of Britain. The gaiety seemed to be a hollow mockery. I was not sorry therefore when my week's leave was over and I went back to the line. A staff officer whom I met on the leave boat informed me that the Division had changed its trenches, and my Brigade had left Bethune. We had a most wonderful run in the staff car from Boulogne, and in two hours arrived at the Brigade Headquarters at Steenje, near Bailleul. There, with my haversacks, I was left by the staff car at midnight and had to find a lodging place. The only light I saw was in the upper windows of the Curé's house, the rest of the village was in complete darkness. I knocked on the door and, after a few minutes, the head and shoulders of a man in pyjamas looked out from the window and asked me who I was and what I wanted. On my giving my name and requesting admission, he very kindly came down and let me in and gave me a bed on the floor. On a mattress beside me was a young officer of the Alberta Dragoons, only nineteen years of age. He afterwards joined the Flying Corps and met his death by jumping out of his machine at an altitude of six thousand feet, when it was hit and burst into flames. The Alberta Dragoons later on became the Canadian Light Horse, and were Corps Troops. At that time, they were part of the 1st Division and were a magnificent body. The practical elimination of cavalry in modern warfare has taken all the romance and chivalry out of fighting. It is just as well however for the world that the old feudal conception of war has passed away. The army will be looked upon in the future as a class of citizens who are performing the necessary and unpleasant task of policing the world, in order that the rational occupations of human life may be carried on without interruption.

Brigade Headquarters now moved to a large farm behind the trenches at Ploegsteert. I bid farewell to my friends of the Alberta Dragoons and found a billet at La Crêche. From thence I moved to Romarin and made my home in a very dirty little French farmhouse. The Roman Catholic chaplain and I had each a heap of straw in an outhouse which was a kind of general workroom. At one end stood a large churn, which was operated, when necessary, by a trained dog, which was kept at other times in a cage. The churn was the breeding place of innumerable blue-bottles, who in spite of its savoury attractions annoyed us very much by alighting on our food and on our faces. I used to say to my friend, the chaplain, when at night we had retired to our straw beds and were reading by the light of candles stuck on bully beef tins, that the lion and the lamb were lying down together. We could never agree as to which of the animals each of us represented. At the head of my heap of straw there was an entrance to the cellar. The ladies of the family, who were shod in wooden shoes, used to clatter round our slumbers in the early morning getting provisions from below. Life under such conditions was peculiarly unpleasant. It was quite impossible too to have a bath. I announced to the family one day that I was going to take one. Murdoch MacDonald provided some kind of large tub which he filled with dishes of steaming water. Instead however of the fact that I was about to have a bath acting as a deterrent to the visits of the ladies, the announcement seemed to have the opposite effect. So great were the activities of the family in the cellar and round the churn that I had to abandon the idea of bathing altogether. I determined therefore to get a tent of my own and plant it in the field. I wrote to England and got a most wonderful little house. It was a small portable tent. When it was set up it covered a piece of ground six feet four inches square. The pole, made in two parts like a fishing rod, was four feet six inches high. The tent itself was brown, and made like a pyramid. One side had to be buttoned up when I had retired. It looked very small as a place for human habitation. On one side of the pole was my Wolseley sleeping bag, on the other a box in which to put my clothes, and on which stood a lantern. When Philo and I retired for the night we were really very comfortable, but we were much annoyed by earwigs and the inquisitiveness of the cows, who never could quite satisfy themselves as to what we were. Many is the time we have been awakened out of sleep in the morning by the sniffings and sighings of a cow, who poked round my tent until I thought she had the intention of swallowing us up after the manner in which the cow disposed of Tom Thumb. At such times I would turn Philo loose upon the intruder. Philo used to suffer at night from the cold, and would wake me up by insisting upon burrowing his way down into my tightly laced valise. There he would sleep till he got so hot that he woke me up again burrowing his way out. It would not be long before once again the cold of the tent drove him to seek refuge in my bed. I hardly ever had a night's complete rest. Once I rolled over on him, and, as he was a very fiery tempered little dog, he got very displeased and began to snap and bark in a most unpleasant manner. As the sleeping bag was tightly laced it was difficult to extract him. Philo waged a kind of submarine warfare there until grasping his snout, I pulled him out and refused all his further appeals for readmission.

My little tent gave me great comfort and a sense of independence. I could go where I pleased and camp in the lines of the battalions when they came out of the trenches. This enabled me to get into closer touch with the men. One young western fellow said that my encampment consisted of a caboose, my tent, a cayouse, which was Dandy, and a papoose, which was my little dog, friend Philo. Now that I had a comfortable billet of my own I determined that Romarin was too far from the men, so I removed my settlement up to the Neuve Eglise road and planted it near some trees in the field just below the row of huts called Bulford Camp. At this time, Murdoch MacDonald went to the transport lines, and his place was taken by my friend Private Ross, of the 16th Battalion, the Canadian Scottish. He stayed with me to the end. We were very comfortable in the field. Ross made himself a bivouac of rubber sheets. Dandy was picketed not far off and, under the trees, my little brown pyramid tent was erected, with a rude bench outside for a toilet table, and a large tin pail for a bath-tub. When the battalions came out of the line and inhabited Bulford Camp and the huts of Court-o-Pyp, I used to arrange a Communion Service for the men every morning. At Bulford Camp the early morning services were specially delightful. Not far off, was the men's washing place, a large ditch full of muddy water into which the men took headers. Beside it were long rows of benches, in front of which the operation of shaving was carried on. The box I used as an altar was placed under the green trees, and covered with the dear old flag, which now hangs in the chancel of my church in Quebec. On top was a white altar cloth, two candles and a small crucifix. At these services only about ten or a dozen men attended, but it was inspiring to minister to them. I used to hear from time to time that so and so had been killed, and I knew he had made his last Communion at one of such services. It was an evidence of the changed attitude towards religion that the men in general did not count it strange that soldiers should thus come to Holy Communion in public. No one was ever laughed at or teased for doing so.

Neuve Eglise, at the top of the road, had been badly wrecked by German shells. I went up there one night with an officer friend of mine, to see the scene of desolation. We were halted by some of our cyclists who were patrolling the road. Whenever they stopped me at night and asked who I was I always said, "German spy", and they would reply, "Pass, German spy, all's well." My friend and I went down the street of the broken and deserted village, which, from its position on the hill, was an easy mark for shell fire. Not a living thing was stirring except a big black cat which ran across our path. The moonlight made strange shadows in the roofless houses. Against the west wall of the church stood a large crucifix still undamaged. The roof had gone, and the moonlight flooded the ruins through the broken Gothic windows. To the left, ploughed up with shells, were the tombs of the civilian cemetery, and the whole place was ghostly and uncanny.

Near the huts, on the hill at Bulford Camp was a hollow in the ground which made a natural amphitheatre. Here at night concerts were given. All the audience packed together very closely sat on the ground. Before us, at the end of the hollow, the performers would appear, and overhead the calm stars looked down. I always went to these entertainments well provided with Players' cigarettes. A neat trick was played upon me one night. I passed my silver cigarette case round to the men and told them that all I wanted back was the case. In a little while it was passed back to me. I looked into it to see if a cigarette had been left for my use, when, to my astonishment, I found that the case had been filled with De Reszke's, my favourite brand. I thanked my unknown benefactor for his graceful generosity.

The field behind the huts at Court-o-Pyp was another of my favourite camping grounds. It was on the Neuve Eglise side of the camp, and beyond us was some barbed wire. About two o'clock one night I was aroused by an excited conversation which was being carried on between my friend Ross in his bivouac, and a soldier who had been dining late and had lost his way. The young fellow had got it into his head that he had wandered into the German lines, and Ross had great difficulty in convincing him that he was quite safe. He was just going off with mind appeased when he caught sight of my pyramid tent on a rise in the ground. "What's that?" he cried in terror, evidently pointing towards my little house. "That's the Rev. Major Canon Scott's billet" said Ross with great dignity from under his rubber sheets, and the man went off in fear of his identity becoming known. He afterwards became an officer and a very gallant one too, and finally lost a leg in the service of his country. But many is the time I have chaffed him about the night he thought he had wandered into the German lines.

One day when I had ridden up to Court-o-Pyp I found that a canteen had just been opened there, and being urged to make a purchase for good luck I bought a large bottle of tomato catsup, which I put into my saddle bag. I noticed that the action was under the observation of the battalion, which had just returned from the trenches and was about to be dismissed. I mounted my horse and went over to the C.O. and asked if I might say a word to the men before he dismissed them. He told me the men were tired, but I promised not to keep them long. He called out, "Men, Canon Scott wants to say a word to you before you are dismissed," and they stood to attention. "All I wanted to say to you, Boys, was this; that was a bottle of tomato catsup which I put in my saddle bag, and not, as you thought, a bottle of whiskey." A roar of laughter went up from all ranks.

It was about this time that our Brigadier was recalled to England to take over the command of a Division. We were all sincerely sorry to lose him from the 3rd Brigade. He was ever a good and true friend, and took a deep interest in his men. But the immediate effect of his departure, as far as I was concerned, was to remove out of my life the hideous spectre of No. 2 General Hospital, and to give me absolute liberty in wandering through the trenches. In fact, as I told him sometime afterwards, I was beginning a little poem, the first line of which was "I never knew what freedom meant until he went away."

One day, General Seely invited me to go and stay with him at his Headquarters in Westhof Farm where I had a most delightful time. Not only was the General a most entertaining host, but his staff were very charming. At dinner, we avoided war topics and shop, and talked about things political and literary. The mess was in the farm building and our sleeping quarters were on an island in the moat. My stay here brought me into contact with the Canadian Cavalry Brigade, and a fine lot of men they were.

But a change in my fortunes was awaiting me. The Senior Chaplain of the Division had gone back to England, and General Alderson sent for me one day to go to Nieppe. There he told me he wished me to be Senior Chaplain. I was not altogether pleased at the appointment, because it meant that I should be taken away from my beloved 3rd Brigade. I told the General so, but he assured me I should not have to stay all the time at Headquarters, and could go with the 3rd Brigade as much as I pleased.

This unexpected promotion, after what I had gone through, opened up a life of almost dazzling splendour. I now had to go and live in the village of Nieppe on the Bailleul-Armentieres road. Here were our Headquarters. General Alderson had his house in the Square. Another building was occupied by our officers, and a theatre was at my disposal for Church Services and entertainments. The town was also the Headquarters of a British Division, so we had plenty of men to look after. I got an upper room in a house owned by an old lady. The front room downstairs was my office, and I had a man as a clerk. Round my bedroom window grew a grape vine, and at night when the moon was shining, I could sit on my window-sill, listen to the sound of shells, watch the flare lights behind Armentieres and eat the grapes which hung down in large clusters. Poor Nieppe has shared the fate of Neuve Eglise and Bailleul and is now a ruin. Everyone was exceedingly kind, and I soon found that the added liberty which came to me from having a definite position really increased my chances of getting amongst the men. By leaving my clerk to do the work of Senior Chaplain, I could go off and be lost at the front for a day and a night without ever being missed. I knew that each brigade must now have an equal share of my interest and I was very careful never to show any preference. A chaplain had at all times to be very careful to avoid anything that savoured of favouritism. I was now also formally inducted into the membership of that august body known as "C" mess, where the heads of non-combatant departments met for dining and wining. Somebody asked me one day what "C" mess was. I told him it was a lot of withered old boughs on the great tree of the Canadian Expeditionary Force—a description which was naturally much resented by the other members. I had no difficulty now in arranging for my billets, as that was always done for me by our Camp Commandant.

Life in Nieppe was very delightful and the presence of the British Division gave it an added charm. We had very pleasant services in the Hall, and every Sunday evening I had a choral Evensong. So many of the men who attended had been choristers in England or Canada that the responses were sung in harmony by the entire congregation. On week days we had smoking concerts and entertainments of various kinds. I sometimes had to take duty with the British units. On one occasion, I was invited to hold a service for his men by a very staunch churchman, a Colonel in the Army Service Corps. He told me, before the service, that his unit had to move on the following day, and also that he was accustomed to choose and read the lesson himself. I was delighted to find a layman so full of zeal. But in the midst of the service I was rather distressed at his choice of the lesson. It was hard enough to get the interest of the men as it was, but the Colonel made it more difficult by choosing a long chapter from Deuteronomy narrating the wanderings of the children of Israel in the desert. Of course the C.O. and I knew that the A.S.C. was to move on the following day, but the congregation was not aware of the fact, and they must have been puzzled by the application of the chapter to the religious needs of the men at the front. However the reader was delighted with his choice of subject, and at tea afterwards told me how singularly appropriate the lesson was on this particular occasion. I thought it was wiser to make no comment, but I wondered what spiritual fruit was gathered by the mind of the ordinary British Tommy from a long account of Israel's pitching their tents and perpetually moving to places with extraordinary names.

We had several meetings of chaplains, and I paid a visit to the Deputy Chaplain General, Bishop Gwynne, at his headquarters in St. Omer. He was exceedingly kind and full of human interest in the men. The whole conception of the position of an army chaplain was undergoing a great and beneficial change. The rules which hitherto had fenced off the chaplains, as being officers, from easy intercourse with the men were being relaxed. Chaplains were being looked upon more as parish priests to their battalions. They could be visited freely by the men, and could also have meals with the men when they saw fit. I am convinced that it is a mistake to lay stress upon the chaplain's office as a military one. The chaplain is not a soldier, and has no men, as a doctor has, under his command. His office being a spiritual one ought to be quite outside military rank. To both officers and men, he holds a unique position, enabling him to become the friend and companion of all. Bishop Gwynne upheld the spiritual side of the chaplain's work, and by establishing conferences and religious retreats for the chaplains, endeavoured to keep up the sacred standards which army life tended so much to drag down.

The Cathedral at St. Omer is a very beautiful one, and it was most restful to sit in it and meditate, looking down the long aisles and arches that had stood so many centuries the political changes of Europe. One morning when the sun was flooding the building and casting the colours of the windows in rich patterns on the floor, I sat under the gallery at the west end and read Shelley's great elegy. I remember those wonderful last lines and I thought how, like an unshattered temple, the great works of literature survive the tempests of national strife. My mind was carried far away, beyond the anxieties and sorrows of the present,

"To where the soul of Adonais like a star
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are."

In the square was a large building which had been used originally as headquarters for the Intelligence Department. Later on, this building was taken by the Bishop and used as the Chaplains' Rest-Home. There is an amusing story told of a despatch rider who came to the place with a message for its original occupants, but when he inquired for the Intelligence Department the orderly answered, "This is the Chaplains' Rest Home, there is no Intelligence here." At St. Omer also was the office of the Principal Chaplain who had under his charge all the Non-Conformist Chaplains at the front. The very best relations existed between the various religious bodies, and it was the endeavour of all the chaplains to see that every man got the religious privileges of his own faith.

We arrived in the Ploegsteert area at a good time for the digging and repairing of the trenches. The clay in Belgium in fine weather is easily worked; consequently a most elaborate and well made system of trenches was established in front of Messines. The brown sides of the trenches became dry and hard in the sun, and the bath-mats along them made walking easy. The trenches were named, "Currie Avenue," "McHarg Avenue," "Seely Avenue," and so forth. The men had their cookers and primus stoves, and occupied their spare time in the line by cooking all sorts of dainty dishes. Near the trenches on the other side of Hill 63 were several ruined farm houses, known as "Le Perdu Farm," "Ration Farm," and one, around which hovered a peculiarly unsavoury atmosphere, as "Stinking Farm." Hill 63 was a hill which ran immediately behind our trench area and was covered at its right end with a delightful wood. Here were "Grand Moncque Farm," "Petit Moncque Farm," "Kort Dreuve Farm" and the "Piggeries." All these farms were used as billets by the battalions who were in reserve. In Ploegsteert Wood, "Woodcote Farm," and "Red Lodge," were also used for the same purpose. The wood in those days was a very pleasant place to wander through. Anything that reminded us of the free life of nature acted as a tonic to the nerves, and the little paths among the trees which whispered overhead in the summer breezes made one imagine that one was wandering through the forests in Canada. In the wood were several cemeteries kept by different units, very neatly laid out and carefully fenced in. I met an officer one day who told me he was going up to the trenches one evening past a cemetery in the wood, when he heard the sound of someone sobbing. He looked into the place and there saw a young boy lying beside a newly made grave. He went in and spoke to him and the boy seemed confused that he had been discovered in his sorrow. "It's the grave of my brother, Sir," he said, "He was buried here this afternoon and now I have got to go back to the line without him." The lad dried his eyes, shouldered his rifle and went through the woodland path up to the trenches. No one would know again the inner sorrow that had darkened his life. The farms behind the wood made really very pleasant homes for awhile. They have all now been levelled to the ground, but at the time I speak of they were in good condition and had many large and commodious buildings. At Kort Dreuve there was a very good private chapel, which the proprietor gave me the use of for my Communion Services. It was quite nice to have a little Gothic chapel with fine altar, and the men who attended always enjoyed the services there. Round the farm was a large moat full of good sized gold-fish, which the men used to catch surreptitiously and fry for their meals. "The Piggeries" was a large building in which the King of the Belgians had kept a fine breed of pigs. It was very long and furnished inside with two rows of styes built solidly of concrete. These were full of straw, and in them the men slept.

I was visiting one of the battalions there one evening, when I heard that they had been ordered to go back to the trenches before Sunday. I told some of the men that I thought that, as they would be in the trenches on Sunday, it would be a good idea if we had a voluntary service that evening. They seemed pleased, so I collected quite a large congregation at one end of the Piggeries, and was leading up to the service by a little overture in the shape of a talk about the war outlook, when I became aware that there was a fight going on at the other end of the low building, and that some of the men on the outskirts of the congregation were beginning to get restive. I knew that a voluntary service could not stand up against the rivalry of a fight, so I thought I had better take the bull by the horns. I said, "Boys, I think there is a fight going on at the ether end of the Piggeries, and perhaps it would be well to postpone the service and go and see the fight, and then return and carry on." The men were much relieved and, amid great laughter, my congregation broke loose and ran to the other end of the building, followed by myself. The fight was soon settled by the intervention of a sergeant, and then I said, "Now, Boys, let us go back to the other end and have the service." I thought the change of location might have a good effect upon their minds and souls. So back we went again to the other end of the building and there had a really enthusiastic and devout service. When it was over, I told the men that nothing helped so much to make a service bright and hearty as the inclusion of a fight, and that when I returned to Canada, if at any time my congregation was listless or sleepy, I would arrange a fight on the other side of the street to which we could adjourn and from which we should return with renewed spiritual fervour. I have met many men at different times who look back upon that service with pleasure.

We had a feeling that Ploegsteert was to be our home for a good long time, so we settled down to our life there. We had visits from Sir Sam Hughes and Sir Robert Borden, and also Lord Kitchener. I was not present when the latter inspected the men, but I asked one who was there what it was like. "Oh Sir," he replied, "we stood to attention, and Kitchener passed down the lines very quietly and coldly. He merely looked at us with his steely grey eyes and said to himself, "I wonder how many of these men will be in hell next week." General Hughes' inspection of one of the battalions near Ploegsteert Wood was interrupted by shells and the men were hastily dismissed.

A visit to the trenches was now a delightful expedition. All the way from Nieppe to Hill 63 one came upon the headquarters of some unit. At a large farm called "Lampernise Farm" all the transports of the 3rd Brigade were quartered. I used to have services for them in the open on a Sunday evening. It was very difficult at first to collect a congregation, so I adopted the plan of getting two or three men who could sing, and then going over with them to an open place in the field, and starting some well known hymn. One by one others would come up and hymn-books were distributed. By the time the service was finished, we generally had quite a good congregation, but it took a certain amount of courage and faith to start the service. One felt very much like a little band of Salvationists in a city square.

In spite of having a horse to ride, it was sometimes difficult to cover the ground between the services on Sunday. One afternoon, when I had been to the Cavalry Brigade at Petit Moncque Farm, I had a great scramble to get back in time to the transport lines. In a bag hanging over the front of my saddle, I had five hundred hymn books. Having taken a wrong turn in the road I lost some time which it was necessary to make up, and, in my efforts to make haste, the string of the bag broke and hymn books fluttered out and fell along the road. Dandy took alarm, misunderstanding the nature of the fluttering white things, and started to gallop. With two haversacks on my back it was difficult to hold on to the bag of hymn books and at the same time to prevent their loss. The more the hymn books fluttered out, the harder Dandy bolted, and the harder Dandy bolted, the more the hymn books fluttered out. At last I passed a soldier in the road and asked him to come to my assistance. I managed to rein in the horse, and the man collected as many of the hymn books as were not spoilt by the mud. Knowing how hard it was and how long it took to get hymn books from the Base, it was with regret that I left any behind. But then I reflected that it might be really a scattering of the seed by the wayside. Some poor lone soldier who had been wandering from the paths of rectitude might pick up the hymns by chance and be converted. Indulging in such self consolation I arrived just in time for the service.

Services were never things you could be quite sure of until they came off. Often I have gone to bed on Saturday night feeling that everything had been done in the way of arranging for the following day. Battalions had been notified, adjutants had put the hours of service in orders, and places for the gatherings had been carefully located. Then on the following day, to my intense disgust, I would find that all my plans had been frustrated. Some general had taken it into his head to order an inspection, or some paymaster had been asked to come down and pay off the men. The Paymaster's Parade, in the eyes of the men, took precedence of everything else. A Church Service was nowhere in comparison. More often than I can recollect, all my arrangements for services have been upset by a sudden order for the men to go to a bathing parade. Every time this happened, the Adjutant would smile and tell me, as if I had never heard it before, that "cleanliness was next to godliness." A chaplain therefore had his trials, but in spite of them it was the policy of wisdom not to show resentment and to hold one's tongue. I used to look at the Adjutant, and merely remark quietly, in the words of the Psalmist, "I held my tongue with bit and bridle, while the ungodly was in my sight."

People at Headquarters soon got accustomed to my absence and never gave me a thought. I used to take comfort in remembering Poo Bah's song in the Mikado, "He never will be missed, he never will be missed." Sometimes when I have started off from home in the morning my sergeant and Ross have asked me when I was going to return. I told them that if they would go down on their knees and pray for illumination on the subject, they might find out, but that I had not the slightest idea myself. A visit to the trenches was most fascinating. I used to take Philo with me. He found much amusement in hunting for rats, and would often wander off into No Man's Land and come back covered with the blood of his victims. One night I had missed him for some time, and was whistling for him, when a sentry told me that a white dog had been "captured" by one of the men with the thought that it was a German police dog, and he had carried it off to company headquarters under sentence of death. I hurried up the trench and was just in time to save poor little Philo from a court martial. There had been a warning in orders that day against the admission of dogs from the German lines.

The men were always glad of a visit, and I used to distribute little bronze crucifixes as I went along. I had them sent to me from London, and have given away hundreds of them. I told the men that if anyone asked them why they were at the war, that little cross with the patient figure of self-sacrifice upon it, would be the answer. The widow of an officer who was killed at Albert told me the cross which I gave her husband was taken from his dead body, and she now had it, and would wear it to her dying day. I was much surprised and touched to see the value which the men set upon these tokens of their faith. I told them to try to never think, say or do anything which would make them want to take off the cross from their necks.

The dugouts in which the officers made their homes were quite comfortable, and very merry parties we have had in the little earth houses which were then on the surface of the ground. One night when some new officers had arrived to take over the line, one of the companies gave them a dinner, consisting of five or six courses, very nicely cooked. We were never far however, from the presence of the dark Angel, and our host on that occasion was killed the next night. Our casualties at this time were not heavy, although every day there were some men wounded or killed. The shells occasionally made direct hits upon the trenches. I came upon a place once which was terribly messed about, and two men were sitting by roaring with laughter. They said their dinner was all prepared in their dugout, and they had gone off to get some wood for the fire, when a shell landed and knocked their home into ruins. They were preparing to dig for their kit and so much of their dinner as would still be eatable. As they took the whole matter as a joke, I joined with them in the laugh. One day as I was going up the line, a young sapper was carried out on a sitting stretcher. He was hit through the chest, and all the way along the bath mats was the trail of the poor boy's blood. He was only nineteen years of age, and had done splendid work and won the admiration of all the men in his company. I had a short prayer with him, and then saw him carried off to the dressing station, where not long after he died. The sergeant who was with him was exceedingly kind, and looked after the boy like a father. As the war went on, the men were being united more and more closely in the bonds of a common sympathy and a tender helpfulness. To the enemy, until he was captured, they were flint and iron; to one another they were friends and brothers.

It always took a long time to pass down the trenches. There were so many men I knew and I could not pass them without a short conversation. Time, in the line had really no meaning, except in the matter of "standing to" or "changing guard". On fine days, the life was not unpleasant. I remember, however, on one dark rainy night, being in a trench in front of Wulverghem. The enemy trenches were at that point only thirty-five yards away. I was squeezed into a little muddy dugout with an officer, when the corporal came and asked for a tot of rum for his men. They had been lying out on patrol duty in the mud and rain in front of our trench for two hours.

Dandy was still the envy of our men in the transport lines, and one day I nearly lost him. I rode up to Hill 63. Just behind it was an orchard, and in it there were two batteries of British Artillery, which were attached to our Division. I was going up to the trenches that afternoon, so I gave the horse some oats and tied him to a tree near the officers' billet. I then went up over the hill down to Ration Farm, and from thence into the line. It was quite late in the afternoon, but walking through the trenches was easy when it was not raining. I was returning about 10 o'clock, when the second in command of the 16th Battalion asked me to wait for him and we would come out together over the open. It must have been about midnight when I started with the Major, and another officer. The night was dark and it was rather a scramble, but the German flare lights would go up now and then and show us our course. Suddenly a machine gun opened up, and we had to lie on our faces listening to the swish of the flying bullets just overhead. I turned to the officer next to me and asked him how long he had been at the front. He said he had only arrived that afternoon at four o' clock. I told him it wasn't always like this, and we laughed over the curious life to which he had been so recently introduced. We finally made our way to Ration Farm and as I had a long ride before me, I determined to go back. I was very hungry, as I had had nothing to eat since luncheon. I went into a cellar at Ration Farm and there found one of the men reading by the light of a candle supported on tins of bully-beef. I asked him for one of these and he gladly gave it to me. As I started up the hill on the long straight road with trees on either side, I tried to open the tin with the key, but as usual it broke and left only a little crack through which with my penknife I extracted strings of beef. I could not use my flashlight, as the hill was in sight of the enemy, so I had to content myself with what nourishment I was able to obtain. Half way up the hill I noticed a tall figure standing by one of the trees. I thought he might be a spy but I accosted him and found he was one of the Strathcona Horse who had a working party in the trenches that night. I told him my difficulty, and he got his knife and very kindly took off the top of the tin. By this time a drizzling rain was falling and the night was decidedly uncomfortable. I went over the hill and down to the orchard, and made my way to the tree to which poor old Dandy had been tied so many hours before. There, I found the tree just where I had left it—it was of no use to me, as, like the barren fig tree, it had no fruit upon it, but to my horror the horse, which was so necessary, had disappeared. I scoured the orchard in vain looking for my faithful friend, and then I went over to the Artillery officers' house and told them my trouble. We all decided that it was too late to search any longer, I was provided with a mackintosh, and determined to make my way over to Petit Moncque Farm where the 3rd Infantry Brigade Headquarters were. It was a long walk and the roads were sloppy. The path I took led through a field of Indian corn. This, though not ripe and not cooked, would remind me of Canada, so with my search-light I hunted for two or three of the hardest ears, and then, fortified with these, made my way over towards the farm.

From past experience, I knew that a sentry was stationed somewhere in the road. The sudden challenge of a sentry in the dark always gave me a fright, so I determined this time to be on the watch and keep from getting a surprise. However when I arrived at the place where the man usually stood, no one challenged me. I thought that perhaps on account of the night being rainy and uncomfortable he had retired to the guard room, and I walked along with a free mind. I was just near the large gateway, however, when a most stentorian voice shouted out, "Halt, who goes there?" and at the same instant in the darkness I saw the sudden flash of a bayonet flourished in my direction. Not expecting such an event, I could not for the moment think of what I ought to say, but I called out in equally stentorian tones, "For heaven's sake, my boy, don't make such a row; its only Canon Scott and I have lost my horse." A burst of laughter greeted my announcement, and the man told me that, seeing somebody with a flashlight at that time of the night wandering through the fields, and searching for something, he had become convinced that a German spy was at work cutting the telephone wires that led back to the guns, so he had got near the guard room where he could obtain assistance, and awaited my approach in the darkness. It was a great relief to get to headquarters, and the officer on duty kindly lent me his comfortable sleeping bag. The next morning I made my way back to Nieppe, and telegraphed to the various units, searching for Dandy. Later on, in the afternoon, he was brought in by a man of the Strathcona Horse. His story was that the intelligent animal had untied himself from the tree and followed the working party home from the orchard. It is most likely that he had preceded them. Luckily for me, their quartermaster had recognized him in the Strathcona lines, and, being an honest man, had sent him back. The incident taught me a great and useful lesson, and in future I was very careful to see that my horse was safely guarded whenever I had to leave him.

Our signallers had been active in setting up a wireless telegraph in a field near Headquarters and were able to get the various communiqués which were sent out during the night by the different nations. The information was passed round Headquarters every morning on typewritten sheets and made most interesting reading. We were able to anticipate the news detailed to us in the papers. Later on, however, someone in authority put an end to this and we were deprived of our Daily Chronicle.

About this time we heard that the 2nd Division was coming to France, and that the two Divisions, which would be joined by a third, were to be formed into the Canadian Corps. This meant a very radical change in the status of the old 1st Division. Up to this time we were "the Canadians"; now we were only to be one among several divisions. General Alderson was to take command of the Corps, and the question which was daily asked among the officers at headquarters was, "Are you going to the Corps?" It was a sundering of ties amongst our friends, and we felt sorry that our society would be broken up. One of the staff officers asked me to write a poem on his departure. I did so. It began—

"He left the war
And went to the Corps,
Our hearts were sore,
We could say no more."

My friend was not at all pleased at the implication contained in the first two lines.

Bailleul was made Corps Headquarters, whither General Alderson moved. His place at the division was taken by General Currie, who afterwards commanded the Corps and led it to victory. The old town now became a great Canadian centre. The General had comfortable quarters in a large house, which was nicely furnished, and had an air of opulence about it. The Grande Place was full of activity, and in the streets one met many friends. The hotel offered an opportunity for afternoon tea and a tolerable dinner. Besides this, there was the officers' tea room, kept by some damsels who provided cakes and served tea on little tables, like a restaurant in London. Here we could be sure of meeting many of our friends and very pleasant such gatherings were. In a large hall a concert took place every evening. We had a very special one attended by several generals with their staffs. The proceeds were given to the Canadian "Prisoners of War Fund". The concerts were most enjoyable and the real, artistic ability of some of the performers, both Canadian and British, was remarkable. It was always pleasant to live in the neighbourhood of a town, and the moment the men came out of the trenches they wanted to clean up and go into Bailleul. After a residence in the muddy and shaky little shacks in and behind the front lines, to enter a real house and sit on a real chair with a table in front of you was a great luxury.

There were several well-equipped hospitals in Bailleul. One large British one had a nice chapel set aside for our use. In it one day we had a Confirmation service which was very impressive, a number of candidates being present.

While Headquarters were at Nieppe the British attack upon Loos was to take place, and it was arranged that the Canadians, in order to keep the Germans busy in the North, were to make an attack. I happened to be visiting "the Piggeries" in the afternoon previous. The 1st Battalion was in the line. I heard the Colonel read out to the officers the orders for the attack. We were not told that the whole thing was what our soldiers call "a fake". As he read the orders for the next morning, they sounded serious, and I was invited to be present, which of course I gladly consented to. The guns were to open fire at 4 a.m. I had been away from Headquarters for some time so I determined to ride back and return later. At three o'clock a.m. my servant woke me up and I had a cup of coffee, and started off on Dandy to go up to "the Piggeries". I took a tin of bully-beef with me, and so was prepared for any eventuality. It was just before dawn and the morning air was fresh and delightful. Dandy had had a good feed of oats and was full of life. He seemed to enjoy the sport as much as I did. We rode up the well known roads, and round their curious curves past the small white farm houses, till we came into the neighbourhood of our batteries. All of a sudden these opened fire. It was a splendid sound. Of all the music I have ever heard in my life, none comes near the glorious organ sound of a barrage. I look back with the greatest pleasure to that early morning ride through the twilight lit up by gun flashes from batteries scattered along our whole front. One great dread I always had, and that was the dread of being killed by our own artillery. On this occasion, I had to ride down roads that looked perilously near batteries in action. When I got to a corner near "the Piggeries", I was just stopped in time from what might have been my finish. There was a concealed battery among the trees by the wayside, and I, not knowing it was there, was about to ride by unconcernedly, when a gunner came out from the bushes and stopped me just in time, telling me that in half a minute the battery was going to open up. Dandy and I waited till the guns had fired and then went on. Along our front line there was much stir and commotion. Bundles of lighted straw making a hideous smoke were poked over the trenches, and the whole night previous, all the limbers available had been driven up and down the roads, making as much noise as possible. The Germans were convinced we were preparing for an attack on a big scale, and that the yellow smoke which they saw coming towards them was some new form of frightfulness. Of course they returned our fire, but our men knew by this time that the whole affair was only a pretence. Far off to the South, however, there was a real battle raging, and the cemeteries which we afterwards saw at Loos bore testimony to the bitter struggle which the British forces endured.

The village of Ploegsteert behind the wood was very much damaged. Like the other villages at the front, it must at one time have been quite a prosperous place. The church, before it was ruined, was well built and capacious. There was a building on the main street which a British chaplain had used as a clubhouse, and handed over to me when his division moved south. It was well stocked with all things necessary to make the men comfortable. It had a kitchen, reading rooms, and upstairs a chapel. Two or three shells, however, had made their way into it, and the holes were covered with canvas. The Mayor's house was on the other side of the street, and he had a young girl there as a servant, who kept the keys of the club. The chaplain who moved away told me that this girl, when the town was being heavily shelled one day, saved the lives of some men who were lying wounded in the house, by carrying them on her back over to a place of safety in a farmhouse. It was a deed that merited recognition, because she had to pass down the road which was then under heavy shell fire. I brought her case before the notice of the military authorities, and General Seely was asked to take the matter up and make an application to the King for a reward for the girl's bravery. There was a doubt as to what award could be given to her. We got the sworn testimony of the Mayor and other eye-witnesses, and the document was finally laid before the King. It was decided that she should receive the bronze medal of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Later on General Alderson sent for me and took me to the Mayor's house in Romarin, where we had the ceremony of conferring the medal. It was quite touching in its simplicity. The girl, who had a fine open face, was on the verge of giving way to tears. The Mayor and some other of the chief inhabitants were arrayed in their best clothes, and a Highland regiment lent us their pipers. One of the citizens presented the heroine with a large bouquet of flowers. General Alderson made a nice speech, which was translated to the townsfolk, and then he presented the medal. We were invited into the house, and the girl's health was proposed and drunk by the General in a glass of Romarin Champagne. We heard afterwards that the country people were much impressed by the way the British Army had recognized the gallantry of a poor Belgian maidservant.

One day a German aeroplane was brought down behind our lines, near Ration Farm. Of its two occupants one was killed. On the aeroplane was found a Colt machine-gun, which had been taken by the Germans from the 14th Battalion several months before, in the Second Battle of Ypres. It now came back to the brigade which had lost it. I buried the airman near Ration Farm, in a grave, which the men did up neatly and over which they erected a cross with his name upon it.

Although our Headquarters were at Nieppe, the village was really in the British Area, and so we were informed towards the end of November that we had been ordered to move to St. Jans Cappel. On Monday, November 22nd I started off by car via Bailleul to my new billet. Although I had left Nieppe and its pleasant society with great regret, I was quite pleased with my new home. It was a small house belonging to a widow, on the road that led from St. Jans Cappel up to Mount Kemmel. The house itself was brick and well built. The landlady's rooms were on one side of the passage, and mine were on the other. A large garret overhead gave a billet for Ross and my sergeant clerk. In the yard there was a stable for the horse. So the whole family was quite comfortably housed, and Ross undertook to do my cooking. The room which I used as my office in the front of the house had two large windows in it, and a neat tiled floor. The furniture was ample. At the back, up some steps, was my bedroom, and the window from it opened upon the yard. A former occupant of the house, a Major Murray, of King Edward's Horse, had left a series of maps on the wall, on which pins were stuck with a bit of red cord passing through them, to show the position of our front line. These maps deeply impressed visitors with my military exactness. In that little office I have received many guests of all ranks. I always said that the chaplain's house was like a church, and all men met there on equal terms. Sometimes it was rather difficult however, to convince them that this was the case. On one occasion two privates and I had just finished luncheon, and were having a delightful smoke, when a certain general was announced, and the men seized with panic, fled up the steps to my bedroom and bolting through my window hurried back to their lines.

The landlady was quite well to do, and was a woman well thought of in the village. She both paid calls upon her neighbours and received callers in her rooms. Sometimes I used to be invited in to join these social gatherings and frequently she would bring me in a nice bowl of soup for dinner. Philo, too, made himself quite at home, and carefully inspected all visitors on their admission to the mansion. In front of the house, there was a pleasant view of the valley through which the road passed up towards Mont des Cats. Our Headquarters were down in the village in a large building which was part of the convent. General Currie and his staff lived in a charming chateau in pleasant grounds, on the hillside. The chateau, although a modern one, was reputed to be haunted, which gave it a more or less romantic interest in the eyes of our men, though as far as I could hear no apparitions disturbed the slumbers of the G.S.O. or the A.A. & Q.M.G.

The road past my house, which was a favourite walk of mine, went over the hill, and at the top a large windmill in a field commanded a fine view of the country for several miles. My garden was very pleasant, and in it was a summer house at the end of a moss-grown walk. One plant which gave me great delight was a large bush of rosemary. The smell of it always carried my mind back to peaceful times. It was like the odour of the middle ages, with that elusive suggestion of incense which reminded me of Gothic fanes and picturesque processions. Many elm trees fringed the fields, and made a welcome shade along the sides of the road. A little stream ran through the village and added its touch of beauty to the landscape. We were only a mile and a half from Bailleul, so we could easily get up to the town either for a concert or for dinner at the hotel. The Camp Commandant allotted me the school house, which I fitted up as a chapel. It was very small, and not particularly clean, but it served its purpose very well.

My only objection to St. Jans Cappel was that it was situated such a long way from our men, for we still held the same front line near Ploegsteert. It was now a ride of twelve miles to Hill 63 whither I frequently had to go to take burial services, the round trip making a journey of nearly twenty-four miles. The Bailleul road, which was my best route, was a pavé road, and was hard on a horse. I did not want poor willing Dandy to suffer from overwork, so I begged the loan of another mount from Headquarters. It was a young horse, but big and heavily built, and had no life in it. I was trotting down the road with him one day when he tumbled down, and I injured my knee, causing me to be laid up with water on the knee for about six weeks. The men used to chaff me about falling off my horse, but I told them that I could sit on a horse as long as he stood up, but I could not sit on the air when the horse lay down. I was very much afraid that the A.D.M.S. would send me off to a hospital, but I got private treatment from a doctor friend, who was acting A.D.C. to General Currie. Luckily for me, things were pretty quiet at the front at that time, and my being confined to the house did not really make much difference. I had a supper in my billet one night for a number of Bishop's College men. Of those who attended, the majority have since made the supreme sacrifice, but it was an evening which brought back many pleasant memories of our Alma Mater.

The roads round St. Jans Cappel were very pretty, and I had many a pleasant ride in our staff cars, which I, as Senior Chaplain, was permitted to use. It was always a great delight to me to pick up men on the road and give them a ride. I used to pile them in and give them as good a joy ride as the chauffeur, acting under orders, would allow. One day, in a heavy snowstorm, I picked up two nuns, whose garments were blowing about in the blizzard in a hopeless condition. The sisters were glad of the chance of a ride to Bailleul, whither they were going on foot through the snow. It was against orders to drive ladies in our staff cars, but I thought the circumstances of the case and the evident respectability of my guests would be a sufficient excuse for a breach of the rule. The sisters chatted in French very pleasantly, and I took them to their convent headquarters in Bailleul. I could see, as I passed through the village, how amused our men were at my use of the car. When I arrived at the convent door at Bailleul, the good ladies alighted and then asked me to give them my blessing. How could I refuse, or enter upon a discussion of the validity of Anglican Orders? The nuns with their hands crossed on their bosoms leaned forward, and I stood up and blessed them from the car, and departed leaving them both grateful and gratified.

The village of St. Jans Cappel had been captured by the Germans in their advance in 1914, and we heard some unpleasant tales of the rudeness of the German officers who took up their quarters in the convent and compelled the nuns to wait upon them at the table. In 1918, when the Germans made their big push round Mont Kemmel, St. Jans Cappel, along with Bailleul and Meteren, was captured once more by the enemy, and the village is now in ruins and its inhabitants scattered.

I do not look back with much pleasure to the cold rides which I always used to have on my return from the line. In frosty weather the pavé roads were very slippery, and I had to walk Dandy most of the distance, while I got colder and colder, and beguiled the time by composing poems or limericks on places at the front. Arriving at my billet in the small hours of the morning, I would find my friend Ross not always in the best of humors at being kept up so late. The ride back from Wulverghem or Dranoutre, owing to the narrowness of the road and the amount of transport and lorries upon it, was rather dangerous. It was a matter of ten miles to come back from Wulverghem, and the roads were very dark. One night in particular I had a narrow escape. I had mounted Dandy at the back of a farmhouse, but for some reason or other I seemed to have lost control over him and he was unusually lively. Luckily for me a man offered to lead him out into the road, and just before he let him go discovered that the bit was not in his mouth.

The Alberta Dragoons had billets in a side road that led to Bailleul. It was a quiet and peaceful neighbourhood, and they had good barns for their horses. In the fields they had splendid opportunities for training and exercise. I often took service for them. One Sunday afternoon I had been speaking of the necessity of purifying the commercial life of Canada on our return, and I said something uncomplimentary about land speculators. I was told afterwards that I had caused much amusement in all ranks, for every man in the troop from the officers downwards, or upwards, was a land speculator, and had town lots to sell in the West. In conversations with privates and non-coms., I often found they had left good positions in Canada and not infrequently were men of means. I have given mud-splashed soldiers a ride in the car, and they have talked about their own cars at home. It was quite pathetic to see how much men thought of some little courtesy or act of kindness. A young fellow was brought in on a stretcher to the Red Château dressing station one Sunday afternoon at Courcelette. He was terribly wounded and gave me his father's address in Canada so that I might write to him. He was carried away and I heard afterwards he died. Some months later I had a letter from his father, a Presbyterian minister in Ontario, thanking me for writing and telling me how pleased his son had been by my giving him a ride one day in a Headquarters car. I mention this so that people will realize how much the men had given up when they considered such a trifling thing worth mentioning.

The position of a chaplain as the war went on became very different from what it had been at the beginning. The experience through which the army had passed had showed to the military authorities that there was something more subtle, more supernatural behind the life of the men, than one might gather from the King's Regulations. Our chaplains had done splendid work, and I think I may say that, with one or two exceptions, they were idolized by their units. I could tell of one of our chaplains who lived continually at the advanced dressing station in great hardship and discomfort, sharing the danger and privation of his men. The curious thing about a chaplain's popularity was that the men never praised a chaplain whom they knew without adding "It is a pity that all chaplains are not like him". On one occasion when I was going through the Division, I was told by the men of one unit that their chaplain was a prince, and it was a pity that all chaplains were not like him. I went to another unit, and there again I was told that their chaplain was a prince, and it was a pity that all chaplains were not like him. It seems to be a deeply rooted principle in a soldier's mind to beware of praising religion overmuch. But it amused me in a general survey to find that ignorance of the work of other chaplains led to their condemnation. I fancy the same spirit still manifests itself in the British Army and in Canada. I find officers and men eager enough to praise those who were their own chaplains but always adding to it a condemnation of those who were not. An officer said to me one day that the war had enabled chaplains to get to know men. I told him that the war also had enabled men to get to know chaplains. Large numbers of men in ordinary life are very seldom brought into contact with religion. They have the crude notion of it which they carried away as unfledged boys from Sunday School, and a sort of formal bowing acquaintance through the conventions of later life. In the war, when their minds and affections were put to a severe strain, it was a revelation to them to find that there were principles and relationships of divine origin which enabled the ordinary human will easily to surmount difficulties moral and physical, and which gave a quiet strength that nothing merely earthly could supply. Certainly the war gave chaplains a splendid opportunity of bearing witness to the power of Christ. A great deal has been written about the religion of the men at the front. Some have spoken of it in terms of exaggerated optimism, as though by the miracle of the war men had become beings of angelic outlook and temper. Others have taken a despairing attitude, and thought that religion has lost its real power over the world. The truth is, I think, that there was a revelation to most men, in a broad way, of a mysterious soul life within, and of a huge responsibility to an infinite and eternal Being above. There was a revelation also, wide and deep, to many individual men, of the living force and example of Him who is both God and Brother-man. Where the associations of church and home had been clean and helpful, men under the batterings of war felt consciously the power of religion. In the life at the front, no doubt there was much evil thinking, evil talking and evil doing, but there was, underlying all this, the splendid manifestation in human nature of that image of God in which man was made. As one looks back upon it, the surface things of that life have drifted away, and the great things that one remembers are the self-sacrifice, the living comradeship, and the unquestioning faith in the eternal rightness of right and duty which characterized those who were striving to the death for the salvation of the world. This glorious vision of the nobility of human nature sustained the chaplain through many discouragements and difficulties. I have often sat on my horse on rainy nights near Hill 63, and watched the battalions going up to the line. With wet rubber sheets hanging over their huge packs and with rifles on their shoulders, the men marched up through the mud and cold and darkness, to face wounds and death. At such times, the sordid life has been transfigured before me. The hill was no longer Hill 63, but it was the hill of Calvary. The burden laid upon the men was no longer the heavy soldier's pack, but it was the cross of Christ, and, as the weary tramp of the men splashed in the mud, I said to myself "Each one has fulfilled the law of life, and has taken up his cross and is following Christ."

I told the men this one day on church parade; and a corporal sometime afterwards said that, when next their battalion was moving up into the line, a young fellow beside him was swearing very hard over the amount of stuff he had to carry. My friend went over to him and said, "Don't you know that Canon Scott told us that this really isn't a pack, but it's the Cross of Christ?" The lad stopped swearing at once, and took up his burden without a word.

CHAPTER IX.

Our First Christmas in France.

The 25th of December 1915, was to be our first Christmas in France, and as the day approached there was much speculation among our men as to which Battalions would be in the line. At last orders came out that the 13th and 16th Battalions would relieve the 14th and 15th on Christmas Eve. I determined, therefore, to spend my Christmas with the former two. Our trenches at that time were in front of Ploegsteert. The 16th was on the right and the 13th on the left. Taking my bag with communion vessels and as many hymn books as I could carry, and with a haversack over my shoulder containing requisities for the night, I was motored over on Christmas Eve to the 3rd Brigade Headquarters at Petit Moncque Farm. The day was rainy and so was not calculated to improve the spirits and temper of the men who were going to spend their first Christmas in the line. At dusk I walked up the road to Hill 63, and then down on the other side to Le Plus Douve Farm. It was not a cheerful Christmas Eve. The roads were flooded with water, and the transports that were waiting for the relief were continually getting tangled up with one another in the darkness. To make matters worse, I was met by a Sergeant who told me he had some men to be buried, and a burial party was waiting on the side of the road. We went into the field which was used as a cemetery and there we laid the bodies to rest.

The Germans had dammed the river Douve, and it had flooded some of the fields and old Battalion Headquarters. It was hard to find one's way in the dark, and I should never have done so without assistance. The men had acquired the power of seeing in the dark, like cats.

A Battalion was coming out and the men were wet and muddy. I stood by the bridge watching them pass and, thinking it was the right and conventional thing to do, wished them all a Merry Christmas. My intentions were of the best, but I was afterwards told that it sounded to the men like the voice of one mocking them in their misery. However, as it turned out, the wish was fulfilled on the next day.

As soon as I could cross the bridge, I made my way to the trenches which the 16th Battalion were taking over. They were at a higher level and were not in a bad condition. Further up the line there was a barn known as St. Quentin's Farm, which for some reason or other, although it was in sight of the enemy, had not been demolished and was used as a billet. I determined therefore to have a service of Holy Communion at midnight, when the men would all have come into the line and settled down. About eleven o'clock I got things ready. The officers and men had been notified of the service and began to assemble. The barn was a fair size and had dark red brick walls. The roof was low and supported by big rafters. The floor was covered with yellow straw about two feet in depth. The men proceeded to search for a box which I could use as an altar. All they could get were three large empty biscuit tins. These we covered with my Union Jack and white linen cloth. A row of candles was stuck against the wall, which I was careful to see were prevented from setting fire to the straw. The dull red tint of the brick walls, the clean yellow straw, and the bright radiance of our glorious Union Jack made a splendid combination of colour. It would have been a fitting setting for a tableau of the Nativity.

The Highlanders assembled in two rows and I handed out hymn books. There were many candles in the building so the men were able to read. It was wonderful to hear in such a place and on such an occasion, the beautiful old hymns, "While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and "O Come All Ye Faithful." The men sang them lustily and many and varied were the memories of past Christmases that welled up in their thoughts at that time.

I had a comfortable bunk in one of the dugouts that night, and was up next morning early to spend the day among the men in the line. I was delighted to find that the weather had changed and a most glorious day was lighting up the face of nature. The sky overhead was blue and only a few drifting clouds told of the rain that had gone. The sun was beating down warm and strong, as if anxious to make up for his past neglect. The men, of course, were in high spirits, and the glad handshake and the words "A Merry Christmas" had got back their old-time meaning.

The Colonel had given orders to the men not to fire on the enemy that day unless they fired on us. The Germans had evidently come to the same resolution. Early in the morning some of them had come over to our wire and left two bottles of beer behind as a peace offering. The men were allowed to go back to their trenches unmolested, but the two bottles of beer quite naturally and without any difficulty continued their journey to our lines. When I got up to the front trench, I found our boys standing on the parapet and looking over at the enemy. I climbed up, and there, to my astonishment, I saw the Germans moving about in their trenches apparently quite indifferent to the fact that we were gazing at them. One man was sawing wood. Between us and them lay that mass of wire and iron posts which is known as the mysterious "No Man's Land." Further down the hill we saw the trenches of the 13th Battalion, where apparently intermittent "Straffing" was still going on. Where we were, however, there was nothing to disturb our Christmas peace and joy. I actually got out into "No Mans Land" and wandered down it. Many Christmas parcels had arrived and the men were making merry with their friends, and enjoying the soft spring-like air, and the warm sunshine. When I got down to the 13th Battalion however, I found that I had to take cover, as the German snipers and guns were active. I did not have any service for that Battalion then, as I was going to them on the following Sunday, but at evening I held another midnight service for those of the 16th who were on duty the night before.

The only place available was the billet of the Machine Gun Officer in the second trench. It was the cellar of a ruined building and the entrance was down some broken steps. One of the sergeants had cleaned up the place and a shelf on the wall illuminated by candles was converted into an altar, and the dear old flag, the symbol of liberty, equality and fraternity, was once again my altar cloth. The Machine Gun Officer, owing to our close proximity to the enemy, was a little doubtful as to the wisdom of our singing hymns, but finally allowed us to do so. The tiny room and the passage outside were crowded with stalwart young soldiers, whose voices sang out the old hymns as though the Germans were miles away. Our quarters were so cramped that the men had difficulty in squeezing into the room for communion and could not kneel down. The service was rich and beautiful in the heartfelt devotion of men to whom, in their great need, religion was a real and vital thing. Not long after midnight, once again the pounding of the old war was resumed, and as I went to bed in the dugout that night, I felt from what a sublime height the world had dropped. We had two more war Christmases in France, but I always look back upon that first one as something unique in its beauty and simplicity.

When I stood on the parapet that day looking over at the Germans in their trenches, and thought how two great nations were held back for a time in their fierce struggle for supremacy, by their devotion to a little Child born in a stable in Bethlehem two thousand years before, I felt that there was still promise of a regenerated world. The Angels had not sung in vain their wonderful hymn "Glory to God in the Highest and on Earth Peace, Good Will towards men."

CHAPTER X.

Spring, 1916.

At the end of March our Division was ordered back to the Salient, and so Headquarters left St. Jans Cappel. It was with great regret that I bid good-by to the little place which had been such a pleasant home for several months. The tide of war since then has no doubt swept away many of the pastoral charms of the scenery, but the green fields and the hillsides will be reclothed in beauty as time goes on. We stopped for a few days at Flêtre, and while there I made the acquaintance of the Australians, and visited the battalions which were billeted in the neighbourhood.

It was always delightful to have the Division out in rest. As long as the men were in the line one could not be completely happy. But when they came out and one went amongst them, there was nothing to overcloud the pleasure of our intercourse. One day I rode over to a battalion and found a lot of men sitting round the cookhouse. We had a long talk about the war, and they asked me to recite my war limericks. I spent the evening with the O.C. of a battery and the night, on my return, was very dark. One of the battalions had been paid off that afternoon, and the men, who as usual had been celebrating the event in an estaminet, were in boisterous spirits. It was so hard to make my way through the crowd that Dandy got nervous and unmanageable. A young fellow who recognized me in the dark came up and asked me if I should like him to lead the horse down the road. I gratefully accepted his offer. He walked beside me till we came to a bridge, and then he told me that he had been very much interested in religion since he came to the war, and was rather troubled over the fact that he had never been baptised. He said he had listened to my limericks that day, and while he was listening had determined to speak to me about his baptism. I arranged to prepare him, and, before the battalion started north, I baptised him in the C.O.'s. room in a farmhouse. The Adjutant acted as his godfather. I do not know where the lad is now, or how he fared in the war, but someday I hope I shall hear from him again. It was often very difficult, owing to the numbers of men one was meeting, and the many changes that were continually taking place, to keep track of the lives of individuals. The revelations of the religious experiences and the needs of the human soul, which came over and over again from conversations with men, were always of the greatest help to a chaplain, and made him feel that, in spite of many discouragements and much indifference, there was always some soul asking for spiritual help.

The Headquarters of our Division were now at a place called Hooggraaf. It consisted of a few small houses and a large school kept by nuns. Huts were run up for the officers and, at a little distance down the road, a home was built for "C" mess. At one side were some Armstrong canvas huts, one of which was mine. It was a pleasant place, and being back from the road was free from dust. Green fields, rich in grain, spread in all directions. It was at Hooggraaf that the Engineers built me a church, and a big sign over the door proclaimed it to be "St. George's Church." It was first used on Easter Day, which in 1916 fell on the Festival of St. George, and we had very hearty services.

Poperinghe, only two miles away, became our city of refuge. Many of our units had their headquarters there, and the streets were filled with our friends. We had many pleasant gatherings there in an estaminet which became a meeting place for officers. The Guards Division, among other troops, were stationed in Poperinghe, so there was much variety of life and interest in the town. "Talbot House," for the men, and the new Officer's Club, presided over by Neville Talbot, were centres of interest. The gardens at the back made very pleasant places for an after-dinner smoke. There were very good entertainments in a theatre every evening, where "The Follies," a theatrical company of Imperial soldiers, used to perform. Poperinghe was even at that time damaged by shells, but since then it has suffered more severely. The graceful spire, which stood up over the plain with its outline against the sky, has luckily been preserved. We had some very good rest billets for the men in the area around Hooggraaf. They consisted of collections of large wooden huts situated in different places, and called by special names. "Scottish Lines," "Connaught Lines," and "Patricia Lines," were probably the most comfortable. In fact, all along the various roads which ran through our area different units made their homes.

Our military prison was in a barn about a mile from Headquarters. I used to go there for service every Monday afternoon at six o'clock. By that time, the men had come back from work. They slept on shelves, one over another. The barn was poorly lighted, and got dark early in the afternoon. The first time I took service there, I was particularly anxious that everything should be done as nicely as possible, so that the men would not think they had come under the ban of the church. Most of their offences were military ones. The men therefore were not criminals in the ordinary sense of the term. I brought my surplice, scarf and hymn books, and I told the men that I wanted them to sing. They lay on the shelves with only their heads and shoulders visible. I told them that I wanted the service to be hearty, and asked them to choose the first hymn. A voice from one of the shelves said—

"Here we suffer grief and pain."

A roar of laughter went up from the prisoners, in which I joined heartily.

At the front, we held Hill 60 and the trenches to the south of it. In a railway embankment, a series of dugouts furnished the Brigade that was in the line with comfortable billets. The Brigadier's abode had a fireplace in it. One of the dugouts was used as a morgue, in which bodies were kept till they could be buried. A man told me that one night when he had come down from the line very late, he found a dugout full of men wrapped in their blankets, every one apparently asleep. Without more ado, he crawled in amongst them and slept soundly till morning. When he awoke, he found to his horror that he had slept all night among the dead men in the morgue. There was a cemetery at Railway Dugouts, which was carefully laid out. Beyond this there was another line of sandbag homes on one side of a large pond called "Zillebeke Lake." They were used by other divisions.