A PADRE IN FRANCE

 BY

 GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM

 AUTHOR OF

 "THE MAJOR'S NIECE, " "GENERAL JOHN REGAN, " "SPANISH GOLD" "BENEDICT KAVANAGH, " ETC. 

 HODDER AND STOUGHTON

 LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

 _Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld. , London and Aylesbury. _

 _WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

 THE MAJOR'S NIECE MINNIE'S BISHOP GENERAL JOHN REGAN HYACINTH BENEDICT KAVANAGH

 LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON

TO

R. M. L. 

FRIEND AND FELLOW-WORKER

CONTENTS

 PAGE CHAPTER I THE UTTERMOST PART 15

 CHAPTER II GETTING THERE 27

 CHAPTER III A JOURNEY IN THE WAR ZONE 40

 CHAPTER IV SETTLING DOWN 52

 CHAPTER V KHAKI 63

 CHAPTER VI LEISURE HOURS 78

 CHAPTER VII COMING AND GOING 95

 CHAPTER VIII WOODBINE HUT 115

 CHAPTER IX Y. S. C. 131

 CHAPTER X THE DAILY ROUND 151

 CHAPTER XI ANOTHER JOURNEY 164

 CHAPTER XII MADAME 177

 CHAPTER XIII THE CON. CAMP 194

 CHAPTER XIV A BACKWATER 214

 CHAPTER XV MY THIRD CAMP 229

 CHAPTER XVI LEAVE 245

 CHAPTER XVII A HOLIDAY 261

 CHAPTER XVIII PADRES 275

 CHAPTER XIX CITIZEN SOLDIERS 289

A PADRE IN FRANCE

CHAPTER I

THE UTTERMOST PART

I have always admired the sagacity of Balak, King of Moab, about whomwe learn something in the Book of Numbers. He was threatened withinvasion by a powerful foe and felt unequal to offering armedresistance. He invoked the aid of spiritual powers by inviting aprophet, Balaam, to come and curse the army of the invaders. Balaamsuffered himself to be persuaded and bribed by the king. Allkings--and the statesmen who nowadays regulate the conduct ofkings--understand the business of managing men so far. Persuasion andbribery are the methods of statecraft. But Balak knew more than theelements of his trade. He understood that spiritual forces, if merelybribed, are ineffective. To make a curse operate there must be acertain amount of conviction in the mind of the curser. Balaam wasnot convinced, and when he surveyed the hosts of Israel from the topof a hill felt himself compelled by the spirit within him to blessinstead of curse. The king, discouraged but not hopeless, took theprophet to the top of another hill, showed him a different view ofthe camp of Israel and invited him to curse the people from there. 

At first sight this seems a foolish thing to have done; but properlyconsidered it appears very crafty. From the fresh viewpoint, Balaamsaw not the whole, but only the "uttermost part" of the hosts ofIsrael. I suppose he no longer saw the first-line troops, the army inbattle array. Instead he saw the base camps, the non-combatantfollowers of the army, a great deal that was confused and sordid, very little that was glorious or fine. It might conceivably have beenpossible for him to curse the whole army and cast a blight upon itsenterprise, when his eyes rested only on the camp-followers, thebaggage trains, the mobs of cattle, the maimed and unfit men; whenthe fine show of the fighters was out of sight. Plainly if a curse ofany real value was to be pronounced it must be by a prophet who sawmuch that was execrable, little that was obviously glorious. 

It is Balak's sagacity in choosing the prophet's second point of viewwhich I admire. If any cursing of an army is done at all, it will bedone by some one, whose post is behind the lines, who has seen, notthe whole, but only the uttermost part, and that the least attractivepart of the hosts. 

It was my luck to remain, all the time I was in France, in safeplaces. I never had the chance of seeing the gallantry of the men whoattack or the courageous tenacity of those who defend. I missed allthe excitement. I experienced none of those hours of terror which Ihave heard described, nor saw how finely man's will can triumph overterror. I had no chance of knowing that great comradeship which growsup among those who suffer together. War, seen at the front, is hell. I hardly ever met any one who doubted that. But it is a hellinhabited not by devils, but by heroes, and human nature rises tounimaginable heights when it is subjected to the awful strain offighting. It is no wonder that those who have lived with our fightingarmy are filled with admiration for the men, are prepared to blessaltogether, not war which we all hate, but the men who wage it. 

The case is very different behind the lines. There, indeed, we seethe seamy side of war. There are the men who, in some way or other, have secured and keep safe jobs, the _embusqués_ whom the Frenchnewspapers constantly denounce. There are the officers who havefailed, proved unfit for command, shown themselves lacking in courageperhaps, and in mercy have been sent down to some safe base. Thereare the men who have been broken in spirit as well as in body, whodrag on an existence utterly dull, very toilsome, well-nigh hopeless, and are illuminated by no high call for heroic deeds. There theobserver sees whatever there is to be seen of petty spite andjealousies, the manipulating of jobs, the dodging of regulations, allthat is most ignoble in the soldier's trade. There also are the menwith grievances, who, in their own estimation, are fit for postsquite other than those they hold. Some one described war at the frontas an affair of months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. Ifthat philosopher had been stationed at a base he might have halvedhis epigram and described war as months of boredom unpunctuated evenby terror. 

Yet even behind the lines, in the remotest places, that which movesour admiration far outshines what is sordid and mean. We still bless, not war, but soldiers. We forget the failures of man in joyfulcontemplation of his achievements. 

Here are the great hospitals, where suffering men succeed each otherday after day, so that we seem to see a mist of pain rising like aceaseless cloud of incense smoke for the nostrils of the abominableMoloch who is the god of war. A man, though long inured to suchthings, may curse the Moloch, but he will bless the sufferers whoform the sacrifice. Their patience, their silent heroism, are beyondour praise. 

Here are huge cemeteries, long lines of graves, where every morningsome are laid to rest, with reverence indeed, but with scant measureof the ritual pomp with which men are wont to pay their final honourto the dead. These have passed, not in a moment amid the roar ofbattle, but after long bearing of pain, and lonely, with the time forlast farewells but none greatly loved to say them to. Yet, standingabove the lines of rude coffins, viewing the names and numberspencilled on the lids, our hearts are lifted up. We know how great itis to lay down life for others. The final wailing notes of the "LastPost" speak our feeling: "Good night. Good-bye. See you again, soon. "

Here, among those less worthy, are men who are steadily doing, without much hope of praise, things intolerably monotonous, doingthem day after day for years, inspired by what Ruskin calls "theunvexed instinct of duty. " Often these are old men, too old for fieldcommand. They have spent their lives in the army, have learned, haveworked, have waited in the hope that some day their chance wouldcome. Soldiers by profession and desire, they have looked for thegreat opportunity which the war they foresaw would give. The war cameand the opportunity; but came too late for them. They can look fornothing but the dull duties of the base. They do them, enduring minorhardships, facing ceaseless worries, going calmly on, while the greatstream of war on which they hoped to float moves on, leaving thembehind. With them are others, younger men, who have seen somefighting, have been wounded or broken in health. Often they havestruggled hard to secure the posts they hold. They might have gonehome. They counted it a desirable thing to be employed still, sinceactual fighting was impossible, somewhere in touch with fighting men. 

I wonder how much Balaam divined of the greatness which, no doubt, was in "the uttermost part" of the host when the king showed it tohim. I suppose he understood something of it, for once again, to theindignation of Balak, he blessed instead of cursing. I am sure thatany one who has lived long among the men at our bases will feel as Ido, that his pride in what is great there far outweighs hisdisappointment at the other things he saw. I never saw the fightingor the actual front, but even if I had seen nothing else but thefighting I could scarcely feel greater admiration for our officersand men or more love for them. 

I have, of course, no tales of adventure to tell. Perhaps I am tooold for adventuring, or never had the spirit which makes adventurespossible. Yet I own to a certain feeling of disappointment when thedoctor who examined me in London told me with almost brutal franknessthat he would not allow me to be sent to the front. To France I mightgo, and even that permission, I think, was a concession. But inFrance I must remain in places where hardship is not extreme. Doctorsare powerful people in the army and in certain matters their word isthe supreme law. But fortunately there are always other doctors. AndI think I could in the end have managed to get to the very front, inspite of that first man, though he held high rank and was muchbe-tabbed. But by the time I found out how to get round hisprohibition I had become so much interested in my work that I did notwant to leave it and even felt grateful to that doctor for sending meto France in the position of a man marked P. B. , letters which standfor Permanent Base, and mean that their bearer will not be asked togo where fighting is. 

For one other thing I am thankful to the doctor who examined me. Hedid not ask me to be vaccinated, inoculated, or half-poisoned in anyother way. If he had demanded such things of me before I held mycommission, I might have had to yield, and I should have disliked thebusiness greatly. Afterwards I remained an unpersecuted heretic andnever underwent any of these popular operations. For months, I know, a form was constantly filled up about me and sent to the medicalstaff of the base at which I was, stating the awful fact that I hadescaped the safeguards provided for me, and was still alive. I usedto expect that trouble of some sort would arise, but none ever did. Perhaps the authorities were merciful to me because I made noattempt to propagate my opinions; which indeed are scarcely opinions. I should not dream of denying that inoculation of every known kind isexcellent for other people, and ought to be rigorously enforced onthem. My only strong feeling is that I should escape. 

My medical examination was a much more rigorous and unpleasantbusiness than my interview--I can scarcely call this anexamination--with my particular chief, the Chaplain-General. Heappeared to be satisfied by previous inquiries that I was a fit andproper person--or as little unfit as could reasonably be hoped--tominister to soldiers in France. He took down my answers to half adozen questions on a sheet of paper which somebody afterwards musthave lost, for I had to answer the same questions again by letterafter I got to France. 

Up to the point of my interview and examination in London, thenegotiations with regard to my commission as Chaplain to the Forceswere conducted with dignified deliberation. My letters were answereda fortnight or so after they were received. There was no sense ofurgency or hurry. We might have been corresponding about a monumentto be erected at a remote date to some one still alive and quiteyoung. This, if slightly irritating, gave me a feeling of greatconfidence in the Chaplains' Department of the War Office. It wasevidently a body which worked methodically, carefully, and with dueconsideration of every step it took. Its affairs were likely to proveefficiently organised. I looked forward to finding myself part of amachine which ran smoothly, whose every cog fitted exactly into theslot designed for it. No part of the War Office was likely at themoment to adopt a German motto; but the Chaplains' Department wasplainly inspired by the spirit of Goethe's _Ohne haste, ohne raste_. 

I have heard other men complain that the Department is dilatory, notmerely deliberate, and that it is often impossible to get an answerto a letter at all. There is a story told of a man who wrote offeringhis services as chaplain, wrote again after a decent interval, continued to write for many months, and finally received, by way ofreply, a nice little tract--not even on patience, but on conversion. I do not know whether that story is true or not. No tract was eversent to me, and my letters were answered--after a time. 

After my visit to London, the interview, and the examination, thewhole spirit of the proceedings changed. I was involved in a worsethan American hustle, and found myself obliged to hustle otherinnocent people, tailors and boot-makers, in order to get togethersome kind of a kit in time for a start to be made at the shortestpossible notice. 

I am told that the whole military machine works in this way indealing with individuals. There is a long period of leisurely andquiet thought--it sometimes appears of complete inertia. Then thereis a violent rush, and all sorts of things happen in a minute. I donot know for certain whether officers in other branches of theservice suffer in this way. My experience as a chaplain made me feellike a bullet in a gun. For a long time I lay passive, and, exceptfor the anxiety of anticipation, at rest. The man who held the weaponwas making up his mind to fire. Then, without any special warning tome, he pulled the trigger, and before I could take a long breath Iwas flying through space to an unknown destination, without even thecomfort of knowing that I had been aimed at any particular object. 

But my faith in the Department was unshaken. I remembered thecautious deliberation of the earlier proceedings, and came to theconclusion that whereas there had been for many months an amplesupply of chaplains at the front, and a regular flow ofreinforcements from home, a sudden and desperate shortage hadoccurred--owing to casualties in battle, or some kind ofpestilence--and that it was necessary to rush new men to the scene ofaction at the highest speed. This explanation seemed to mereasonable. It did not turn out to be true. There was no particularlyurgent demand for chaplains when I reached France. 

I am now inclined to think that the Chaplains' Department does itsbusiness in this particular way with deliberate intention. It desiresfirst to produce an impression of stability, wisdom, and forethought. It proceeds slowly, and for long periods does not proceed at all. Italso wishes its servants to feel that it is vigorous, filled withenergy, and working at terrifically high pressure. Then it doesthings with a rush which would put to shame the managing directors ofthe New York Underground Railway. 

CHAPTER II

GETTING THERE

I made my start from Victoria Station on a January morning. I hadworn His Majesty's uniform for no more than two days, and was stilluneasily conscious of my strange clothes. I was uncertain about theproper adjustment of straps and buttons. I came for the first time inmy life into touch with the army. I, a man of over fifty, went backwith a leap to the emotions of forty years before. I was a new boy ina big school. 

Others--some who have had the experience and more who have not--havedescribed that start from Victoria or Waterloo. They have saidsomething about the pangs of farewell, though I cannot imagine howany one who has been through it wants to talk about that. They havesaid a good deal about the thrill of excitement which comes with thebeginning of adventure. They have described a certain awe of theunknown. They have tingled with intense curiosity. 

I confess chiefly to bewilderment, the discomfort of strangeness andan annoying sense of my own extreme insignificance. I was a new boy. I wanted to behave properly, to do the right thing, and I had no wayof knowing what the right thing was. I was absurdly anxious not to"cheek" anybody, and thereby incur the kind of snubbing, I scarcelyexpected the kicks, which I had endured long ago when I found myselfa lonely mite in a corner of the cloisters of my first school. 

I sat, with my bundle of papers tucked in beside me, in a corner of aPullman car. Opposite me was an officer. I recognised, by the look ofhis Sam Browne belt, that he was an old boy, that he had been therebefore. I did not know then, being wholly unskilled in pips andbadges, what he was. My impression now is that he was an artillerycaptain, probably returning to the front after leave. It seemsridiculous to be afraid to speak to an artillery captain; but nothingwould have induced me to begin a conversation with that man. For allI knew he might have been a general, and it might have been the worstkind of bad form for a mere padre to speak to a general. I eventhought of saluting him when I first caught his eye, but I did notknow how to salute. 

It was he, in the end, who spoke to me. We had reached the end of ourtrain journey and were gathering coats and haversacks from the racksabove our heads. I left my papers--_Punch_ and _The Bystander_--onthe seat. 

"You ought to take those with you, " he said. "You'll find lots offellows jolly thankful to get them over there. "

So I was going to a land where men could not easily come by _Punch_and _The Bystander_. In a general way I knew that before he spoke. Ihad heard of the hardships of war. I was prepared for my share ofthem. But I had somehow failed to realise that it might beimpossible, under certain circumstances, to buy _Punch_ if I wantedit. 

The boat, though we arrived beside it early in the morning, did notactually start till afternoon. I might have gone to an hotel and hada comfortable luncheon. I was afraid to do anything of the sort. Military discipline is not a thing to play tricks with. I had madeup my mind about that before I started, and in the orders givenme for my journey there was not a word about luncheon. I wenthungry--foolishly, no doubt. 

I heard a story once about a sergeant and several men who were cutoff by the Germans from their battalion. They held out for fortyhours and were finally rescued. It was found that they had nottouched their iron (emergency) ration. Asked why they had gone hungrywhen they had food in their pockets, the sergeant replied that theeating of iron rations without orders from a superior officer wasforbidden. His was a great devotion to discipline--heroic, thoughfoolish. My abstinence was merely foolish. I could not claim that Ihad any direct orders not to go to an hotel for luncheon. 

While I waited on the deck of the steamer I met M. He was alone as Iwas; but he looked much less frightened than I felt. He was a padretoo; but his uniform was not aggressively new. It seemed to me thathe might know something about military life. My orders were "toreport to the M. L. O. " when I landed. I wanted very much to know whatthat word "report" meant. I wanted still more to know what an M. L. O. Was and where a stray voyager would be likely to find him. 

It was not difficult to make friends with M. It is never difficultfor one padre to make friends with another. All that is necessary byway of introduction is a frank and uncensored expression of opinionabout the Chaplains' Department of the War Office. The other man'ssoul is knit to yours at once. I cannot now remember whether M. Or Iattacked the subject first. I know we agreed. I suppose it is thesame with all branches of the service. Combatant officers are, orused in those days to be, one in heart when discussing the Staff. Inever met a doctor who did not think that the medical services areorganised by congenital idiots. Every one from the humblest A. S. C. Subaltern to the haughtiest guardsman agrees that the War Office isthe refuge of incompetents. Padres, perhaps, express themselves morefreely than the others. They are less subject to the penalties whichthreaten those who criticise their superiors. But their opinions areno stronger than those of other people. 

Even without that bond of common feeling I think I should have madefriends with M. No franker, more straightforward, less selfish manhas crossed the sea to France wearing the obscured Maltese Crosswhich decorates the cap of the padre. It was my first real stroke ofluck that I met M. On the deck of that steamer. As it turned out heknew no more than I did about what lay before us. His previousservice had been in England and he was going to France for the firsttime. An M. L. O. Was a mystery to him. 

But he was cheerful and self-confident. His view was that anexaggerated importance might easily be attached to military orders. If an M. L. O. Turned out to be an accessible person, easilyrecognised, we should report to him and set our consciences at ease. If, on the other hand, the authorities chose to conceal their M. L. O. In some place difficult to find, we should not report to him. Nothingparticular would happen either way. So M. Thought, and he paced thedeck with so springy a step that I began to hope he might be right. 

Our passage was abominably rough. M. , who dislikes being seasick inpublic, disappeared. I think what finished him was the sight of anofficer in a kilt crawling on his hands and knees across the wet andheaving deck, desperately anxious to get to the side of the shipbefore his malady reached its crisis. M. 's chair was taken by apathetic-looking V. A. D. Girl, whose condition soon drove me away. 

It is one of the mitigations of the horrors of this war that whoevertakes part in it is sure to meet friends whom he has lost sight offor years, whom he would probably lose sight of altogether if thechances of war did not bring unexpected meetings. That very first dayof my service was rich in its yield of old friends. 

When I fled from the sight of the V. A. D. 's pale face, I took towandering about the decks and came suddenly on a man whom I had lastseen at the tiller of a small boat in Clew Bay. I was beatingwindward across the steep waves of a tideway. His boat was runningfree with her mainsail boomed out; and he waved a hand to me as hepassed. Once again we met at sea; but we were much less cheerful. Hewas returning to France after leave, to spend the remainder of asecond winter in the trenches. He gave it to me as his opinion thatlife in the Ypres salient was abominable beyond description, and thatno man could stand three winters of it. I wanted to ask him questionsabout military matters, and I might have got some light and leadingfrom him if I had. But somehow we drifted away from the subject andtalked about County Mayo, about boats, about islands, and otherpleasant things. 

M. , recovering rapidly from his seasickness, proved his worth themoment we set foot on dry land. He discovered the M. L. O. , who seemeda little surprised that we should have taken the trouble to look himup. We left him, and M. , still buoyant, found another official knownas an R. T. O. He is a man of enormous importance, a controller of thedestinies of stray details like ourselves. He told us that we shouldreach our destination--perhaps I should say our first objective--ifwe took a train from the _Gare Centrale_ at 6 p. M. We had a good lookat the _Gare Centrale_, to make sure that we should know it again. 

Then M. Led me off to find a censor. Censors, though I did not knowit then, are very shy birds and conceal their nests with the cunningof reed warblers. Hardly any one has ever seen a censor. But M. Foundone, and we submitted to his scrutiny letters which we had succeededin writing. After that I insisted on getting something to eat. I hadbreakfasted at an unholy hour. I had crossed the sea. I had enduredgreat mental strain. I had tramped the streets of an exceedinglymuddy town in a downpour of rain. I felt that I must have food and ifpossible, wine. M. Is indifferent to food and hardly ever tasteswine. But he is a kind-hearted man. He agreed to eat with me, thoughI am sure he would much rather have looked up another official ortwo, perhaps introduced himself to the Base Commandant. 

We went to an hotel, the largest and most imposing in the town, but, as I discovered months afterwards, quite the worst. There I foundanother friend. Or rather, another friend found me. He was a youngman in the uniform of the R. A. M. C. And he rushed at me from the farend of a large _salon_. I am ashamed to say that I neither recognisedhim nor knew his name when he told it to me. But there was no doubtof his friendly feelings. He asked me where I was going. I told him, "G. H. Q. " It appeared that he had just come from G. H. Q. In a motor. How he came to have control of a motor I do not know. He was a veryjunior officer, not on anybody's staff and totally unconnected withtransport of any kind. He offered us the car and said that we couldstart any time we liked. He himself was going on leave and the carhad to go back to G. H. Q. I had been distinctly told by the R. T. O. Togo in a train and--it was my first day in the army--I had a very highidea of the importance of obeying orders. M. Laughed at me. So didmy other friend. 

"Nobody, " he said, "cares a pin how you get there, and it doesn'tmatter when. This week or next, it's all the same. In fact, if I wereyou I should take a couple of days off and see the country before Ireported at G. H. Q. "

I know now that I might have done this and that no one would havebeen surprised or angry if I had. But the new-boy feeling wasstill strong on me. I was afraid. It seemed to me an awful thingto go for a tour in the war zone in a kidnapped motor, which mightfor all I knew be a car specially set apart for the use of theCommander-in-Chief. 

At 6 o'clock we started in that car, M. , I, and a total stranger whoemerged from the hotel at the last moment and sat on my valise. Therewas also the driver and M. 's luggage. M. Had a great deal of luggage. We were horribly cramped. It rained with increasing fury. We passedthrough a region of pallid mud, chalk, I suppose, which covered usand the car with a slimy paste. But I enjoyed the drive. Sentries, French and English, challenged us, and I could see the rainglistening on their bayonets in the light of our lamps. We rushedthrough villages and intensely gloomy woods. Sign-posts shone whitefor an instant at cross roads and disappeared. The wind whipped therain against our faces. The white slime utterly dimmed my spectacles, and I looked out at walls of darkness through frosted glass. 

The stranger, balanced perilously on my valise, shouted to me thenews that G. H. Q. Had been bombed by aeroplanes the day before. It wasall that was wanted to complete the sense of adventure. I could havewished for a bomb or two which would miss us, for the sight of aTaube (they were Taubes, not Fokkers or Gothas, in those days)swooping into sight suddenly through the darkness and vanishingagain. None came. 

We took the advice of our unknown travelling companion and engagedrooms in the hotel he recommended. It was not at all a bad hotel. Ifwe had had any sense or experience, we should have dined and gonestraight to bed. That was what M. Wanted to do. I suffered from anattack of conscience, and insisted that we ought to report ourselvesto the Deputy-Chaplain-General. 

"Our orders, " I reminded M. , "are to report on arrival. "

We set out to look for the Deputy-Chaplain-General, M. Averring thathe had a special talent for finding his way in strange towns atnight. Owing to what are officially known as the "unhappy divisions"of the Christian Church, there are two chief chaplains in France. Onecontrols the clergy of the Church of England. The other drives amixed team of Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, and otherswho owe spiritual allegiance to what is called "The United Board. " Atthat time both these gentlemen had offices in the same town. 

In spite of M. 's instinct for locality we came on the wrong onefirst. Our chief was located in the most obscure corner. We found himat last, or rather we found his office. The good man himself wasprobably in bed. An orderly invited us to write our names in blockcapitals, insisting severely on the block capitals, in a large book. Then--he must have recognised that we were new boys and gullible--hesaid that we ought to report ourselves to some one else called thebilleting officer. 

The fact that we were already provided with beds made no difference. To the billeting officer we ought to go. It is greatly to our creditthat we did. I followed M. Through the streets of that town, verynarrow streets, very twisty and very badly lighted. I felt asCarruthers did when Davis piloted him across the sand-banks throughthe fog to Memert. It was 11 o'clock when we found the billetingofficer. He was playing bridge and did not in the least want to seeus, appeared indeed to think that our visit was unnecessary andtroublesome. We left him hurriedly. 

Our hotel seemed a home when we got back to it. A friendly subalternhelped us out of a difficulty and increased our knowledge of theFrench language by telling us that:

"In this country when you want soda water you say 'Oh, gas us. '"

We said it to the damsel behind the bar, and I have seldom been moresurprised than I was when she produced a siphon. After that we wentto bed. 

CHAPTER III

A JOURNEY IN THE WAR ZONE

Next morning we went to see the Deputy-Chaplain-General. It is notright or possible, either in the army or anywhere else, to plungestraight into very august presences. We introduced ourselves first toa staff officer. I was impressed afresh with the way the war throwsold acquaintances together. I had taken that staff officer outtrout-fishing, when he was a small boy, and he remembered it. He saidthat Irish trout gave better sport than those in the French rivers, from which I gathered that it was sometimes possible to get a littlefishing, in between battles and other serious things. He had alsobeen a college friend of M. 's at Cambridge. He asked us to luncheonand treated us most hospitably. Indeed, I formed an impression thatofficers, at all events staff officers at G. H. Q. , are not badly fed. I have in my time "sat at rich men's feasts. " That staff officers'luncheon did not suffer by comparison. M. Is, as I said, indifferentto food, but even he was moved to admiration. 

"If this, " he said afterwards, "is war, the sooner it comes toEngland the better. "

It is pleasant to be treated as an honoured guest, and thefriendliness of that officer was reassuring. But I had not yetdone with the new-boy feeling. It came on me with full forcewhen I was led into an inner office for an interview with theDeputy-Chaplain-General. He was both a bishop and a general. I havemet so many bishops, officially and otherwise, that I am not in theleast afraid of them. Nor do generals make me nervous when I am notmyself in uniform. But a combination of bishop and general was new tome. I felt exactly as I did in 1875, when Mr. Waterfield of TempleGrove tested my knowledge of Latin to see what class I was fit for. 

There was no real cause for nervousness. The Deputy-Chaplain-General, in spite of his double dose of exalted rank, is kind and friendly:but I fear I did not make any better impression on him than I did onmy first head master. Mr. Waterfield put me in his lowest class. TheDeputy-Chaplain-General sent me to the remotest base, the townfarthest of any town in British occupation from the actual seat ofwar. M. , whose interview came after mine, might perhaps have donebetter for himself if he had not been loyal to our newly formedfriendship. As Ruth to Naomi so he said to me, "Where thou goest Iwill go, " and expressed his wish to the Deputy-Chaplain-General. This, I am sure, was an act of self-denial on his part, for M. Has anadventurous spirit. The Deputy-Chaplain-General is too kind andcourteous a man to refuse such a request. It was settled that M. AndI should start work together. 

We set forth on our journey at 4 o'clock that afternoon, having firstgone through the necessary business of interviewing the R. T. O. He wasa young man of a most detestable kind. The R. T. O. Has a bad nameamong officers who travel in France. He is supposed to be bothuncivil and incompetent. My own experience is not very large, but Iam disinclined to join in the general condemnation. I have come onR. T. O. 's who did not know their job. I have come on others weariedand harassed to the point at which coherent thought ceases to bepossible. I only met one who deliberately tried to be insolentwithout even the excuse of knowing the work he was supposed to bedoing. On the other hand I have met men of real ability engaged onmilitary railway work, who remain quietly courteous and helpful evenwhen beset by stupid, fussy, and querulous travellers. 

M. And I struggled into a train and immediately became possessed bythe idea that it was going the wrong way, carrying us to the frontinstead of the remote base to which we were bound. I do not rememberthat we were in any way vexed. We had a good store of provisions, thanks to my foresight and determination. We were in a fairlycomfortable carriage. We were quite ready to make the best of thingswherever the train took us. 

A fellow-traveller, a young officer, offered us comfort and advice. He had a theory that trains in France run round and round in circles, like the London Underground. The traveller has nothing to do but sitstill in order to reach any station in the war area; would in the endget back to the station from which he started, if he sat still longenough. M. Refused to believe this. He insisted on making inquirieswhenever the train stopped, and it stopped every ten minutes. Hisefforts did not help us much. The porters and station masters whom hehailed did not understand his French, and he could make nothing oftheir English. The first real light on our journey came to us in anodd way. At one station our compartment was suddenly boarded by threecheerful young women dressed in long overalls, and wearing no hats. 

"Are you, " they asked, "going to B. ?"

"Not if we can help it, " I said. "But we may be. The place we aretrying to go to is H. "

The young women consulted hurriedly. 

"If you're going to H. , " said one, "you must go through B. "

A second, a more conscientious girl, corrected her. 

"At least, " she said, "you may go through B. "

"I should think, " said the third, "that through B. Is as likely a wayas any. Will you take a letter for us? It's most important and thepost takes ages. You've only got to hand it to any of our people yousee on the platform or drop it in at any of our canteens. It will bedelivered all right. "

Who "our people" or what "our canteens" might be I did not at thattime know. It was our fellow-traveller who offered to take theletter. 

"I'm not exactly going to B. , " he said; "but I expect I'll fetch upthere sooner or later. "

The letter was given to him. The young women, profuse in theirthanks, sprang from the train just as it was starting. Ourfellow-traveller told me that our visitors belonged to the Y. M. C. A. Iwas not, even then, much surprised to find a Young Men's ChristianAssociation run chiefly by young women, but I did wonder at this wayof transmitting letters. Afterwards I came to realise that theY. M. C. A. Has cast a net over the whole war area behind the lines, andthat its organisation is remarkably good. I imagine that the letterwould have reached its destination in the end wherever ourfellow-traveller happened to drop it. I suppose he took the sameview. His responsibility as a special messenger sat lightly on him. 

"I may spend the night at B. , " he said, "or I may get into the Parisexpress by mistake. It is very easy to get into a wrong train bymistake, and if I once get to Paris it will take me a couple of daysto get away again. I'm not in any kind of hurry, and I deserve alittle holiday. "

He did. He had been in the trenches for months and was on his way tosomewhere for a course of instruction in bombing, or the use oftrench mortars, or map-reading. In those days, early in 1916, theplan was to instruct young officers in the arts of war after they hadpractised them, successfully, for some time. Things are much betterorganised now. Trains are no longer boarded by young women withletters which they wish to smuggle through uncensored. It isdifficult to get into the Paris express by accident. But courses ofinstruction are still, I imagine, regarded by every one, except theinstructors, as a way of restoring officers who are beginning tosuffer under the strain of life in a fighting battalion. A holidayfrankly so-called, in Paris or elsewhere, would be better; but acourse of instruction is more likely to meet with the approval of ageneral. 

That journey of ours would have taken eight or ten hours in peacetime. We spent thirty hours over it, and that was considered goodgoing. The theory of circulating trains turned out to be entirelywrong. We changed at wayside stations, standing for hours on desolateplatforms. We pursued trains into remote sidings in the middle of thenight, tripping over wires and stumbling among sleepers. We atethings of an unusual kind at odd hours. We slept by snatches. Ishaved and washed in a tin mug full of water drawn from the side ofan engine. M. , indomitably cheerful, secured buns and apples at 6o'clock in the morning. He paid for the buns. I believe he looted theapples out of a truck in a siding near our carriage. 

We found ourselves at noon in a large town with four hours' leisurebefore us. An R. T. O. --we reported to every R. T. O. We couldfind--recommended an excellent restaurant. M. Shaved and washedelaborately in a small basin which the thoughtful proprietor hadplaced in the passage outside the dining-room door. We had a hugemeal and made friends with a French officer who was attached to someof our troops as interpreter. He had spent two years before the warat Cambridge. There perhaps, more probably elsewhere, he had beentaught that Mr. And Mrs. Sidney Webb are the most influential peoplein England, and that Mr. H. G. Wells, though not from a purelyliterary point of view a great writer, is the most profoundphilosopher in the world. He deeply lamented the fact that compulsorymilitary service had just been introduced into England. 

"The last fortress of individual liberty, " he said, "has fallen. Theworld is now militarised. "

I reminded him that Ireland still remained a free country; but he didnot seem consoled. He took the view that the Irish, though notcompelled to fight, are an oppressed people. 

I found that interpreter an interesting man, though he would not talkabout the early fighting at Charleroi where he had been wounded. Ishould much rather have heard about that. Lyrical eulogies of Mr. AndMrs. Sidney Webb seemed out of place. I had been "militarised" for nomore than four days. But I already felt as if the world in whichclever people suppose themselves to think were a half-forgottendream. The only reality for me was that other world in which men, who do not profess to be clever, suppose themselves to be doingthings. On the whole the soldiers, though they fuss a good deal, seemto have a better record of actual accomplishment than the thinkers. 

The last stage of our journey--an affair of some six hours--wasunexciting. I think I should have slept through the whole of it if ithad not been for a major, plainly a "dug-out" who had not gonesoldiering for many years. He had landed from England a day before wedid, and had, by his own account, been tossed about northern Francelike a shuttlecock, the different R. T. O. 's he dealt with being thebattledores. He had been put into trains going the wrong way, draggedout of them and put into others which did not stop at his particularstation. He was hungry, which he disliked; dirty, which he dislikedstill more; and was beginning to lose hope of ever reaching hisdestination. M. Slept; but then M. Was at the far end of thecompartment. The other three people with us were French, and themajor could not speak their language. It was to me that he expressedhis feelings, so I could not sleep. 

We reached H. At 10 p. M. , almost as fagged and quite as dirty asthat major. I had already learned something. I was determined not toreport myself to any one until I had washed, slept, and eaten. It wassnowing heavily when we arrived. With the help of a militarypoliceman whom we met we found an hotel. He told us that it was afirst-rate place; but he was no judge of hotels. It was very far frombeing good. We had, however, every reason to be thankful to thatpoliceman. We secured two beds. While we were smoking our finalpipes, two young officers turned up. They had been round all the goodhotels in the town and failed to find accommodation. They failedagain in our hotel. We had engaged the last two beds. They went offsadly to sleep on the platform in the railway station. If ourpoliceman had known more about hotels and sent us to a good one, itmight very well have been our fate to sleep on the platform. 

Next morning, M. , who is extraordinarily persevering, secured a bath. It is a great advantage when in France not to know any French. M. Iswholly unaffected when the proprietor of an hotel, the proprietor'swife, the head waiter, and several housemaids assure him with onevoice that a bath is _tout à fait impossible_. He merely smiles andsays: "Very well then, bring it along or show me where it is. " In theend he gets it, and, fortunate in his companionship, so do I. 

CHAPTER IV

SETTLING DOWN

There are, or used to be, people who believe that you can best teacha boy to swim by throwing him into deep water from the end of a pierand leaving him there. If he survives, he has learned to swim and themethod has proved its value. If he drowns, his parents have nofurther anxiety about him. The authorities who are responsible forthe religion of the army believe in this plan for teaching chaplainstheir business. Having accepted a civilian parson as a volunteer, they dump him down in a camp without instruction or advice, withouteven so much as a small red handbook on field tactics to guide him. There he splutters about, makes an ass of himself in various ways, and either hammers out some plan for getting at his job by manybitter failures, or subsides into the kind of man who sits in themess-room with his feet on the stove, reading novels and smokingcigarettes--either learns to swim after a fashion or drownsunlamented. 

M. , who had at all events three months' English experience behindhim, found himself on the top of a steep hill, the controller of awooden church planted in the middle of a sea of sticky mud. Heministered to a curiously mixed assortment of people, veterinary men, instructors in all kind of military arts, A. S. C. Men, and the men ofa camp known as Base Horse Transport. 

The army authorities have been laughed at since the war began onaccount of their passion for inverting the names of things. You mustnot, if you want such a thing, say one pot of raspberry jam. You say, instead, jam, raspberry, pot, one. It is odd that in the few cases inwhich such inversion is really desirable the authorities refuse topractise it. Horse Transport, Base, would be intelligible afterthought. Base Horse Transport, till you get accustomed to it, seems agratuitous insult to a number of worthy animals, not perhaps highlybred but strong and active. 

Base Detail is another example of the same thing. To describe a manas a detail is bad enough. To call him a Base Detail must lower hisself-respect, and as a rule these poor fellows have done nothing todeserve it. A Base Details Camp contains, for the most part, men whohave just recovered from wounds received in the service of King andCountry. "Details" perhaps is unavoidable, but it would surely bepossible to conform to the ordinary army usage and call the placeCamp, Details, Base. 

My fate was more fortunate than M. 's. I had no church--he had thebetter of me there--but I was put into a homogeneous camp, anInfantry Base. (Our colonel was a masterful man. He would not haveallowed us to be called Base Infantry. ) There was a small permanentstaff in the camp, the colonel, the adjutant, the doctor, and myselfamong the officers, a sergeant-major, an orderly-room staff, and afew others among the men. Every one else passed in and out of thecamp, coming to us from England in drafts, or from hospitals asdetails, going from us as drafts into the mists of the front. Ourcamp occupied the place of a reservoir in a city's water supply. Themen and officers flowed in to us from many sources, stayed a whileand flowed out again through the conduits of troop trains when theinsatiable fighting army, perpetually using and losing men, turnedon its taps, demanding fresh supply. 

It happened, I do not know why, that there had never been a chaplainspecially attached to that camp before. I have no reason to supposethat a chaplain had been asked for or was specially desired. Iexpected, at best, to be tolerated as a necessary evil; at worst tobe made to feel that I was a nuisance. 

I was, in fact, extremely kindly received. My experience is that achaplain is almost always well received both by officers and men inFrance, and is very much less a stranger than a parson at home whofinds himself in a club where he is not well known. But I do notpretend that my first evening in that mess was a particularlycomfortable one. As it happened, neither the colonel nor the adjutantwas there. I had as companions half a dozen officers, any one of whomwas young enough to be my son. They were laboriously polite andappallingly respectful. We talked to each other in restrainedwhispers and I do not think that any one laughed during the wholecourse of dinner. 

My discomfort lasted far beyond that evening, and I do not wonderthat it took me some time to settle down. I came, for the first timein my life, under military discipline. I lived in a mess, a strangekind of life for me. I had to obey rules which I did not know andconform to an etiquette which was utterly strange to me. Looking backover it all now I realise that I must have blundered horribly, andtrodden, without intending to, on all sorts of tender feet. Yet, fromthe moment I entered the camp I received nothing but kindness andconsideration. 

The officers of our old army are wonderful. Every one, I think, agrees about this. To me it seems that one of the most wonderfulthings about them is the way they have treated civilians, amateurs, always ignorant, often conceited, who suddenly burst into theirhighly organised profession. Now and then, though rarely, I cameacross senior officers set temporarily in positions of command whowere objectionable or silly, who "assumed the god" and madethemselves ridiculous. But these were seldom regular soldiers. Andperhaps what I resented arose from too much zeal, was an attempt, bywrong ways, to achieve a kind of dignity which every one respects. 

Looking back over the period of my service I do not know that I metmore than two or three of this kind, tyrants to their men, insolentto officers of lower rank. The regular soldier, who has given hislife to his profession and has generally served and fought in variouscorners of the world, is amazingly considerate and helpful tooutsiders even when they are gauche and awkward. 

The adjutant received me in the orderly-room when I reached the camp, some time after dark. I was as respectful as possible for I thoughthe was the colonel. Even if I had known him for an adjutant I shouldstill have been respectful, for I like to be on the safe side ofthings and I had not the remotest idea what the position andfunctions of an adjutant are. I know now that he is something like anarchdeacon, a man of enormous importance whose duties it is a littledifficult to define exactly. He expected me. With the help of thesergeant-major he had found a servant for me and assigned a hut tome. 

For the servant I have nothing but praise. He could and did darnsocks well. Indeed he confided to me that when at home he darned hiswife's stockings, being much better at the job than she was. He couldtalk to French people in a language that was neither theirs nor his, but which they understood without difficulty. He was very punctualand he did not like the kind of tobacco which I smoke. His one faultwas that he did not know whether an oil stove was smoking or not andcould not learn. I am often haunted by the recollection of one snowynight on which I arrived at my hut to find the whole air inside densewith fine black smuts. I had to drag everything I possessed out ofthe hut into the snow. It took me hours to get myself clean afterthat night, and I still find traces of lampblack on some of thegarments which suffered with me. 

But that inability to deal with lamps was my servant's one failing. In every other respect I was satisfied with him. I hope he wasequally satisfied with me. He was at first. I know that; for he askedfor the congratulations of a friend on his appointment. "I have got asoft job at last, " he said. "I'm an officer's servant, and achaplain's at that. " The job, I imagine, continued to be a soft oneall the time I was in France; but I am not sure that he would havesaid "and a chaplain's at that" quite so complacently the morningafter my scene with the oil stove in the snow storm. Chaplains donot, of course, swear; but any one who studies the Psalms gains acertain command of language which can be used effectively and withoutscandal. 

For the hut I cannot say anything good. This was in no way theadjutant's fault. He had nothing else except that hut to offer me. Itwas made of brown canvas, stretched over a wooden frame. It was litby small square patches of oiled canvas let into its walls atinconvenient places. It had a wooden door which was blown open andshut on windy nights and could not be securely fastened in eitherposition. There was a corrugated-iron roof--apparently not part ofthe original plan of the hut--on which pouring rain made anabominable noise. The floor bent and swayed when walked on. Smallobjects, studs and coins, slipped between the boards of the floor andbecame the property of the rats which held revel there night and day. 

The hut was cold in winter and stiflingly hot in summer. Draughtswhistled through its walls and up between its boards when the windblew. On calm nights it was impossible to get any fresh air into itat all. The canvas was liable to catch fire on the smallestprovocation. I do not think there can be in the world any moredetestable form of human habitation than huts like that. Mine was notunique. There were hundreds of them in those camps. They were, I amtold, the invention of a man who succeeded in palming off thesefruits of stupidity and malice on the War Office. They were called byhis name. If I knew how to spell it I should set it down here forpublic execration. I expect he made a fortune out of his huts. 

My first few nights in that hut were cold and unhappy, for I slept onthe floor in a "flea bag. " Then, with the help of the quartermaster, I secured a camp bedstead and was much less uncomfortable. Thequartermaster came from Galway and was sympathetic with aparticularly helpless fellow-countryman. He served me out blanketsuntil I was ashamed to accept any more. He supplied the oil stove, and it kept my bath water from freezing during the night when itcould be got to burn without smoking. 

My servant "acquired" packing-cases and arranged them as washstandand dressing-table. He hung cords like clothes lines across thecorners of the hut and suspended my kit on them. He watched thecomings and goings of other officers and looted from vacant huts awhole collection of useful articles--a lantern which held a candle, anest of pigeon-holes, three bookshelves, a chair without a back, atin mug for shaving water, and a galvanised iron pot which made anexcellent basin. He spent a whole morning making and fixing upoutside my door a wooden boot-scraper. I suppose he hoped in this wayto prevent my covering the floor of the hut with mud. But the effortwas wasted. The scraper lay down flat on its side whenever I touchedit with my foot. It remained a distinguishing ornament of my hut, useful as a guide to any one who wanted to know where I lived, but nogood for any other purpose. In this way I gradually became possessedof a kind of Robinson Crusoe outfit of household furniture. 

I cannot say that I was ever comfortable in that hut. Yet the lifeagreed with me. It is evidently a mistake to suppose that damp beds, damp clothes, and shivering fits at night are injurious to health. Itis most unpleasant but it is not unwholesome to have to rise at 2a. M. Or 3 a. M. And run up and down in the rain to get warm enough togo to sleep. 

Yet I escaped without even a cold in my head. I should be mostungrateful if I wished any real harm to the inventor of those huts. But perhaps some day his health will give way and he will findhimself suffering from rheumatism, congestion of the lungs, or frostbite. Then I hope he will try a winter in one of his own huts. Hewill not like it, but he will be a healthy man again beforespring--if he is not dead. 

CHAPTER V

KHAKI

War must always have been a miserable business; but our fathers andgrandfathers had the sense to give it an outward semblance of gaiety. They went forth to battle dressed in the brightest colours they couldfind. They put feathers in their hats. They sewed gold braid on theircoats. They hung sparkling metal about their persons. They had brassbands to march in front of them. While engaged in the business ofkilling their enemies they no doubt wallowed in mud, just as we do;went hungry, sweated, shivered, were parched or soaked, grumbled andcursed. But they made a gallant effort at pretending to enjoythemselves. They valued the properties of romantic drama, though theymust have recognised soon enough that the piece in which they playedwas the sordidest of tragedies. 

We are realists. Not for us the scarlet coats, the tossing plumes, the shining helmets or tall busbies. War is muddy, monotonous, dull, infinitely toilsome. We have staged it with a just appreciation ofits nature. We have banished colour. As far as possible we havebanished music. 

I suppose we are right. If it is really true that a soldier is morelikely to be killed when wearing a scarlet coat, it is plain commonsense to dress him in mud colour. If music attracts the enemy's fire, then bands should be left at home to play for nursemaids in parks andon piers. Yet there is something to be said for the practice of ourancestors. The soldier's business is to kill the enemy as well as toavoid being killed himself. Indeed killing is his first duty, and heonly tries to avoid being killed for the sake of being efficient. 

A cheerful soldier is a much more effective fighter than a depressedsoldier. Our ancestors knew this and designed uniforms with a view tokeeping up men's spirits. We have ignored their wisdom and deckedourselves in khaki. I can imagine nothing better calculated todepress the spirits, to induce despondency, and to lower vitalitythan khaki. The British soldier remains cheerful--indeed it islargely his unfailing cheerfulness which makes him the splendidfighting man he is--but he has had to keep up his spirits withouthelp from the authorities who have coloured his whole life khaki anddeprived him of music. 

I was placed in a camp which was one of a series of camps stretchingalong a winding valley. To right and left of us were steep hills, andoff the side of one of them, that on which M. Lived, the grass hadbeen scraped and hacked. There remained mud which harmonisedtonelessly with our uniforms. Under our feet as we walked along theroads and paths which led from end to end of the valley there wasmud. The parade grounds--each camp had one--were mud. The tents weremud-coloured or dirty grey. The orderly-rooms, mess-rooms, recreationhuts and all the rest were mud coloured and had soiled grey roofs. Men mud-coloured from head to foot paraded in lines, marched, orstrolled about or sat on mud banks smoking. 

Even the women who served in the canteens and recreation huts refusedto wear bright frocks, succumbing to the prevailing oppression ofmud. The authorities have put even these women into khaki now, butthat has made little difference. Before that order came out theladies had failed to realise that it was their duty to deckthemselves in scarlet, green, and gold, to save the rest of us fromdepression. 

Mr. Wells went out to see the war at one time, and returned to makemerry, rather ponderously, over the fact that some officers stillwear spurs. Perhaps if Mr. Wells had lived for two months in a largecamp wholly given over to the devil of khaki he would have taken adifferent view of spurs. They are almost the only things left in warwhich glitter. They are of incalculable value. So far from strippingthem from the boots of officers supposed to be mounted, additionalspurs should be worn on other parts of the uniform, on shoulderstraps for instance, with a view to improving the spirits, andtherefore the _moral_, of the army. 

It does not in the least matter that spurs are seldom driven into thesides of horses. No one now uses spurs as goads. They are worn forthe sake of the shine and glitter of them. In the fortunate ownerthey are an inspiriting evidence of "swank. " To every one else theyare, as Ireland used to be, "the one bright spot" in a desperatelydrab world. M. , a wiser man than I, always wore spurs, though I donot think he ever used them on his horses. He was naturally a man ofbuoyant cheerfulness, and I daresay would not have succumbed to khakidepression even if he had worn no spurs. But I think the spurs helpedhim. I know the sight of them helped me when they glittered on theheels of his boots as he tramped along, or glanced in the firelightwhen he crossed his legs in front of the mess-room stove. 

For a long time after settling down in that camp I was vaguely uneasywithout being able to discover what was the matter with me. I wasthoroughly healthy. I was well fed. I was associating with kindly andagreeable men. I had plenty of interesting work to do. Yet I wasconscious of something wrong. It was not homesickness, a feeling Iknow well and can recognise. It was not fear. I was as safe as if Ihad been in England. 

I discovered, by accident, that I was suffering from an unsatisfiedyearning for colour. Drafts of a Scottish regiment came out from homewearing bright-red hackles in their caps; unmistakable spots ofcolour amid our drab surroundings. I found my eyes following thesemen about the camp with a curious pleasure, and I realised that whatI wanted was to see red, or blue, or green, or anything else exceptkhaki. 

Later on an order came out that camp commandants should wear colouredcap-bands and coloured tabs on their coat. It suddenly became a joyto meet a colonel. Certain camps flew flags in front of theirorderly-rooms. Very often the weather had faded the colours, but itwas a satisfaction to feel that once, at all events, the things hadnot been drab. The Y. M. C. A. , adding without meaning to another to itslong list of good deeds, kept its bright-red triangle before oureyes. It seems absurd to mention such things; but I suppose that astarving man will count a few crumbs a feast. 

I am not a painter. If any one had talked to me before I went toFrance of the value of colour, I should have laughed at him. Now, having lived for months without colour, I know better. Men wantcolour just as they want liquid and warmth. They are not at theirbest without it. 

Nothing seemed stranger to me at first, nothing seems more patheticnow than the pains which men took to introduce a little colour intothe drab world in which we were condemned to live. Outsideorderly-rooms and other important places men made arrangements ofcoloured stones. Sometimes a regimental crest was worked out, withelaborate attention to detail, in pebbles, painted yellow, blue, andgreen. Sometimes the stones were arranged in meaningless geometricalpatterns. They were always brightly coloured. 

There was a widespread enthusiasm for gardening. Every square yard ofunused mud in that great series of camps was seized and turned intoflower-beds. Men laboured at them, putting in voluntarily an amountof work which they would have grudged bitterly for any other purpose. They wanted flowers, not vegetables, though any eatable green thingwould have been a treat to them. 

When spring and early summer came to us we rejoiced in the result ofour labours, frequently fantastic, sometimes as nearly ridiculous asflowers can be. There were beds of daffodils and hyacinths in whichit was possible, when the designer acted as showman, to recogniseregimental crests. The French flag came out well, if the flowers ofthe tricolour consented to bloom at the same time. A sergeant, whoprofessed to be an expert, arranged a bed for me which he said wouldlook like a Union Jack in June. Unfortunately I left the place earlyin May, and I have heard nothing since about that Union Jack. Isuppose it failed in some way. If it had succeeded, some one wouldhave told me about it. A fellow-countryman of mine designed ashamrock in blue lobelia. The medical Red Cross looked well ingeraniums imported from England at great expense. 

Generally our efforts were along more conventional lines. I remembera rose-garden with a sundial in the middle of it. The roses, topreserve them from frost, were carefully wrapped in sacking duringsevere weather, and an irreverent soldier, fresh from the trenches, commented on the fact that "These blighters at the base are growingsandbags. "

We were short of implements, but we dug. I have seen table forks andbroken dinner knives used effectively. I have seen grass, when therewas grass, clipped with a pair of scissors. Kindly people in Englandsent us out packets of seeds, but we were very often beaten by thenames on them. We sowed in faith and hope, not knowing what manner ofthing an antirrhinum might be. 

I do not believe that it was any form of nostalgia, any longing forhome surroundings, which made gardeners of the most unlikely of us. Heaven knows the results we achieved were unlike anything we had everseen at home. It was not love of gardening which set us digging andplanting. Men gardened in those camps who never gardened before, andperhaps never will again. At the bottom of it all was an instinctive, unrealised longing for colour. We knew that flowers, if we could onlygrow them, would not have khaki petals, that, war or no war, weshould feast our eyes on red and blue. 

Newspapers and politicians used to talk about this as "the war to endwar, " the last war. Perhaps they were right. We may at least fairlyhope that this is the world's last khaki war. It is not indeed likelythat when men next fight they will revert to scarlet coats andshining breastplates. We have grown out of these crude attempts atromanticism. 

But it is very interesting to note the increase of attention given tocamouflage. It occurred to some one--the wonder is that it did notoccur to him sooner--that a mud-coloured tiger, a tiger with a khakiskin, would be more visible, not less visible, than a tiger with itsnatural bright stripes. It was our seamen who first grasped theimportance of this truth and began to paint ships blue, yellow, andred, with a view to making it difficult for submarine commanders tosee them. There are, I believe, a number of artists now engaged indrawing out colour schemes for steamers. I have seen a mother ship ofhydroplanes which looked like a cubist picture. 

Landsmen are more conservative and slower to grasp new ideas. Buteven in my time in France tents were sometimes covered with broadcurves of bright colours. They looked very funny near at hand; butthey are--this seems to be established--much less easily seen byairmen than white or brown tents. It seems a short step to take fromcolouring tents to colouring uniforms. In the next war, if there be anext war, regiments will perhaps move against the enemy gay askingfishers and quite as difficult to see. Fighting men will look toeach other like ladies in the beauty chorus of a revue. By the enemythey will not be seen at all. War will not, in its essentials, be anypleasanter, however we dress ourselves. Nothing can ever make a joyof it. But at least those who take part in it will escape the curseof khaki which lies heavily on us. 

We suffered a good deal from want of music when I went out to France, though things were better then than they had been earlier. Theycertainly improved still further later on. Music in old days waslooked upon as an important thing in war. The primitive savage beatdrums of a rude kind before setting out to spear the warriors of theneighbouring tribes. Joshua's soldiers stormed Jericho with the soundof trumpets in their ears. Cromwell's men sang psalms as they wentforward. Montrose's highlanders charged to the skirl of theirbagpipes. Even a pacifist would, I imagine, charge if a good piperplayed in front of him. 

Our regiments had their bands, and many of them their specialmarching tunes. But we somehow came to regard music as part of thepeace-time, ornamental side of soldiering. The mistake was naturalenough. Our military leaders recognised, far sooner than the rest ofus, that this war was going to be a grim and desperate business. Bands struck them as out of place in it. Music was associated intheir minds with promenades at seaside resorts, with dinners atfashionable restaurants, with ornamental cavalry evolutions atmilitary tournaments. We were not going to France to do musicalrides or to stroll about the sands of Boulogne with pretty ladies. We were going to fight. Therefore, bands were better left at home. Itwas a very natural mistake to make; but it was a mistake, and it isall to the credit of the War Office, a body which gets very littlecredit for anything, that it gradually altered its policy. 

At first we had no outdoor music except what the men producedthemselves, unofficially, by singing, by whistling, or withmouth-organs. Indoors there were pianos in most recreation huts, andthe piano never had a moment's rest while the huts were open--aproof, if any one wanted a proof, of the craving of the men formusic. Then bands were started privately by the officers in differentcamps. This was a difficult and doubtful business. Funds had to becollected to buy instruments. Musicians who could play theinstruments had to be picked out from among the men, and nobody knewhow to find them. Hardly anybody stayed long in these base camps, anda good musician might at any moment be reft away and sent up theline. 

Yet bands came into existence. An Irish division started the first Icame across, and it used to play its men to church on Sundays in away that cheered the rest of us. My friend M. 's camps on top of thehill started a band. Other camps, which could not manage bands, discovered Scottish pipers and set them playing on ceremonialoccasions. Later on in another place I found an excellent band in alarge Canadian hospital, and a convalescent camp started a band whichwent for route marches along with the men. 

But these were all voluntary efforts. The best that could be said forthe higher authorities is that they did not actually discourage them. The regimental bands, which we ought to have had in France, stillremained at home, and I do not know that they did much playing eventhere. I think it was the Brigade of Guards which first brought aband out to France. It used to play in the market-place of the townwhich was then G. H. Q. Later on another Guards' band went on tourround the different bases. There was no mistake about the warmth ofits reception. The officers and men gathered in large numbers tolisten to it on the fine Sunday afternoon when it played in the campwhere I was stationed. 

Since then I have heard of, and heard, other regimental bands inFrance. Their visits have been keenly appreciated. But we ought tohave more than occasional visits from these bands. It is probablyimpossible to have them playing close to the firing-line. But itwould be an enormous advantage if we had a couple of good regimentalbands at every base, and especially in places where hospitals arenumerous. 

It is a mistake to regard music simply as a recreation or as an"extra, " outside the regular war programme. It is really an importantfactor in producing and maintaining that elusive but most importantthing called _moral_. Men are actually braver, more enduring, moreconfident, more enthusiastic, if they hear music. 

These qualities cannot be destroyed in our men by any privation. Theyare indestructible in the race. But their growth can be stimulated, and they can be greatly strengthened. A hundred years ago no onewould have doubted the value of music in producing and maintaining_moral_. Two hundred years ago or thereabouts Dryden wrote a poemwhich illustrated the power of music. Forty years ago Tolstoi wrote ashort novel to show how a particular sonata affected not _moral_, butmorality. We seem to have forgotten the truths familiar then. 

There ought not to be any doubt about the value of music in restoringhealth. Nobody is fool enough to suppose that a broken bone would setitself, or fragments of shrapnel emerge of their own accord from aman's leg even if it were possible to secure the services of the PiedPiper of Hamelin. But most doctors admit that in certain obscure andbaffling maladies, classed generally as cases of shell-shock, mentaland spiritual aid are at least as useful as massage or drugs. Next toreligion--which is an extremely difficult thing to get orapply--music is probably the most powerful means we have of spiritualtreatment. There is an abundant supply of it ready to hand. It seemsa pity not to use it more freely than we do. 

CHAPTER VI

LEISURE HOURS

The problem which faces the commandant of a base in France, or a campat home, must be very like that which a public schoolmaster has totackle. The business of instruction comes first. Men and officersmust be taught their job, as schoolboys must be taught their lessons. Hardly less pressing is the problem of spare time. You cannot keep asoldier throwing bombs all day, and there is a limit to the timewhich can be occupied in route marching. The obvious solution of theproblem is organised games and sports. Most men are keen enough oncricket and football. Most officers are glad to join tennis clubs. Insome places in France there are plenty of outdoor amusements of thiskind, and matches are arranged between different units which keepinterest alive. 

Where I was first stationed games were sternly discouraged. Thetheory, I think, was that the French people would be disgusted ifthey saw us playing. Perhaps the French people in that neighbourhoodwere more seriously minded than those in other parts of the country. Perhaps they were less friendly, and it was necessary to considertheir feelings with particular care. I have no way of judging aboutthat. Elsewhere the French seemed to take a mild interest in ourpassion for games; but in that district they may very well have beenof a different mind. 

Whether the official estimate of the French spirit was right orwrong, the result for us was that we were very badly off for outdoorgames. Football and cricket were played, half-heartedly, for matches(on the plan of League matches at home) were not allowed. Theformation of an officers' tennis club was forbidden. 

On the other hand the men were very well off for indoor amusements. Every Y. M. C. A. Hut ran concerts. There were two large cinema huts inthe camps. Boxing was encouraged by many officers, and interestingcompetitions took place which were eagerly watched. 

But as the days lengthened with the coming of spring, there werehours which hung very heavily on every one. The officers wereslightly better off than the men. They could always go into theneighbouring town, some four miles off, and find a certain amount ofamusement in walking about the streets. But it was a singularly dulltown. The men could not leave the camps without permission, and apass was not always, indeed not often, attainable. 

Their favourite pastime was a game which they called "House, " whichwas known to many of us when we were children as Loto. It is anexceedingly dull game, and I cannot believe that the men would haveplayed it as they did if any other kind of game had been possible. There is a mild element of gambling about House. A small sum of moneymay be won, a very small sum lost. That I suppose was the attraction. 

But it was rather a pitiful thing to walk through the camps on a fineafternoon and to see every waste piece of ground occupied by Houseplayers. There is no skill whatever in the game, and the players getno exercise. They sit on the ground with a pile of small pebblesbefore them, while one of them calls out a series of numbers. TheFrench people, if they had seen us playing House, would have come tothe conclusion that we are a nation of imbeciles. Bad as it may be tohave as allies men light-hearted enough to play cricket, it must beseveral degrees worse to have to rely on imbeciles. However, theFrench did not see us playing House any more than they saw us boxingor attending concerts. They were not allowed into our camps. 

For the men who did succeed in getting passes out of camp, theprospect was dreary enough, dreary or undesirable. Going into town ina crowded tram is an amusement which quickly palls. Variousill-defined portions of the town, when you got there, were out ofbounds, and a man had need to walk warily if he did not want troublewith the military police. 

And there were worse things than military police. On the roadwaywhich led to the camp entrance there might be seen, any fine Sundayafternoon, a crowd of French girls waiting for the men who came out. They were, plainly, not the best girls, though no doubt some of themwere more silly than vicious. There were eating-shops, ordrinking-shops, of which ugly tales were told. Coffee, an innocentdrink, was sometimes doped with brandy, and men found themselveshalf intoxicated without knowing that they had touched drink. 

There were, of course, places where men could go safely. There was, for instance, the Central Y. M. C. A. Hall, where excellent food was tobe had, and where there were books, papers, games, and a kindlywelcome. But one Y. M. C. A. Recreation hut is very like another, and itseems rather waste of a hardly-won pass out of camp to spend theafternoon very much as it might be spent without leaving camp at all. What the men craved for was variety, interest, and--what was ofcourse almost unobtainable--the society of decent women. 

I cannot help feeling that in condemning ourselves to desperatedullness we paid too high a price for the good opinion of our Frenchfriends. If they were really shocked at our levity in playing gamesduring the war, it would have been better to lacerate their feelingsa little. They would very soon have got accustomed to our ways andcome to regard our excitement over a League match as nothing worsethan a curious form of eccentricity. 

The officers were rather better off than the men. They could stay intown long enough to dine at a restaurant, and there is somethingrather exciting, for a short time, in dining at a French restaurant. There was a special officers' tram which brought us back to camp justin time to pass the sentries before 10. 30 p. M. It was invariablyover-crowded and we often had to stand, crowded together on theplatforms of the driver and conductor. I have seen officers, of rankwhich gave dignity, clinging to the back of the conductor's platformwith their feet planted insecurely on a buffer. 

I remember one very exciting run home. We started rather late fromtown. There was a thick fog. The driver was inclined to be cautious, very properly; but it was doubtful whether we could reach the camp intime. I had found a precarious place on the step of the driver'splatform. Three subalterns, spirited boys, fresh from school, triedto speed things up by shouting, "_Vîte, Vîte!_" "Much _vîter_ thanthat!" to the driver, and banging violently on the gong which warnedpedestrians of our coming. The driver remained unmoved and the carmoved very slowly. Two of the boys seized the driver. The third tookcontrol of the tram. I do not know whether he had any practicebeforehand in electric motor work; but he made that tram go. Werushed through the fog, bumping and rattling, making very heavyweather of the points at junctions. I do not think we killed any one. If we had we should have heard of it afterwards. We got back to campin time. The French chauffeur when he recovered his first shockseemed to enjoy himself. Our driver was a very gallant boy. No riskdaunted him. I hope he has been transferred into the Tank service. The work there would suit him exactly and I feel sure he would enjoyit. 

I do not know that even the prospect of returning to camp by theofficers' tram would have lured me to dine in that town very often. One French hotel is very like another, and I had dined at many beforethe war. 

But there was one restaurant which was especially attractive. Ishould never have discovered it for myself, for I am not veryadventurous or fond of exploring. It was situated in a slum andapproached through an abominable alley. It was found first, Ibelieve, by some A. S. C. Officers permanently stationed in the town, who had time on their hands for exhaustive research. I was takenthere by a friend who hoped to have the pleasure of shocking aparson by leading him into the sort of place a parson ought not tovisit. As a matter of fact the place was perfectly respectable, andthe only part of me which was shocked was my nose. The smells in thepitch-dark gullies which led to that eating-house were the worst Iencountered in France. 

It was a most unconventional restaurant. The proprietor, an elderlyman, his wife, and three married daughters ran it. They were, whenever I entered the place, engaged in eating a meal of their ownat a table near a large fire at one end of the room. When guestsappeared they all rose, uttered voluble welcomes, and shook handswith the strangers. There were, besides the family table, fourothers, all of rough deal, much stained, far from clean and withouttable-cloths. The seats were narrow benches. If you leaned back youbumped the man at the next table. The floor was sanded and henswalked about picking up the fragments which the diners dropped. WhenI knew the place first it was patronised chiefly by sailors, Belgians, and the A. S. C. Officers who discovered it. 

Ordering dinner was an interesting business. There was no menu card. Monsieur and his family talked a kind of French which none of uscould ever understand. Also they talked at a terrific speed and allat once, circling round us. We knew that they were naming the kindsof food available, for we caught words like _potage_ and _poisson_now and then. Our plan was to sit still and nod occasionally. One ofthe daughters made a note of the points at which we nodded, and wehoped for the best. The soup was generally ready. Everything else wascooked before our eyes on the fire behind the family table. 

Madame did the cooking. The rest of the party sat down again to theirown meal. Monsieur exhorted his wife occasionally. The daughters tookit in turn to get up and bring us each course as madame finishedcooking it. In this way we got a hot and excellent dinner. A gooddigestion was promoted by the long gaps between the courses. It wasimpossible to eat fast. Monsieur offered his guests no great choicein wine, but what he had was surprisingly good. 

When dinner was over and the bill, a very moderate one, paid, thewhole family shook hands with us again and wished us every kind ofhappiness and good luck. Monsieur then conducted us to a back door, and let us loose into an alley quite as dark and filthy as the one bywhich we entered. He was always firm about refusing to allow us to goby the way we came. I have no idea what his reasons were, but theplan of smuggling us out of the establishment gave us a pleasurablefeeling that we had been breaking some law by being there. There isnothing that I ever could find in King's Regulations on the subject, so I suppose that if we sinned at all it must have been against someFrench municipal regulation. 

That restaurant may be quite popular now; it was getting better knowneven in my time. But if it becomes popular it will lose its charm. Monsieur and his family will no longer be able to shake hands withevery guest. There may be table-cloths. The hens--I always thoughtthey were the _poulets_ we ate fattened before our eyes--will bebanished, and some officious A. P. M. Will put the place out of bounds, suspecting it to be a haunt of vice. Its look and its smell, I admit, would arouse suspicion in the mind of any conscientious A. P. M. , butMonsieur's patrons, if rough, were respectable people. Even theA. S. C. Officers were above reproach. They looked like men who weresatisfied at having discovered the best and cheapest dinner to begot in that town. I doubt whether they had even appreciated theeccentricities of the service. 

In spite of our want of games and amusements, life in those camps waspleasant and cheerful. We all had work to do, and not too many hoursof idleness. For me there were long walks with M. , best and cheeriestof comrades, whose spirits and energy never failed or flagged. We sawa great deal of each other in those days until the time came at theend of April, when he moved off to a cavalry brigade; a post intowhich he was thrust because good horsemen are rare among chaplains. There was always excellent company in my own mess and others. Nowhereelse have I met so many different kinds of men. 

The regular soldiers, some of them old men, held themselves as aseparate caste a little aloof from the rest of us. It is not to bewondered at. They were professionals, with a great tradition behindthem. We were amateurs, and, at times, inclined to be critical of oldcustoms and old ways. We came from every conceivable profession, andbefore the war had been engaged in a hundred different activities. Among us were men of real ability, who had made good in their ownway. I think the regular soldiers were a little bewildered sometimes. They, almost as completely as we, were plunged into a new world. Thewonder is that they stood us as patiently as they did. 

We had our mild jokes, and it was wonderful how long the mildestjokes will last in circumstances like ours. There was a story of anunfortunate private who was dragged before his colonel for failing tosalute a general, a general who should have been unmistakable. Indefence he said that he did not know it was a general. 

"But, " said the colonel, "you must have seen the red band round hishat. "

"Yes, sir, " said the man, "but I thought that was to show he was aSalvation Army captain. "

The whole camp chuckled over that story for a week. Whether any oneever told it to the general I do not know. 

Another private, an Irishman, arrived in the camp one day from thefiring-line. Ours was the remotest base; two days' journey from thenearest trench. Between us and the fighting men was what seemed animpassable entanglement of regulations, guarded at every angle byR. T. O. 's and military police. It was, any one would agree aboutthis, a flat impossibility for an unauthorised person to travelthrough the zone of the army's occupation. 

Yet this man did it, and did it without in the least intending to. Upto a certain point his account of himself was clear. He had been sentoff, one of a party under charge of an officer. He did not know--fewpeople in the army ever do know--where he was going. He becamedetached from his party and found himself, a solitary unit, at whatseems to have been a railhead. The colonel who dealt with himquestioned:

"Why didn't you ask the R. T. O. Where you were to go?"

"I did ask him, sir. The first thing ever I did was to ask him. "

"And what did he say?"

"What he said, sir, was 'Go to the devil out of this. '"

The colonel checked a smile. He probably sympathised with the R. T. O. 

"And what did you do then?" he asked. 

"I got into the train, sir, and sure, here I am. "

That particular colonel's temper was notoriously a little soured bylong command. It was felt that the soldier had, after all, made afair attempt to obey the orders of the R. T. O. 

Another private--less innocent, I fear--caused me and a few otherpeople some mild excitement. I was summoned to the orderly-room toanswer a telephone call. I was told by some one, whose voice soundedas if he was much irritated, that he had caught the man who stole myshirt. No one, thanks to my servant's vigilance, had stolen any shirtof mine. I said so. 

"Grey flannel shirt, " said the voice, and I gathered that he wasirritated afresh by my extreme stupidity. I disclaimed all knowledgeof any stolen shirt, flannel or other. 

An explanation followed. A deserter had been arrested. It wasdiscovered that he was wearing four flannel shirts and three thickgarments under them. "That, " I said, "is good _prima facie_ evidencethat he really is a soldier. " I thought that a useful thing to say, and true. No one in the world except a British soldier would wearfour shirts and three jerseys at the same time. The Britishsoldier--it is one of his characteristics--puts on all the clothes hecan get in any weather. 

The voice at the other end of the wire swore--unnecessarily, I think. Then it told me that one of the shirts was marked with my name andthat I must identify it and the man. I refused, of course. The voiceoffered to send the shirt round for my inspection. I did not in theleast want to inspect a shirt that had been worn, probably for a longtime without washing, along with six other thick garments by adeserter; but I consented to look at the thing from a distance. 

In the end I did not even do that. The unfortunate man confessed tohaving stolen the shirt from an officer in the trenches near Ypres. How it came to have my name on it I do not yet know. I did miss acouple of shirts from my store of civilian clothes when I got home. But I am sure no officer stole them. Indeed I do not see how anyofficer could. 

That voice--I do not know that I ever met its owner--had a wonderfulpower of language, strong, picturesque, and highly profane language, suitable for expressing violent emotion over a telephone wire. It wasonce rebuked by a very gentle captain with a remark that was widelyquoted afterwards. The language had been unusually flamboyant andwas becoming worse. "Hold on a minute, " said the listener, "and letthe line cool. It's nearly red hot at this end. "

When life failed to provide a joke or two we fell back on rumours andenjoyed them thoroughly. They say that Fleet Street as abreeding-ground for rumour is surpassed only by the drawing-rooms ofthe wives of ministers of state. I have no experience of either; buta base camp in France would be hard to beat. The number of navalbattles declared by the best authorities to have been fought duringthe early months of 1916 was amazing. We had them once a week, andtorpedo-boat skirmishes on off days. 

Men in "the signals"--all rumour goes back to the signals in theend--had lively imaginations. We mourned the loss of Kut monthsbefore General Townshend was forced to surrender. We revelled inextracts from the private letters of people like the Brazilianambassador in Berlin. We knew with absolute certainty the Englishregiments which were taking part in the defence of Verdun. TheGuards, by a sudden move, seized the city of Lille, but owing tofaulty staff work were cut off, hemmed in, and at last wiped out, the entire division. The last men, a mixed batch of Grenadiers, Coldstream, Scots, Irish, and Welsh, perished in a final gloriousbayonet charge. It was a Guardsman who told me the story first, andhe had it from what really was unimpeachable authority. 

But there is no reason for railing against Rumour. She is a wild-eyedjade, no doubt, with disordered locks and a babbling tongue. But lifeat a base in France would be duller without her; and she does no oneany real harm. 

CHAPTER VII

COMING AND GOING

The camp in which I lived was the first in the series of camps whichstretched along the whole winding valley. We were nearest to theentrance gates, at which military police were perpetually on guard;nearest to the railway station, a wayside _halte_ where few trainsstopped; nearest to the road along which the trams ran into the town. All who came and went in and out passed by our camp, using a road, made, I think, by our men originally, which ran along the bottom ofour parade ground and thence, with many side roads branching from it, through all the camps right along the valley. Our parade groundsloped down towards this road, ending in a steep bank which we triedto keep pleasantly grassy, which we crowned with flower-beds, so thatnew-comers might feel that they had arrived at a pleasant place. 

Standing on this bank it was possible to watch all the entering anddeparting traffic of the camps, the motor lorries which rumbled by, the little road engines, always somewhat comic, which puffed andsnorted, dragging trucks after them. Now and then came the motors ofgenerals and other potentates, or the shabby, overworked Fords of theY. M. C. A. Mounted officers, colonels, and camp commandants who wereprivileged to keep horses, trotted by. Orderlies on bicycles wentperilously, for the road was narrow and motor lorries are big. Aconstant stream of officers and men passed by; or parties, on theirway up the hill, to one of the instruction camps marched along. 

This went on all day from early dawn till the "Last Post" sounded andquiet came. To a new-comer, as I was, one unused to armies and theirways, this traffic was a source of endless interest; but I liked mostto stand on the bank above the road during the later hours of theforenoon. It was then that the new drafts, men fresh from England, marched in. 

The transports which brought them reached the harbour early in themorning. The men disembarked at 8 a. M. And marched out to the camps, a distance of four or five miles. They were often weary when theyarrived, wet and muddy perhaps, or powdered with dust, unshaved, unwashed. Often their faces were still pallid after a long night ofseasickness. Their rifles and kit seemed a burden to some of them. They marched past our camp, and there were generally two or three ofus who stood on the bank to watch and criticise. 

Later on, when some of the camps had dealt with the music question, aband or a couple of pipers would go some distance along the road tomeet the coming men and to play them into camp. Then, in spite ofweariness and the effects of seasickness, the new drafts stepped outbravely and made a good show. 

I had a friend, a sergeant who had seen much service, one of thoseN. C. O. 's of the old army to whom the empire owes a debt which willnever be properly understood. He often stood beside me to watch thenew men come in. He taught me to criticise their marching, toappreciate their bearing. He wore a South African ribbon then. Hewears the Mons ribbon now and a couple of gold wound stripes anddoubtless several chevrons, red and blue. 

The skirl of pipes came to us, and a moment later the quick, firmtread of men marching. 

"Guards, sir, " said my friend. 

They passed, swinging along, a mixed draft of Grenadiers, Coldstream, Scots, Irish, Welsh. My friend straightened himself as they went by. 

"The Guards, sir, is the Guards, wherever they are. "

He was not himself a guardsman, but there was no trace of jealousy inhis voice. I have noticed the same thing again and again. There arepeople who dislike the Guards, accusing them of conceit or resentingcertain privileges. I never met any one who refused to give theGuards first place in battle, on the march, in camp. It is amagnificent record to have established in an army like ours, awonderful record to have kept through a long-drawn war like this, when every regiment has been destroyed and remade of new materialhalf a dozen times. 

Another draft came by. 

"Territorials, sir. "

My friend was prejudiced; but he is not the only soldier of the oldarmy who is prejudiced against territorials. Against new battalions, Kitchener battalions, of regular regiments there is no feeling. Theold army took them to its heart, bullied them, taught them as if theywere younger brothers. The Territorials are step-brothers at best. Yet they have made good in France. I wonder that the prejudicepersists. They do not march like the Guards. Even the LondonTerritorials have not accomplished that. But they have establishedthemselves as fighters, in the desperate holding of the Ypres salientin earlier days, and ever since everywhere in the long battle-line. 

"R. F. A. , " said my friend, "and the biggest draft of the lot. Theremust be a damned lot of guns at the front now. We could have donewith a few more at Mons. It's guns that's wanted in this war. Gunsand men behind them. And it's guns, and gunners anyway, we'regetting. Look at those fellows now. You'll see worse drafts;though"--he surveyed the men carefully--"you might see better. There's some of them now that's young, too young. They'll be sentback sick before they harden. Beg pardon, sir, but here's our lot atlast. I must be going. "

He saluted and turned. A body of men with an elderly officer at theirhead followed the gunners closely. They turned sharp to the left upthe steep little road which leads into our camp. They halted in themiddle of the parade ground. Salutes were given and returned. Thedraft was handed over. The elderly officer detached himself and madehis way to the mess-room. I followed to greet him, and to hear thelatest news from England. 

"What sort of a passage?"

"Vile. We crossed in a superannuated paddle-boat. Everybody sick. Nota spot to lie down in. My men were detailed to clean up the blessedpacket afterwards. That's why we're late. Such a scene. Ugh! Can Iget a drink?"

I do not know any one who has a more consistently disagreeable jobthan a draft-conducting officer. He crosses and recrosses the Channelunder the most uncomfortable conditions possible. He has a lot ofresponsibility. He gets no praise and little credit. He is generallyan elderly man. He has, most likely, been accustomed for years to aneasy life. He is often an incurable victim to seasickness. There isno interest and no excitement about his work. He lives for the mostpart in trains and steamers. He snatches meals in strange messes, railway refreshment rooms, and quayside restaurants. He may have toconduct his draft all the way from Cork or Wick. He may be keptwaiting hour after hour for a train. He may be embarked anddisembarked again three or four times before his steamer actuallystarts. The men of his draft are strangers to him. He does not knowwhether his sergeants are trustworthy or not. Yet there is noepidemic of suicide among draft-conducting officers, though therevery well might be. Great and unconquerable is the spirit of theBritish dug-out officer. 

The draft itself may have had a bad time too, especially in thematter of cleaning up the ship; but then the draft does not have itonce a week. And the draft has not got to turn round and go straightback again. And for the draft the business has the advantage ofnovelty. It is exciting to land for the first time in France, to bepursued by little boys who say "Souvenir!" and "Good night!" early inthe morning. And there is something about getting there at last, after months of weary training, which must stir the most sluggishimagination. 

The draft is examined by the doctors. One way and another a doctor ina base camp has a busy time of it. He begins at 6 a. M. , diagnosingthe cases of the men who report sick. The hour at which it ispossible to report sick is fixed inconveniently early in order, it ishoped, to discourage disease. Men who are not very bad may actuallyprefer the usual parades and fatigues to reporting sick at 6 a. M. Forsickness is not even a sure way of escape. Doctors have a nasty trickof awarding "medicine and duty" in doubtful cases, which isdistinctly more unpleasant than duty without medicine. From that onthe doctor is kept busy, till he drops off to sleep for half an hourbefore dinner in the mess-room. 

I thought at first that the doctors might have been spared the taskof examining incoming drafts. The men have all been passed fit athome before they start, and it does not seem reasonable to supposethat their constitutions have seriously deteriorated on the journey. But the new examination is really necessary. Doctors, according tothe proverb, differ. They even seem to differ more widely than othermen. The home doctor for some reason takes an optimistic view ofhuman ailments, and is inclined to pass a man fit who will certainlycollapse when he gets up the line. The doctor in the base camp knowsthat he will be abominably "strafed" if he sends "crocks" to thefront. He does not want them returned and left on his hands at thebase. So he picks the plainly unfit men out of the drafts, and, aftera tedious round of form filling, sends them back to England. 

There was, for instance, Private Buggins, whose case interested me somuch that I should like very much to hear the end of his story. Private Buggins suffered from curvature of the spine. It was plainthat he could not carry a pack for very long. Some one at home passedPrivate Buggins fit and he came out with a draft. He was picked outof that draft at the base in France. At the end of a fortnight'sstrenuous labour (form filling), Private Buggins was sent back toEngland. 

A fortnight after that he turned up again in France, one of anotherdraft. Once more he was detached. Once more the wheels creaked roundand Private Buggins went back to England. This time three weekselapsed before he joined another draft and again submitted himselffor medical examination in France. The result was the same. I do notwonder. I saw Buggins's spine once, and I hold strongly that "Blightyis the place for him. "

After that I lost sight of Private Buggins, for I was moved to a newcamp; but I have no reason to suppose the case is settled. He isstill, in all probability, crossing and recrossing the EnglishChannel. By this time I expect he has found out ways of livingtolerably comfortably under the conditions of his nomadic militaryservice. But he ought to be given a special medal when the war isover and he is allowed to settle down again somewhere. 

A new draft also submits to kit inspection. I suppose kits areinspected in England before the start is made; but the Britishsoldier has an amazing desire to get rid of the parts of hisequipment which strike him as superfluous. He appears to shed kit ashe goes along, and often succeeds in arriving at the end of thejourney with only half the things he ought to have. 

Yet he goes to war with few possessions. I am sure his pack is heavyenough to carry, but its contents look pitifully insufficient whenspread out on a parade ground for inspection. A cake of soap, arazor, a small towel, two or three brushes, a spare pair of socks, aclean shirt--it seems little enough for a man to face an unknownworld with, a man who is heir to the gifts of a complex civilisation. 

Once thoroughly inspected, the draft ceases to be a draft, and ismerged in the camp. The men settle down in the lines of theirbattalion, take their share in the life and work of their fellowsuntil the day comes when they are joined to another draft and sentforth on a yet more adventurous journey. 

Drafts coming to us from England arrived in the morning. Drafts goingfrom us to the front departed at night. I suppose the numbers ofthose who came and of those who went balanced like the figures in awell-kept ledger. To me it always seemed that there were more goingthan coming--an illusion certainly, since our camp never emptied. Butthose who came were all strangers, while many of those who went werefriends, and many more were acquaintances. Therefore, the going leftgaps which the new-comers did not seem to fill. 

The orders that a draft was to go to the front came to us in themorning from the Officer Commanding Reinforcements. So many officersand men of such-and-such a battalion were to proceed to such-or-sucha place. Lists, nominal rolls, were prepared in the orderly-room. Themen were warned. The officers rushed into town to complete their kitor add to it small articles likely to be useful. Trench boots, trenchcoats, tins of solidified methylated spirits, all sorts of odds andends, were picked up at the ordnance stores or at French shops whichdealt specially in such things. Advice was eagerly sought--and themost curious advice taken--by those who had never been up the linebefore. That last day at the base was busy and exciting. There was aspirit of light-heartedness and gaiety abroad. We laughed more thanusual and joked oftener. Behind the laughter--who knows?

In the camp there was much going to and fro. Men stood in queuesoutside the quartermaster's stores, to receive gas masks, first fielddressings, identification discs, and such things. Kits were once moreinspected, minutely and rigorously. Missing articles were supplied. Entries were made in pay books. 

Later on the men crowded into the canteen or the Y. M. C. A. Hut. Letters were written, pathetic scrawls many of them. There was afeeling of excitement, tense and only half suppressed, among the menwho were going. There was no sign of depression or fear; certainly nohint of any sadness of farewell. 

For us who stayed behind it was different. I saw scores of thesedrafts depart for the unknown, terrible front. I never got over thefeeling of awe. There are certain scenes which will abide in mymemory to the end of my life, which I do not think I can possiblyforget even afterwards, when my turn comes and I join those men whowent from us, of whom we next heard when their names appeared in thelists of killed. 

It was my custom to invite those who were going to "partake of themost comfortable sacrament of the body and blood of Christ" beforethey started. At first we used to meet in my hut; but that was toosmall for us, though only a few from each departing draft gatheredthere. Later on I used a room in a neighbouring house. 

It was late in the afternoon, generally 6 o'clock, before theofficers and men were ready to come. The shadows had gathered. Thecandles on my rude altar shone, giving the little light we needed. About to face death these boys--to me and especially at that timethey all seemed boys--kneeled to salute their King who rules byvirtue of a sacrifice like theirs. They took His body and His blood, broken and shed for them whose bodies were also dedicated, just asHis was, for the saving of the world. My hands trembled, stretchedout in benediction over the bowed young heads. Did ever men dogreater things than these? Have any among the martyrs and saints ofthe church's calendar belonged more clearly to the great fellowshipof Christs crucified, whose splendid destiny it is to redeem theworld?

These eucharists are among the scenes which it is impossible ever toforget. There are also others, no less impressive, in the recurringdrama of the departing drafts. 

The day closes early in these great camps. At half-past eight therecreation huts close their doors. Concerts and entertainments areover. The men stream back to their tents along muddy roads, laughing, chatting, singing. Lights appear in the tents, and a glow, red orwhite, shines through the canvas. One after another these areextinguished. The "Last Post" sounds from a dozen bugles. Themultitudinous noises of camp life die away. The rifle-fire which hascrackled all day on the ranges has long ceased. The spluttering ofmachine guns in the training camps vexes the ear no more. The heavyexplosions of shell testing are over for another day. Save for thesharp challenge of a sentry here and there, and the distant shriekof a railway engine, there is almost unbroken silence for a while. 

At half-past nine perhaps, or a little later, men come silently fromthe tents and assemble on the parade ground. They fall in, smalldetachments from four or five regiments, each forming its own linesof men. They carry rifles. Their packs are on their backs. Theirhaversacks, mess tins, and all the kit of marching infantry arestrung round them. A draft from this camp and many drafts from allthis great collection of camps are going "up the line" to-night. 

"Up the line. " The phrase means a long railway journey, very manyhours of travelling perhaps, for the train moves slowly. The journeywill end where the railway stops short of the firing-line, and thesemen will join their comrades, filling the gaps in many battalions. Some of them are fresh from home, young soldiers. Others, recoveredfrom wounds or sickness, are going back to perils and hardship whichthey already know. For all of them this is the last parade in safetyfor many a long day. Henceforth, till the coming of peace releasesthem, or a wound sends them back to rest, or death puts an end totheir soldiering, they will go in peril day and night, will endureincredible hardships constantly. 

They stand silent. At the head of the waiting columns are men withlanterns in their hands, faint spots of light in the surroundinggloom. Down the hill from his quarters the colonel comes. Theadjutant and the sergeant-major leave the orderly-room. A littlegroup of officers stands back in the shadow. They are there to seetheir comrades off. A sharp order is given. There is a rattle of armsand accoutrements. The waiting men stand to attention. The colonelmakes his progress up and down the line of men, taking a last look attheir equipment. An orderly carrying a lantern goes before him. Heinspects each man minutely. Now and then he speaks a few words in alow tone. Otherwise the silence is complete. 

The inspection is over at last. He takes his place at the head of thecolumn. Certain formal orders are read out by the adjutant. There issomething about the unexpended portion of the day's rations. Therecannot be much "unexpended" at 10 o'clock at night; but the militarymachine, recklessly prodigal of large sums of money, is scrupulouslyniggardly about trifles. But it does not matter. No one at themoment is concerned about the unexpended portion of his ration. Thereis a stern injunction against travelling on the roof of railwaycarriages. "Men, " the order explains, "have been killed owing todoing so. " We suppose vaguely that those men were better dead. No onein his right senses would willingly travel on the top of a railwaycarriage at dead of night in a snowstorm. And as we stand on theparade ground it begins to snow. There is much else, but the readingstops at last. The colonel speaks. He wishes all good fortune tothose who go. He reminds them that they are the guardians of thehonour of famous regiments. He assures them that the hearts of thosewho stay behind go with them. He is himself one of those who staybehind; but there is something in the way he speaks which makes ussure that he would gladly go. He does not say this. It is not his wayto talk heroics. But more certainly than if he had said the words themen know that it is not of his own choice that he stays behind. 

It is my turn to speak, to pray. Surely never to any minister of Godhas such opportunity been given. But what words can I find? Whatsupplication fits the time and place? I beg the men to pray, to seekfrom above courage, strength, patience, inward peace. I make myprayer for them, that God will lighten the surrounding darkness anddeliver us all from the perils of "this night. " I am feeble, helpless, faithless, without vision; but at least I can give thebenediction. "The Peace of God----" Even war cannot take that fromthe heart of him who has it. 

From a neighbouring camp comes the sound of men singing as they trampdown the muddy road. Another draft is on its way. From a camp stillfarther off we hear the skirl of bagpipes. There, too, men have saidgood-bye to security and are on their way. A sharp order rings out. Then another. The men on the parade ground spring to attention, turn, march. 

They begin to sing as they go. "Tipperary, " in those days was losingits popularity. "If I were the only boy in the world" had not come toits own. For the moment "Irish eyes are smiling" is most popular. Itis that or some such song they sing, refusing even then to makeobeisance to heroic sentiment. The little group of officers, thesergeants, the orderlies with the lanterns, stand and salute thecolumns as they pass. 

Far down the road we hear a shouted jest, a peal of laughter, a burstof song. 

In what mood, with what spirit does the soldier, the man in theranks, go forth into the night to his supremely great adventure? Wedo more than guess. We know. We chaplains are officers, but we aresomething more than officers. We are, or ought to be, the friends ofmen and officers alike. We have the chance of learning from the men'sown lips what their feelings are. Hardly ever do we get the leastsuggestion of heroic resolve or hint of the consciousness of greatpurpose. Very often we hear a hope expressed--a hope which is reallya prayer for God's blessing. But this is almost always for those leftat home, for wife and children, parents, brothers, friends. It is asif they and not the men who fight had dangers to face and trials toendure. 

From his intimate talk we may guess that the soldier thinks verylittle about himself and very much about those he has left behind. Hesays little of what his life has been, less still about that to whichhe looks forward. His mind is altogether occupied with the littleaffairs of his home life, with the marriage of this friend, the wagesearned by son or daughter, the thousand details of life in someEnglish village or some great city. Sometimes we hear an expressionof pleasure at the thought of joining again comrades by whose sidethe writer has fought. Sometimes an anticipation from a young soldierof seeing in the fighting-line some friend who has gone there beforehim. 

It is not thus that an imaginative writer would represent the talk ofsoldiers who say farewell. I suppose that those who speak as thesemen do are lovers of peace and quiet ways, have no great taste foradventuring, find war not a joy but a hard necessity. Yet as we know, as all Europe knows now, there are no better fighters in the worldthan these citizen soldiers whose blood the bugle stirs butsluggishly, whose hearts are all the time with those whom they haveleft at English firesides. 

CHAPTER VIII

WOODBINE HUT

I knew many recreation huts, Y. M. C. A. Huts, Church Army huts, E. F. Canteens, while I was in France. I was in and out of them at allsorts of hours. I lectured in them, preached in them, told stories, played games, and spent in the aggregate many hours listening toother people singing, reciting, lecturing. It was always a pleasureto be in these huts and I liked every one of them. But I cherishspecially tender recollections of Woodbine Hut. It was the first Iknew, the first I ever entered, my earliest love among huts. Also itsname was singularly attractive. It is not every hut which has a name. Many are known simply by the number of the camp they belong to, andeven those which have names make, as a rule, little appeal to theimagination. It is nice and loyal to call a hut after a princess, forinstance, or by the name of the donor, or after some province ordistrict at home, whose inhabitants paid for the hut. One is no waymoved by such names. 

But Woodbine! The name had nothing whatever to do with the soldier'sfavourite cigarette, though that hut, or any other, might very wellbe called after tobacco. I, a hardened smoker, have choked in theatmosphere of these huts worse than anywhere else, even in the cabinsof small yachts anchored at night. But cigarettes were not in themind of the ladies who built and named that hut. Afterwards whentheir hair and clothes reeked of a particularly offensive kind oftobacco, it may have occurred to them that they were wiser than theyknew in choosing the name Woodbine. 

But at first they were not thinking of tobacco. They meant to make alittle pun on their own name like the pun of the herald who gave"_Ver non semper viret_" to the Vernons for a motto; associatingthemselves thus modestly and shyly with the building they had given, in which they served. Also they meant the name to call up in theminds of the soldiers who used the hut all sorts of thoughts of home, of English gardens, of old-fashioned flowers, of mothers' smiles andkisses--the kisses perhaps not always mother's. The idea is a prettyone, and the English soldier, like most cheerful people, is asentimentalist, yet I doubt if ten of the many thousands of men whoused that hut ever associated it with honeysuckle. 

When I first saw "Woodbine" over the door of that hut, the namefilled me with astonishment. I knew of a Paradise Court in a grimycity slum, and a dilapidated whitewashed house on the edge of aConnaught bog which has somehow got itself called Monte Carlo. Butthese misfits of names moved me only to mirth mingled with a certainsadness. "Woodbine" is a sheer astonishment. I hear the word andthink of the rustic arches in cottage gardens, of old tree trunksclimbed over by delightful flowers. I think of open lattice windows, of sweet summer air. Nothing in the whole long train of thoughtprepares me for or tends in any way to suggest this Woodbine. 

It is a building. In the language of the army--the officiallanguage--it is a hut; but hardly more like the hut of civil lifethan it is like the flower from which it takes its name. The wallsare thin wood. The roof is corrugated iron. It contains two long, low halls. Glaring electric lights hang from the rafters. They mustglare if they are to shine at all, for the air is thick with tobaccosmoke. 

Inside the halls are gathered hundreds of soldiers. In one corner, that which we enter first, the men are sitting, packed close togetherat small tables. They turn over the pages of illustrated papers. Theydrink tea, cocoa, and hot milk. They eat buns and slices ofbread-and-butter. They write those letters home which express solittle, and to those who understand mean so much. Of the letterswritten home from camp, half at least are on paper which bear thestamp of the Y. M. C. A. --paper given to all who ask in this hut andscores of others. Reading, eating, drinking, writing, chatting, orplaying draughts, everybody smokes. Everybody, such is the climate, reeks with damp. Everybody is hot. The last thing that the airsuggests to the nose of one who enters is the smell of woodbine. 

In the other, the inner hall, there are more men, still more closelypacked together, smoking more persistently, and the air is evendenser. Here no one is eating, no one reading. Few attempt to write. The evening entertainment is about to begin. On a narrow platform atone end of the hall is the piano. A pianist has taken possession ofit. He has been selected by no one in authority, elected by nocommittee. He has occurred, emerged from the mass of men; by virtueof some energy within him has made good his position in front of theinstrument. He flogs the keys, and above the babel of talk soundssome rag-time melody, once popular, now forgotten or despised athome. Here or there a voice takes up the tune and sings or chants it. 

The audience begin to catch the spirit of the entertainment. Some onecalls the name of Corporal Smith. A man struggles to his feet andleaps on to the platform. He is greeted with applauding cheers. Thereis a short consultation between him and the pianist. A tentativechord is struck. Corporal Smith nods approval and turns to theaudience. His song begins. If it is the kind of song that has achorus the audience shouts it and Corporal Smith conducts the singingwith waving of his arms. 

Corporal Smith is a popular favourite. We know his worth as a singer, demand and applaud him. But there are other candidates for favour. Before the applause has died away, while still acknowledgments arebeing bowed, another man takes his place on the platform. He is astranger and no one knows what he will sing. But the pianist is a manof genius. Whisper to him the name of the song, give even a hint ofits nature, let him guess at the kind of voice, bass, baritone, tenor, and he will vamp an accompaniment. He has his difficulties. Asinger will start at the wrong time, will for a whole verse, perhaps, make noises in a different key; the pianist never fails. Somehow, before very long, instrument and singer get together--more or less. 

There is no dearth of singers, no bashful hanging back, no waitingfor polite pressure. Every one who can sing, or thinks he can, iseager to display his talent. There is no monotony. A boisterous comicsong is succeeded by one about summer roses, autumn leaves, and thekiss of a maiden at a stile. The vagaries of a ventriloquist are amatter for roars of laughter. A song about the beauties of the risingmoon pleases us all equally well. An original genius sings a song ofhis own composition, rough-hewn verses set to a familiar tune, aboutthe difficulty of obtaining leave and the longing that is in all ourhearts for a return to "Blighty, dear old Blighty. " Did ever menbefore fix such a name on the country for which they fight?

Now and again some one comes forward with a long narrative song, akind of ballad chanted to a tune very difficult to catch. It is aboutas hard to keep track with the story as to pick up the tune. Words--better singers fail in the same way--are not easilydistinguished, though the man does his best, clears his throatcarefully between each verse and spits over the edge of the platformto improve his enunciation. No one objects to that. 

About manners and dress the audience is very little critical. Butabout the merits of the songs and the singers the men express theiropinions with the utmost frankness. The applause is genuine, and thesinger who wins it is under no doubt about its reality. The songwhich makes no appeal is simply drowned by loud talk, and theunfortunate singer will crack his voice in vain in an endeavour toregain the attention he has lost. 

Encores are rare, and the men are slow to take them. There is a mantowards the end of the evening who wins one unmistakably with aninimitable burlesque of "Alice, where art thou?" The pianist failsto keep in touch with the astonishing vagaries of this performance, and the singer, unabashed, finishes without accompaniment. Theaudience yells with delight, and continues to yell till the singercomes forward again. This time he gives us a song about leaving home, a thing of heart-rending pathos, and we wail the chorus:

 "It's sad to give the last hand-shake, It's sad the last long kiss to take, It's sad to say farewell. "

The entertainment draws to its close about 8 o'clock. Men go to bedbetimes who know that a bugle will sound the reveille at 5. 30 in themorning. The end of the entertainment is planned to allow time for afinal cup of tea or a glass of Horlick's Malted Milk before we go outto flounder through the mud to our tents. 

This last half-hour is a busy one for the ladies behind the counterin the outer hall. Long queues of men stand waiting to be served. Dripping cups and sticky buns are passed to them with inconceivablerapidity. The work is done at high pressure, but with the tea and thefood the men receive something else, something they pay no penny for, something the value of which to them is above all measuring withpennies--the friendly smile, the kindly word of a woman. We canpartly guess at what these ladies have given up at home to do thiswork--servile, sticky, dull work--for men who are neither kith norkin to them. No one will ever know the amount of good they do;without praise, pay, or hope of honour, often without thanks. If "theactions of the just smell sweet and blossom, " surely these deeds oflove and kindness have a fragrance of surpassing sweetness. 

Perhaps, after all, the hut is well named "Woodbine, " and othersmight be called "Rose, " "Violet, " "Lily. " The discerning eye sees theflowers through the mist of steaming tea. We catch the perfume whilewe choke in the reek of tobacco smoke, damp clothes, and heatedbodies. 

The British part of the war area in France is dotted over with hutsmore or less like the "Woodbine. " They are owned, I suppose, certainly run, by half a dozen different organisations. I understandthat the Church Army is now very energetic in building huts, but whenI first went to France by far the greater part of the work was doneby the Y. M. C. A. 

The idea--the red triangle is supposed to be symbolical--is tominister to the needs of the three parts of man--body, mind, andsoul. At the bar which stands at one end of the hut men buy food, drink (strictly non-alcoholic), and tobacco. In the body of the roommen play draughts, chess, anything except cards, read papers andwrite letters. Often there are concerts and lectures. Sometimes thereare classes which very few men attend. So the mind is cared for. 

The atmosphere is supposed to be religious, and the men recognise thefact by refraining from the use of their favourite words even when nolady worker is within earshot. The talk in a Y. M. C. A. Hut issometimes loud. The laughter is frequent. But a young girl might walkabout invisible among the men without hearing an expression whichwould shock her, so long as she remained inside the four walls. 

There are also supposed to be prayers every night and there is avoluntary service, of a very free and easy kind, on Sunday evenings. Those evening prayers, theoretically a beautiful and moving ending tothe day's labour, were practically a very difficult business. I havebeen in huts when the first hint of prayers, the production of abundle of hymn-books, was the signal for a stampede of men. By thetime the pianist was ready to play the hut was empty, save for two orthree unwilling victims who had been cornered by an energetic lady. 

In the early days the "leader" of the hut was generally a young manof the kind who would join a Christian Association in the days beforethe war, and the lady workers, sometimes, but not always, were of thesame way of thinking. They were desperately in earnest about prayersand determined, though I think unfair ways were adopted, to securecongregations. A concert drew a crowded audience, and it seemeddesirable to attach prayers to the last item of the performance soclosely that there was no time to escape. 

I remember scenes, not without an element of comedy in them, butsingularly unedifying. A young lady, prettily dressed and pleasant tolook at, recited a poem about a certain "nursie" who in the course ofher professional duties tended one "Percy. " In the second versenursie fell in love with Percy, and, very properly, Percy with her. In the third verse they were married. In the fourth verse we came onnursie nursing (business here by the reciter as if holding a baby)"another little Percy. " The audience shouts with laughter, yellsapplause, and wants to encore. The hut leader seizes his opportunity, announces prayers, and the men, choking down their giggles overnursie, find themselves singing "When I survey the wondrous cross. "

My own impression is that prayers cannot with decency follow hard ona Y. M. C. A. Concert. The mind and soul sides of the red triangle seemto join at an angle which is particularly aggressive. The body side, on the other hand, works in comparatively comfortably with both. Teaand cake have long had a semi-sacramental value in some religiouscircles, and the steam of cocoa or hot malted milk blends easily withthe hot air of a "Nursie-Percy" concert or the serener atmosphere of"Abide with Me. "

Yet I am convinced that the evening-prayers idea is a good one and itcan be worked successfully for the benefit of many men. I have seenthe large hall of one of those Y. M. C. A. Huts well filled night afternight for evening prayers, and those were not only men who remainedin the hall drinking tea or playing games, but many others who camein specially for prayers. A choir gathered round the piano, eager tosing the evening hymn. The hush during the saying of a few simpleprayers was unmistakably devotional. It was impossible to doubt thatwhen the benediction fell upon those bowed heads there did abidesomething of the peace which passeth all understanding and thathearts were lifted up unto the Lord. 

There was, unfortunately, a certain amount of jealousy at one timebetween the Y. M. C. A. Workers and the recognised army chaplains. Ithink that this is passing away. But when I first went to France therelations between the two organisations in no way suggested theointment which ran down Aaron's beard to the skirts of his garment, the Psalmist's symbol of the unity in which brethren dwelt together. 

The Y. M. C. A. Workers were perhaps a little prickly. The men amongthem, often Free Church ministers, seemed on the lookout for the sortof snubs which Nonconformists often receive from the Anglican clergyat home. The chaplains, especially the Church of England chaplains, appeared to think that they ought to conduct all religious servicesin the Y. M. C. A. Huts. This was unreasonable. If the Church of Englandhad been awake to her opportunity in the early days of the war shecould have built church huts all over northern France and run them onher own lines. She missed her chance, not having among her leadersany man of the energy and foresight of Sir A. Yapp. 

The Church Army has done much during the last years; but it has beenthe making up of leeway. The Church once might have occupied theposition held by the Y. M. C. A. She failed to rise to the occasion. Herofficers, the military chaplains, had no fair cause of complaint whenthey found that they could not straightway enter into the fruits ofother men's labour. 

But the little jealousy which existed between the chaplains and theY. M. C. A. Was passing away while I was in France, has now, perhaps, entirely disappeared. The war has done little good, that I ever coulddiscover, to any one, but it has delivered the souls of the Church ofEngland clergy who went out to France from the worst form ofecclesiastical snobbery. There are few of those who tried to work inthe army who preserve the spirit of social superiority which has hada good deal to do with the dislike of the Church, which has been Iimagine, a much more effective cause of "our unhappy divisions" thanany of the doctrines men have professed to quarrel about. 

And the Y. M. C. A. Workers are less aggressively prickly than they usedto be. The army authorities have weeded out a good many of theoriginal men workers, young students from Free Church theologicalcolleges, and put them into khaki. Their places have been taken byolder men, of much larger experience of life, less keen on makinggood the position of a particular religious denomination. They areoften glad to hand over their strictly religious duties to anychaplain who will do them efficiently. 

The women workers, a far more numerous class, never were sodifficult, from the Church of England chaplain's point of view, asthe men. They are, in the fullest sense, voluntary workers. They evenpay all their own expense, lodging, board, and travelling. They mustbe women of independent means. I do not know why it is, but well-offpeople are seldom as eager about emphasising sectarian differences asthose who have to work for small incomes. Perhaps they have morechance of getting interested in other things. 

It is, I fear, true that the decay of the sectarian--that is to sayundenominational--spirit in the Y. M. C. A. Has resulted in a certainblurring of the "soul" side of the red triangle. This has been acause of uneasiness to the society's authorities at home, and variousefforts have been made to stimulate the spiritual work of the hutsand to inquire into the causes of its failure. I am inclined to thinkthat the matter is quite easily understood. There is less aggressivereligiosity in Y. M. C. A. Huts than there used to be, because thesociety is more and more drawing its workers from a class whichinstinctively shrinks from slapping a strange man heartily on theback and greeting him with the inquiry--"Tommy, how's your soul?"There is no need for anxiety about the really religious work of thehuts. That in most places is being done. 

CHAPTER IX

Y. S. C. 

"Y. S. C. " stands for Young Soldiers' Club, an institution which had ashort, but, I think, really useful existence in the large camp whereI was first stationed. There were in that camp large numbers ofboys--at one time nearly a thousand of them--all enlisted under agein the early days of the recruiting movement, all of them found byactual trial or judged beforehand to be unfit for the hardship oflife in the trenches. They were either sent down from theirbattalions to the base or were stopped on the way up. For some timetheir number steadily increased. Like the children of Israel inEgypt, who also multiplied rapidly, they became a nuisance to theauthorities. 

Their existence in the camp was a standing menace to discipline. Officially they were men to be trained, fed, lodged, if necessarypunished according to the scheme designed for and in the mainsuitable to men. In reality they were boys, growing boys, some ofthem not sixteen years of age, a few--the thing seems almostincredible--not fifteen. How the recruiting authorities at home evermanaged to send a child of less than fifteen out to France as afighting man remains mysterious. But they did. 

These were besides boys of a certain particularly difficult kind. Itis not your "good" boy who rushes to the recruiting office and tellsa lie about his age. It is not the gentle, amiable, well-mannered boywho is so enthusiastic for adventure that he will leave his home andendure the hardships of a soldier's life for the sake of seeingfighting. These boys were for the most part young scamps, and some ofthem had all the qualities of the guttersnipe, but they had themakings of men in them if properly treated. 

The difficulty was to know how to treat them. No humane C. O. Wants tocondemn a mischievous brat of a boy to Field Punishment No. 1. MostC. O. 's. , even most sergeants, know that punishment of that kind, however necessary for a hardened evildoer of mature years, is totallyunsuitable for a boy. At the same time if any sort of discipline isto be preserved, a boy, who must officially be regarded as a man, cannot be allowed to cheek a sergeant or flatly to refuse to obeyorders. That was the military difficulty. 

The social and moral difficulty was, if anything, worse. Those boyswere totally useless to the army where they were, stuck in a largecamp. They were learning all sorts of evil and very little good. Theywere a nuisance to the N. C. O. 's and men, among whom they lived, andwere bullied accordingly. They were getting no education and nosuitable physical training. They were in a straight way to be ruinedinstead of made. 

It was an Irish surgeon who realised the necessity for doingsomething for these boys and set about the task. I do not supposethat he wants his name published or his good deeds advertised. Ishall call him J. He was a typical Irishman--in looks, manner, andcharacter one of the most Irishmen I have ever met. He had awonderful talent for dealing with young animals. The very first timeI met him he took me to see a puppy, a large, rather savage-lookingcreature which he kept in a stable outside the camp. One of thecreature's four grandparents had been a wolf. J. Hoped to make thepuppy a useful member of society. 

"I am never happy, " he said, "unless I have some young thing totrain--dog, horse, anything. That's the reason I'm so keen on doingsomething for these boys. "

J. Had no easy job when he took up the cause of the boys. It was notthat he had to struggle against active opposition. There was noactive opposition. Every one wanted to help. The authorities realisedthat something ought to be done. What J. Was up against was system, the fact that he and the boys and the authorities and every one of uswere parts of a machine and the wheels of the thing would only goround one way. 

Trying to get anything of an exceptional kind done in the army islike floundering in a trench full of sticky mud--one is inclinedsometimes to say sticky muddle--surrounded by dense entanglements ofbarbed red-tape. You track authority from place to place, findingalways that the man you want, the ultimate person who can actuallygive the permission you require, lies just beyond. If you areenormously persevering, and, nose to scent, you hunt on for years, you find yourself at last back with the man from whom you started, having made a full circle of all the authorities there are. Then, ifyou like, you can start again. 

I do not know how J. Managed the early stages of the business. He hadmade a good start long before I joined him. But only an Irishman, Ithink, could have done the thing at all. Only an Irishman is profaneenough to mock at the great god System, the golden image before whichwe are all bidden to fall down and worship "what time we hear thesound of" military music. Only an Irishman will venturelight-heartedly to take short cuts through regulations. It is ourcapacity for doing things the wrong way which makes us valuable tothe Empire, and they ought to decorate us oftener than they do forour insubordination. 

There was an Irishman, so I am told, in the very early days of thewar who created hospital trains for our wounded by going about theFrench railways at night with an engine and seizing waggons, one atthis station, one at that. He bribed the French station masters whohappened to be awake. It was a lawless proceeding, but, thanks tohim, there were hospital trains. An Englishman would have writtenletters about the pressing need and there would not have beenhospital trains for a long time. J. Did nothing like that. There wasno need for such violence. Both he and the boys had good friends. Every one wanted to help, and in the end something got done. 

A scheme of physical training was arranged for the boys and they wereplaced under the charge of special sergeants. Their names wereregistered. I think they were "plotted" into a diagram and exhibitedin curves, which was not much use to them, but helped to soothe thenerves of authorities. To the official mind anything is hallowed whenit is reduced to curves. The boys underwent special medicalexaminations, were weighed and tested at regular intervals. Finally aclub was established for them. 

At that point the Y. M. C. A. Came to our aid. It gave us the use of oneof the best buildings in the camp, originally meant for an officers'club. It was generous beyond hope. The house was lighted, heated, furnished, in many ways transformed, at the expense of the Y. M. C. A. We were supplied with a magic-lantern, books, games, boxing gloves, apiano, writing-paper, everything we dared to ask for. Without thehelp of the Y. M. C. A. That club could never have come into existence. And the association deserves credit not only for generosity inmaterial things, but for its liberal spirit. The club was not runaccording to Y. M. C. A. Rules, and was an embarrassing changeling childin their nursery, just as it was a suspicious innovation under themilitary system. 

We held an opening meeting, and the colonel--one of our most helpfulfriends--agreed to give the boys an address. I wonder if any otherclub opened quite as that one. In our eagerness to get to work wetook possession of our club house before it was ready for us. Therewas no light. There was almost no furniture. There was noorganisation. We had very little in the way of settled plan. But wehad boys, eight or nine hundred of them, about double as many as thelargest room in the building would hold. 

They were marched down from their various camps by sergeants. For themost part they arrived about an hour before the proper time. Thesergeants, quite reasonably, considered that their responsibilityended when the boys passed through the doors of the club. The boystook the view that at that moment their opportunity began. 

They rioted. Every window in the place was shattered. Everything elsebreakable--fortunately there was not much--was smashed into smallbits. A Y. M. C. A. Worker, a young man lent to us for the occasion, andrecommended as experienced with boys' clubs in London, fled to asmall room and locked himself in. The tumult became so terrific thatan officer of high standing and importance, whose office was in theneighbourhood, sent an orderly to us with threats. It was one of theoccasions on which it is good to be an Irishman. We have beenaccustomed to riots all our lives, and mind them less than most otherpeople. We know--this is a fact which Englishmen find it difficult tograsp--that cheerful rioters seldom mean to do any serious mischief. 

Yet, I think, even J. 's heart must have failed him a little. Verysoon the colonel, who was to open the club with his address, wouldarrive. He was the best and staunchest of friends. He had foughtbattles for the club and patiently combated the objections in highquarters. But he did like order and discipline. 

It was one of our fixed principles, about the only fixed principle wehad at first, that the club was to be run by moral influence, not bymeans of orders and threats. Our loyalty to principle was never morehighly tried. It seems almost impossible to bring moral influence tobear effectively when you cannot make yourself heard and cannot moveabout. Yet, somehow, a kind of order was restored; and there was nouncertainty about the cheers with which the colonel was greeted whenhe entered the room. The boys in the other rooms who could not seehim cheered frantically. The boys on the balcony, the boys standingin the window frames, all cheered. They asked nothing better than tobe allowed to go on cheering. 

With the colonel were one or two other officers, our benefactor, thelocal head of the Y. M. C. A. , and a solitary lady, Miss N. I do notknow even now how she got there or why she came, but she was not halfan hour in the room before we realised that she was the woman, theone woman in the whole world, for our job. Miss N. Was born to dealwith wild boys. The fiercer they are the more she loves them, and thewickeder they are the more they love her. We had a struggle to getMiss N. Oddly enough she did not at first want to come to the club, being at the time deeply attached to some dock labourers among whomshe worked in a slum near the quay. The Y. M. C. A. --she belonged tothem--did not want to part with her. But we got her in the end, andshe became mistress, mother, queen of the club. 

The colonel's speech was a success, a thing which seemed beforehandalmost beyond hope. He told those boys the naked truth aboutthemselves, what they were, what they had been, and what they mightbe. They listened to him. I found out later on that those boys wouldlisten to straight talk on almost any subject, even themselves. Alsothat they would not listen to speech-making of the ordinary kind. Isometimes wonder what will happen when they become grown men andacquire votes. How will they deal with the ordinary politician?

I cherish vivid recollections of the early days of the club. I thinkof J. , patient and smiling, surrounded by a surging crowd of boys allclamouring to talk to him about this or that matter of deep interestto them. J. Had an extraordinary faculty for winning the confidenceof boys. 

There were evenings, before the electric light was installed andbefore we had any chairs, when Miss N. Sat on the floor and playeddraughts with boys by the light of a candle standing in its owngrease. I have seen her towed by the skirt through the rooms of theclub by a boy whom the others called "Darkie, " an almost perfectspecimen of the London gutter snipe. There was a day when her pursewas stolen. But I think the rest of the club would have lynched thethief if they could have caught him. 

There were wild boxing bouts which went on in pitch darkness, afterthe combatants had trampled on the candle. There was one evening whenI came on a boy lying flat on his back on the floor hammering thekeys of the piano, our new piano, with the heels of his boots. Thetuner told me afterwards that he broke seventeen strings. 

But we settled down by degrees. We had lectures every afternoon whichwere supposed to be--I think actually were--of an educative kind. Attendance at these lectures was compulsory. The boys were paradedand marched to the club. As we had not space in our lecture room formore than half our members, we had one set of boys on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, another on Tuesdays, Thursdays, andSaturdays. Each lecturer delivered himself twice. 

The business of keeping up a supply of lectures was not so difficultas we expected. Officers were very kind and offered us the mostamazing collection of subjects. The secretary of many a literarysociety at home would be envious of our list. We accepted every offerwe got, no matter how inappropriate the subject seemed to be. 

It was impossible to tell beforehand which lectures would be popularand which would fail. Military subjects were of course common. We had"The Navy" with lantern slides. M. Gave that lecture, but all hisbest slides were banned by the censor, for fear, I suppose, that wemight have a German spy among us and that he would telegraph toBerlin a description of a light cruiser if M. Exhibited one upon thescreen. We had "Men who have won the V. C. " with lantern slides. Thatwas, as was expected, a success. But we also had "Napoleon'sCampaigns" by a Cambridge professor of history, illustrated bynothing better than a few maps drawn on a blackboard. To ouramazement that was immensely popular. We had "How an Army is fed, " byan A. S. C. Officer, the only lecture which produced a vigorousdiscussion afterwards. 

But we did not confine ourselves to military subjects. We hadlectures on morals, which were sometimes a little confusing. Onelecturer, I remember, starting from the fact that the boys hadmisstated their ages to the recruiting officers when they enlisted, hammered home the fact that all lies are disgraceful, and thereforeour boys ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Anotherlecturer, a month later, starting from the same fact, took the linethat it was possible to be _splendide mendax_, and that we had goodreason to be extremely proud all our lives of the lie told in therecruiting office. 

Manners are more or less connected with morals, and we had lectureson manners; that is to say, on saluting, which is the beginning andending of good manners in the army. A good many civilians, especiallythose of the intellectual "conchie" kind, are inclined to smile atthe importance soldiers attach to saluting. Our lecturer convincedme--I hope he convinced the rest of his audience--that saluting issomething more than a piece of tiresome ritual, that it is theexternal expression of certain very great ideas. 

Occasionally, but not often, we were in difficulties about ourlectures. Some one at home sent us a present of a beautiful set oflantern slides, illustrating a tour in Egypt. They were such fineslides that it seemed a pity to waste them. But for a long time wecould not find any one who knew enough about Egypt to attempt averbal accompaniment of the slides. 

At last we got a volunteer. He said frankly that he did not know halfthe places we had pictures of, but offered to do his best. He didexceedingly well with the places he did know, making the tombs of theancient Pharaohs quite interesting to the boys. But he was aconscientious man. He refused to invent history to suit strangepictures. When anything he did not recognise was thrown on the screenhe dismissed it rapidly. "This, " he would say, "is another tomb, probably of another king, " or "This is a camel standing beside aruined archway. " Every one was thoroughly satisfied. 

We had another set of slides which gave us some trouble, a series ofpictures of racing yachts under sail. I had to take those on myself, and I was rather nervous. I need not have been. The boys in that clubwere capable of taking an interest in any subject under the sun. Before I got to the last slide the audience was ready to shout thename of every sail on a racing cutter, and could tell withouthesitation whether a yacht on a run was carrying her spinnaker on theport or starboard hand. They say that all knowledge is useful. I hopethat it is. 

Once or twice a lecturer failed us at the last moment without givingus notice. Then J. And I had to run an entertainment of aninstructive kind extempore. J. Was strong on personal hygiene. Hemight start with saluting or the theft of Miss N. 's purse, our greatclub scandal, but he worked round in the end to soap and toothbrushes. My own business, if we were utterly driven against the wall, was to tell stories. 

The most remarkable and interesting lecture we ever had was given onone of those emergency occasions by one of our members. Hevolunteered an account of his experiences in the trenches. He cannothave been much more than seventeen years old, and ought never to havebeen in the trenches. He was undersized and, I should say, of poorphysique. If the proper use of the letter "h" in conversation is anytest of education, this boy must have been very little educated. Hisvocabulary was limited, and many of the words he did use are not tobe found in dictionaries. But he stood on the platform and for halfan hour told us what he had seen, endured, and felt, with astraightforward simplicity which was far more effective than any art. He disappeared from our midst soon afterwards, and I have never seenhim since. I would give a good deal now to have a verbatim report ofthat lecture of his. 

When the lecture of the afternoon was over, the club amused itself. Attendance was no longer compulsory. Boys came and went as theychose. Order was maintained and enforced by a committee of the boysthemselves. It met once a week, and of all the committees I have everknown that one was the most rigidly businesslike. I cannot imaginewhere the secretary gained his experience of the conduct of publicbusiness; but his appeals to the chair when any one wandered from thesubject under discussion were always made with reason, and heunderstood the difference between an amendment and a substantiveresolution. 

The only difficulty we ever had with that committee arose from itspassion for making rules. Our idea for the management of the club wasto have as few rules as possible. The committee, if unchecked, wouldhave out-Heroded the War Office itself in multiplying regulations. Iam inclined to think that it is a mistake to run institutions onpurely democratic lines, not because reasonable liberty woulddegenerate into licence, but because there would be no liberty atall. If democracy ever comes to its own, and the will of the peopleactually prevails, we may all find ourselves so tied up with lawsregulating our conduct that we will wish ourselves back under thecontrol of a tyrant. 

It was during those hours of recreation that Miss N. Reigned over theclub. She ran a canteen for the boys, boiling eggs, serving tea, cocoa, malted milk, bread-and-butter, and biscuits. She played games. She started and inspired sing-songs. She listened with sympathy whichwas quite unaffected to long tales of wrongs suffered, of woes and ofjoys. She was never without a crowd of boys round her, often clingingto her, and the offers of help she received must have beenembarrassing to her. 

Miss N. Had a little room of her own in the club. She furnished itvery prettily, and we used to pretend to admire the view from thewindows. Once we tried to persuade an artist who happened to be incamp to make a sketch from that window. The artist shrank from thetask. The far background was well enough, trees on the side of ahill; but the objects in the middle distance were a railway line anda ditch full of muddy water. In the foreground there were twoincinerators, a dump of old tins, and a Salvation Army hut. I daresay the artist was right in shrinking from the subject. 

In that little room of hers, Miss N. Had tea parties every day beforethe afternoon lecture. I was often there. Sometimes I brought M. Withme. Always there were boys, as many as the room would hold, oftenmore than it held comfortably. _Pain d'épice_ is not my favouritefood in ordinary life, but I ate it with delight in that company. Noone, on this side of the grave, will ever know how much Miss N. Didfor those boys in a hundred ways. I feebly guess, because I know whather friendship meant to me. I was, I know, a trial to her. My laxchurchmanship must have shocked her. My want of energy must haveannoyed her. But she remained the most loyal of fellow-workers. 

There were breakfast-parties, as well as tea-parties, in Miss N. 'sroom on Sunday mornings. We had a celebration of the Holy Communionat 6 o'clock and afterwards we breakfasted with Miss N. The memoryof one Sunday in particular remains with me. On Easter Sunday in 1915I celebrated on board the _Lusitania_, a little way outside theharbour of New York, the congregation kneeling among the arm-chairsand card-tables of the great smoke-room on the upper deck. In 1916 Iread the same office in the class-room of the Y. S. C. , with a roughwooden table for an altar, a cross made by the camp carpenter and twocandles for furniture, and boys, confirmed ten days before, they andMiss N. , for congregation. Afterwards, in her little room, we had thehappiest of all our parties. Surely our Easter eggs were good to eat. 

I have written of the members of the Y. S. C. As boys. They were boys, but every now and then one or another turned out to be very much aman in experience. There was one whom I came to know particularlywell. He had been "up the line" and fought. He had been sent downbecause at the age of eighteen he could not stand the strain. 

I was present in our little military church when he was baptized, andon the same afternoon confirmed by Bishop Bury. I gave him hisconfirmation card and advised him to send it home to his mother forsafety. "I think, sir, " he said, "that I would rather send it to mywife. " He was a fellow-citizen of mine, born and bred in Belfast. WeUlstermen are a forward and progressive people. 

CHAPTER X

THE DAILY ROUND

In the camp in which I was first stationed there was a story currentwhich must, I think, have had a real foundation in fact. It was toldin most messes, and each mess claimed the hero of it as belonging toits particular camp. It told of a man who believed that the place inwhich we were was being continuously and severely shelled by theGermans. He is reported to have said that war was not nearly sodangerous a thing as people at home believed, for our casualties wereextraordinarily few. Indeed, there were no casualties at all, and theshelling to which he supposed himself to be subjected was the mostfutile thing imaginable. 

A major, a draft-conducting officer, who happened to be with us oneday when this story was told, improved on it boldly. 

"As we marched in from the steamer to-day, " he said, "we passed alarge field on the right of the road about a mile outside thecamp--perhaps you know it?"

"Barbed wire fence across the bottom of it, " I said, "and then aditch. "

"Exactly, " said the major. "Well, one of the N. C. O. 's in my draft, quite an intelligent man, asked me whether that was the firing lineand whether the ditch was the enemy's trench. He really thought theGermans were there, a hundred yards from the road we were marchingalong. "

I daresay the original story was true enough. Even the major'simproved version of it may conceivably have been true. The ordinaryprivate, and indeed the ordinary officer, when he first lands inFrance, has the very vaguest idea of the geography of the country orthe exact position of the place in which he finds himself. For all heknows he may be within a mile or two of Ypres. And we certainly livedin that camp with the sounds of war in our ears. We had quite near usa----Perhaps even now I had better not say what the establishmentwas; but there was a great deal of business done with shells, andguns of various sizes were fired all day long. In the camp we heardthe explosions of the guns. By going a very little way outside thecamp we could hear the whine of the shells as they flew through theair. We could see them burst near various targets on a stretch ofwaste marshy ground. 

No one could fail to be aware that shells were being fired in hisimmediate neighbourhood. It was not unnatural for a man to supposethat they were being fired at him. From early morning until dusksquads of men were shooting, singly or in volleys, on two ranges. Thecrackling noise of rifle fire seldom died wholly away. By climbingthe hill on which M. Lived, we came close to the schools of themachine gunners, and could listen to the stuttering of their infernalinstruments. There was another school near by where bombers practisedtheir craft, making a great deal of noise. So far as sound wasconcerned, we really might have been living on some very quietsection of the front line. 

We were in no peril of life or limb. There were only two ways inwhich the enemy worried us. His submarines occasionally raided theneighbourhood of our harbour. Then our letters were delayed and oursupply of English papers was cut off. And we had Zeppelin scares nowand then. I have never gone through a Zeppelin raid, and do not wantto. The threat was quite uncomfortable enough for me. 

My first experience of one of these scares was exciting. I had dined, well, at a hospitable mess and retired afterwards to the colonel'sroom to play bridge. There were four of us--the colonel, my friendJ. , the camp adjutant, and myself. On one side of the room stood thecolonel's bed, a camp stretcher covered with army blankets. In acorner stood a washhand-stand, with a real earthenware basin on it. Abasin of this sort was a luxury among us. I had a galvanised iron potand was lucky. Many of us washed in folding canvas buckets. But thatcolonel did himself well. He had a stove in his room which did notsmoke, and did give out some heat, a very rare kind of stove in thearmy. He had four chairs of different heights and shapes and a tablewith a dark-red table-cloth. Over our heads was a bright, unshadedelectric light. Our game went pleasantly until--the colonel haddeclared two no-trumps--the light went out suddenly without warning. 

The camp adjutant immediately said nasty things about the RoyalEngineers, who are responsible for our lights. J. Suggested aZeppelin scare. The colonel, who wanted to play out his hand, shouted for an orderly and light. The orderly brought us a miserablyinefficient candle in a stable lantern and set it in the middle ofthe table. It was just possible to see our cards, and we played on. Iremembered Stevenson's shipwrecked crew who gambled all night onMedway Island by the light of a fire of driftwood. I thought of themen in Hardy's story who finished their game on the grass by thelight of a circle of glow-worms. Our position was uncomfortable butpicturesque. 

Another orderly came in and said that the camp adjutant was wanted atonce in his office. We questioned the man and he confirmed J. 's fearthat a Zeppelin scare was in full swing. The adjutant was in theposition of dummy at the moment and could be spared. We played on. Then a note was brought to J. He was ordered to report at once at thecamp dressing station, and there to stand by for casualties. Thecolonel picked up the cards and shuffled them thoughtfully. He meant, I think, to propose a game of bezique or picquet. But a note came forhim, an order, very urgent, that all lights should immediately beextinguished. He opened the stable lantern and, sighing, blew out ourcandle. 

"One blessing about this Zeppelin business, " said the colonel, "isthat I don't have to turn out the men on parade. "

I was anxious and a little worried because I did not know what myduties were in a crisis of the kind. "I suppose, " I said, "that Iought to stand by somewhere till the show is over. " I looked towardsthe colonel for advice, locating him in the darkness by the glow ofhis cigar. 

"I advise you to go to bed, " he said. "I mean to. Most likely nothingwill happen. "

I felt my way to the door. The colonel, taking me by the arm, guidedme out of his camp and set me on the main road which led to myquarters. 

I stumbled along through thick darkness, bumping into things whichhurt me. I was challenged again and again by sentries, alert and Ithink occasionally jumpy. One of them, I remember, refused to besatisfied with my reply, though I said "Friend" loudly and clearly. Ihave never understood why a mere statement of that kind made by astranger in the dark should satisfy an intelligent sentry. But itgenerally does. 

This particular man--he had only landed from England the daybefore--took a serious view of his duty. For all he knew I mighthave been a Zeppelin commander, loaded with bombs. He ordered me toadvance and be examined. I obeyed, of course, and at first thoughtthat he was going to examine me thoroughly, inside and out, with abayonet. That is what his attitude suggested. I was quite relievedwhen he marched me into the guard-room and paraded me before thesergeant. The sergeant, fortunately, recognised me and let me go. Otherwise I suppose I should have spent a very uncomfortable night ina cell. I am not at all sure that military law allows a prisoner'sfriends to bail him out. 

I reached my hut at last and made haste to get into bed. It was amost uncomfortable business. I could not find my toothbrush. I spenta long time feeling about for my pyjamas. I did not dare even tostrike a match. An hour later some hilarious subalterns walked alongthe whole row of huts and lobbed stones on to the roofs. The idea wasto suggest to the inmates that bombs were falling in large numbers. It was a well-conceived scheme; for the roofs of those huts were ofcorrugated iron and the stones made an abominable noise. But I do notthink that any one was deceived. A major next door to me sworevehemently. 

Our French neighbours did not take much notice of these alarms. Therow of lamps in the little railway station near the camp shonecheerfully while we were plunged in gloom. The inhabitants of thehouses on the hill at the far side of the valley did not even takethe trouble to pull down their window blinds. Either the French aremuch less afraid of Zeppelins than we are or they never heard thealarms which caused us so much inconvenience. These scares becamevery frequent in the early spring of 1916 and always worried us. 

After a while some one started a theory that there never had been anyZeppelins in our neighbourhood and that none were likely to come. Itwas possible that our local Head-Quarters Staff was simply playingtricks on us. An intelligent staff officer would, in time, be almostsure to think of starting a Zeppelin scare if he had not much tooccupy his mind. He would defend his action by saying that an alarmof any kind keeps men alert and is good for discipline. 

But staff officers, though skilful in military art, are not alwayswell up in general literature. Ours, perhaps, had never read the"Wolf, wolf, " fable, and did not anticipate the result of theiraction. As time went on we took less and less notice of the Zeppelinwarnings until at last the whole thing became a joke. If a Zeppelinhad come to us towards the end of March it would have had the wholebenefit of all the lights which shone through our tents and windows, whatever that guidance might be worth. 

The Zeppelins which did not come caused us on the whole moreannoyance than the submarines which did. It was, of course, irritating when the English post did not arrive at the usual hour. Italways did arrive in the end--being carried by some other route, though our own proper steamer neither went in nor out. 

But if we, the regular inhabitants of the place, suffered littleinconvenience from the submarines, the officers and men who passedthrough the town on their way home on leave were sometimes held upfor days. The congestion became acute. Beds were very difficult toobtain. The officers' club filled up and the restaurants reaped aharvest. 

The authorities on these occasions behave in a peculiarly irritatingway. They will not, perhaps cannot, promise that their steamer willsail at any particular hour or indeed on any particular day. Norwill they give an assurance that it will not sail. The eagertraveller is expected to sit on his haversack on the quay and watch, day and night, lest the ship of his desire should slip out unknown tohim. It is, of course, impossible for any one to do this for verylong, and an M. L. O. --M. L. O. 's are sometimes humane men--will drop ahint that the steamer will stay where she is for two or even fourhours. Then the watchers make a dash for club, hotel, or restaurant, at their own risk, of course; the M. L. O. Gives no kind of promise orguarantee. 

There was at that time, probably still is, a small shop not far fromBase Head-Quarters which had over its door the words "Mary's Tea, " inlarge letters. The name was an inspiration. It suggested "England, home, and beauty, " everything dearest to the heart of the youngofficer in a strange land. As a matter of fact there was nothingEnglish about the place. The cakes sold were delightfully French. Thetea was unmistakably not English. The shop was run by five or sixgirls with no more than a dozen words of English among them. When theleave boat was held up "Mary's Tea" was crammed with young officers. 

I remember seeing a party of these cheery boys sitting down to asquare meal one afternoon. They were still wearing their trench bootsand fighting kit. They were on their way home from the front and theywere hungry, especially hungry for cakes. There were four of them. "Mary"--they called all the girls Mary, the name of the shop invitedthat familiarity--brought them tea and a dish piled high with cakes, frothy meringues, pastry sandwiches with custard in the middle, highly ornamental sugary pieces of marzipan, all kinds of delicateconfectionery. After the fare of the trenches these were dreams ofdelight, but not very satisfying. The dish was cleared. Thespokesman, the French scholar of the party, demanded more. "Mary"--hedid not translate the name into "Marie"--"_encore gâteaux, au moinstrois douzaine_. " Mary, smiling, fetched another dish. I suppose shekept count. I did not, nor I am sure did the feasters. They finishedthose and repeated the encore. The _au moins trois douzaine_ was aridiculous under-estimate of their requirements. It might have beenmultiplied by five. 

In the end there were no more _gâteaux_. The stock was sold out. Itwas not a large shop and many others had drunk tea there thatafternoon. The boys paid their bill and left, still astonishinglycheerful. I cannot remember whether the boat sailed that night ornot. I hope it did. I hope the sea was rough. I should not like tothink that those boys--the eldest of them cannot have beentwenty-one--suffered from indigestion during their leave. Nothing buta stormy crossing would have saved them. 

If the spirit of the playing fields of our public schools won, asthey say, our great-grandfathers' war, the spirit of the tuck shop isshowing up in this one. The lessons learned as boys in thoseexcellent institutions have been carried into France. Tea shops andrestaurants at the bases, audacious _estaminets_ near the front, witness to the fact that we wage war with something of the spirit ofschoolboys with pocket money to spend on "grub. "

Nobody will grudge our young officers their boyish taste for innocentfeasts. It is a boys' war anyway. Everything big and bright in it, the victories we have won, the cheerfulness and the enduring and thedaring, go to the credit of the young. It is the older men who havedone the blundering and made the muddles, whenever there have beenblundering and muddles. 

"Mary's Tea" was for officers. The men were invited to "EnglishSoldiers' Coffee. " It, too, was a tea shop and had a good position inone of the main streets of the town. But the name was not so welldevised as Mary's Tea. It puzzled me for some time and left mewondering what special beverage was sold inside. I discovered at lastthat "Coffee" was a thoughtful translation of _Café_, a word whichmight have been supposed to puzzle an English soldier, though indeedvery few French words puzzle him for long. 

I was never inside "English Soldiers' Coffee. " But I have no doubt itwould have been just as popular if it had called itself a _café_ oreven an _estaminet_. The case of "Mary's Tea" was different. Its namemade it. Half its customers would have passed it by if it hadannounced itself unromantically as "Five o'clock" or "Afternoon Tea. "

CHAPTER XI

ANOTHER JOURNEY

"_'Tis but in vain for soldiers to complain. _" That jingle occursover and over again in Wolfe Tone's autobiography. It contains hisphilosophy of life. I learned to appreciate the wisdom of it before Ihad been a week in the army. I said it over and over to myself. If Ihad kept a diary I should have written it as often as Wolfe Tone did. I had need of all its consolation when the time came for me to leaveH. 

One evening--I was particularly busy at the moment in the Y. S. C. --anorderly summoned me to the chaplain's office to answer a telephonecall. I learned that orders had come through for my removal from H. To B. I had twenty-four hours' notice. That is more than most menget, double as much as an officer gets who is sent up the line. Yet Ifelt irritated. I am getting old and I hate being hustled. Also Ifelt quite sure that there was no need for any kind of hurry. 

As it appeared in the end I might just as well have had three or fourmore days quietly at H. And started comfortably. I arrived at mydestination, a little breathless, to find I was not wanted for aweek. My new senior chaplain was greatly surprised to see me. Mypredecessor had not given up the post I was to fill. There wasnothing for me to do and nowhere for me to go. I spent several days, most unprofitably, in B. Which I might have spent usefully in H. Butthis is the way things are done in the army, sometimes; in theChaplains' Department generally. And "_'Tis but in vain for soldiersto complain_. "

I fully expected to make a bad start on my new journey. Having beenfussed I was irritable. I had spent a long day trying to do twentythings in a space of time which would barely have sufficed for ten ofthem. I had been engaged in an intermittent struggle with variousauthorities for permission to take my servant with me, a matter whichmy colonel arranged for me in the end. 

I was in the worst possible mood when I reached the station fromwhich I had to start--a large shed, very dimly lit, designed forgoods traffic, not for passengers. Oddly enough I began to recover mytemper the moment I entered the station. I became aware that thewhole business of the starting of this great supply train was almostperfectly organised, so well organised that it ran more smoothly, with less noise and agitation, than goes to the nightly starting ofthe Irish mail from Euston. 

The train itself, immensely long, was drawn up the whole length ofthe station and reached out for a distance unknown to me into thedarkness beyond the station. There were passenger coaches and horsewaggons. Every waggon was plainly labelled with the number of men togo in it and the name of the unit to which they belonged. The windowsof every compartment of the passenger coaches bore the names of fourofficers. A fool could have been in no doubt about where he had togo. The fussiest traveller could have had no anxiety about finding aseat. Each party of men was drawn up opposite its own part of thetrain. The men's packs and arms were on the ground in front of them. They waited the order to take their places. Competent N. C. O. 's withlanterns walked up and down the whole length of the station, readywith advice and help when advice and help were needed. 

It was my good fortune that I had to visit in his office the R. T. O. , the organising genius of the start. My servant arrived at the lastmoment, an unexpected traveller for whom no provision had been made. The order which permitted him to accompany me reached him only afterI had left the camp. I fully expected to be snubbed, perhaps cursed, by that R. T. O. I was an utterly unimportant traveller. I wasupsetting, at the very moment of starting, his thought-outarrangements. He would have been fully justified in treating me withscant courtesy. 

I found him cool, collected, complete master of every detail. He wasfriendly, sympathetic, ready with an instant solution of thedifficulty of my servant. He even apologised--surely an unnecessaryapology--for the discomfort I was likely to suffer through having tospend the night in a compartment with three other officers. I do notknow the name of that R. T. O. I wish I did. I can only hope that hisabilities have been recognised and that he is now commander-in-chiefof all R. T. O. 's. 

The night was not very unpleasant after all. My threefellow-travellers were peaceable men who neither snored nor kickedwildly when asleep. I slumbered profoundly and did not wake till thetrain came to a standstill on an embankment. There was no obviousreason why the train should have stopped in that particular place forhalf an hour or why it should have spent another three-quarters of anhour in covering the last mile which separated us from the station. But I know by experience that trains, even in peace time, become veryleisurely in approaching that particular city. They seem to wanderall round the place before finally settling down. 

In peace time, travelling as a tourist, one does not complain. Thecity is rich in spires and there are nice views to be got from therailway carriage windows. We got rather too much of those views thatmorning. Even Wordsworth, though he did write an early morning sonneton Westminster Bridge, would not have cared to meditate on "HousesAsleep" for an hour and a quarter before he got a wash or anything toeat. 

I interviewed the R. T. O. When I reached the station and found that Icould not continue my journey till 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I wasnot altogether sorry to have the whole day before me in a town whichI had never visited. I recollected that I had a cousin stationedthere and made up my mind to rely on him, if I could find him, forentertainment. 

My servant's lot was less fortunate. He belonged, of course, to thatpart of the army which is officially described as "other ranks"; andonly commissioned officers are trusted to wander at will through thattown. The "other ranks" spend the day in the railway station. Theyare dependent on a Y. M. C. A. Canteen for food and on themselves foramusement. 

I spent a pleasant day, finding my cousin quite early and visitingwith him a large number of churches. Some day I mean to work outthoroughly the connection between that town and Ireland and discoverwhy pious Frenchmen dedicated several of their churches to Irishsaints. 

At 4 o'clock--I like to be in good time for trains--I went back tothe station. My servant was sitting patiently on my valise. A longtrain lay ready. As in the train in which I had travelled the nightbefore, all the coaches and waggons were carefully and clearlylabelled, but this time with the names of the places to which theywere going. I went the whole length of the train and read everylabel. No single carriage was labelled for B. , my destination. Iwalked all the way back again and read all the labels a second time. Then I fell back on the R. T. O. For guidance. I found not the man Ihad met in the morning, but a subordinate of his. 

"I'm going, " I said, "or rather I hope to go to B. What part of thetrain do you think I ought to get into?"

"What does your party consist of?" he asked. "How many men have you?"

"One, " I said. "You can hardly call it a party at all. There's onlymy servant and myself. "

He lost all interest in me at once. I do not wonder. A man who isaccustomed to deal with battalions, squadrons, and batteries cannotbe expected to pay much attention to a lonely padre. I quiteunderstood his feelings. 

"Still, " I said, "I've got to get there. "

"You can't get to B. In that train, " he said. "It doesn't go there. "

I was not prepared to sit down under that rebuff without a struggle. 

"The R. T. O. Who was here this morning, " I said, "told me to travel bythis train. "

"Sorry, " he said. "But you can't, or if you do you won't get to B. "

"How am I to get there?" I asked. 

"I don't know that you can. "

"Do you mean, " I said, "that no train ever goes there?"

He considered this and replied cautiously. 

"There might be a train to-morrow, " he said, "or next day. "

The prospect was not a pleasant one; but I knew that R. T. O. 's are notinfallible. Sometimes they have not the dimmest idea where trains aregoing. I left the office and wandered about the station until I foundthe officer in command of the train. He was a colonel, and I was, ofcourse, a little nervous about addressing a colonel. But this colonelhad kindly eyes and a sorrowful face. He looked like a man on whomfate had laid an intolerable burden. I threw myself on his mercy. 

"Sir, " I said, "I want to go to B. I am ordered to report myselfthere. I am trying to take my servant with me. What am I to do?"

That colonel looked at me with a slow, mournful smile. 

"This train, " he said, "isn't supposed to go to B. You can't expectme to take it there just to suit you?"

He waved his hand towards the train. It was enormously long. Alreadyseveral hundred men were crowding into it. I could not expect to havethe whole thing diverted from its proper course for my sake. I stoodsilent, looking as forlorn and helpless as I could. My one hope, Ifelt, lay in an appeal to that colonel's sense of pity. 

"We shall pass through T. To-morrow morning about 6 o'clock, " hesaid. 

That did not help me much. I had never heard of T. Before. Butsomething in the colonel's tone encouraged me. I looked up and hopedthat there were tears in my eyes. 

"T. , " said the colonel, "is quite close to B. In fact it is reallypart of B. , a sort of suburb. "

That seemed to me good enough. 

"Take me there, " I said, "and I'll manage to get a taxi orsomething. "

"But, " said the colonel, "my train does not stop at T. We simply passthrough the station. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll slow downas we go through. You be ready to jump out. Tell your servant tofling out your valise and jump after it. You won't have much time, for the platform isn't very long, but if you're ready and don'thesitate you'll be all right. "

I babbled words of gratitude. The prospect of a leap from a movingtrain at 6 a. M. Was exhilarating. I might hope that I should find myservant and my luggage rolling over me on the platform when I reachedit. Then all would be well. The colonel, moved to further kindness bymy gratitude, invited me to travel in a coach which was speciallyreserved for his use. 

The art of travelling comfortably in peace or war lies in knowingwhen to bully, when to bribe, and when to sue. Neither bullying norbribing would have got me to B. If I had relied on those methods Ishould not have arrived there for days, should perhaps never havearrived there, should certainly have been most uncomfortable. Byassuming the manner, and as far as possible the appearance, of asmall child lost in London I moved the pity of the only man who couldhave helped me. But those circumstances were exceptional. As ageneral rule I think bullying and bribing are better ways of gettingwhat you want on a journey. 

I travelled in great comfort. There were three of us--the colonel, acolonial commissioner, in uniform but otherwise unconnected with thearmy, and myself. There was also the colonel's servant, who cooked adinner for us on a Primus stove. 

The train stopped frequently at wayside stations. There was noconceivable reason why it should have stopped at all. We neitherdischarged nor took up any passengers. But the halts were a source ofentertainment for the men. Most of them and all the officers got outevery time the train stopped. It was the duty of the colonel, as O. C. Train, to see that they all got in again. 

It was a laborious job, not unlike that of a sheep dog. The colonialcommissioner and I tried to help. I do not think we were much use. But I have this to my credit. I carried a message to the enginedriver and told him to whistle loud and long before he started. Having read long ago Matthew Arnold's Essay on Heine, I know theFrench for "whistle" or a word which conveyed the idea of whistlingto the engine driver. 

When it became dark the worst of this labour was over for thecolonel. The men stayed in their carriages. I suppose they went tosleep. We dined. It was a pleasant and satisfying meal. We allcontributed to it. The colonel's servant produced soup, hot andstrong, tasting slightly of catsup, made out of small packets ofpowder labelled "Oxtail. " Then we had bully beef--perhaps the"unexpended portion" of the colonel's servant's day's rations--andsandwiches, which I contributed. By way of pudding we had bread andmarmalade. The colonial commissioner produced the marmalade from hishaversack. I had some cheese, a Camembert, and the colonel's servantbrought us sardines on toast, and coffee. We all had flasks and thecolonel kept a supply of Perrier water. Men have fared worse onsupply trains. 

After dinner I taught the colonel and the commissioner to play myfavourite kind of patience. I do not suppose the game was ever muchuse to the commissioner. In his colony life is a strenuous business. But I like to think that I did the colonel a good turn. His businesswas to travel up to the rail head in supply trains full of men, andthen to travel down again in the same train empty. When I realisedthat he had been at this work for months and expected to be at it foryears I understood why he looked depressed. Train commanding must bea horrible business, only one degree better than draft conducting. Toa man engaged in it a really absorbing kind of patience must be aboon. 

The next morning the colonel woke me early and warned me to be readyfor my leap. In due time he set me on the step of the carriage. Hetook all my coats, rugs, and sticks from me. The train slowed down. Icaught sight of the platform. The colonel said "Now. " I jumped. Mycoats and rugs fell round me in a shower. My servant timed the thingwell. My valise came to earth at one end of the platform. The man'sown kit fell close to me. He himself lit on his feet at the far endof the platform. The train gathered speed again. I waved a farewellto my benefactor and the colonial commissioner. 

CHAPTER XII

MADAME

Madame was certainly an old woman, if age is counted by years. Shehad celebrated her golden wedding before the war began. But in heartshe was young, a girl. 

I cherish, among many, one special picture of Madame. It was a fine, warm afternoon in early summer. The fountain at the lower end of thegarden spouted its little jet into the air. Madame loved thefountain, and set it working on all festive occasions and whenevershe felt particularly cheerful. I think she liked to hear the watersplashing among the water-lily leaves in the stone basin where thegoldfish swam. Behind the fountain the flowers were gay and the fruittrees pleasantly green round a marvellous terra-cotta figure, life-size, of an ancient warrior. Below the fountain was a square, paved court, sunlit, well warmed. 

Madame sat in a wicker chair, her back to the closed green jalousiesof the dining-room window. Beside her was her workbox. On her kneeswas a spread of white linen. Madame held it a sacred duty _visiter lalinge_ once a week; and no tear remained undarned or hole unpatchedfor very long. As she sewed she sang, in a thin, high voice, thegayest little songs, full of unexpected trills and little passages ofdancing melody. 

Madame was mistress. There was no mistake about that. Monsieur was aretired business man who had fought under General Faidherbe in theFranco-Prussian war. He was older than Madame, a very patient, quietgentleman. He was a little deaf, which was an advantage to him, forMadame scolded him sometimes. He read newspapers diligently, tendedthe pear trees in the garden, and did messages for Madame. 

There was also Marie, a distant cousin of Monsieur's, herself theowner of a small farm in Brittany, who was--I know no term whichexpresses her place in the household. She was neither servant norguest, and in no way the least like what I imagine a "lady-help" tobe. She was older than Madame, older, I fancy, even than Monsieur, and she went to Mass every morning. Madame was more moderate in herreligion. Monsieur, I think, was, or once had been, a littleanti-clerical. 

Madame was the most tender-hearted woman I have ever met. She lovedall living things, even an atrocious little dog called Fifi, halfblind, wholly deaf, and given to wheezing horribly. Only once did Isee her really angry. A neighbour went away from home for two days, leaving a dog tied up without food or water in his yard. We climbedthe wall and, with immense difficulty, brought the creature toMadame. She trembled with passion while she fed it. She would havedone bodily harm to the owner if she could. 

She did not even hate Germans. Sometimes at our midday meal Monsieurwould read from the paper an account of heavy German casualties or anestimate of the sum total of German losses. He chuckled. So many moredead Boches. So much the better for the world. But Madame alwayssighed. "_Les pauvres garçons_, " she said. "_C'est terrible, terrible. _" Then perhaps Monsieur, good patriot, asserted himself anddeclared that the Boche was better dead. And Madame scolded him forhis inhumanity. Our own wounded--_les pauvres blessés_--we mentionedas little as possible. Madame wept at the thought of them, and itwas not pleasant to see tears in her bright old eyes. 

But for all her tender-heartedness Madame did not, so far as I evercould discover, do much for the men of her own nation or of ours. AnEnglishwoman, in her position and with her vitality, would have saton half a dozen committees, would have made bandages at a War WorkDepot, or packed parcels for prisoners; would certainly have knittedsocks all day. Madame did no such things. She managed her own house, mended her own linen, and she darned my socks--which was I suppose, akind of war work, since I wore uniform. 

The activities of Englishwomen rather scandalised her. The town wasfull of nurses, V. A. D. 's, and canteen workers. Madame was toocharitable to criticise, but I think she regarded the _jeune filleAnglaise_ as unbecomingly emancipated. She would have been sorry tosee her own nieces--Madame had many nieces, but no child of herown--occupied as the English girls were. 

I have always wondered why Madame took English officers to board inher house. She did not want the money we paid her, for she andMonsieur were well off. Indeed she asked so little of us, and fed usso well, that she cannot possibly have made a profit. And we musthave been a nuisance to her. 

In England Madame would have been called "house proud. " She lovedevery stick of her fine old-fashioned furniture. Polishing of stairsand floors was a joy to her. We tramped in and out in muddy boots. Wescattered tobacco ashes. We opened bedroom windows, even on wetnights, and rain came in. We used monstrous and unheard-of quantitiesof water. Yet no sooner had one guest departed than Madame grewimpatient to receive another. 

On one point alone Madame was obstinate. She objected in thestrongest way to baths in bedrooms. As there was no bathroom in thehouse, this raised a difficulty. Madame's own practice--she onceexplained it to me--was to take her bath on the evening of the firstMonday in every month--in the kitchen, I think. My predecessors andmy contemporaries refused to be satisfied without baths. Madamecompromised. If they wanted baths they must descend to _le cave_, adeep underground cellar where Monsieur kept wine. 

I, and I believe I alone of all Madame's guests, defeated her. Ishould like to believe that she gave in to me because she loved me;but I fear that I won my victory by unfair means. I refused tounderstand one word that Madame said, either in French or English, about baths. I treated the subject in language which I am sure wasdark to her. I owned a bath of my own and gave my servant orders tobring up sufficient water every morning, whatever Madame said. Heobeyed me, and I washed myself, more or less. Madame took her defeatwell. She collected quantities of old blankets, rugs, sacks, and bedquilts. She spread them over the parts of the floor where my bath wasplaced. I tried, honourably, to splash as little as possible andalways stood on a towel while drying myself. 

After all Madame had reason on her side. Water is bad for polishedfloors, and it is very doubtful whether the human skin is any thebetter for it. Most of our rules of hygiene are foolish. We think adaily bath is wholesome. We clamour for fresh air. We fuss aboutdrains. Madame never opened a window and had a horror of a _courant__d'air_. The only drain connected with the house ran into the wellfrom which our drinking water came. Yet Madame had celebrated hergolden wedding and was never ill. Monsieur and Marie were even olderand could still thoroughly enjoy a _jour de fête_. 

Madame had a high sense of duty towards her guests. She and Mariecooked wonderful meals for us and even made pathetic efforts toproduce _le pudding_, a thing strange to them which they wereconvinced we loved. She mended our clothes and sewed on buttons. Shepressed us, anxiously, to remain _tranquille_ for a proper periodafter meals. 

She did her best to teach us French. She tried to induce me--sheactually had induced one of my predecessors--to write Frenchexercises in the evenings. She made a stringent rule that no word ofEnglish was ever to be spoken at meals. I think that this was a realself-denial to Madame. She knew a little English--picked up sixtyyears before when she spent one term in a school near Folkestone. Sheliked to air it; but for the sake of our education she deniedherself. We used to sit at dinner with a dictionary--English-Frenchand French-English--on the table. We referred to it when stuck, andon the whole we got on well in every respect except one. 

Madame had an eager desire to understand and appreciate Englishjokes, and of all things a joke is the most difficult to translate. Afellow-lodger once incautiously repeated to me a joke which he hadread in a paper. It ran thus: "First British Soldier (in a FrenchRestaurant): 'Waiter, this 'am's 'igh. 'Igh 'am. _Compris?_' SecondBritish Soldier: 'You leave it to me, Bill. I know the lingo. _Garçon, Je suis. _'"

I laughed. Madame looked at me and at W. , my fellow-lodger, anddemanded a translation of the joke. I referred the matter to W. HisFrench was, if possible, worse than mine, but it was he who hadstarted the subject. "Ham, " I said to him, "is _jambon_. Go ahead. "W. Went ahead, but "high" in the sense he wanted did not seem to bein the dictionary. I had a try when W. Gave up and began with anexplanation of the cockney's difficulty with the letter "h. " Madamesmiled uncomprehendingly. W. , who had studied the dictionary while Italked, made a fresh start at "_je suis_. " "_Je suis_--I am. _Jambon_--ham, _c'est à dire ''am' à Londres_. '" We worked away allthrough that meal. At supper, Madame, still full of curiosity, set usat it again. 

We pursued that joke for several days until we were all exhausted, and Madame, politely, said she saw the point, though she did not andnever will. I do not believe that joke can be translated into French. Months afterwards I had as fellow-lodger a man who spoke French welland fluently. I urged him to try if he could make Madame understand. He failed. 

Madame was most hospitable. She was neither worried nor cross when weasked friends to dine with us. Indeed she was pleased. But she likeddue notice so that she could devote proper attention to _la cuisine_. 

M. , who was at that time with a cavalry brigade, used to come andspend a night or two with me sometimes. He was a special favouritewith Madame and she used to try to load him with food when he wasleaving. One very wet day in late autumn, Madame produced a largebrown-paper bag and filled it with pears. She presented it to M. Witha pretty speech of which he did not understand a word. M. Wasseriously embarrassed. He liked Madame and did not want to hurt herfeelings; but he had before him a railway journey of some hours andthen five miles on horseback. It is impossible to carry a brown-paperbag full of pears on a horse through a downpour of rain. The baggets sopped at once and the pears fall through it. M. Pushed the bagback to Madame. 

"_Merci, merci_, " he said. "_Mais non, pas possible. _"

Madame explained that the pears were deliciously ripe, which wastrue. 

M. Said, "_À cheval, Madame, je voyage à cheval_. "

Madame pushed the bag into his hands. He turned to me. 

"For goodness' sake explain to her--politely, of course--that I can'ttake that bag of pears. I'd like to. They'd be a godsend to the mess. But I can't. "

Madame saw the impossibility in the end; but she stuffed as manypears as she could into his pocket, and he went off bulgingunbecomingly. 

M. Used to complain that he ate too much when he came to stay withme. I confess that our midday meal--we ate it at noon, conforming tothe custom of the house--was heavy. And Madame was old-fashioned inher idea of the behaviour proper to a hostess. She insisted on oureating whether we wanted to eat or not, and was vexed if we refusedsecond and even third helpings. 

Madame was immensely interested in food and we talked about marketingand cookery every day. I came, towards the end of my stay, to have afair knowledge of kitchen French. I could have attended cookerylectures with profit. I could even have taught a French servant howto stew a rabbit in such a way that it appeared at table brown, withthick brown sauce and a flavour of red wine. The marketing for thefamily was done by Madame and Marie, Marie in a high, stiff, whitehead-dress, carrying a large basket. 

On the subject of prices Madame was intensely curious. She wanted toknow exactly what everything cost in England and Ireland. I used towrite home for information, and then we did long and confusing sums, translating stones or pounds into kilos and shillings into francs;Monsieur intervening occasionally with information about the rate ofexchange at the moment. Madame insisted on taking this into accountin comparing the cost of living in the two countries. Then we used tobe faced with problems which I regard as insoluble. 

Perhaps a sum of this kind might be set in an arithmetic paper foradvanced students. "Butter is 2_s. _ 1_d. _ a pound. A kilo is rathermore than two pounds. The rate of exchange is 27·85. What would thatbutter cost in France?"

We had an exciting time when the municipal authorities of the town inwhich we lived introduced fixed prices. Madame, who is an entirelysensible woman, was frankly sceptical from the start about thepossibility of regulating prices. Gendarmes paraded the market-place, where on certain days the countrywomen sat in rows, their vegetables, fowl, eggs, and butter exposed for sale. They declined, of course, toaccept the fixed prices. Madame and her friends, though they hatedbeing overcharged, recognised the strength of the countrywomen'sposition. There was a combination between the buyers and sellers. 

The gendarmes were out-witted in various ways. One plan--Madameexplained it to me with delight--was to drop a coin, as if byaccident, into the lap of the countrywoman who was selling butter. Ten minutes later the purchaser returned and bought the butter underthe eyes of a satisfied policeman at the fixed price. The originalcoin represented the difference between what the butter woman waswilling to accept and what the authorities thought she ought to get. That experiment in municipal control of prices lasted about a month. Then the absurdity of the thing became too obvious. The French aremuch saner than the English in this. They do not go on pretending todo things once it becomes quite plain that the things cannot be done. 

Food shortage--much more serious now--was beginning to be felt whileI lived with Madame. There were difficulties about sugar, andMonsieur had to give up a favourite kind of white wine. But neitherhe nor Madame complained much; though they belonged to the _rentier_class and were liable to suffer more than those whose incomes werecapable of expansion. No one, so far as I know, appealed to them topractise economy in a spirit of lofty patriotism. They simply didwith a little less of everything with a shrug of the shoulders and asmiling reference to the good times coming _après la guerre_. And, onoccasion, economy was forgotten and we feasted. 

One of the last days I spent in Madame's house was New Year's Day, 1917. I and my fellow-lodger, another padre, were solemnly invited toa dinner that night. It was a family affair. All Madame's nieces, married and single, were there, and their small children, twogrand-nieces and a grand-nephew. Madame's one nephew, wounded in thedefence of Verdun, was there. 

Our usual table was greatly enlarged. The folding doors between thedrawing-room and dining-room were flung open. We had a blaze of lampsand candles. We began eating at 6. 30 p. M. ; we stopped shortly after10 p. M. But this was no brutal gorge. We ate slowly, withdiscrimination. We paused long between the courses. Once or twice wesmoked. Once the grand-niece and grand-nephew recited for us, standing up, turn about, on their chairs, and declaiming with fluencyand much gesture what were plainly school-learnt poems. One ofMadame's nieces, passing into the drawing-room, played us a pleasanttune on the piano. At each break I thought that dinner was over. Iwas wrong time after time. We talked, smoked, listened, applauded, and then more food was set before us. 

There were customs new to me. At the appearance of the plumpudding--a very English pudding--we all rose from our seats andwalked in solemn procession round the table. Each of us, as we passedthe sacred dish, basted it with a spoonful of blazing rum, and, aswe basted, made our silent wish. We formed pigs out of orange skinsand gave them lighted matches for tails. By means of these wediscovered which of us would be married or achieve other good fortunein the year to come. We drank five different kinds of wine, a sweetchampagne coming by itself, a kind of dessert wine, at the very endof dinner, accompanied by small sponge cakes. 

The last thing of all was, oddly enough, tea. Like most French tea itwas tasteless, but we remedied that with large quantities of sugarand we ate with it a very rich cake soaked in syrup, which would havedeprived the fiercest Indian tea of any flavour. 

I think Madame was supremely happy all the evening. I think every oneelse was happy too. I have never met more courteous people. In themidst of the most hilarious talk and laughter a niece would stoplaughing suddenly and repeat very slowly for my benefit what the funwas about. Even when the soldier nephew told stories which in Englandwould not have been told so publicly, a niece would take care that Idid not miss the point. 

Madame's drawing-room was very wonderful. At one time she had known apainter, a professor of painting in a school near her home. Headorned the walls of her drawing-room with five large oil-paintings, done on the plaster of the wall and reaching from the ceiling to verynear the floor. Four of them represented the seasons of the year, andthat artist was plainly a man who might have made a good incomedrawing pictures for the lids of chocolate boxes. His fur-clad ladyskating (Winter) would have delighted any confectioner. The fifthpicture was a farmyard scene in which a small girl appeared, feedingducks. This was the most precious of all the pictures. The littlegirl was Madame's niece, since married and the mother of a littlegirl of her own. 

The furniture was kept shrouded in holland and the jalousies werealways shut except when Madame exhibited the room. I saw thefurniture uncovered twice, and only twice. It was uncovered on theoccasion of the New Year's feast, and Madame displayed her room inall its glory on the afternoon when I invited to tea a lady who wasgoing to sing for the men in one of my camps. 

I think that all Madame's lodgers loved her, though I doubt if any ofthem loved her as dearly as I did. Letters used to arrive for herfrom different parts of the war area conveying news of the officerswho had lodged with her. She always brought them to me to translate. I fear she was not much wiser afterwards. She never answered any ofthem. Nor has she ever answered me, though I should greatly like tohear how she, Monsieur, Marie, Fifi, and Turque are getting on. Turque was a large dog, the only member of the household who was notextremely old. 

CHAPTER XIII

"THE CON. CAMP"

We always spoke of it, affectionately and proudly, as "the Con. Camp. " The abbreviation was natural enough, for "convalescent" is amouthful of a word to say, besides being very difficult to spell. Ihave known a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England come togrief over the consonants of the last two syllables in addressing anenvelope to me; and there was a story of a very august visitor, askedto write in an album, who inquired about a vowel and was given thewrong one by one of the staff. If those doubtful spellers had knownour pleasant abbreviation they would have escaped disaster. 

To us the "Con. " justified itself from every point of view. I am notsure that we had an equal right to the conceited use of the definitearticle. There are other "Con. " camps in France, many of them. Wespoke of them by their numbers. Ours had a number too, but we rarelyused it. We were _The_ Con. Camp. Our opinion was no doubtprejudiced; but the authorities seemed to share it. The Con. Camp wasone of the show places of the British Army. Distinguished visitorswere always brought there. 

The Government, the War Office, or whoever it is who settles suchthings, encourages distinguished visitors to inspect the war. Thereis a special officer set apart to conduct tourists from place toplace and to show them the things they ought to see. He is providedwith several motor-cars, a nice château, and a good cook. This issensible. If you want a visitor to form a favourable opinion ofanything, war, industry, or institution, you must make him fairlycomfortable and feed him well. 

Yet I think that the life of that officer was a tiresome one. Therewas very little variety in his programme. He showed the same thingsover and over again, and he heard the same remarks made over and overagain about the things he showed. Sometimes, of course, adistinguished visitor with a reputation for originality made a newremark. But that was worse. It is better to have to listen to anintelligent comment a hundred times than to hear an unintelligentthing said once. Any new remark was sure to be stupid, because allthe intelligent things had been said before. 

To us, who lived in the Con. Camp, distinguished visitors, thoughcommon, were not very tiresome. We were not obliged to entertain themfor very long at a time. They arrived at the camp about 3. 30 p. M. , and our C. O. Showed them round. After inspecting an incinerator, atent, a bath, a Y. M. C. A. Hut, and a kitchen, they came to the messfor tea. Our C. O. Was a man of immense courtesy and tact. He couldanswer the same question about an incinerator twice a week withoutshowing the least sign of ever having heard it before. 

I have often wondered who selected the distinguished visitors, and onwhat principle the choice was made. Whoever he was he cast his netwidely. 

Journalists of course abounded, American journalists chiefly--thiswas in 1916--but we had representatives of Dutch, Norwegian, Swiss, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and South American papers. Once we evenhad a Roumanian, a most agreeable man, but I never felt quite surewhether he was a journalist or a diplomatist. Perhaps he was both. 

Authors--writers of books rather than articles--were common andsometimes were quite interesting, though given to asking too manyquestions. It ought to be impressed on distinguished visitors that itis their business to listen to what they are told, and not to askquestions. 

Politicians often came. We once had a visit from Mr. Lloyd George, but I missed that to my grief. 

Generals and staff officers from neutral countries came occasionallyin very attractive uniforms. 

Doctors always seemed to me more successful than other people inkeeping up an appearance of intelligent interest. 

Ecclesiastics were dull. They evidently considered it bad form toallude to religion in any way and they did not know much aboutanything else. But ecclesiastics were rare. 

Royalties, I think, excited us most. We once had a visit from a king, temporarily exiled from his kingdom. He wore the most picturesqueclothes I have ever seen off the stage and he was very gracious. Allof our most strikingly wounded men--those who wore visiblebandages--were paraded for his inspection. He walked down the line, followed by a couple of aides-de-camp, some French officers of highrank, an English general, our C. O. , and then the rest of us. Our bandplayed a tune which we hoped was his national anthem. He did not seemto recognise it, so it may not have been the right tune though we haddone our best. 

He stopped opposite an undersized boy in a Lancashire regiment whohad a bandage round his head and a nose blue with cold. The monarchmade a remark in his own language. He must have known several otherlanguages--all kings do--but he spoke his own. Perhaps kings have to, in order to show patriotism. An aide-de-camp translated the remarkinto French. An interpreter retranslated it into English. Somebodyrepeated it to the Lancashire boy. I dare say he was gratified, but Iam sure he did not in the least agree with the king. What his Majestysaid was, "How splendid a thing to be wounded in this glorious war!"

It is easy to point a cheap moral to the tale. So kings find pleasurein their peculiar sport. So boys who would much rather be watchingfootball matches at home suffer and are sad. _Delirant reges_. _Plectuntur Achivi_. 

It is all as old as the hills, and republicans may make the most ofit. Yet I think that that king meant what he said, and would havefelt the same if the bandage had been round his own head and he hadbeen wearing the uniform of a private soldier. There are a few men inthe world who really enjoy fighting, and that king--unless his faceutterly belies him--is one of them. Nothing, I imagine, except hisgreat age, kept him out of the battles which his subjects fought. 

The Con. Camp deserved the reputation which brought us those flightsof distinguished visitors. I may set this down proudly without beingsuspected of conceit, for I had nothing to do with making the campwhat it was. Success in a camp or a battalion depends first on threemen--the C. O. , the adjutant, and the sergeant-major. We weresingularly fortunate in all three. 

The next necessity is what the Americans call "team work. " The wholestaff must pull together, each member of it knowing and trusting theothers. It was so in that camp. The result was fine, smooth-runningorganisation. No emergency disturbed the working of the camp. Nosudden call found the staff unprepared or helpless. So much, Ithink, any one visiting and inspecting the camp might have seen andappreciated. What a visitor, however intelligent, or an inspector, though very able, would not have discovered was the spirit whichinspired the discipline of the camp. 

Ours was a medical camp. We flew the Red Cross flag and our C. O. Wasan officer in the R. A. M. C. Doctors, though they belong to aprofession which exists for the purpose of alleviating humansuffering, are not always and at all times humane men. Like other menthey sometimes fall into the mistake of regarding discipline not as ameans but as an end in itself. In civil life the particular kind ofdiscipline which seduces them is called professional etiquette. Inthe army they become, occasionally, the most bigoted worshippers ofred-tape. When that happens a doctor becomes a fanatic more ruthlessthan an inquisitor of old days. 

In the Con. Camp the discipline was good, as good as possible; butour C. O. Was a wise man. He never forgot that the camp existed forthe purpose of restoring men's bodies to health and not as an exampleof the way to make rules work. The spirit of the camp was mostexcellent. Regulations were never pressed beyond the point at whichthey were practically of use. Sympathy, the sympathy which mannaturally feels for a suffering fellow-man, was not strangled byparasitic growths of red-tape. We had to thank the C. O. And after himthe adjutant for this. I met no officers more humane than these two, or more patient with all kinds of weakness and folly in the men withwhom they had to deal. 

They were well supported by their staff and by the voluntary workersin the two recreation huts run by the Y. M. C. A. And the CatholicWomen's League. The work of the C. W. L. Ladies differed a little fromthat of any recreation hut I had seen before. They made littleattempt to cater for the amusement of the men. They discouragedpersonal friendships between the workers and the men. They aimed at acertain refinement in the equipment and decoration of their hut. Theyprovided food of a superior kind, very nicely served. I think theirefforts were appreciated by many men. 

On the other hand the workers in the Y. M. C. A. Hut there as everywheremade constant efforts to provide entertainments of some kind. Threeor four days at least out of every week there was "something on. "Sometimes it was a concert, sometimes a billiard tournament, or aping-pong tournament, or a competition in draughts or chess. Occasionally, under the management of a lady who specialised in suchthings, we had a hat-trimming competition, an enormously popular kindof entertainment both for spectators and performers. Every suggestionof a new kind of entertainment was welcomed and great pains weretaken to carry it through. 

I only remember one occasion on which the leader of that hut shrankfrom the form of amusement proposed to him. The idea came from aCanadian soldier who said he wished we would get up a pie-eatingcompetition. This sounded exciting, and we asked for details. Thecompetitors, so the Canadian said, have their hands tied behind theirbacks, go down on their knees and eat open jam tarts which are laidflat on the ground. He said the game was popular in the part ofCanada he came from. I longed to see it tried; but the leader of thehut refused to venture on it. It would, he said, be likely to be verymessy. He was probably right. 

In that hut the workers aimed constantly at getting into personaltouch with the men. This was far easier in the Con. Camp than at thebase camp where "Woodbine" was. The numbers of men were smaller. As arule they stayed longer with us. But at best it is only possible fora canteen worker to make friends with a few men. With most of thosewho enter the hut she can have no personal relations. But I am surethat the work done is of immense value, and it is probably those whoneed sympathy and friendship most who come seeking it, a littleshyly, from the ladies who serve them. 

In normal times the Con. Camp received men from the hospitals; menwho were not yet fit to return to their regiments, but who had ceasedto need the constant ministrations of doctors and nurses. Theconditions of life were more comfortable than in base camps, muchmore comfortable than at the front or in billets. The men slept inlarge tents, warmed and well lighted. They had beds. The food wasgood and abundant. Great care and attention was given to the cooking. 

Much trouble was taken about amusements. The camp had a ground forfootball and cricket. It possessed a small stage, set up in one ofthe dining-halls, where plays were acted, a Christmas pantomimeperformed, and a variety entertainment given every week. There werewhist drives with attractive prizes for the winners. Duty was light. Besides the "fatigues" necessary for keeping the camp in order therewere route marches for those who could march, and an elaborate systemof physical exercises under trained instructors. 

The men remained in camp for varying periods. No man was kept therefor more than three months. But some men passed through the campbeing marked fit almost as soon as they left hospital. That was thenormal routine; but it happened once while I was there that thingsbecame very abnormal and the organisation of the camp was tested withthe utmost severity. 

Just before the Somme offensive began some mischievous devil put itinto the heads of the authorities to close down the only otherconvalescent camp in the neighbourhood. Its inmates were sent to usand we had to make room for them. Our cricket ground was sacrificed. Paths were run across the pitch. Tents were erected all over it. Mychurch tent became the home of a harmonium, the only piece ofecclesiastical salvage from the camp that was closed. Then my churchtent was taken from me, sacrificed like all luxuries to theaccommodation of men. Just as we were beginning to settle down againcame the Somme offensive. 

Like every one else in France we had long expected the great push. Yet when it came it came with startling suddenness. We went out onemorning to find the streets of the town crowded with ambulances. Theyfollowed each other in a long, slow, apparently unending processionacross the bridge which led into the town from the railway station. They split off into small parties turning to the left and skirtingthe sea shore along the broad, glaring parade, or climbed with manyhootings through the narrow streets of the old town. Staring afterthem as they passed us we saw inside figures of men very still, verysilent, bandaged, swathed. 

All the morning, hour after hour, the long procession went on. Theambulances, cleared of their burdens at the various hospitals, turnedat once and drove furiously back to the station. The hospitals werefilled and overfilled and overflowing. Men who could stand moretravelling were hurried to the hospital ships. Stretcher-bearerstoiled and sweated. The steamers, laden to their utmost capacity, slipped from the quay side and crept out into the Channel. Onehospital was filled and cleared three times in twenty-four hours. Thestrain on doctors and nurses must have been terrific. 

For one day we in the Con. Camp remained untouched by the rushingtorrent. Then our turn came. The number of lightly wounded men wasvery great. Many of them could walk and take care of themselves. Ahospital bed and hospital treatment were not absolutely necessary forthem. They were sent to us. They arrived in char-à-bancs, thirty at atime. We possessed a tiny hospital, meant for the accommodation ofcases of sudden illness in the camp. It was turned into adressing-station. 

The wounded men sat or lay on the grass outside waiting for theirturns to go in. They wore the tattered, mud-caked clothes of thebattlefield. The bandages of the casualty clearing-station were roundtheir limbs and heads. Some were utterly exhausted. They lay down. They pillowed their heads on their arms and sank into heavy slumber. Some, half hysterical with excitement, sat bolt upright and talked, talked incessantly, whether any one listened to them or not. Theylaughed too, but it was a horrible kind of laughter. Some seemedstupefied; they neither slept nor talked. They sat where they wereput, and stared in front of them with eyes which never seemed toblink. 

Most of the men were calm, quiet, and very patient. I think theirpatience was the most wonderful thing I ever saw. They suffered, hadsuffered, and much suffering was before them. Yet no word ofcomplaint came from them. They neither cursed God nor the enemy northeir fate. I have seen dumb animals, dogs and cattle, with this samelook of trustful patience in their faces. But these were men whocould think, reason, feel, and express themselves as animals cannot. Their patience and their quiet trustfulness moved me so that it washard not to weep. 

By twos and threes the men were called from the group outside andpassed through the door of the dressing-station. The doctors waitedfor them in the surgery. The label on each man was read, his woundexamined. A note was swiftly written ordering certain dressings andtreatment. The man passed into what had been the ward of thehospital. Here the R. A. M. C. Orderlies worked and with them two nursesspared for our need from a neighbouring hospital. Wounds werestripped, dressed, rebandaged. Sometimes fragments of shrapnel werepicked out. 

The work went on almost silently hour after hour from early in themorning till long after noon. Yet there was no hurry, no fuss, and Ido not think there was a moment's failure in gentleness. Some hardthings have been said about R. A. M. C. Orderlies and about nurses too. Perhaps they have been deserved occasionally. I saw their work atclose quarters and for many days in that one place, nowhere else andnot again there; but what I saw was good. 

With wounds dressed and bandaged, the men went out again. They wereled across the camp to the quartermaster's stores and given cleanunderclothes in place of shirts and drawers sweat soaked, muddy, caked hard with blood. With these in their arms they went to thebath-house, to hot water, soap, and physical cleanness. Then theywere fed, and for the moment all we could do for them was done. 

These were all lightly wounded men, but, even remembering that, theirpower of recuperation seemed astonishing. Some went after dinner totheir tents, lay down on their beds and slept. Even of them fewstayed asleep for very long. They got up, talked to each other, joined groups which formed outside the tents, wandered through thecamp, eagerly curious about their new surroundings. They found theirway into the recreation huts and canteens. They shouted and cheeredthe performers at concerts or grouped themselves round the piano andsang their own songs. Those who had money bought food at the counter. 

But many had no money and no prospect of getting any. They might havegone, not hungry, but what is almost worse, yearning for dainties andtobacco, if it were not for the generosity of their comrades. I haveseen men with twopence and no more, men who were longing for a dozenthings themselves, share what the twopence bought with comrades whohad not even a penny. I passed two young soldiers near the door of acanteen. One of them stopped me and very shyly asked me if I wouldgive him a penny for an English stamp. He fished it out from thepocket of his pay-book. It was dirty, crumpled, most of the gum gone, but unused and not defaced. I gave him the penny. "Come on, Sam, " hesaid, "we'll get a packet of fags. "

They say a lawyer sees the worst side of human nature. A parsonprobably sees the best of it; but though I have been a parson formany years and seen many good men and fine deeds, I have seen nothingmore splendid, I cannot imagine anything more splendid, than thecomradeship, the brotherly love of our soldiers. 

The very first day of the rush of the lightly wounded into our campbrought us men of the Ulster Division. I heard from the mouths of theboys I talked to the Ulster speech, dear to me from all theassociations and memories of my childhood. I do not suppose thatthose men fought better than any other men, or bore pain morepatiently, but there was in them a kind of fierce resentment. Theyhad not achieved the conquest they hoped. They had been driven back, had been desperately cut up. They had emerged from their great battlea mere skeleton of their division. 

But I never saw men who looked less like beaten men. Those Belfastcitizens, who sign Covenants and form volunteer armies at home, havein them the fixed belief that no one in the world is equal to them orcan subdue them. It seems an absurd and arrogant faith. But there isthis to be said. They remained just as convinced of their ownstrength after their appalling experience north of the Somme as theywere when they shouted for Sir Edward Carson in the streets ofBelfast. Men who believe in their invincibility the day after theyhave been driven back, with their wounds fresh and their bones achingwith weariness, are men whom it will be very difficult to conquer. 

Nothing was more interesting than to note the different moods ofthese wounded men. One morning, crossing the camp at about 7 o'clock, I met a Canadian, a tall, gaunt man. I saw at once that he had justarrived from the front. The left sleeve of his tunic was cut away. The bandage round his forearm was soiled and stained. His face wasunshaven and very dirty. His trousers were extraordinarily tatteredand caked with yellow mud. He had somehow managed to lose one bootand walked unevenly in consequence. I had heard the night beforesomething about the great and victorious fight in which this man hadbeen. I congratulated him. He looked at me with a slow, humoroussmile. "Well, " he drawled, "they certainly did run some. "

A Lancashire boy, undersized, anæmic-looking, his clothes hanginground him in strips, got hold of me one morning outside thedressing-station and told me in a high-pitched voice a most amazingstory. It was the best battle story I ever heard from the lips of asoldier, and the boy who told it to me was hysterical. He had beenburied twice, he and his officer and his Lewis gun, in the course ofan advance. He had met the Prussian Guard in the open, he and hiscomrades, and the famous crack corps had "certainly run some. " Thatwas not the boy's phrase. When he reached the climax of his tale hislanguage was a rich mixture of blasphemy and obscenity. 

There was a Munster Fusilier, an elderly, grizzled man who had beensent back with some German prisoners. He had, by his own account, quite a flock of them when he started. He found himself, owing toshrapnel and other troubles, with only one left when he drew near hisdestination. 

But he was a provident man. He had collected all available loot fromthe men who had fallen on the way down, and the unfortunate survivorwas so laden that he collapsed, sank into the mud under an immenseload of helmets, caps, belts, everything that could have been takenfrom the dead. The Munster Fusilier stood over him with his rifle. "You misfortunate b----, " he said. "And them words, " he said to meconfidentially, "got a move on him, though it was myself had to carrythe load for him the rest of the way. "

CHAPTER XIV

A BACKWATER

I look back with great pleasure on my connection with the EmergencyStretcher-bearers' Camp. It was one of three camps in which I workedwhen I went to B. I liked all three camps and every one in them, butI cherish a feeling of particular tenderness for theStretcher-bearers. 

Yet my first experience there was far from encouraging. The day afterI took over from my predecessor I ventured into the men's recreationroom. I was received with silence, frosty and most discouraging. Imade a few remarks about the weather. I commented on the stagnantcondition of the war at the moment. The things I said were banal andfoolish no doubt, yet I meant well and scarcely deserved the replywhich came at last. A man who was playing billiards dropped the buttof his cue on the ground with a bang, surveyed me with a hostilestare and said:

"We don't want no ---- parsons here. "

Somebody in a far corner of the room protested mildly. 

"Language, language, " he said. 

I did not really object much to the language. I had heard the Britishsoldiers' favourite word too often to be shocked by it. What did hurtand embarrass me was the fact that I was not welcome; and no one madeany attempt to reassure me on that point. 

Indeed when the same unpleasant fact that I really was not welcomewas conveyed to me without obscenity in the next camp and withcareful politeness in the third I found it even more disagreeablethan it was when the stretcher-bearer called me a ---- parson. Theofficers in the convalescent camp, the centre camp in my charge, wereall kindness in their welcome, but the sergeant-major ----. We becamefast friends afterwards, but the day we first met he looked me overand decided that I was an inefficient simpleton. Without speaking aword he made his opinion plain to me. He was appallingly efficienthimself and I do not think he ever altered his perfectly just opinionof me. But in the end, and long before the end, he did all he couldto help me. 

The worst of all the snubs waited me in Marlborough Camp, and camefrom a lady worker, afterwards the dearest and most valued of themany friends I made in France. I shall not soon forget the day Ifirst entered her canteen. She and her fellow-worker, also a valuedfriend now, did not call me a "---- parson"; but they left me underthe impression that I was not wanted there. Her snub, delivered as alady delivers such things, was the worst of the three. 

For my reception in the Stretcher-bearers' Camp I was prepared. 

"You'll find those fellows a pretty tough crowd, " so some one warnedme. 

"Those old boys are bad lots, " said some one else. "You'll not do anygood with them. "

I agree with the "tough. " I totally disagree with the "bad. " Even if, after eight months, I had been bidden farewell in the same phrasewith which I was greeted, I should still refuse to say "bad lot"about those men. I hope that in such a case I should have the graceto recognise the failure as my fault, not theirs, and to take the"bad lot" as a description of myself. 

The Emergency Stretcher-bearers when I first knew them were no man'schildren. The Red Cross flag flew over the entrance of their camp, but the Red Cross people accepted no responsibility for them. Theirrecreation room, which was not a room at all, but one end of theirgaunt dining-room, was ill supplied with books and games, and had nopapers. There were no lady workers in or near the camp, and onlythose who have seen the work which our ladies do in canteens inFrance can realise how great the loss was. There was no kind of unityin the camp. 

It was a small place. There were not more than three hundred menaltogether. But they were men from all sorts of regiments. I thinkthat when I knew the camp first, nearly every one in it belonged tothe old army. They were gathered there, the salvage of the Monsretreat, of the Marne, of the glorious first battle of Ypres, brokenmen every one of them, debris tossed by the swirling currents of warinto this backwater. 

Their work was heavy, thankless, and uninspiring. They were camped ona hill. Day after day they marched down through the streets of thetown to the railway station or the quay. They carried the wounded onstretchers from the hospital trains to the Red Cross ambulances; orafterwards from the ambulance cars up steep gangways to the decksand cabins of hospital ships. They were summoned by telephone at allhours. They toiled in the grey light of early dawn. They sweated atnoonday. Soaked and dripping they bent their backs to their burdensin storm and rain. They went long hours without food. They livedunder conditions of great discomfort. It was everybody's business tocurse and "strafe" them. I do not remember that any one ever gavethem a word of praise. 

It was the camp, of all that I was ever in, which seemed to offer therichest yield to the gleaner of war stories. I have always wanted toknow what that retreat from Mons felt like to the men who wentthrough it. We are assured, and I do not doubt it, that our men neverthought of themselves as beaten. What did they think when day afterday they retreated at top speed? Of what they suffered we knowsomething. How they took their suffering we only guess. I hoped whenI made friends with those men to hear all this and many strange talesof personal adventures. 

But the British soldier, even of the new army, is strangelyinarticulate. The men of the old army, so far as concerns theirfighting, are almost dumb. They would talk about anything ratherthan their battles. There was a man in the Life Guards who hadreceived three wounds in one of the early cavalry skirmishes. Hewanted to talk about cricket, and told me stories about a churchchoir in which he sang when he was a boy. 

There was a Coldstream Guardsman. I never succeeded in finding outwhether he was in the famous Landrecies fight or not. The most hewould do in the way of military talk was to complain, privately, tome of the lax discipline in the camp, and to compare the going of hiscomrades from the camp to the quay with the marching of theColdstreamers on their way to relieve guard at Buckingham Palace. There was an old sergeant from County Down who was more interested ingrowing vegetables--we had a garden--than anything else, and aMunster Fusilier who came from Derry, of all places, and exulted inthe fact that his sons had taken his place in the regiment. 

At first this curious reticence was a disappointment to me. It isstill a wonder. I am sure that if I had been one of the "OldContemptibles" I should talk of nothing else all my life. But I cameto see afterwards that if I had heard battle stories I should neverhave known the men. The centre of interest of their lives was athome. They, even those professional soldiers, were men of peacerather than war. The soldiers' trade was no delight to them. 

I dare say the Germans, who took pains to learn so much about usbeforehand, knew this, and drew, as Germans so often do, a wronginference from facts patiently gathered. They thought that men who donot like fighting fight badly. It may be so sometimes. It wascertainly not so with our old army. We know now that it is not sowith the men of our new army either. 

After a while the stretcher-bearers and I began to know each other. The first sign of friendliness was a request that I should umpire ata cricket match on a Sunday afternoon. I am not sure that theinvitation was not also a test. Some parsons, the "----" kind, whoare not wanted, object to cricket on Sundays. My own conscience ismore accommodating. I would gladly have umpired at Monte Carlo onGood Friday, Easter, Advent Sunday, and Christmas, all rolled intoone, if those men had asked me. 

Later on, after many cricket matches, we agreed that it wasdesirable to get up entertainments in the camp. There was no localtalent, or none available at first, but I had the good luck to meetone day a very amiable lady who undertook to run a wholeentertainment herself. She also promised not to turn round and walkaway when she saw the piano. 

We stirred ourselves, determined to rise to the occasion. We made aplatform at the end of the dining-room. I took care not to ask, and Ido not know, where the wood for that platform came from. Wediscovered among us a man who said he had been a theatrical scenepainter before he joined the R. E. He can never, I fancy, have hadmuch chance of rising to the top of his old profession, but hepainted a back scene for our stage. It represented a country cottagestanding in a field, and approached by an immensely long, winding, brown path. The perspective of that path was wonderful. He alsopainted and set up two wings on the stage which were easilyrecognisable as leafy trees. For many Sundays afterwards I stood infront of that cottage with a green tree on each side of me duringmorning service. 

Another artist volunteered to do our programmes. His work lay in theorderly-room and he had at command various coloured inks, black, violet, blue, and red. He produced a programme like a rainbow onwhich he described our lady visitor as the "Famous Favourite of theMusic Hall Stage. " She had, in fact, delighted theatre goers beforeher marriage, but not on the music hall stage. I showed her theprogramme nervously, but I need not have been nervous. She enteredinto the spirit of the thing. 

A thoughtful sergeant, without consulting me, prepared for her adressing-room at the back of the stage. A modest man himself, heinsisted upon my leading her to it. We found there a shelf, coveredwith newspaper. On it was a shaving mirror, a large galvanised-irontub half full of cold water, a cake of brown soap, a tattered towel, and a comb. Also there was a tumbler, a siphon of soda water, and abottle of port. 

"The dears, " she said. "But I can't change my frock; I've nothing butwhat I stand up in. What shall I do?"

I glanced at the bottle of port; but she shrank from that. 

"I must do something, " she said. "I'll powder my nose. " The shavingmirror, at least, was some use. 

The entertainment began stiffly. We were not accustomed toentertainments and felt that we ought to behave with propriety. Weclapped at the end of each song, but we displayed no enthusiasm. Ibegan to fear for our success. But our lady--she did the whole thingherself--conquered us. We were laughing and cheering in half an hour. In the end we rocked in our seats and howled tumultuously when thesergeant-major, a portly man of great dignity, was dragged over thefootlights. Our lady pirouetted across the stage and back again, herarm round the sergeant-major's waist, her cheek on his shoulder, singing, "If I were the only girl in the world and you were the onlyboy. "

We believed in doing what we could for those who came to entertainus. When we secured the services of a "Lena Ashwell" Concert Party wepainted a large sign and hung it up in front of the stage: "Welcometo the Concert Party. " We forgot the second "e" in Welcome and it hadto be crammed in at the last moment above the "m" with a "^"underneath it. 

We made two dressing-rooms, one for ladies and one for gentlemen. The fittings were the same--brown soap, cold water, shaving mirror, tumbler and siphon. But in the gentlemen's room we put whisky, in theladies' port. The whole party had tea afterwards in the sergeants'mess--strong tea and tinned tongue. A corporal stood at the door aswe left holding a tray covered with cigarettes. 

I learned to play cribbage while I was in that camp. I was pitted, bycommon consent, against an expert, a man who had been wounded at LeCateau and had his teeth knocked out as he lay on the ground by apassing German, who used the butt of his rifle. Round me were a dozenmen, who gave me advice and explained in whispers the finesse of thegame. It was hot work, for the men sat close and we all smoked. 

I also learned that the British soldier, when he gives his mind toit, plays a masterly game of draughts. There was a man--in civil lifehe sailed a Thames barge--who insulted me deeply over draughts. Heused to allow me to win one game in three, and he managed so wellthat it was weeks before I found out what he was doing. 

We had whist drives, and once a billiard tournament, run on what Ibelieve is a novel principle. We had only one table, half sized andvery dilapidated. We had about thirty entries. We gave each playerfive minutes and let him score as much as he could in the time, noopponent interfering with him. The highest score took the prize. 

But all entertainments and games in that camp were liable to untimelyinterruption. Messages used to come through from some remoteauthority demanding stretcher-bearers. Then, though it were in themidst of a game of whist, every man present had to get up and goaway. 

There was one occasion on which such a summons arrived just as themen had assembled to welcome a concert party. The dining-room wasempty in five minutes. We who remained were faced with the prospectof a concert without an audience. But our sergeant-major met theemergency. He hurried to a neighbouring camp and somehow managed toborrow two hundred men. The concert party was greatly pleased, butsaid that the Emergency Stretcher-bearers did not look as old anddilapidated as they had been led to expect. 

There came a time when the camp changed and many old friendsdisappeared. At the beginning of the Somme battle there was a suddendemand for stretcher-bearers to serve at the advanceddressing-stations. Almost every day we were bidden to send men. Little parties assembled on the parade ground and marched off toentrain for the front. I used to see them lined up on the paradeground, war-battered men, who looked old though they were young, withtheir kits spread out for inspection. The least unfit went first; butindeed there was little choice among them. Not a man of them but hadbeen wounded grievously or mourned a constitution broken by hardship. Yet they went cheerfully, patient in their dumb devotion to duty, hopeful that the final victory for which they had striven in vain wasnear at hand at last. 

"We'll have peace before Christmas. " So they said to me as they went. 

That "Peace before Christmas"! It has fluttered, a delusive vision, before our men since the start. "Is it true that the cavalry arethrough?" I suppose that was another delusion, that riding down of aflying foe by horsemen. But it was not only the stretcher-bearers whoclung to it. 

We saw our friends no more after they disappeared into the smokingfurnace of the front. They were scattered here and there among thedressing-stations in the fighting area. Many of them, I suppose, stayed there, struck down at last, ending their days in France asthey began them, with the sound of the guns in their ears. Others, perhaps, drifted back to England more hopelessly broken than ever. They must be walking our streets now with silver badges on the lapelsof their coats, and we, who are much meaner men, should take our hatsoff to them. A few may be toiling still, where the fighting isthickest, the last remnants of the "Old Contemptibles. "

Their places in the camp and their work on the quays were taken byothers, men disabled or broken in the later fights when the newarmies won their glory. The character of the camp changed. We becamemore respectable than we were in the old days. No one any longerspoke of us as a "bad lot, " or called us "a tough crowd. " Perhaps wewere not so tough. Certainly we cannot have been tougher than the menwho made good in those first terrific days, who continued to makegood long after they could fight no more, staggering through theSomme mud with laden stretchers. They grumbled and groused. Theyblasphemed constantly. They drank when they could. They wanted no"---- parson" among them. But they were men, unconquered andunconquerable. 

CHAPTER XV

MY THIRD CAMP

At the front, the actual front where the fighting is, imaginationruns riot in devising place names, and military maps recognise woods, hills, and roads by their new titles. At the bases a severer spiritholds sway. I recollect one curious and disagreeable camp which wascalled, colloquially and officially, Cinder City. Otherwise campswere known by numbers or at best by the French names of the districtsin which they were situated. I thought I had hit on another exceptionto this rule when I first heard of this camp. It seemed natural tohave called a camp after one of our generals. In fact nothing of thesort occurred. It was the French name for the place. We took over thename when we pitched our tents. 

Indeed the camp was not the sort of place which gets a name given toit. It is only places which somebody loves or hates, in whichsomebody is one way or other interested, which get new names giventhem. Nobody, or nobody in high authority, took an interest in thiscamp. It was a stepchild among camps, neither attractive enough to beloved nor disagreeable enough to be hated and reviled. 

With a string of other dull camps, it was under the command of acolonel who, having much on his mind besides the care of this camp, lived elsewhere. Only one officer slept in the camp. He had a bedroomwhich was half office, decorated--he several times assured me thathis predecessor was responsible for the decoration--with picturesfrom _La Vie Parisienne_. The proprietors of that journal must haveprofited enormously by the coming of the British military force. Ifthere is any form of taxation of excess profits in France that editormust be paying heavily. Yet the paper is sufficiently monotonous, andit is difficult to imagine that any one wants to take it inregularly. 

Except this bedroom, the officer in command had no habitation in thecamp. He messed elsewhere and, as was natural, spent his spare timeelsewhere. He did all he could for the camp, but he could not dovery much. He was of subordinate rank and of no great militaryimportance. It was very difficult to stir the authorities to anygreat interest in the camp. There was a certain amount of excuse forthem. It never seemed worth while to take much trouble for the menthere. The function of the camp was peculiar. Men were drafted intoit from convalescent camps and hospitals when they were passed "fit, "and were ready to rejoin their units. The business of the campauthorities was to sort the men out, divide them into parties, anddispatch them to the depots of their regiments. 

Every day men came into camp and were for the moment "details. " Theybelonged to all possible regiments and branches of the service. Everyday parties of men left the camp for the different base depots. At 10a. M. The H. Party for H. , at 12 noon the E. Party for E. , no longer"details, " but drafts consigned to their proper depots at H. , E. , orelsewhere. Their stay in the camp was usually very brief. It wasscarcely worth while trying to make them comfortable or doinganything to make life pleasant for them. 

It was, I think, rather hard on men to be sent straight from thecomfort and warmth of a hospital or convalescent camp to a place asSpartan as this. Instead of having a bed to sleep on, the unfortunate"detail" found himself condemned to the floor boards of a bell tent, with a very meagre allowance of well-worn blankets. In cold weatherthe change was abrupt and trying, but of course it had to be madesooner or later, and I suppose the men had no reasonable excuse forgrumbling. 

Very much harder on them was the lack of accommodation in the camp. Things are much better now in this respect; but when I knew the campfirst, there was no recreation room except a small and inconvenientE. F. Canteen. 

The Y. M. C. A. Never established itself there. The Church Army put up asmall hut, but sent no worker to look after it; and even that hut wasnot opened till the early summer of 1916. By a curious chance theE. F. Canteen was worked by ladies instead of the usual orderlies. Theladies were in fact there, running a small independent canteen, before the E. F. Canteen took over the place. Rather unwillingly, Ithink, the E. F. Canteen people took over these ladies. It was a mostfortunate thing that they did so. 

Miss L. , the head of this little band of workers, was a lady ofunusual ability, energy, and sympathy. I have said that no one inauthority cared for the camp. Miss L. , who had no military authority, not only cared for it--she loved it. It was to her and her assistantsthat the camp owed most of what was done for it. I have seen muchsplendid work done by our voluntary ladies in France, but I havenever seen better work done under more difficult circumstances thanwas done by these ladies. 

I suppose it is foolish to be surprised at any evidence of theblatant vulgarity of the men who earn their living by the horridtrade of politics. They speak and act after their kind; and it isprobably true that silk purses cannot be made out of sows' ears. YetI own to having experienced a shock when Mr. Macpherson in the Houseof Commons described our lady workers as "camp followers. " Even for apolitician, even in the House of Commons, that was bad. 

Miss L. And her assistants had no great organisation behind them towhich they could appeal, which would take their part and fight theirbattles. Like the men they worked for, they were "details. " The E. F. Canteen authorities, who employed but did not pay them, looked uponthose ladies with suspicion. They were allowed to work. They were notwelcomed. I think the E. F. Canteen people would have got rid of themif they could. Yet they did work which in quantity was at least equalto that of the orderlies usually employed, and in quality enormouslysuperior. 

The room which served as a canteen was singularly inconvenient. Thepart of it used by the men was far too small, and used to bedisagreeably crowded in the evenings and on wet days. The spacebehind the counter was narrow, gloomy, and ill ventilated. A workerserving there had the choice of being half choked or blown about byfurious draughts. Miss L. Preferred the draughts, which she called"fresh air. " I sometimes found myself inclined to regard suffocationas the pleasanter alternative. 

I have never seen a more inconvenient kitchen than that in whichthose ladies worked. It was small, low, and very gloomy. It had anuneven floor, on which it was quite possible to trip. The roof leakedbadly in half a dozen places, and on wet days an incautious personsplashed about. In summer with two fires burning that kitchen becamefiercely hot. Even an electric fan, presented by a sympatheticvisitor, did little to help. No self-respecting English kitchen maidwould have stayed two hours in a house where she was given such akitchen to work in. 

Yet wonderful hot suppers were cooked there in long succession. Hugepuddings and deep crocks of stewed fruit were prepared. A constantsupply of tea, coffee, and cocoa was kept ready to replenishexhausted kettles on the counter outside, and all the washing up forhundreds of men was done in a very small sink. 

The cooking and bar serving were the smallest part of the work thoseladies did. Miss L. Was active as a gardener. In most camps in Francemen take to gardening willingly, and require little help orencouragement. In this camp it was different. No one stayed therelong enough to be interested in the garden. I have seen photographsof the camp before I knew it, as it was in 1915, a desolate stretchof trampled mud. I saw recently a photograph of the camp in 1917. Itwas then gay with flowers. I knew it in 1916, when Miss L. Had begunher gardening and was gradually extending her flower-beds, creatingnew borders and fencing off small spaces of waste ground with woodenpalings. 

Her enthusiasm stimulated men, who could never hope to see any resultof their labours, to do something for the camp. One man, a miner fromNorthumberland, set out the name of the camp in large letters done inwhite stones on a green bank behind the canteen. He gave all hisspare time for two days to the work, and when he had finished wediscovered that he had left out a letter in the first syllable of thename. He was a patient as well as an enthusiastic man. He began allover again. 

Miss L. Went to great trouble in providing amusements for the men. Here she worked against great difficulties. An organisation like theY. M. C. A. Has control of concert parties and lecturers who are sentround to various huts, thus greatly lightening the labour of thelocal workers. The camp canteen had no organisation behind it, andcould command no ready-made entertainments. In the sweat of our browswe earned such concerts as we had, and any one who has ever got up aconcert, even at home, knows how much sweating such activitiesinvolve. In the end, moved by pity at our plight, the Y. M. C. A. Peopleused to lend us concert parties, especially "Lena Ashwell" parties, the best of their kind. I have always found the Y. M. C. A. Generous insharing their good things with those outside their organisation. 

Another difficulty which faced Miss L. Was the want of any suitableplace for entertainments. The canteen was far too small. The ChurchArmy hut, when we had got it opened, was a little better, but stillnot nearly large enough for the audience which a good concert partydrew. We had to use the dining-hall. It was not always available andwas seldom available at the exact time we wanted it. It had no stageand no piano. Each time a concert was held there, a stage had to beerected for the occasion, the piano hauled over from the canteen, andsome kind of decoration arranged. 

One of the minor inconveniences of the camp was the extraordinaryuncertainty of the lighting. Other camps, even the Con. Campoccasionally, suffered from failure of the supply of electricity. Forsome reason the thing happened more often in this camp thanelsewhere; and even when the current was running strongly we foundourselves in darkness because our wires fused in places difficult toget at, or branches fell from trees and broke wires. We gotaccustomed to these disasters when they happened at ordinary times. 

Miss L. And her assistants were ladies of resource and indomitablespirit. It was a small thing to them to find the canteen suddenlyplunged into total darkness while a crowd of men was clamouring forfood and drink at the counter. A supply of candles was kept ready tohand. They were placed in mugs (candlesticks were lacking of course)and set on the counter. By the aid of their feeble gleam the ladiesgroped their way into the kitchen for tea, filled cups, and countedout change. The scene always reminded me of Gideon's attack on theMidianites when his soldiers carried lamps in pitchers. Occasionallysome one knocked over a mug. There was a crash and a blaze, a veryfair imitation of the battle in the Book of Judges. 

It was worse when a whist drive or a singing competition in theChurch Army hut was interrupted by one of these Egyptian plagues ofdarkness. But even then we did not allow ourselves to be seriouslyembarrassed. The men, responsive to the instinct of discipline, satquiet at the whist tables with their cards in their hands. The glowof burning cigarettes could be seen, faint spots of light; nothingelse. 

Miss L. Hurried to the canteen for candles. They were set in pools oftheir own grease on the tables and the games went on. A singingcompetition scarcely even paused. The competitors sang on. Thepianist managed to play. The audience applauded with extra vigouruntil candles were brought and set in rows, like footlights, in frontof the stage. 

Our worst experience of light failure occurred one evening when wehad a visit from a very superior concert party. We had secured itonly after much "wangling. " We made every possible preparation forits reception. One of Miss L. 's assistants drew out a most attractiveadvertisement of the performance with a picture of a beautiful ladyin a red dress at the top of it. We posted this up in various partsof the camp; but we were not really anxious about the audience. Italways "rolled up. "

We set up a stage in the dining-room, a large high stage made out ofdining-tables, a little rickety, but considered by good judges to befairly safe. We spread a carpet, or something which looked like acarpet, on it. Only Miss L. Could have got a carpet in the camp, andI do not know how she did it. We hung up a large Union Jack, MissL. 's private property, which was used on all festive occasions andserved as an altar cloth on Sundays. The E. F. Canteen authoritieswere worried for a week beforehand, and, lest they should be worriedmore, promised us a new piano, "same, " so they put it, "to bedelivered" in time for the concert. The promise was not kept. 

That was our first misfortune. With deep misgiving we dragged our ownpiano out of the canteen and set it on the stage. The musical membersof Miss L. 's staff assured us that it was desperately out of tune. The least musical of us could assure ourselves that several notesmade no sound at all, however hard you hit them. And the concertparty was a very grand one. 

It arrived in two motors, and we abased ourselves before it, babblingapologies. One after another the members of the party approached ourpiano and poked at it with their forefingers. One after another theyturned away looking depressed. The only one of them who remainedmoderately cheerful was a man who did conjuring tricks. It was, Iimagine, through his good offices that the party agreed to attemptits programme. 

The audience, who knew the failings of our piano as well as we did, applauded the first song rapturously. Then without the slightestwarning every lamp in the place went out. A dog, a well-belovedcreature called Detail, who was accustomed to sit under Miss L. 'schair at concerts, began to bark furiously. That, I think, was whatfinally broke the temper of the concert party. We had an oil lampready for emergencies. It was lit, and I saw the leader of the partybeckoning to me. His face was fearfully stern. I fully expected himto say that the whole party would leave at once. 

But he did nothing so drastic. He demanded the instant expulsion ofDetail. There was a scuffle at the far end of the room. The audiencerose to its feet and cheered tumultuously. Detail, I am sorry to say, barked again. I saw eight men staggering through the crowded roombearing a piano. It was quite new, and, I am told, almost in tune. The situation was saved. The singers were mollified and went on withtheir programme by the light of one lamp, two candles (on the piano), and three stable lanterns. An orderly with a screwdriver and a box ofmatches sought for the fused wire. Detail crept under her mistress'schair again unrebuked. She was an animal of cultivated tastes andhated missing concerts. She usually behaved with decorum, not barkingexcept by way of applause when the audience shouted and noise of anykind was legitimate. 

The camp is, I am told, very different now. There is a new canteen, large, well furnished, and beautiful. Concerts can be held in it andchurch services. No one is any longer crowded out of anything. Thekitchen is a spacious place in which it is possible to cook withoutgreat physical suffering. There are more flower beds, well-kept linesbetween the tents, an impressive entrance. No doubt even the electriclight shines consistently. The days of makeshift are over and thecamp is a credit to the Expeditionary Force. 

But I should not like to go back there again. I should be hauntedwith memories of old days which were trying but pleasant. I shouldwish myself back at one of the cheery tea-parties in the old canteenkitchen, when we sat on packing-cases and biscuit-boxes, when weshifted our seats about to dodge the raindrops from the roof, when wedrank out of three cracked cups and thick mugs borrowed from thecanteen. 

I should remember pay-nights when the men stood before the counter ina dense mob, all hungry, each holding in his hand a five-franc note, when we had no change, not a franc, not a sou; when, in desperation, I used to volunteer to collect change from any one who had it, givingchits in exchange for small coins. Such crises do not arise now, Isuppose. 

Sitting in comfort at a table in the fine new canteen I shouldremember sadly a wet afternoon in the Church Army hut when there wasno room to move and the air was heavy with Woodbine smoke and thesteam of drying cloth, when I perched on the corner of a window-silland pitted myself against a chess player who challenged me suddenlyand turned out to be a master of the game and the secretary of achess club in Yorkshire. 

I should remember, with how great regret! how, evening after evening, Miss S. Left her pots and pans, smoothed her tousled overall, andcame over to the Church Army hut to play a hymn for us at eveningprayers; how the men, an ever-changing congregation, chose the samehymns night after night till we came to hate the sound of theirtunes; how we, reserving Sunday evenings for our property, chose thehymn then and always chose the same one--which I shall never singagain without remembering Miss S. At the piano, smelling the air ofthat hut, and being troubled by a vision of the faces of the men whosang. 

I should not find Miss S. There if I went back, or Captain L. , or anyone, almost, whom I knew. No doubt their successors are doing well, mine better than ever I did, which would be no difficult thing; but Icould not bear to see them at their work. Ghosts of old days wouldhaunt me. 

And worst of all, Miss L. Is gone. The rest of us have passed and noone misses us much, I suppose. Our places are easily filled. Herplace in that camp no one will ever quite fill. "Many daughters havedone virtuously, but thou excellest them all. "

CHAPTER XVI

LEAVE

At last! I have the precious paper safe in my hand, in my pocket witha button fastened tight to keep it there: my leave warrant, passportto ten days' liberty, rest, and--other things much more desirablethan liberty or rest. It is issued to me late on Sunday night for astart on Monday morning. 

The authorities are desperately suspicious. They trust no man'shonour. They treat even a padre as if he were a fraudulent cashier, bent on cheating them if he can. I do not blame them. In this matterof leave every man is a potential swindler. A bishop would cheat ifhe could. If I had got that leave warrant an hour or two sooner thanI did, I should have made a push for the boat which left on Sundayevening. Thereby I should have deprived the army of my servicesduring the night, a form of swindling not to be tolerated, thoughwhat use I am to the army or any one else when I am in bed andasleep it would be very difficult to say. 

All that night the wind shrieked, rattling windows to the discomfortof those who were lucky enough to have roofs over their heads, threatening the dwellers in tents with the utter destruction of theirshelters. Very early, before the dawn of the winter morning, the rainbegan, not to fall--the rain in a full gale of wind does notfall--but to sweep furiously across the town. 

I heard it, but I did not care. I turned and snuggled close under myblankets. In an hour or two it would be time to get up. My day wouldbegin, the glorious first day of leave. What does rain matter? orwhat do gales matter? unless--a horrid fear assailed me. Was itpossible that in such a gale the steamer would fail to start. Iturned and twisted, tortured by the thought. Every time the windowsrattled and the house shook I sweated hot and cold. 

In the end, tormented beyond endurance, I got up and dressed sometime between 5 a. M. And 6 a. M. I did more. Without the coffee whichMadame had promised me I sallied forth and tramped through thedeserted streets of the town, fording gutters which were brooks, skirting close by walls which promised what sailors call a "lee. "

The long stretch of the quay was desolate. Water lay in deep poolsbetween the railway lines among the sleepers. Water trickled fromdeserted waggons and fell in small cascades from the roofs of sheds. The roadway, crossed and recrossed by the railway, had little muddylakes on it and broad stretches of mud rather thicker than the waterof the lakes. 

Far down the quay lay a steamer with two raking funnels--the leaveboat, the ship of heart's desire for many men. Clouds of smoke, issuing defiantly from her funnels, were immediately swept sidewaysby the wind and beaten down by the rain. The smoke ceased to besmoke, became a duller greyness added to the greyness of the air, dissolved into smuts and was carried to earth--or to the faces andhands of wayfarers--by the rain. 

Already at 7 o'clock there were men going along the quay--a steadystream of them, tramping, splashing, stumbling towards the steamer. In the matter of the sailing of leave boats rumour is the soleinformant, and rumour had it that this boat would start at 10 a. M. Leave is a precious thing. He takes no risks who has secured thecoveted pass to Blighty. It is a small matter to wait three hours ona rain-swept quay. It would be a disaster beyond imagining to missthe boat. 

Officers make for the boat in twos or threes, their trench coats, buttoned tightly, flap round putteed or gaitered legs. Drenchedhaversacks hang from their shoulders. 

Parties of men, fully burdened with rifles and kit, march down fromthe rest camp where they have spent the night. The mud of thetrenches is still thick on them. One here and there wears his steelhelmet. They carry all sorts of strange packages, sacks tied at themouth, parcels sewed up in sacking, German helmets slung onknapsacks, valueless trophies of battlefields, loot from captureddug-outs, pathetically foolish souvenirs bought in French shops, allto be presented to the wives, mothers, sweethearts who wait at home. 

A couple of army sisters, lugging suit-cases, clinging to the flyingfolds of their grey cloaks, walk, bent forward against the wind andrain. A blue-coated Canadian nurse, brass stars on her shoulderstraps, has given an arm to a V. A. D. Girl, a creature alreadyterrified at the prospect of crossing the sea on such a day. Therain streams down their faces, but perhaps Canadians are accustomedto worse rain in their own country. Certainly this young woman doesnot seem to mind it. She is smiling and walks jauntily. Like many ofour cousins from overseas she is rich in splendid vitality. 

A heavy grey motor rushes along, splashing the walkers. Beside thedriver is a pile of luggage. Inside, secure behind plate glass fromany weather, sits a general. Another motor follows and still others. British staff officers and military attachés from allied nations, theprivileged classes of the war, sweep by while humbler men splash andstumble. 

But in front of the gangway of the leave boat, as at the gates ofParadise, there is no distinction of persons. The mean man and themighty find the same treatment there. There comes a moment when thecar must be left, when crossed sword and baton on the shoulder strapsavail their wearer no more than a single star. 

A sailor, relentless as Rhadamanthus, stands on the gangway and barsthe way to the shelter of the ship. No one--so the order has goneforth--is to be allowed on board before 9 o'clock. There is shelter afew yards behind, a shed. A few seek it. I prefer to stand, withother early comers, in a cluster round the end of the gangway, determined, though we wait hours, to be among the first on board. 

The crowd grows denser as time goes on. The Canadian sister, alertand competent, secures a seat on the rail of a disused gangway andplants two neat feet on the rail opposite. An Australian captain, gallant amid extreme adversity, offers the spare waterproof hecarries to the shivering V. A. D. I find myself wedged tight against ageneral. He is elderly, grizzled, and looks fierce; but he accepts alight for his cigarette from the bowl of my pipe. It was his onlychance of getting a light then and there. Now and then some one asksa neighbour whether it is likely that the boat will start on such aday. 

A depressed major on the outskirts of the crowd says that he has iton the best authority that the port is closed and that there will beno sailings for a week. The news travels from mouth to mouth, but noone stirs. There is a horrid possibility that it may be true;but--well, most men know the reputation of that "best authority. " Heis the kind of liar of whose fate St. John speaks vigorously in thelast chapter but one of his Apocalypse. 

The ship rises slowly higher and higher, for the tide is flowing. Thegangway grows steeper. From time to time two sailors shift itslightly, retying the ropes which fasten it to the ship's rail. Themen on the quay watch the manoeuvre hopefully. 

At 9 o'clock an officer appears on the outside fringe of the crowd. With a civility which barely cloaks his air of patronage he demandsway for himself to the ship. His brassard wins him all he asks atonce. On it are the letters "A. M. L. O. " He is the Assistant MilitaryLanding Officer, and for the moment is lord of all, the arbiter ofthings more important than life and death. In private life he isperhaps a banker's clerk or an insurance agent. On the battlefieldhis rank entitles him to such consideration only as is due to acaptain. Here he may ignore colonels, may say to a brigadier, "Stoppushing. " He has what all desire, the "Open Sesame" which clears theway to the ship. 

He goes on board, acknowledging with careless grace the salute of oneof the ship's officers. He stands on the shelter deck. 

With calm dignity he surveys the swaying crowd beneath him. "There'sno hurry, gentlemen, " he says. There is no hurry for him. He hasrisen from his bed at a reasonable hour, has washed, shaved, bathed, breakfasted. He has not stood for hours in drenching rain. The lookof him is too much for the general who is wedged beside me in thecrowd. He speaks:

"What the----? Why the----? When the----? Where the----?" He is a manof fluent speech, this general. I thought as much when I first lookedat him. Now it seems that his command of language is a great gift, more valuable than the eloquence of statesmen or the music of poets. The Canadian sister leads the applause of the crowd. The generalturns to me with a deprecating smile. 

"Excuse me, padre, but really----"

The army respects the Church, knows that certain necessary forms ofspeech are not suited to clerical ears. But the Church is human andcan sympathise with men's infirmities. 

"If I were a general, " I said, "I should say a lot more. "

The general, encouraged by this absolution, does say more. Hementions the fact that he is going straight to the War Office whenhe reaches London. Once there he will--the threat vaporises intojets of language so terrific that the air round us grows sensiblywarmer. I notice that the V. A. D. Is holding tight to the hand of theCanadian sister. 

The A. M. L. O. , peering through the rain from the shelter deck of thesteamer, recognises the rank of his assailant. The mention of the WarOffice reaches him. He wilts visibly. The stiffness goes out of himbefore the delighted eyes of the crowd. He admits us to the ship. Another gangway is lowered. In two thin streams the damp men anddraggled women struggle on board. Certain officers, the more helplesssubalterns among us, are detailed for duty on the voyage. They paradeon the upper deck. To them at least the A. M. L. O. Can still speak withauthority. He explains to the bewildered youths what their dutiesare. Each passenger, so it appears, must wear a life-belt. It is thebusiness of the subalterns to see that every one ties round his chestone of those bandoliers of cork. 

On the leave boat the spirit of democracy is triumphant. Sergeantsjostle commissioned officers. Subalterns seize deck chairs desired bycolonels of terrific dignity. Privates with muddy trousers crowd thesofas of the first-class saloon. Discipline we may suppose survives. If peril threatened, men would fall into their proper places andwords of command would be obeyed. But the outward forms of disciplineare for a time in abeyance. The spirit of goodfellowship prevails. The common joy--an intensified form of the feeling of the schoolboyon the first day of the Christmas holidays--makes one family of allranks and ages. 

No doubt also the sea insists on the recognition of new standards ofworth. The humblest private who is not seasick is visibly andunmistakably a better man than a field-marshal with his head over thebulwarks. Curious and ill-assorted groups are formed. Men who atother times would not speak to each other are drawn and even squeezedtogether by the pressure of circumstance. 

Between two of the deckhouses on the lower deck of this steamer is anarrow passage. Porters have packed valises and other luggage intoit. It is sheltered from the rain and will be secure from showers offlying spray. Careless and inexperienced travellers, searching alongthe crowded decks for somewhere to sit down, pass this place byunnoticed. Others, accustomed in old days to luxurious travelling, scorn it and seek for comfort which they never find. 

I come on this nook by accident; and at once perceive its value as aplace of shelter and refuge. I sit down on the deck with my haversackbeside me. I wedge myself securely, my feet against one side of thepassage, my back against the other. I tuck my waterproof round me andfeel that I may defy fate to do its worst. 

A few others drift into the refuge, or are pressed in by the crowdoutside. The Canadian sister, a competent young woman, has found herway here and settled down her helpless V. A. D. On a valise--a lumpy, uncomfortable seat. A private from a Scottish regiment is here, twoBelgians and a Russian staff officer struggle in a narrow space toadjust their life-belts. A brigadier, a keen-eyed, eager-faced youngman, one of those to whom the war has given opportunity andadvancement, joins the group. He speaks in French to the Belgians andthe Russian. He helps to make the V. A. D. Less utterly uncomfortable. He offers me his flask and then a cigar. 

There is one subject of conversation. Will the boat start? TheRussian is hopeful. Is not England mistress of the seas? The V. A. D. Is despondent. Once before in a long-ago time of leave the boat didnot start. The passengers, and she among them, were disembarked. TheScottish private has heard from a friend of his in "the Signals" thatGerman submarines are abroad in the Channel. The brigadier is openlycontemptuous of all information from men in "the Signals. " TheCanadian sister is cheerful. If she were captain of the ship, shesays, she would start, and, what is more, fetch up at the other side. 

The captain, it appears, shares her spirit. The ship does start. Theharbour is cleared and at once the tossing begins. The party betweenthe deckhouses sways and reels. It becomes clear very soon that itwill be impossible to stand. But sitting down is difficult. I have tochange my attitude. It is not possible for any one else to sit downif I keep my legs stretched out, and the others must sit down or elsefall. The brigadier warns the Russian to be careful how he bestowshimself. 

"Don't put your feet on my haversack, " he says. "There's a bottle ofhair-wash in it. "

The Russian shifts his feet. 

"There'll be a worse spill if you trample on mine, " I murmur. "There's a bottle of Benedictine in it. "

"Padre!" said the brigadier. "I'm ashamed of you. _I_ had the decencyto call it hair-wash. "

The Canadian sister laughs loud and joyously. 

It is noticed that the Scottish private is becoming white. Soon hisface is worse than white. It is greyish green. The Canadian sistertucks her skirts under her. The prospect is horrible. There is noroom for the final catastrophe of seasickness. The brigadier is a manof prompt decision. 

"Out you go, " he says to the man. "Off with you and put your headover the side. "

I feel that I must bestir myself for the good of the little party, though I do not want to move. I seize the helpless Scot by the armand push him out. The next to succumb is the Russian staff officer. His face is pallid and his lips blue. The V. A. D. Is past caring whathappens. The two Belgians are indifferent. The Canadian sister, thebrigadier, and I take silent counsel. Our eyes meet. 

"I can't talk French, " I say. 

"I can, " said the Brigadier. 

He does. He explains politely to the Russian the indecency of beingseasick in that crowded space. He points out that there is one courseonly open to the sufferer--to go away and bear the worst elsewhere. Honour calls for the sacrifice. The Russian opens his eyes feebly andlooks at the deck beyond the narrow limits of his refuge. It is sweptat the moment by a shower of spray. He shudders and closes his eyesagain. The brigadier persuades, exhorts, commands. The Russian shakeshis head and intimates that he neither speaks nor understands French. He is a brave and gallant gentleman. Shells cannot terrify him, northe fiercest stuttering of the field guns make him hesitate inadvance, but in a certain stage of seasickness the ears of veryheroes are deaf to duty's call. 

A little later I take the cigar from my mouth and crush the glowingend on the deck. I am not seasick, but there are times when tobaccoloses its attractiveness. The brigadier becomes strangely silent. Hishead shrinks down into the broad upturned collar of his coat. Onlythe Canadian sister remains cheerfully buoyant, her complexion asfresh, her cheeks as pink as when the rain washed them on the quay. 

The throbbing of the engines ceases. For a brief time the shipwallows in the rolling seas. Then she begins to move backwardstowards the breakwater of the harbour. The brigadier struggles to hisfeet and peers out. 

"England at last, " he says. "Thank goodness. "

Women, officers, and men fling off the life-belts they have worn andcrowd to the gangways. With shameless eagerness they push their wayashore. The voyage is over. 

Along the pier long trains are drawn up waiting for us. We crowd intothem; lucky men, or foreseeing men with seats engaged beforehand, fill the Pullman cars of the train which starts first. It runsthrough the sweet familiar English country incredibly swiftly andsmoothly. Luncheon is served to us. On this train, at least, therestill are restaurant cars. We eat familiar food and wonder that weever in the old days grumbled at railway fare. We lie back, satisfied, and smoke. 

But there is in us an excitement which even tobacco will not soothe. The train goes swiftly, but not half swiftly enough. We pass town andhamlet. Advertisement hoardings, grotesque flat images of cows, outrageous commendations of whisky or pills, appear in the fields. We are getting near London. Pipes are laid by. We fidget and fret. The houses we pass are closer together, get closer still, merge intoa sea of grey-slated roofs. The air is thick, smoke-laden. The trainslows down, stops, starts again, draws up finally by the longplatform. 

Then----! To every man his own dreams of heaven hereafter. To everyman his own way of spending his leave. 

CHAPTER XVII

A HOLIDAY

Holidays, common enough in civil life, are rare joys in the B. E. F. Leave is obtainable occasionally. But nobody speaks of leave as"holidays. " It is a thing altogether apart. It is almost sacred. Itis too thrilling, too rapturous to be compared to anything we knewbefore the war. We should be guilty of a kind of profanity if wespoke of leave as "holidays. " It ought to have a picturesque andimpressive name of its own; but no one has found or even attempted tofind an adequate name for it. If we were pagans instead of professingto be Christians, if we danced round fountains and set up statues ofPan for our worship and knew nothing of the Hebrew spirit, we mightget a name for "leave" out of the vocabulary of our religious life. Being what we are we cannot do that, but we rightly decline tocompare leave with ordinary holidays. 

Only a few men in the army succeed in getting what is properlycalled a holiday, a day or two off work with a change of scene. I gotone, thanks to M. It is one of the many things, perhaps the least ofthem, for which I have to thank his friendship. 

M. Had formed an exaggerated, I fear a totally erroneous, idea of mypowers of entertaining men. It occurred to him that it would be agood thing if I gave lectures to the men of the cavalry brigade towhich he was attached. What he said to the general who commanded thedivision I do not know, but somehow, between the general and M. , thething was worked. I found myself with a permit to travel on railwaysotherwise barred to me and three golden days before me. 

No one can say that life in my three camps was dull. Life is neverdull or monotonous for a man who has plenty of pleasant work to doand a party of good friends as fellow-workers. But a change is alwaysagreeable, and I looked forward to my trip with impatient excitement. 

It was like being a schoolboy again and going forth to the CrystalPalace with money in my pocket, an entire half-crown, to be dribbledaway in pennyworths of sherbet and visits to curious side-shows. Thatparty was an annual affair for us that came in June as a celebrationof the Queen's birthday. My visit to M. Was in August, but theweather was still full summer. 

As a lecturing tour that expedition was a flat failure. M. 's cavalry, officers and men, were frankly bored and I realised from the verystart that I was not going to justify whatever M. Said to the generalabout me. 

In every other respect the holiday was a success. I enjoyed itenormously and I gained some very interesting experience. I sawFrench rural life, a glimpse of it. Cavalry cannot be concentrated inlarge camps as infantry are. When they are not wanted for fightingthey are scattered in small parties over some country district wherethey can get water and proper accommodation for their horses. The menare billeted in farm-houses. The officers live in châteaux and messin the dining-halls of French country gentlemen if such accommodationis available, or take over two or three houses in a village, sleepwhere they can and mess in the best room which the interpreter andthe billeting officer can find. 

M. Slept in a farm-house and secured a room adjoining his for my use. I slept on the softest and most billowy feather bed I have ever comeacross, with another feather bed, also very soft and billowy, over meby way of covering. My room had an earthen floor, a window whichwould not open, a broken chair and no other furniture of any kind. Ido not think that our landlady, the wife of a farmer who was with thecolours, had removed her furniture from the room to keep it out of myway. That almost bare room was just her idea of what a bedroom oughtto be. Her kitchen and such other rooms as I saw in her house wereequally bare. 

Unlike the French women whom I met in towns, this farmer's wife was aslattern. She cared neither about her own appearance nor the look ofher house. She did not wash her children. But she worked. The landwas well tilled and her cattle well tended. There was no sign ofneglect in the fields. Things might have been a little better, perhaps, the place more efficiently worked, if her husband had beenat home, but there was not room for much improvement. Yet that womanhad no one to help her except a very old man, her father-in-law, Ithink, who was infirm and almost imbecile. 

She had four children, but they were hindrances rather than helps. The eldest of them was about eight years old. She did the whole workof the farm herself. I used to hear her getting up at 4 a. M. , lighting a fire and opening doors. Peeping through thehalf-transparent pane of glass in my tiny window, I saw her tendingher horse and cows before 5 a. M. She worked on, and worked hard, allday. 

The French have not had to face the difficulty of the "one-manbusiness" as we have, because the women of the minor bourgeoisie arewilling and able to step straight into their husbands' places andcarry on. I learnt that when I lived in towns. The French can gofarther in calling up the men who work the land, because theirpeasant women can do the work of men. The land suffers, I suppose, and the harvests are poorer than in peace time. But if farms inEngland were left manless as those French farms are, the result wouldbe much more serious in spite of the gallant efforts of the girls who"go on the land. "

M. And I tramped about that country a great deal while I was withhim. We saw the same things everywhere, cattle well cared for andland well worked by a few old men and women who looked old longbefore their time. 

Our landlady cannot have been an old woman. Her youngest child was ababy in a cradle, but she looked fifty or more. Loss of youth andbeauty is a heavy price for a woman to pay for anything. I wonder ifshe resented having to pay it. At least she has the satisfaction ofknowing that she bought something worth while though she paid dearly. She kept her home. She fed her children. As surely as her husband inthe trenches she helped to save her country. 

I have been assured that the French women have not been so successfulas English women in the conduct of war charities. They have notrushed into the hospitals to nurse the wounded with anything like theenthusiasm and devotion of our V. A. D. 's. In the organisation of WarWork Depots and the dispatching of parcels to prisoners of war theFrench women have proved themselves on the whole less efficient thanEnglish women. They have not shone in the management of publicbusiness, where Englishwomen have been unexpectedly able and devoted. 

On the other hand French women seem to have done better than Englishwomen in the conduct of their private affairs. This, I think, is trueboth of the bourgeois and peasant classes. In England the earningpower on which the house depends is the man's. When he is taken awayhe is very badly missed and the home suffers or even collapses. InFrance the women are more independent economically. They can carry onthe business or the farm sufficiently well without the man. 

But I did not get permission to visit M. 's cavalry division that Imight observe the French peasantry. I went to give lectures to themen. I did that, faithfully exerting myself to the uttermost, but Idid it very badly. I suppose I am not adaptable. Certainly theconditions under which I lectured destroyed any faint chance of mysucceeding, before I began. 

It has been my lot to lecture under various circumstances to widelydifferent kinds of audiences. I have been set up at the end of adrawing-room in a house of culture in the middle west of the U. S. A. Ihave stood beside a chairman on a platform in an English hall. Neverbefore had I been called upon to lecture in a large open field, standing in the sunlight, while my audience reclined peacefully onthe grass under a grove of trees. Never before had I watched myaudience marched up to me by squadrons, halted in front of me by thestern voices of sergeants, and sitting down, or lying down, onlyafter I had invited them to do so. It was a very hot afternoon. I donot wonder that half the men went to sleep. I should have liked tosleep too. 

I lectured that same day in another field to a different body of men. There I was even more uncomfortable. Two thoughtful sergeantsborrowed a table from a neighbouring house and I stood on it. Thataudience stayed awake, perhaps in hope of seeing me fall off thetable, but made no pretence of enjoying the lecture. 

Yet it was not altogether the strange conditions of the performancewhich worried me. I should, I think, have come to grief just as badlywith those audiences if they had been collected into rooms or halls. I was out of touch with the men I was talking to. I did notunderstand them or how to address them. I had some experience, experience of six months or so, of soldiers; but that was no help tome. These were soldiers of a kind quite new to me. They belonged tothe old army. Officers and men alike were professionals, not amateurssoldiering by chance like the rest of us. 

The cavalry is, with the possible exception of the Guards, the onlypart of our force in which the spirit of the old army survives. Everyinfantry battalion has been destroyed and renewed so often since thewar began that the original personality of the thing, the sense ofmemory, the link with the past and all its traditions, no longersurvives. An infantry regiment bears an old name; but it is a newthing. Its resemblance to the regiment which bore the name before thewar is superficial, a thin veneer. In spirit, outlook, tone, interest, tradition, in all but courage and patriotism, it isdifferent. In the cavalry this great change has not taken place. 

The cavalry suffered heavily in the early days of the war and haslost many men since. Large numbers of recruits have come in to makegood the losses. But the number of new men has never been so great asto destroy the old regiment's power of absorption. Recruits have beendigested by the original body. They have grown up in the tradition ofthe regiment and have been formed by its spirit. The differencebetween the cavalry troopers and the infantry privates of the army ofto-day is difficult to define; but it is very easily felt and plainto recognise. 

Perhaps it is most clearly seen in the attitude of men towards theirofficers. In the old army officers were a class apart. Everythingthat could be done was done to emphasise the distinction betweenofficers and men. And the distinction was a real, not an artificialthing. The officer was different from the men he commanded. Hebelonged to a different class. He had been educated in a differentway. He was accustomed before he joined the army and after he left itto live a life utterly unlike the life of the men he commanded. Itcan scarcely have been necessary to deepen by disciplinary means thestrong, clear line between officers and men. 

In the new army all that can be done by regulations is done to keepup the idea of the officer super class. But the distinction now is anartificial one, not a real one. Neither in education, social class, manner of life, wealth, nor any other accident are our new officersdistinct from the men they command. 

For the men of the old army the officer was a leader because he wasrecognisably in some sense a superior. He might be a good officer ora poor one, brave and efficient or the reverse. Whatever his personalqualities he was an officer, a natural leader. 

For the men of the new army an officer is an officer more or less byaccident. No one recognises any kind of divine right to leadership. Discipline may insist, does quite rightly insist, on due respect toofficers as such; but everybody feels and knows that this is a merequestion of expediency. Men cannot act together unless some onecommands; but it does not follow that the man who gives the orders isin any permanent way the superior of the men who receive them. 

What has really happened during the war is that the army has changedin the essential spirit of its organisation. It is no longer built onthe aristocratic principle like the army of Louis XIV. It has beendemocratised and is approximating to the type of Napoleon's armies orCromwell's Ironsides. The shell of the old organisation is therestill. The life within the shell is different. 

I do not know how the men of the old army regarded their generals andofficers in high command. If we may trust Kipling they had, sometimesat least, a feeling of strong personal affection and admiration forcertain commanders. 

 "He's little, but he's wise, And he does not advertise, Do you, Bobs?"

Very likely the cavalry men still have this kind of feeling for theirgenerals. The men of the brigade I visited certainly ought to haveloved their general. He did a great deal for them. But the new armydoes not seem to have any feeling either of respect or contempt forits generals. 

Nothing surprised me more when I became intimate with the men thantheir attitude towards their commanding officers. I had read of thedevotion of armies to their leaders. We are told how Napoleon'ssoldiers idolised him; how Wellington's men believed in him so thatthey were prepared to follow him anywhere, confident in his genius. Misled by newspaper correspondents, I supposed that I should findthis sort of thing common in France. I had often read of this generaland that as beloved or trusted by his men. 

In fact no such spirit exists. Very often the men do not know thename of the commander of the particular army, or even the brigade, towhich they belong; so little has the personality of the generalimpressed itself on the men. Very often I used to meet evidences ofpersonal loyalty to a junior officer, a company commander, or asubaltern. Occasionally men have the same feeling about a colonel. They never seem to go beyond that. There was not a trace ofadmiration for or confidence in any one in high command. It was notthat the men distrusted their generals or disliked them. Theirattitude was generally neutral. They knew nothing and cared verylittle about generals. 

Perhaps men never did idolise generals, and historians, likenewspaper correspondents, are simply inventing pretty myths when theytell us about the hero worship paid to Napoleon, Wellington, and therest. 

Perhaps the fact is that the conditions of modern warfare tend toobscure the glory of a general. He can no longer prance about on ahorse in front of lines of gaping men, proudly contemptuous of thecannon balls which come bounding across the field of battle from theenemy's artillery. His men are inclined to forget his existence, usually do remain ignorant of his name because they do not see him. One is tempted to wonder whether the formal--and verywearisome--inspections which are held from time to time behind thelines, generally on cold and rainy days, are not really patheticefforts of kings and generals to assert themselves, to get somehowinto the line of vision of the fighting men. 

Perhaps it may be that generals, through no fault of their own, havelost that "plaguy trick of winning victories" which bound the heartof Dugald Dalgetty to Gustavus Adolphus. Victories, so far as we cansee, are things which do not occur in modern warfare, or, at allevents, do not occur on the western front. If any one did win avictory of the old-fashioned kind it is quite possible that he mightbecome the hero of the soldier. 

It would be very interesting to know what the feelings of soldiers ofother armies are towards their generals. The German people seem toidolise von Hindenburg. Have the German soldiers any kind ofconfidence in his star? Von Mackensen has some brilliant exploits tohis credit. Does Fritz, drafted into a regiment commanded by him, march forward serenely confident of victory?

Our men do no such thing. They have unshaken confidence inthemselves. They are sure that their company commanders will not failthem or their colonels let them down. But they have no kind offeeling, good or bad, about their generals. 

CHAPTER XVIII

PADRES

The name "padre" as used in the army describes every kind ofcommissioned chaplain, Church of England, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, or Nonconformist. The men lump them all together. Ihave heard a distinction made between "pukka" padres and those whohave not enjoyed the advantages of episcopal ordination. But suchdenominational feeling is extremely rare. As a rule a padre is apadre, an officially recognised representative of religion, whateverchurch he belongs to. The same kind of character, the same generalline of conduct, are expected in all padres. We shall get a sidelight, if no more, on the much-discussed question of the religion ofthe army if we can arrive at an understanding of the way in which thepadre strikes the average man. 

The statistical method of arriving at knowledge is chiefly useful forpurposes of controversy. Any one with access to official recordsmight set out for admiration the hierarchy of padres, ranging fromthe Chaplain-General to the humble C. F. Fourth Class, might enumeratethe confirmations held, the candidates presented, the buildingserected, perhaps the sermons preached. It would then be possible toprove that the Church is doing her duty by the soldiers or that theChurch is failing badly, whichever seemed desirable to prove at themoment. 

That is the great advantage of the statistical method. It establishesbeyond all possibility of contradiction the thing you want toestablish. But if you do not want to establish anything, if youmerely want to find out something, statistics are no use at all. Youare driven to other ways of getting at the truth, ways much lessdefinite and accurate. 

I wish there were more pictures of army chaplains. There are a few. Ido not recollect that Bairnsfather ever gave us one, but they turn upfrom time to time in the pages of _Punch_. There was one in which asenior curate in uniform--the story is told in France of a much moreaugust person--is represented waving a farewell to a party of Frenchsoldiers, expressing the hope _que_ _le bon Dieu vous blesseraittoujours_. We need not concern ourselves with his French. Staffofficers and even generals have made less excusable blunders. 

What is interesting is the figure and face of the young man. He isalert and plainly very energetic. He is full of the spirit ofcomradeship. One glance at him convinces you that he means to behelpful in every possible way to every human being he comes across. He is not going to shirk. He is certainly not going to funk. You feelsure as you look at him that he will keep things going at asing-song, that a canteen under his management will be efficientlyrun. He is a very different man indeed from that pre-war curate of_Punch's_ whose egg has become proverbial, or that other who confidedto an admiring lady that, when preaching, he liked every fold of hissurplice to tell. He is not intellectual, but he is not, in practicalmatters, by any means a fool. 

His sermons will be commonplace, but--you congratulate yourself onthis--they will certainly be short, and he will neither be surprisednor hurt if nobody listens to them. There will be nothing mawkishabout his religion and he will not obtrude it over much, but when hestarts the men singing "Fight the good fight, " that hymn will go witha swing. In the officers' mess, when the shyness of the first fewdays has worn off, he will be recognised as "a good sort. " The men'sjudgment, expressed in the canteen after a football match, willdiffer from the officers' by one letter only. The padre will beclassed as "a good sport. "

There are other sketches of padres, and they do not always representmen of the senior-curate age. There is one, for instance, whichserves as an advertisement of a tobacco, in which the chaplain is aman of forty or forty-five. Before the war he must have been vicar ofa fair-sized parish, very well organised. And it is not always the"good sort" qualities which the artist emphasises. There is asuggestion occasionally of a certain stiffness, a moral rigidity asof a man not inclined to look with tolerant eyes on the "cakes andale" of life. 

Sometimes we get a hint of a consciousness of official position. Itis not that the padre of these pictures is inclined to say "I'm anofficer and don't you forget it. " He is not apparently suspected ofthat. But he is a man who might conceivably say "I'm a priest and itwon't do for me to let any one forget that. "

Yet, even in these pictures, we are left with the feeling that themen who sat for them were competent and in their way effective. Thereis no suggestion of feebleness, the characteristic of the pre-warcleric which most commonly struck the artist. And we recognise thatthe clergy have discarded pose and affectation along with the dogcollars which most of them have left behind in England. Freed fromthe society of elderly women, the British cleric has withoutdifficulty made himself very much at home in the company of men. 

That is the impression we get of the padre from the artists who havedrawn pictures of him. But there are not nearly enough of thesepictures to make us sure that it is in just this way that the men inFrance regard the clergy who have gone on active service. The fact isthat the artists who have sketched generals and staff officers inhundreds, subalterns in thousands, and men of the ranks inuncountable numbers, have not taken very much notice of the padres. They felt perhaps that the clergy did not really count for much inarmy life. 

Fortunately it is not only in the drawing of artists that thegeneral opinion finds expression. The average man, a very sure andsane judge of worth, cannot use pencil, brush, or paint; but he hasother ways of expressing himself. For instance he labels wholeclasses with nicknames. 

Consider the various names for the enemy which are current in thetrenches. "Hun" was not the invention of the army. It came from thenewspapers. The soldier uses it, but not with delight. He prefers"Boche"; but that was not his own word either. It originated with theFrench. And there is a noticeable difference between the way aFrenchman and an Englishman say "Boche. " The Frenchman hisses it. Inhis mouth it is eloquent of a bitter hatred for something vile. AnEnglishman says "Boche" quite differently. You feel as you listen tohim that he regards his enemy as brutal and abominable, but also asswollen, flatulent, and somewhat ridiculous. 

"Fritz" and not "Boche" is our own invention in the way of a name forthe enemy. It expresses just what the men feel. "Fritz" whom we"strafe" continually is in the main a ridiculous person, and anyhealthy-minded man wants to rag him. There is an inflated pomposityabout Fritz; but given the necessary hammering he may turn out to bea human being like ourselves. He wants to get home just as we do. Helikes beer, which is very hard to come by for any of us, and heenjoys tobacco. 

Or take another nickname. Generals and staff officers are called"Brass Hats. " The name was fastened on them early in the war and itstill sticks. Perhaps if we were starting fresh now we should givethem another name, a kindlier one. For a "Brass Hat, " if such a thingexisted, would be more ornamental than useful. It would occupy aman's time in polishing it, would shine, no doubt agreeably, onceremonial occasions, but would be singularly uncomfortable for dailywear. Is that the sort of way the fighting men thought of the staffafter Neuve Chapelle? The name suggests some such general opinion andthe name passed into general use. 

"Padre" is another nickname; but a friendly one. I should much ratherbe called a padre than a Brass Hat. I should much rather be called apadre than a parson. It is an achievement, something they may well beproud of, that the old regular chaplains were spoken of by officersand men alike as padres. I, who had no part in winning the name, feel a real satisfaction when I open a letter from man or officer andfind that it begins "Dear Padre. "

And yet--there is a certain playfulness in the name. A padre is notone of the serious things in army life. No such nickname attaches orcould attach to a C. O. Or a sergeant-major. They matter. A padre doesnot matter much. Religion, his proper business, is an extra, likemusic lessons at a public school. Music is a great art, of course. Noone denies it, chiefly because no normal boy thinks about it at all. The real affairs of life are the Latin grammar and the cricket bat. There is a master who gives music lessons to those who want suchthings. He may be an amiable and estimable man; but compared to aform master or the ex-blue who is capable of making his centuryagainst first-class bowling, he is nobody. 

Some feeling of that kind finds expression in the nickname "padre. "It is not contempt. There is not room for real contempt alongside ofthe affection which the name implies. It's just a sense that, neitherfor good nor evil, is the padre of much importance. It is impossibleto imagine King Henry speaking of Thomas à Becket as the padre. Hehated that archbishop, and he also feared him, so he called him, nota padre, but a turbulent priest. 

Is the kingdom of heaven best advanced by men who strike the world asbeing "padres" or by "turbulent priests"? It is a very nice question. 

There is yet another way in which we get at that most elusive thing, popular opinion. Stories are told and jokes passed from mouth tomouth. It is not the least necessary that the stories should be true, literally. They are indeed much more likely to give us what we want, a glimpse into the mind of the average man, if they are cheerilyunconnected with sordid facts. No one supposes that any colonialcolonel ever begged his men not to address him as "Sam" in thepresence of an English general. But the story gives us a true idea ofthe impression made on the minds of the home army by the democraticspirit of the men from overseas. 

I only know one padre story which has become universally popular. Ittakes the form of a dialogue. 

 Sentry: "Who goes there?"

 Padre: "Chaplain. "

 Sentry: "Pass, Charlie Chaplin, and all's well. "

It is not a very instructive story, though the pun is only fullyappreciated when we realise that it depends for its value on thecontrast between a man whose business is the comedy of grimace andone who is concerned with very serious things. That in itself is apopular judgment. Religion is a solemn business, and the churchstands against the picture house in sharp contrast; the resemblancebetween chaplain and Chaplin being no more than an accident of sound. 

There are other stories--not "best sellers, " but with a respectablecirculation--which throw more light on the way the padre is regarded. For instance, a certain fledgling curate was sent to visit adetention camp. He returned to his senior officer and gave a glowingaccount of his reception. The prisoners, no hardened scoundrels as hesupposed, had gathered round him, had listened eagerly while he readand expounded a chapter of St. John's Gospel, had shown every sign ofpious penitence. Thrusting his hand in his pocket while relating hisexperience, this poor man found that his cigarette case, his pipe, his tobacco pouch, his knife, his pencil, and some loose change hadbeen taken from him while he discoursed on the Gospel of St. John. 

I like to think that men will tell a story like that about theirclergy. The padre, an ideal figure, who is the hero of it, will failto win respect perhaps. He will, if he preserve his innocence, winlove. There will come a day when even those prisoners will----. SeeBook I of _Les Misérables_ and the Gospel generally. 

A chaplain, this time no mere boy, but a senior man of greatexperience, was called on to hold a service for a battalion which wasto go next day into the firing-line. This particular battalion wasfresh from England and had never been under fire. It wanted areligious service. The chaplain preached to it on tithes consideredas a divine institution. 

I am sure that story is not true. It cannot be. No human being iscapable of so grotesque an action. But consider the fact that such astory has been invented and is told. It seems that men--in this casehungry sheep who look up--actually find that the sermons preached tothem have no conceivable connection with reality. About to die, theyask for words of life--they are given disquisitions on tithes. 

"Well, sir"--I have had this said to me a hundred times--"I am not areligious man. " If religion is really presented to the ordinary manas "tithes, " or for that matter as a "scheme of salvation, " or "soundchurch teaching, " it is no wonder that he stands a bit away from it. I in no way mean to suggest that all religion in the army is of thiskind. But the broadly indisputable result of the preaching to whichour men have been subjected is this: They have come to regardreligion as an obscure and difficult subject in which a few peoplewith eccentric tastes are interested, but which simple men had betterleave alone. And the tragedy lies in the fact that the very men whothink and speak thus about religion have in them something very likethe spirit of Christ. 

The padres themselves, the best and most earnest of them, arepainfully aware that the ordinary pulpit sermon is remote, utterlyand hopelessly, from the lives of the men, is in fact a so many timesrepeated essay on tithes. And the padres, again the best of them, arenot content to be just padres. They feel that they ought to have amessage to deliver, that they have one if only they can disentangleit from the unrealities which have somehow got coiled up with it. All the odd little eccentricities in the form of service and therecent fashion of spicing sermons with unexpected swear-words arejust pathetic efforts to wriggle out of the clothes of ecclesiasticalpropriety. 

But something more is wanted. It is of little avail to hand roundcigarettes before reading the first lesson, or to say that God isn'ta bloody fool, unless some connection can be established between thereligion which the men have and the religion which Christ taught. 

There is another story which should be told for the sake of the lightit gives on the way men regard the padres, or used to regard them. They are less inclined to this view now. 

A chaplain, wandering about behind the lines, found a group of menand sat down among them. He chatted for a while. Then one of the mensaid "Beg pardon, sir, but do you know who we are?" The chaplain didnot. "I thought not, sir, " said the man. "If you did you wouldn'tstay. We're prisoners, sir, waiting to be sent off for FieldPunishment No. 1. "

The story often finishes at that point, leaving it to be supposedthat the padre was unpleasantly surprised at finding himself onfriendly terms with sinners, but there is a version sometimes toldwhich gives the padre's answer. "It's where I ought to be. "

I am not, I hope, over-sanguine, but I think that men are beginningto realise that the padre is not a supernumerary member of theofficers' mess, nor concerned only with the small number of men whomake a profession of religion; that he is neither a member of theupper, officer, class, nor a mild admirer of the goody-goody, but--shall we say?--a friend of publicans and sinners. 

It is a confusing question, this one of the religion of the soldier, who is nowadays the ordinary man, and his relation to the Church orthe churches. But we do get a glimpse of his mind when we understandhow he thinks of the clergy. He knows them better out in France thanhe ever did at home, and they know him better. He has recognised the"---- parson" as a padre and a good sport. That is something. Willthe padre, before this abominable war is over and his opportunitypast, be able to establish his position as something more, as perhapsthe minister and steward of God's mysteries?

CHAPTER XIX

CITIZEN SOLDIERS

I stood, with my friend M. Beside me, on the top of a hill and lookeddown at a large camp spread out along the valley beneath us. It wasgrowing dark. The lines of lights along the roads shone bright andclear. Lights twinkled from the windows of busy orderly-rooms andoffices. Lights shone, browny red, through the canvas of the tents. The noise of thousands of men, talking, laughing, singing, rose tous, a confused murmur of sound. As we stood there, looking, listening, a bugle sounded from one corner of the great camp, blowingthe "Last Post. " One after another, from all directions, many buglestook up the sound. Lights were extinguished. Silence followed bydegrees. We scrambled down a steep path to our quarters. 

"This, " I said, "is not an army. It is an empire in arms. "

M. Would never have made a remark of that kind. He has too muchcommon sense to allow himself to talk big. He is, of all men known tome, least inclined to sentimentality. He did not even answer me. Ifhe had he would probably have pointed out to me that I was wrong. What lay below us, a small part of the B. E. F. , was an army, ifdiscipline, skill, valour, and unity are what distinguish an armyfrom a mob. 

Yet what I said meant something. I had seen enough of theprofessional soldiers of the old army, officers and N. C. O. 's, to knowthat the men who are now fighting are soldiers with a difference. They do not conform to the type which we knew as the soldier typebefore the war. Neither officers nor men are the same. Only in thecavalry, and perhaps in the Guards, do we now find the spirit, or, ifspirit is the wrong word, the flavour of the old army. Theprofessional soldier, save among field officers and the olderN. C. O. 's, is becoming rare. The citizen soldier has taken his place. 

To say this is to repeat a commonplace. My remark was a commonplace, stale with reiteration. But it is the nature of commonplaces andtruisms that they only become real to us when we discover them forourselves. I was familiar with the idea of the citizen soldier, withthe very phrase "an empire in arms, " long before I went to France. Yet my earliest experiences were a surprise to me. I had believed, but I had not realised, that our ranks indeed contain "all sorts andconditions of men. "

I remember very well the first time that the truism began to assertitself as a truth to me. I was in a soldiers' club, one of thoseexcellent places of refreshment and recreation run by societies andindividuals for the benefit of our men. It was an abominable evening. Snow, that was half sleet, was driven across the camp by a strongwind. Melting snow lay an inch deep on the ground. The club, naturally under the circumstances, was crammed. Men sat at everytable, reading papers, writing letters, playing draughts anddominoes. They stood about with cups of tea and cocoa in their hands. They crowded round the fires. The steam of wet clothes and thickclouds of tobacco smoke filled the air and dimmed the light fromlamps, feeble at best, which hung from ceiling and wall. 

In one corner a man sat on a rickety chair. His back was turned tothe room. He faced the two walls of his corner. The position struckme as odd until I noticed that he sat that way in order to get alittle light on the pages of the book he read. It was Oscar Wilde's_De Profundis_. It was, I suppose, part of my business to makefriends of the men round me. I managed with some difficulty to getinto conversation with that man. He turned his chair half round and, starting from Oscar Wilde, gave me his views on prison life. Theprivate soldier, coming under military discipline, is a prisoner, sothis man thought. He did not deny that it may be worth while to go toprison for a good cause. But prison life is as galling and abominablefor a martyr as for a criminal. 

There is a stir among the men. A lady, heavily cloaked andwaterproofed, made a slow progress through the room, staring roundher with curious eyes. She was a stranger, evidently a distinguishedstranger, for she was escorted by a colonel and two other officers. My friend nodded towards her. 

"Do you know her?" he asked. 

I shook my head. He named a very eminent novelist. 

"Doing a tour of the Expeditionary Force, I expect, " he said. "I usedto review her books before the war. I'd rather like to review theone she'll write about this. Once"--he added this reminiscence aftera pause--"I dined in her company in London. "

He was a journalist before he enlisted. If he survives he will nodoubt write a book, a new _De Profundis_, and it ought to be worthreading. 

I went one afternoon to a railway station to say good-bye to somefriends of mine who were off to the firing-line. Troops usuallyleft the base where I was then stationed at 10 or 11 o'clock atnight and we did not go to see them off. This party--they wereCanadians--started in the afternoon and from an unusual station. Thescene was familiar enough. There was a long train, for the most partgoods waggons. There were hundreds of laughing men, and a buffetwhere ladies--those ladies who somehow never fail--gave tea and cocoato waiting crowds. Sergeants served out rations for the journey. Officers struggled to get their kit into compartments alreadyoverfull. 

I made my way slowly along the platform, looking for my friends. Inhalting European French I answered inquiries made of me in fluentCanadian French by a soldier of Quebec. I came on a man who musthave been a full-blooded Indian standing by himself, staring straightin front of him with wholly emotionless eyes. On every side of me Iheard the curious Canadian intonation of English speech. 

I found my friends at last. They were settling down with others whomI did not know into a waggon labelled "_Chevaux_, 8; _Hommes_, 40. " Ido not know how eight horses would have liked a two-days journey inthat waggon. The forty men were cheerfully determined to make thebest of things. I condoled and sympathised. 

From a far corner of the waggon came a voice quoting a line ofVirgil. "_Forsitan et illis olim meminisse juvabit_. " It is a commontag, of course, but I did not expect to hear it then and there. Thespeaker was a boy, smooth-faced, gentle-looking. In what school ofwhat remote province did he learn to construe and repeats bits of the_Æneid_? With the French-Canadians, the Indian, and all the rest ofthem, he, with his pathetic little scrap of Latin, was a private inthe army of the empire. 

It was my exceptional good fortune to be stationed for many months ina large convalescent camp. I might have been attached to a brigade, in which case I should have known perhaps Irish, or Scots, or menfrom some one or two parts of England; but them only. That camp inwhich I worked received men from every branch of the service and fromevery corner of the empire. A knowledge of the cap badges to be seenany day in that camp would have required long study and a goodmemory. From the ubiquitous gun of the artillery to the FIJI of aSouth Sea Island contingent we had them all at one time or another. 

And the variety of speech and accent was as great as the variety ofcap badges. It was difficult to believe--I should not have believedbeforehand--that the English language could be spoken in so manydifferent ways. But it was the men themselves, more than their variedspeech and far-separated homes, who made me feel how widely the netof service has swept through society and how many different kinds ofmen are fighting in the army. 

I happened one day to fall into conversation with a private, a youngman in very worn and even tattered clothes. He had been "up againstit" somewhere on the Somme front, and had not yet been served outwith fresh kit. The mud of the ground over which he had been fightingwas thickly caked on most parts of his clothing, and he wasendeavouring to scrape it off with the blade of a penknife. He smiledat me in a particularly friendly way when I greeted him, and wedropped into a conversation which lasted for quite a long time. Heshowed me, rather shyly, a pocket edition of Herodotus which he hadcarried about in his pocket and had read at intervals during the timehe was fighting on the Somme. 

A private who quotes Latin in the waggon of a troop train. A batteredsoldier who reads Greek for his own pleasure in the trenches, is moresurprising still. The Baron Bradwardwine took Livy into battle withhim. But there must be ten men who can read Livy for every one whocan tackle Herodotus without a dictionary. 

A piano is an essential part of the equipment of a recreation hut inFrance. The soldier loves to make music, and it is surprising howmany soldiers can make music of a sort. Pity is wasted on inanimatethings. Otherwise one's heart's sympathy would go out to thosepianos. It would be a dreadful thing for an instrument of feeling tohave "Irish Eyes, " "The Only Girl in the World, " and "Home Fires, "played on it every day and all day long. I am not, I am oftenthankful for it, acutely musical. But there have been times inY. M. C. A. Huts when I felt I should shriek if I heard the tune of"Home Fires" again. 

I was playing chess one afternoon with a man who was beating me. Ibecame so much absorbed in the game that I actually ceased to hearthe piano. Then, after a while I heard it again, played in quite anunusual manner. The player had got beyond "Irish Eyes" and the restof those tunes. He was playing, with the tenderest feeling, one ofChopin's Nocturnes. He asked me afterwards if I could by any meansborrow for him a volume of Beethoven, one which contained the"Waldstein" if possible. He confessed that he could not play the"Waldstein" without the score. He was an elderly man, elderlycompared to most of those round him. He was in the R. E. , a sapper. There must be scores of musicians of taste and culture in the army. Iwonder if there was another employed in laying out roads behind theSomme front. 

I gained a reputation, wholly undeserved, as a chess player while Iwas in that camp, and I was generally able to put up some sort offight against my opponents even if they beat me in the end. 

But I was utterly defeated by one man, a Russian. He could speak noEnglish and very little French. He belonged to a Canadian regiment, but how he got into it or managed to live with his comrades I do notknow. He and I communicated with each other only by moving the pieceson the chess board. I suppose he was a member of the Russian Church, but on Sundays he attended the services which I conducted. He used tosit as near me as he could and I always found his places for him. Hecould not read English any more than he could speak it, so the PrayerBook cannot have been much use to him. But there was no priest of hisown church anywhere within reach, and he was evidently a religiousman. I suppose he found the Church of England service better thannone at all. 

There was always one difficulty about the Church of England servicesin that camp. We had to trust to chance for a pianist who could playchants, responses, and hymns, and for a choir who could sing them. The choir difficulty was not serious. It was nearly always possibleto get twenty volunteers who had sung in church choirs at home. Buta pianist who was familiar with church music was a rare person tofind. When found he had a way, very annoying to me, of getting wellquickly and going back to his regiment. 

I was let down rather badly once or twice by men who were anxious toplay for the service, but turned out to be capable of no more thanthree or four hymns, played by ear, sometimes in impossible keys. Ibecame cautious and used to question volunteers carefully beforehand. One man who offered himself seemed particularly diffident anddoubtful about his ability to play what I wanted. I asked him at lastwhether he had ever played any instrument, organ or harmonium, at aChurch of England service. 

"Oh yes, sir, often, " he said. "Before the war I was assistantorganist at ----. "

He named a great English cathedral, one justly famous for its music. The next Sunday and for several Sundays afterwards our music was ajoy. My friend was one of those rare people who play in such a waythat every one present feels compelled to sing. 

Looking back over the time I spent in France, it seems as if a longprocession of interesting and splendid men passed by me. They camefrom every rank of society, from many processions and trades. 

There were rich men among them, a few, and very many poor men. I havewitnessed the signature of a private in a north of England regimentto papers concerned with the transfer of several thousand pounds fromone security to another. I have helped to cash cheques for men withlarge bank balances. I have bought crumpled and very dirty pennystamps from men who otherwise would not have been able to pay for thecup of cocoa or the bun they wanted. 

There were men in trouble who came to me with letters in their handscontaining news from home which brought tears to their eyes and mine. There were men--wonderfully few of them--with grievances, genuineenough very often, but impossible to remove. 

There were men with all sorts of religious difficulties, with simplequestions on their lips about the problems which most of us havegiven up as insoluble on this side of the grave. We met. There was aswiftly formed friendship, a brief intimacy, and then they passedfrom that camp, their temporary resting-place, and were caught againinto the intricate working of the vast machine of war. 

We were "ships that pass in the night and speak one another inpassing. " The quotation is hackneyed almost beyond enduring, but itis impossible to express the feeling better. Efforts to carry on acorrespondence afterwards generally ended in failure. A letter or twowas written. Then new friends were made and new interests arose. Itbecame impossible to write, because--oddest of reasons--after a timethere was nothing to say. The old common interests had vanished. 

From time to time we who remained in a camp--workers there--got newsof one friend or another, heard that some boy we knew had wondistinction for his gallantry. Then we rejoiced. Or, far oftener, wefound a well-known name in the casualty lists, and we sorrowed. 

Sometimes our friends came back to us, wounded afresh or ground downagain to sickness by the pitiless machine. They emerged from the fogwhich surrounded for us the mysterious and awful "Front, " and wewelcomed them. But they told us very little. The soldier, whateverhis position or education was in civil life, is strangelyinarticulate. He will speak in general terms of "stunts" and scraps, of being "up against it, " and of "carrying on"; but of the livingdetails of life in the trenches or on the battlefield he has littleto say. Still less will he speak of feelings, emotions, hopes, andfears. I suppose that life in the midst of visible death is too awfula thing to talk of and that there is no language in which to expressthe terrific waves of fear, horror, hope, and exaltation. 

Perhaps we may find in the very monstrousness of this war anexplanation of the soldier's unceasing effort to treat the wholebusiness as a joke, to laugh at the very worst that can befall him. With men of other nations it is different no doubt. The French fightgloriously and seem to live in a high, heroic mood. The men of ourempire, of all parts of it, jest in the presence of terror, perhapsbecause the alternative to jesting is either fear or tears. Othersmay misunderstand us. Often we do not understand ourselves. It is noteasy to think of Sam Weller or Mark Tapley as the hero of a strickenfield. Yet it is by men with Sam Weller's quaint turn of wit and MarkTapley's unfailing cheerfulness that the great battles in France andBelgium are being won. 

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors;otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author'swords and intent.