Spring, 1916.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Railway Dugouts, by paths a............