We were discussing chaplains the other day—the way some of them have failed us in this war. One of the officers told a story of Grannie M., one of our First Division majors. A chaplain, who never went farther than the wagon-lines, was always saying how much he’d like to see the Front. Grannie called his bluff and took him for a trip into one of the warmest spots. The chaplain kept dodging and crouching every time a shell fell within a hundred yards. Each time Grannie, standing quietly silent, waited for him to get up and renew the journey. At last the chaplain flopped into a shell-hole and refused to come out. Grannie, who is a big man and well over six foot, grinned down at him despisingly. “Priest,” he said, “if I thought I had half the pull with Christ that you say you have, not all the shells in France would make me lie as flat as that.” Later another chaplain came to that brigade. No one would give him house-room. He went off and slept where he could; he never came near the officers, but he haunted the men at the forward guns. When the brigade moved out to another sector, he procured an old skate of a horse and trailed along at the rear of the line of march like a hungry dog. The new Front proved to be a warm one; there were many casualties, but the chaplain was always on his job, especially when the shells were falling. From somewhere he got the money to start a canteen for the men, which he ran himself. When no one else had cigarettes, he could supply them. At last even the officers had to come to him. He finished up by being the most popular chaplain the brigade had ever had, honoured by everyone from the colonel down. There are your two types of army chaplains: the one who plays the game, the other who issues season tickets to heaven, but is afraid of travelling on them himself. XL France April 26, 1918 I It is now over a week since I have been back with my battery, and it seems as though all that trip along the American line and the rush back to New York had never happened. I’m sitting in a little “house” in a deep chalk trench. The house is made of half-circles of corrugated iron; there’s an anti-gas blanket hanging at one end and at the other a window made of oiled calico. Up one corner are the maps, scales, and office papers; pinned on boards is a four-foot map of the entire English front. My sleeping bag is stretched on an old French spring mattress, which was brought here some time ago by the Huns. From the walls hang a higgledy-piggledy of trench coats, breeches, tunics. This is the place in which we work out our ranges, play cards, have our meals, and rest when we’re back from doing forward work.