It was perfectly impossible to get any place in which to hold Communion services, so, with the permission of the family who owned it, I made use of a little Gothic shrine near the church, which stood over a family vault. It was a miniature chapel, and had an altar in it. The glass in the coloured windows had been broken, but we replaced it by canvas. I hung upon the wall outside the board which I used as a sign, with the words "St. George's Church" upon it. In this little building every morning at eight o'clock I had a celebration of Holy Communion, and I always had some men attending. Our trenches were tolerably quiet, and lay beyond the Arras-Bethune Road. At a place called Maison Blanche there was a large cavern which was used as a billet for one of the battalions in reserve. Some strange stories were told about the fighting that had taken place in it between the French and the Germans at the beginning of the war. I went down into it one evening when the 16th Battalion was there. It was a most picturesque place. The walls and roof were white chalk and the place was cut up by passages and openings which led into other caves. The atmosphere was smoky, and a multitude of candles lit up the strange abode. The men were cooking in their mess tins, some were playing cards, and some were examining the seams of their shirts. I told them I was going to have a service at one end of the cavern and I proceeded thither with a good number following. Some of the card players seemed too interested in their game to care to attend, and so I called out to the men in a loud voice not to make too much noise, lest they should disturb the gamblers. One of the men who was playing cards responded "If you will wait till we have finished this hand, Sir, we will all come too." I made the announcement therefor that we would not begin till the players were ready. The result of this was that in a very little while all the men came and joined in the service. The possession of the Ridge gave the Germans a great advantage, because it commanded a view of a very large piece of country and several main roads. Further up the road from Maison Blanche there was a place called Arriane Dump, where the Engineers had stored material in preparation for our attack. A long plank road connected it with the Anzin-St. Eloi road. On a dark and rainy night that wooden track (p. 165) was an unpleasant place for a walk. Lorries, wagons, limbers, transports, horses and men crowded it, and the traffic every now and then would get blocked. No flashlights could be used, and it was hard to escape being run over. Yet to step off the boards meant to sink almost to your knees in mud. The language that one heard at such times in the darkness was not quite fit for ears polite. It is well that the horses were not able to understand the uncomplimentary speeches that were addressed to them.