were very comfortable, and at night when the winds were blowing and
the rain was coming down in sheets, it was not half bad after dinner
to read aloud Tennyson's "Ulysses" or other of my favourite poems. I
am not sure that I did not at times, relying upon the inclemency of
the weather overhead, recite some of my own. I know that one morning,
when I had awakened at about four o'clock, I turned on the light of a
storage battery which I had found in a German dugout, and sitting up
wrote the verses which I called "The Silent Toast" and which my (p. 174)
artillery friends approved of when I recited them at breakfast.
The aftermath of victory is of course very sad. Many were the gallant
men whose bodies were laid to rest in the little cemetery at Ecoivres.
The cemetery is well kept and very prettily situated. The relatives of
those who are buried there will be pleased to find the graves so
carefully preserved. The large crucifix which stands on a mound near
the gate is most picturesquely surrounded by trees. In the mound some
soldier, probably a Frenchman, had once made a dugout. The site was
evidently chosen with the idea that crucifixes were untouched by
shells, and therefore places of refuge from danger. I often thought,
as I looked at the crucifix with the human shelter beneath it, that it
might stand as a symbol of the hymn:--
"Rock of Ages cleft for me
Let me hide myself in Thee."
The engineers had had a dump for their material near the Bethune-Arras
road, and when they moved it forward to a place called the "Nine
Elms," the engineer officer gave me his dugout, which was partly
beside the road and partly under it. It consisted of several rooms,
one of which contained a bed, and had steps going down to a deep
chamber whither one could retire in case of shelling. It was good to
have such a large and comfortable establishment, and when Alberta was
chained up in her corner and I had strapped myself into my kit bag at
night, we both felt very snug. The only trouble was that visitors kept
coming at all hours to ask for engineering materials, not knowing that
the character of the abode had changed. Early one morning, an officer
came in a great hurry, and waking me up, asked if there were any
winches there,--he pronounced the word like wenches. I sat up in bed
and looked at him sternly, and said, "Young man, this is a religious
establishment, I am the Senior Chaplain, and there are no wenches
here." He did not know quite what to make of the situation. "I mean
wooden ones," he said. I replied, "Young man, there are no wenches
here, either wooden or any other kind; the engineers have gone
forward." He apologized and left. On another occasion, in the darkness
of middle night, an Imperial soldier who had lost his way came down
the steps and put his head into my door and began to stammer and hiss
in such an extraordinary way that Alberta was roused and barked (p. 175)
furiously. I woke up with a start and asked what the matter was, but all
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