On looking over my diary during those delightful days while we were waiting to make the great attack, I see records of many journeys to our various battalions and artillery brigades. Wanquetin, Wailly, Dainville, Bernaville, Hautes Avesnes--what memories these names (p. 299) recall! I would rattle over the dusty roads in my side-car and pull up at Battalion Headquarters and get an invitation to dinner. On such occasions I used to visit the cooks first and ask them if they had enough food on hand for me in case the officers invited me to dine with them, and in case they didn't, if they (the cooks) would feed me later on in the kitchen. When the invitation had been given, I used to go back to the cooks and say, "It's all right, boys, you won't be bothered with my society, the officers have asked me to dinner." In the evening, before I rode off, I used to go round to the men's billets, or to the Y.M.C.A. tent, if there was one, and have a talk with the men on the war outlook or any other topic that was perplexing them at the time. Often I was followed to my car by some man who had deeper matters to discuss, or perhaps some worry about things at home, and who wanted to unburden himself to a chaplain. On the way back, when darkness had fallen and my feeble headlight warned us against speeding, I would meet or overtake men and have a talk, or tell them to mount up on the box at the back of the car and I would give them a ride. The rows of tall trees along the road would stand out black against the starlit sky, and in the evening air the sweet smells of nature would fill us with delight. We felt too, that nearer and nearer the hour of the great victory was approaching. Who amongst us would be spared to see it? How would it be brought about? What great and fierce battle would lay the Germans low? The supreme idea in the mind was consecration to a sublime sacrifice, which dwarfed into insignificance all previous events in life. We had our fun, we had our jokes, we met our friends, we saw battalions go on a route march, we watched men play their games in the fields; but to me it seemed that a new and mysterious light that was born of heaven hid behind the sunshine, and cast a glory upon men and even nature. To dine at the rude board table with the young officers of one of the companies of a battalion, perhaps in a bare hut, on the floor of which lay the lads' beds, was something sacred and sacramental. Their apologies for the plainness of the repast were to me extremely pathetic. Was there a table in the whole world at which it was a greater honour to sit? Where could one find a nobler, knightlier body of young men?