A visit to the trenches was now a delightful expedition. All the way from Nieppe to Hill 63 one came upon the headquarters of some unit. At a large farm called "Lampernise Farm" all the transports of the 3rd Brigade were quartered. I used to have services for them in the open on a Sunday evening. It was very difficult at first to collect a congregation, so I adopted the plan of getting two or three men who could sing, and then going over with them to an open place in the field, and starting some well known hymn. One by one others would come up and hymn-books were distributed. By the time the service was finished, we generally had quite a good congregation, but it took a certain amount of courage and faith to start the service. One felt very much like a little band of Salvationists in a city square. In spite of having a horse to ride, it was sometimes difficult to cover the ground between the services on Sunday. One afternoon, when I had been to the Cavalry Brigade at Petit Moncque Farm, I had a great scramble to get back in time to the transport lines. In a bag hanging over the front of my saddle, I had five hundred hymn books. Having taken a wrong turn in the road I lost some time which it was necessary to make up, and, in my efforts to make haste, the string of the bag broke and hymn books fluttered out and fell along the road. Dandy took alarm, misunderstanding the nature of the fluttering white things, and started to gallop. With two haversacks on my back it was difficult to hold on to the bag of hymn books and at the same time to prevent their loss. The more the hymn books fluttered out, the harder Dandy bolted, and the harder Dandy bolted, the more the hymn books fluttered out. At last I passed a soldier in the road and asked him to come to my assistance. I managed to rein in the horse, and the man collected as many of the hymn books as were not spoilt by the mud. Knowing how hard it was and how long it took to get hymn books from the Base, it was with regret that I left any behind. But then I reflected that it might be really a scattering of the seed by the wayside. Some poor lone (p. 104) soldier who had been wandering from the paths of rectitude might pick up the hymns by chance and be converted. Indulging in such self consolation I arrived just in time for the service.