The soldiers took it all in good part. "Over incredibly bad roads, often up to the boot tops in mud, they marched with a swing that would have done credit to a Royal Review on Laffan's Plain, and as they marched they chanted their war-song, 'It's a long, long way to Tipperary.' It seemed hardly possible that for three solid months they had been fighting without a single day's rest. As they crossed the Belgian frontier their spirits rose. 'This is better than the last time we crossed it, isn't it, sir? Then we was on the run, having got more than we wanted at Mons, but now the boot's on the other leg. Now if we could only capture 'Kaiser Bill,' or even 'Old one o'clock' (General von Kluck), we might get home for our Christmas dinners after all.'" Then followed the battle of Ypres, the bloodiest battle of the winter campaign, and one of the most critical engagements of the war. It was now cold--bitterly cold. Rain and snow--snow and rain! The trenches became almost uninhabitable. Frost-bite among the men became common. Many were invalided to the base suffering from rheumatism. All that could be done for the men was done. Warm goat-skin coats were served out, and the men looked more like Teddy Bears than soldiers. Charcoal braziers were sent to the trenches, and, most important of all, the men were well fed. It was only a thin line to keep back the German hosts. How thin a line no one yet is permitted to tell. But it accomplished its task, and by November 20 reinforcements arrived and the situation for the British was somewhat relieved. All through the series of battles the chaplains had been busy with their grim work, caring for the wounded and burying the dead. "Bit of an attack on, sir," said the pioneer sergeant, "but they're firing high, and all the bullets are going well overhead; they don't matter. But there's a sniper who seems to have a line on that grave. It's so dark that it's certain he can't see us, but he seems to have a sort of instinct; as sure as we go near the place he begins firing. There you are, sir; he's at it again. Lucky he ain't a good shot." But notwithstanding the sniper, the chaplain buried his dead, and then tramped back in the darkness with shells falling all around. The battles now developed into a sort of siege, and for long drawn-out months the British and German armies faced each other in the trenches. By this time the Indian contingent had arrived and their chaplains with them.