A Padre in France

The camp in which I lived was the first in the series of camps which stretched along the whole winding valley. We were nearest to the entrance gates, at which military police we...

"Y.S.C." stands for Young Soldiers' Club, an institution which had a short, but, I think, really useful existence in the large camp where I was first stationed. There were in th...

We always spoke of it, affectionately and proudly, as "the Con. Camp." The abbreviation was natural enough, for "convalescent" is a mouthful of a word to say, besides being very...

The problem which faces the commandant of a base in France, or a camp at home, must be very like that which a public schoolmaster has to tackle. The business of instruction come...

Madame was certainly an old woman, if age is counted by years. She had celebrated her golden wedding before the war began. But in heart she was young, a girl.

At the front, the actual front where the fighting is, imagination runs riot in devising place names, and military maps recognise woods, hills, and roads by their new titles. At...

I knew many recreation huts, Y.M.C.A. huts, Church Army huts, E.F. canteens, while I was in France. I was in and out of them at all sorts of hours. I lectured in them, preached...

At last! I have the precious paper safe in my hand, in my pocket with a button fastened tight to keep it there: my leave warrant, passport to ten days' liberty, rest, and--other...

War must always have been a miserable business; but our fathers and grandfathers had the sense to give it an outward semblance of gaiety. They went forth to battle dressed in th...

I stood, with my friend M. beside me, on the top of a hill and looked down at a large camp spread out along the valley beneath us. It was growing dark. The lines of lights along...

Holidays, common enough in civil life, are rare joys in the B.E.F. Leave is obtainable occasionally. But nobody speaks of leave as "holidays." It is a thing altogether apart. It...

I look back with great pleasure on my connection with the Emergency Stretcher-bearers' Camp. It was one of three camps in which I worked when I went to B. I liked all three camp...

I made my start from Victoria Station on a January morning. I had worn His Majesty's uniform for no more than two days, and was still uneasily conscious of my strange clothes. I...

In the camp in which I was first stationed there was a story current which must, I think, have had a real foundation in fact. It was told in most messes, and each mess claimed t...

"_'Tis but in vain for soldiers to complain._" That jingle occurs over and over again in Wolfe Tone's autobiography. It contains his philosophy of life. I learned to appreciate...

I have always admired the sagacity of Balak, King of Moab, about whom we learn something in the Book of Numbers. He was threatened with invasion by a powerful foe and felt unequ...

Next morning we went to see the Deputy-Chaplain-General. It is not right or possible, either in the army or anywhere else, to plunge straight into very august presences. We intr...

There are, or used to be, people who believe that you can best teach a boy to swim by throwing him into deep water from the end of a pier and leaving him there. If he survives,...

The name "padre" as used in the army describes every kind of commissioned chaplain, Church of England, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, or Nonconformist. The men lump them all toge...

A chaplain, this time no mere boy, but a senior man of great experience, was called on to hold a service for a battalion which was to go next day into the firing-line. This part...