e books, padre," he said. "It's a
padre's business to look after books."

The Rev. John Haddingly, C.F., was a gentle little man, liked by the
officers because he was entirely unassuming, and popular with the men
because he was always ready to help them. He accepted the whole blame
for the loss of the books without an attempt to defend himself.

"I'm awfully sorry, Maitland," he said. "I ought to have seen to those
books. I did look after the Prayer Books. They're here all right; at
least most of them are."

"Prayer Books!" said Maitland. "If they were even whole Prayer Books!
But those little yellow tracts of yours! They haven't even got the
Thirty-Nine Articles in them. If they were pukka Prayer Books I'd borrow
one and try to read it. I expect there are lots of interesting things
in the small print parts of the Prayer Book, the parts you padres never
read out. But what's the good of the books you have? Nothing in them but
what we all know off by heart."

Haddingly sighed. He was painfully conscious of the shortcomings of the
Field Service Books supplied for the use of the troops. Dalton came to
his defence.

"Don't strafe the padre," he said. "He brought along a church, an entire
church. Is there another padre in the whole Army who could have got a
church to a place like this?"

Dalton's almost incredible statement was literally true. Haddingly
had succeeded, contrary to all regulations, in bringing with him from
England a corrugated iron church. It was quite a small one, it folded up
and could be packed flat When unpacked and erected it was undeniably
a church. It had a large cross at one end of it outside. Inside it
was furnished with an altar, complete with cross and candlesticks, a
collapsible harmonium and a number of benches. Chaplains have certainly
no right to load up troopships with churches, but Haddingly had somehow
got his to Egypt. By what blandishments the transport officer had been
induced to drag the thing out into the desert beyond the canal no one
knew. Haddingly was one of those uncomplainingly meek men who never
stand up for themselves. It is a curious fact, but it is a fact, that
a really helpless person gets things done for him which the most
aggressive and masterful men cannot accomplish. The success in life of
women of the "clinging" kind is an illustration of this law.

Haddingly smiled with joy at the mention of his church. It stood,
securely bolted together, a little outside the cam