of Bethune. Bethune at that time was a delightful
place. It was full of people. The shops were well provided with
articles for sale, and a restaurant in the quaint Grande Place, with
its Spanish tower and Spanish houses, was the common meeting ground of
friends. The gardens behind private residences brought back memories
of pre-war days. The church was a beautiful one, built in the 16th
century. The colours of the windows were especially rich. It was
always delightful to enter it and think how it had stood the shock and
turmoil of the centuries.

One day when I was there the organ was being played most beautifully.
Sitting next to me in a pew, was a Canadian Highlander clad in a very
dirty uniform. He told me that a friend of his had been killed beside
him drenching him in blood. The Highlander was the grandson of a
British Prime Minister. We listened to the music till the recital was
over, and then I went up to the gallery and made myself known to the
organist. He was a delicate young fellow, quite blind, and was in a
state of nervous excitement over his recent efforts. I made a bargain
with him to give us a recital on the following evening. At the time
appointed, therefore, I brought some of our men with me. The young
organist met us at the church and I led him over to a monastery in
which a British ambulance was making its headquarters. There, in the
chapel, the blind man poured out his soul in the strains of a most
beautiful instrument. We sat entranced in the evening light. He
transported us into another world. We forgot the shells, the mud, (p. 090)
the darkness, the wounded men, the lonely graves, and the hideous fact
of war. We wandered free and unanxious down the avenues of thought and
emotion which were opened up before us by the genius of him whose eyes
were shut to this world. It was with deep regret that, when the concert
was over, we heard him close the keyboard. Three years later the
organist was killed by a shell while he was sitting at his post in the
church he loved so well and had never seen.

When we were at Bethune a very important event in my military career
took place. In answer to repeated requests, Headquarters procured me a
horse. I am told that the one sent to me came by mistake and was not
that which they intended me to have. The one I was to have, I heard,
was the traditional padre's horse, heavy, slow, unemotional, and with
knees ready at all times to sink in prayer. The animal sent to m