3)
outside St. George's Church for the Divisional Train six-thirty p.m.,
service for the 3rd Field Ambulance and convalescent camp at
eight-forty-five p.m. On week-days too, we had to arrange many
services for units which had come out of the line. It was really a
life full of activity and interest. It filled one with a thrill of
delight to be able to get round among the men in the trenches, where
the familiar scenery of Sanctuary Wood, Armagh Wood, Maple Copse and
the Ravine will always remain impressed upon one's memory. Often when
I have returned to my hut at night, I have stood outside in the
darkness, looking over the fields towards the front, and as I saw the
German flares going up, I said to myself, "Those are the foot-lights
of the stage on which the world's greatest drama is being enacted."
One seemed to be taking part, however humbly, in the making of human
history. But it was a grievous thing to think of the toll of life that
the war forced upon us and the suffering that it involved. The brave
patient hearts of those at home were continually in our thoughts, and
we always felt that the hardest burden was laid upon them. They had no
excitement; they knew not the comradeship and the exaltation of
feeling which came to those who were in the thick of things at the
front. They had to go on day by day bearing their burden of anxiety,
quietly and patiently in faith and courage. To them our men were
always ready to give the palm of the victors.

CHAPTER XII. (p. 134)

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME.

_Autumn, 1916._

It always happened that just when we were beginning to feel settled in
a place, orders came for us to move. At the end of July we heard of
the attack at the Somme. Rumours began to circulate that we were to go
South, and signs of the approaching pilgrimage began to manifest
themselves. On August 10th all my superfluous baggage was sent back to
England, and on the following day I bid good-bye to my comfortable
little hut at Hooggraaf and started to ride to our new Divisional
Headquarters which were to be for the time near St. Omer. After an
early breakfast with my friend General Thacker, I started off on Dandy
for the long ride. I passed through Abeele and Steenvoorde, where I
paid my respects at the Chateau, overtaking many of our units, either
on the march or in the fields by the wayside, and that night I arrived
at Cassel and put up at the hote