ned of the church. Several shells fell
near us, and one of the men got a bit nervous, so I repeated to him the
verse of the psalm:

"A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at
thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee."

We had hardly arrived at the heaps of rubbish which surrounded the
entrance to the dressing station, beside which lay the blackened body
of a dead man, when a shell burst, and one of the bits broke the leg
of the young fellow I was talking to. "What's the matter with your
text now, Canon?" he said. "The text is all right, old man, you have
only got a good Blighty and are lucky to get it," I replied. The
cellars below had been used as a dressing station by the enemy before
Courcelette was taken and consisted of several large rooms, which were
now being used by our two divisions in the line. Beyond the room used
for operations, there was one dark cellar fitted up with two long
shelves, whereon lay scores of stretcher bearers and cyclists, and at
the end of that, down some steps, there was another, in which more
bearers awaited their call. Only two candles lit up the darkness. As
there must have been between three and four hundred men in the Red
Chateau, the air was not particularly fresh. Our choice lay, however,
between foul air within and enemy shells without, for the Germans were
making direct hits upon the debris overhead. Naturally we preferred
the foul air. It showed how one had grown accustomed to the gruesome
sights of war, that I was able to eat my meals in a place where rags
saturated in human blood were lying on the floor in front of me. Two
years before it would have been impossible. The stretcher bearers were
doing noble work. When each case had been attended to, they were
called out of the back cellar and entrusted with their burden, which
they had to carry for more than a mile over those dangerous fields to
the ambulances waiting in the sunken road. Again and again a bearer
would be brought back on a stretcher himself, having been wounded
while on the errand of mercy. Once a party, on their return, told me
that one of their number had disappeared, blown to atoms by a shell.

About four o'clock, though time had little meaning to us, because the
only light we had was from the candles and acetylene lamps, I went (p. 146)
into the cellar where the bearers lay, and, reminding them that it was
Sunday, asked if they would not like to have a service. One of them
handed me a