The Cross At The Front; Fragments From The Trenches

“THE letters on life and thought at the Front contained in this volume were all written in tents and billets within range, or sound, of the guns. They were written quickly in odd moments and at the bidding of passing impulses. Under such circumstances literary finish was impossible, but it is hoped that they have captured something of the freshness of feeling which one has while passing through unusual experiences, and which is apt to evaporate with the lapse of time. I have attempted no battle picture nor description of military operations, well knowing that such things are beyond me. I have merely gathered up some of the fragments that remained-fragments which might have been lost if not picked up at once. These I have attempted to sketch for the benefit of those at home. I trust they will reveal something of the spirit in which our soldiers lived and fought, suffered and died.”
As the author states in his preface his memoirs are the little snapshots and vignettes of his time as chaplain in the British Army during the First World War. He was a chaplain with the Queen’s Westminster Rifles in the Somme and Arras campaigns in France. There he caught trench fever, which laid him up for some time; after recovery, he was stationed at Abbeville until the war’s end.