[handwritten addition of “1914” at top of page]

Christmas in Camp.

The camp itself differs from the town of tents we lived in at Valcartier and at West Down South; it is more like a regular barracks. For most of our Canadian troops have now moved into huts. These huts all look exactly alike. They are arranged in rows, two rows on one side and two on the other of the space allotted to each battalion. Every hut has its roof and sides covered with corrugated iron, and rests on a series of brick pillars some eighteen inches high. Inside, the huts are lined with thick building paper, and in spots the same paper serves as carpet. Some of the huts are divided into compartments; ours nearly all consist of one large room, like a miniature drill shed. One hut is set aside for the administration, one for the officers’ mess, one for the sergeants’ mess, one for the quartermaster's stores, one for the washing of persons and clothes, one for the drying of clothes, and one for the canteen. All the other huts are dormitories, built to accommodate ten officers, or anything up to forty men. The floor space allowed for each officer is eight feet by ten; that of the men in proportion. The troops generally seem to be happy in their new quarters. A hamlet of huts is not nearly as picturesque as a town of tents, but there is more room in the huts, the roofs don’t leak, and it is possible to get things dried. About the immediate surroundings I say nothing. When the thin layer of soil, perhaps a foot deep, is uncovered, you come to limestone and firm footing. Where the soil remains, it has been so churned up by rain and traffic that on wet days you cannot hope to keep your feet dry unless you wear rubber boots.

Of rain, as you know, we have had enough and to spare. This morning it is raining again, but everybody is thankful that for Christmas, the weather was fine. There was no snow – in this climate snow would soon have turned to slush – but there was just enough frost to harden the soil and put snap in the air.

The busiest man in the regiment during the days before Christmas was our efficient and obliging mail clerk Lance Corporal Slater. Our friends had sent us letters and parcels of good things galore, and it was his business to see that these all reached their destination. Now and then someone, in his off time, gave him some help. I took my turn at this for half an hour on Thursday morning, then I left to deliver mail to some men in hospital. Bulford Manor House, the Canadian medical headquarters, is rather less than two miles from us. On the staff there are nearly thirty doctors, under our good friend, Dr. Murray MacLaren, of St. John. The more serious cases are treated in the manor house, some hundreds in tents a few hundred yards distant, others again are in cottage hospitals, and there are three other branches of the hospital some miles away. It is an awkward and costly method of caring for the sick, for this inevitable scattering doubles the work. Gradually, Dr. MacLaren tells me, the hospital and all the patients, numbering nearly a thousand, are being moved to Nether Avon – a name pronounced and written by many as if it were a retreat in the infernal regions called Nether Haven. When patients are coming and going at the rate of over fifty a day, and are scattered among six different places, keeping record of them is no small task, and finding the whereabouts of over a dozen men takes time. However, thanks to the readiness of all the orderlies to give me all the information they could, I managed to get the letters to most of the men in and about the villages of Bulford and to send them to most of the rest. At 1 o’clock I had lunch with the doctors, a most hospitable and, apparently, able lot of men. The nurses live by themselves in one of the big cottages, near the tents occupied by the sick. When I got back to my own quarters during the afternoon I found, as usual, that several little things had to be done, among them the arranging for our regimental service next Sunday morning at 9.30 in the Y. M. C. A. tent. As this tent serves the whole of Larkhill camp, and many regiments, like our own, have no other sheltered place for holding service, one has to make his arrangements early. The Y. M. C. A. people have been most obliging; the institution has been an immense boon to our troops in camp. Then I found myself left with an hour and a half for a visit to Bulford Camp, a couple of miles away. Much to my regret, one holding the rank of captain in an infantry regiment is not usually entitled to a horse, consequently I do most of my locomotion on foot. But this time I was fortunate in being able to get a mount – an easy-going little mare of the transport department. I rode in state to pay my respects to the colonel of the second battalion, Major Beattie, ofCobourg, Ontario, one chaplain of that regiment, is away on Christmas leave with his family in the midlands, so I arranged to take the regimental service at 10.30 tomorrow morning. There is no extra work involved in such a second service, it merely means travelling a few miles, probably in the saddle, and giving the same short service over again. Probably tomorrow I shall speak on "Christ our Life and Light", – the significance of the illuminated evergreen Christmas tree. Then I looked up some other members of the battalion, Lieut. George Richardson, Captain Geoffrey Chrysler, and Lieut. Gordon McLennan were all away, but I had a "crack" with Sergeant Alan Beddoe, Corporal D.A. Simons and his brother from the Island. Alan told me of his Christmas gift from the choir of St. Andrew’s, and I handed Simons his from the teachers of St. Andrew’s Sunday-School. This was a pair of woollen wristlets, like those sent to me. After this little interview I saw Major Piper, chaplain of the fourth battalion, about a present that the chaplains of the contingent are giving to Major Steacy, the divisional chaplain, on the occasion of his marriage next Tuesday. While I was there the battalion had a little impromptu celebration of Christmas Eve in the shape of a bonfire. A tent caught fire, and within two minutes had gone up in flames. It made a pretty sight while it lasted, but the entertainment was brief, and by the time the men could turn out in response to the fire call, there was nothing of it left.

That evening our mess had a grand dinner. Members of the mess committee had spent hours in decorating the walls of the hut with Union Jacks and paper festoons of many colours hung from the rafters, and the cooks had "done themselves proud" in preparing the meal. We had everything proper for Christmas dinner, eatables and drinkables, everything except the presence of the ladies. After dinner came toasts and songs – speeches were barred – and so the time passed merrily from 7.30 till 10 o’clock. At ten I had to leave. For Canon Scott, of Quebec, chaplain of the 14th battalion, had arranged to hold a midnight service for the troops in the parish church of Amesbury, I had volunteered and had been appointed to escort our men, and the parade was called for 10.15 p.m. One sergeant, three corporals, and thirty-eight men turned out. We marched through the chilly fog, to the music of the pipes, the couple of miles to Amesbury, joined the other detachments near the church, and soon after 11 o’clock everyone was in his place in the church. I don't know much about the church, except that it is very old, dating centuries back into pre-Reformation times. Service was announced for 11.30. It did not begin till a quarter to twelve, and it lasted till after one, for the Anglican Communion service is lengthy, and there were four hymns as well. In such surroundings, and at such a time, the service could not but be impressive. Yet, Kirkman and non-ritualist that I am, I cannot help preferring our own simpler service; I cannot get accustomed to the method of having a service conducted by a couple of surpliced clergymen at the altar away beyond the screen at the far end of the chancel. A large number of the men attending the service went up and took communion. I did not; because the practice in the Church of England varies, and whatever the views of my excellent friend Canon Scott might be, I did not know the custom of this particular church with reference to non-Anglicans and the Holy Communion. But the fact that I did not partake made no difference; I liked the service, it was most appropriate, and I was glad to see so many of the regiment attend, of their own accord, at that hour of the night. After service the troops lined up on the road outside the churchyard, and marched off to the sound of the pipes. It must have been a little unusual for the English inhabitants of quiet Amesbury to hear the highland music at that hour on Christmas Eve, but I thought they might as well have the finest of music while they could get it, and therefore did not ask the pipers to stop. Troops always march better to music; when the pipes ceased playing the men sang, and rendered a varied programme of song all the way back to camp. Once we entered camp, all noise, even that of music stopped, It was 2 o’clock when we reached our huts, and a quarter past two when I turned in. The only trouble about my night's rest was that it was too short. I awoke next morning before 7, clear in head and sound in body, but feeling fresh as a bad egg.

Later,
Yesterday morning in trying to describe Christmas in Camp I got as far as the morning of Christmas Day. Now it is Sunday evening, and like Old Kaspar’s, my day’s work is done. Instead of sitting in the sun, like that renowned worthy, I am sitting on a bench under the lamp in our hut, near the stove, doing my best to focus my thoughts amid the buzz of conversation.

In spite of my ecclesiastical midnight revelry on Christmas Eve, I was the first to have breakfast in our mess. As a special treat that morning everybody was given a "long lie", but as I was due for service at Bulford Manor at 9.30, I had to get up much as usual. The service had been arranged on short notice between the Anglican chaplain and myself. The notice proved to be too short, and the hour too late for hospital people, and, to crown all, the general had announced that on Christmas Day he would make an official inspection of the hospital. Consequently everybody was busy as a bee in a tar bottle, and I had to give up the service. But I arranged with Dr. Murray MacLaren, the O.C., that next evening I should dine with the medical officers and do some visiting, and then hold Communion Service at 7.45 on Sunday morning. I spent the rest of Christmas morning visiting men in their huts, distributing some swagger note paper and envelopes that some good people had been kind enough to send me for the use of the troops. The huts give one a far better chance than the tents for visiting the men. In a crowded tent, where the men lay like spokes radiating from the tent pole, I did not care to intrude often, but in the huts there is plenty of room for a conversation with some of the men without disturbing the rest. I think the men rather like the chaplain to show himself as often as possible; it gives them a chance to know him, and vice versa.

Each of the nine companies of the regiment had made elaborate preparations for mid-day Christmas dinner. Many of the huts were most tastefully decorated with flags, coloured paper festoons, and evergreens, and the dinners were sumptuous. The officers shared the feast with their men, and in many cases paid for extra luxuries and Christmas gifts. I dined with H Company, commanded by one of the finest officers in the regiment, the senior officer of our hut, Capt. Clark Kennedy, "CK" as he is fondly and familiarly called by his comrades in the mess. After dinner and the toast of the King, other toasts

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