"No parade services? We have 'em all right, when we can. Of course, it depends a bit on the O.C., and in the Labour Corps especially it isn't usually possible. It isn't like the line, old fellow, and even the line isn't what we knew it. You can't have parade services in trenches, and you can't have them much when the men are off-loading bully beef or mending aeroplanes and that sort of thing. This war's a big proposition, and it's got to go on. Why? Young Graham grousing?"
"No, no—oh, no," hastily asserted Doyle, the soul of honour. "No, not at all. Only mentioned not getting a parade, and it seemed to me a pity. There's a lot in the good old established religion."
"Is there?" said the other thoughtfully. "I'm not so sure to-day. The men don't like being ordered to pray. They prefer to come voluntarily."
Doyle got fierce. "Don't like being ordered, don't they? Then what the deuce are they there for? Good Lord, man! the Army isn't a debating society or a mothers' meeting. You might as well have voluntary games at a public school!"
The A.C.G. smiled. "That's it, old headstrong! No, my boy, the Army isn't a mothers' meeting—at any rate, Fritz doesn't think so. But times have changed, and in some ways they're better. I'd sooner have fifty men at a voluntary service than two hundred on a parade."
"Well, I wouldn't," exploded Doyle. "I know your voluntary services—Moody and Sankey hymns on a Sunday night. The men had better be in a decent bar. But turn 'em out in the morning, clean and decent on parade, and give 'em the old service, and it'll tighten 'em up and do 'em good. Voluntary service! You'll have volunteer evangelists instead of Army chaplains next!"
Colonel Chichester still smiled, but a little grimly. "We've got them," he said. "And no doubt there's something in what you say; but times change, and the Church has got to keep abreast of the times. But, look here, I must go. What about a luncheon? I've not got much leave."
"So must I; I've an appointment," said Doyle. "But all right, old friend, to-morrow at the club. But you're younger than I, Chichester, or perhaps you parsons don't get old as quickly!"
They shook hands and parted. Sir Robert was busy for an hour, and came out again with his head full of the proposed plans for the aerial defence of London. "Taxi, sir?" he was asked at the door. "No," he replied; "I'll walk home."
"Best way to think, walking at night," he said to himself as he turned down Whitehall, through the all but empty streets, darkened as they were. The meaning of those great familiar spaces struck him as he walked. Hardly formulating it, he became aware of a sense of pride and responsibility as he passed scene after scene of England's past glory. The old Abbey towered up in the moonlight, solemn and still, but almost as if animate and looking at him. He felt small and old as he passed into Victoria Street. There the Stores by night made him smile at the contrast, but in Ashley Gardens Westminster Cathedral made him frown. If he hated anything, it was that for which it stood. Romanism meant to him something effeminate, sneaking, monstrous…. That there should be Englishmen to build such a place positively angered him. He was not exactly a bigot or a fanatic; he would not have repealed the Emancipation Acts; and he would have said that if anyone wanted to be a Romanist, he had better be one. But he would not have had time for anyone who did so want, and if he should have had to have by any chance dealings with a priest, he would have been so frigidly polite that the poor fellow would probably have been frozen solid. Of course, Irishmen were different, and he had known some capital fellows, Irish priests and chaplains….