The battle of the Aisne was long drawn out, if that can be described as a battle which consisted of many days of fierce fighting culminating in long continued siege warfare in the trenches. During its continuance there was the same individual ministry, the constant hair-breadth escapes of chaplains and doctors—not always, however, for both chaplains and doctors suffered—the same heroic endeavour to ameliorate suffering and to point the dying to the Saviour.
Here and there we get glimpses of brief services held behind the firing line. A brigade at a time would be withdrawn from the trenches and then was the chaplain's opportunity. We read of a Sunday spent among these men who had just been facing death. An early communion, the men kneeling on the straw of a dimly lit barn, a service in the open-air among men of line regiments and of batteries, a united service in the evening at which the Rev. D.P. Winnifrith read the prayers, Colonel Crawford the lessons, and the Rev. O.S. Watkins gave the address.
We are told of hurriedly arranged services in the evenings—one in a cart-shed lit by two hurricane lamps, in which Church of England and Wesleyan chaplains took part, and Lieutenant Grenfell, R.A.M.C, a Wesleyan local preacher, gave the address. Another in a deep cutting, safe from shell fire, while overhead the guns were booming, but clear above the noise the music of the hymn—"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine." Another, which Lieutenant Grenfell reports, in a farmyard, amid the neighing of horses and the constant tramp of men.
Strange places these for the worship of God! But with a heart at rest, even amid the strife of battle, the Christian turns to God, and there is a deep longing in the hearts of men who cannot call themselves Christians for the consolations of religion.
Corporal Chappell, invalided home with a bullet in his leg, illustrates this with some touching stories of the battle of the Aisne. As they advanced to the front the road was for some distance lined with orchards. The Colonel issued orders that no apples were to be taken, for, said he, "It would be stealing." One man, however, could not resist the temptation, and when for a few minutes they rested, filled his pockets with apples. In a short time they were in the thick of the battle and shells were falling fast and furious. Out came the apples from the lad's pockets. He flung them as far from him as he could. "There, I will not have you on my conscience, anyhow!" he said.
Another lad close to Chappell said to him: "Chappell, I have a sort of feeling I shall not reach home again. I cannot help thinking of my wife and children."
"Have you thought of your own soul?" asked Chappell.
"There is no time for that," was the reply.
"Oh yes, there is a minute at any rate. Pray, lad, pray! Your wife and children are in God's hands. Pray for pardon now."
And so they two went forward praying. A few minutes and a shell almost annihilated the company, and among the rest the lad who had just been pleading "God be merciful to me a sinner" was killed. Thank God! no one ever prays that prayer in vain.