Night or day, the ship ploughed remorselessly on.  It was steered a bewildering zigzag course to outwit the submarines.  The second day of the voyage saw us in the Bay of Biscay, a hundred miles off Cape Finisterre.  The sun got steadily hotter, and the sea bluer.

And the subalterns blessed the sun, because it gave them an excuse for putting on the white tennis-flannels which they had brought for deck wear.  All honest boys, we know, fancy themselves in their whites.  And the mention of their deck-flannels reminds me, strangely enough, of Monty’s daily masses.  It was evident from the attendance at these quiet little services that he had been busy persuading other young officers to see “how it worked.”

Every morning the smoking room was equipped with a little altar that supported two lighted candles.  And to this chapel there wandered, morning after morning, stray and rather shy young subalterns, who knelt “beneath the shadow,” occupied with their own thoughts, while Calvary’s ancient sacrifice was acted before God.

Monty had formed a dozen subalterns into a guild of servers.  And on these sun-baked mornings he would insist that his servers should kneel at their place beside the altar in their white sporting attire. “His Mass,” said he, “was meant to be mixed up with the week-day play.”

It was all quiet—­in fact, ever so quiet.  Outside on the deck there would be noises, and in the alley-way there would be bangings of cabin-doors, and voices calling for the bath steward.  But these things only intensified the quiet of the smoking room.  Monty would keep his voice very low, loud enough to be heard by those who wished to follow him, and soft enough not to interrupt those who preferred to pursue their private devotions.

Whether he was right in all that he did and taught, or was only a joyous rebel, better theologians than I must determine.  He was at least right in this:  the attraction of that early morning service was irresistible.  I began to look forward to it.  I enjoyed it.  When my comfortable bunk pulled strongly, and I was too lazy to get up, I would feel all day a sense of having missed something.  I had never been able to pray anywhere else so easily as I prayed there.  I had never before understood the satisfaction of worship.

Monty soon found that the only enemy who could beat him and prevent a swelling attendance of Youth at the Mass, was Cosy Bed.  C.B., as he contemptuously called him, was most powerful at 7.0 in the morning.  Padre Monty would not have been Padre Monty, had he failed to declare war on the foe at once.  He drew up a “Waking List” of his family (for he had adopted everybody on the ship under 25), and each morning went his rounds, visiting a score of cabins, where the “children” slept.  He burst upon them unceremoniously, and threw open the darkened port-holes to let the sunlight in.  For the sunlight, like all bright things, was on the side of the Mass.