“It’s fine priestly work I’m doing for these lads, isn’t it?  Work any hospital orderly could do.  I ought to be hearing their confessions, and saying Mass for them.  Instead I play them ’Kitty, Kitty, isn’t it a pity—?’ But they don’t understand—­they don’t understand.”

“But, gracious heavens,” said Doe, “you can’t be always doing priestly work.  And we know to our sorrow that you do have sing-song services sometimes.  Why, last night you had at least a couple of hundred bawling hymns at the tops of their voices, and making the night hideous.  Wasn’t that priestly enough?”

“No,” he snapped.  “It was a service any layman or hot-gospeller could hold.  There they were—­a mass of bonny lads, all calling themselves ‘C. of E.,’ and none of them knowing anything about the Mass or confession.  Ah, they don’t understand.  It breaks my heart, Rupert.  All sons of the Church; and they don’t know the lines of their mother’s face!”

“Well, why on earth,” said Doe, impatiently, “do you run your beastly gramophone and your rousing services, if they’re not your proper work?”

“Why, don’t you see?” murmured Monty, turning away to watch the sun setting behind a sweep of violet hills, “I must pull my weight.  I can feel patriotic at times.  And, if I can’t be a priest to the big majority, I can at least be their pal.  That’s how a padre’s work pans out:  a priest to the tiny few, and a pal to the big majority.  I suppose it’s something.  Perhaps it’s something.”

Sec.2

It was Monty who first called Mudros, “The Green Room.”  The name was happily chosen, for here at Mudros the actors either prepared for their entry on the Gallipoli stage, or returned for a breather, till the call-boy should summon them again.  In it, after the manner of green rooms, we discussed how the show in the limelight was going.  We saw much that made us gossip.

We saw the huge black transports bear into Mudros Bay.  Many were ships that were the pride of this watery planet.  Like a duchess sailing into a ball-room came the Mauretania, making the mere professional warships and the common merchantmen look very small indeed.  But even she, haughty lady, was put in the shade, when her young but gargantuan sister, the Aquitania, floating leisurely between the booms, claimed the attention of the harbour, and reduced us all to a state of grovelling homage.  And then the Olympic, not to be outdone by these overrated Cunarders, would join the company with her nose in the air.

They were packed with yellow-clad and helmeted soldiers, who were as noisy about their entrance as the great ships were silent.  Tommy, coming into harbour at the end of a voyage, had a habit of announcing his approach.  So, when we on the land heard over the water shouting, singing, genial oaths, “How-d’ye-do’s,” and “What-ho’s”; and such advices as “Cheerioh!  The Cheshires are here!” “We’ll open them Narrows for you”; “Here we are, here we are, here we are again,” or the simple statement “We’ve coom!” we left our tents, and just went into our field-glasses, as one goes into a theatre.