Everyone in the Church of England now seems to me to think almost exactly what was thought when this cathedral was built!  If this war achieves nothing else, I pray with all my mind, and all my soul, and all my strength, that all the sects and all the churches may suddenly feel tired of all the 1001 little methods of procedure, and say:  “Damn it all! what does all this ancient paraphernalia mean to us?  Is God quite so complicated and involved as we have supposed?  Everything else in the world progresses.  Thought progresses.  Let us take a deep breath, and realize that religion ought to be more ‘into the future’ than even Zeppelins or Tanks, please.”

[Illustration:  EXPLOSION OF AN AMUNITION DUMP The smoke from a large explosion usually assumes a queer tree-like form and disperses slowly.]

December 2.

Just been superintending the burying of some horses.  A curious job.  You have to disembowel them first.  Quite ghoulish.  And then head and legs are cut off, and the whole is buried in a hole 12 feet deep.  Up there they often lie about for some time, and get as smelly as dead human beings.  Back here it all has to be done prestissimo.

The strange thing is that, whereas before the war I should have felt sick and possibly dreamt about it, now it seems merely more boring than most other things of the kind.

Up there Tommies and Honourables eat their lunch of sandwiches with lots and lots of dead people in varying stages of decomposition all round.  An odour more hideous than anything you have ever imagined.  But you get used to it.

[Sidenote:  TALKING ABOUT HOME]

“How unpleasant they are to-day,” you say to anyone you are with.  And the answer is probably just a laugh.  Then you go on (if things are quiet) to discuss an imaginary day at home.  You would smile.

We actually discuss everybody’s clothes, the things in the room, the shape of the fireplace, the look of the tea-things and the comfiness of the chairs.

And we always end up by saying:  “And then after that I shall do absolutely Nothing for a fortnight!”

December 3.

December.  Frost on the trees, all fairy-like in this dense mist.  Not a sound.  The sun quite small and white and far away.  And if we were on the Cotswolds, I expect we should go out for a bit of a walk, just to warm up, after breakfast.

December 4.

A staff job has been in the air several days.  It may or may not come off.  I’m not very keen about it in many ways.  But I’ve a feeling that I could do it rather well, and so I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to accept.

Jezebel and Swallow have quarrelled.  Isn’t it awful.  Hunt has had to put Tank in between them.

Jezebel kicked Swallow, and the blood fairly spouted out—­got her in the leg, and she lost her temper, and began lashing out.  Hunt, with great presence of mind, threw a bucket of water over them both.  And as soon as they were quiet, dear, good, demure little Tank was put in between them as buffer.