cliffs. And this time my theater was a
Y.M.C.A. hut. But do not let the name hut deceive ye! I had an
audience of two thousand men that nicht! It was all the "hut" would
hold, with tight squeezing. And what a roaring, wild crowd that was,
to be sure! They sang with me, and they cheered and clapped until I
thought that hut would be needing a new roof!

I had to give over at last, for I was tired, and needed sleep. We had
our orders. The Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour was to start for
Vimy Ridge at six o'clock next morning!

CHAPTER XIV

We were up next morning before daybreak. But I did not feel as if I
were getting up early. Indeed, it was quite the reverse. All about us
was a scene of such activity that I felt as if I had been lying in
bed unconsciously long--as if I were the laziest man in all that busy
town. Troops were setting out, boarding military trains. Cheery,
jovial fellows they were--the same lads, some of them, who had
crossed the Channel with me, and many others who had come in later.
Oh, it is a steady stream of men and supplies, indeed, that goes
across the narrow sea to France!

Motor trucks--they were calling them camions, after the French
fashion, because it was a shorter and a simpler word--fairly swarmed
in the streets. Guns rolled ponderously along. It was not military
pomp we saw. Indeed, I saw little enough of that in France. It was
only the uniforms and the guns that made me realize that this was
war. The activity was more that of a busy, bustling factory town. It
was not English, and it was not French. I think it made me think more
of an American city. War, I cannot tell you often enough, is a great
business, a vast industry, in these days. Someone said, and he was
right, that they did not win victories any more--that they
manufactured them, as all sorts of goods are manufactured. Digging,
and building--that is the great work of modern war.

Our preparations, being in the hands of Captain Godfrey and the
British army, were few and easily made. Two great, fast army motor
cars had been put at the disposal of the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P.,
Tour, and when we went out to get into them and make our start it was
just a problem of stowing away all we had to carry with us.

The first car was a passenger car. Each motor had a soldier as
chauffeur. I and the Reverend George Adam rode in the tonneau of the
leading car, and Captain Godfrey, our manager and guide, sat with the
driver, in fro