to fix up again, to film them coming in, but I was too
late. "Anyway," I thought, "I will get him coming out."

Fixing up my machine at a new and advantageous point of view, I waited.
The service began. I could hear the strains of the old, old carols and
Christmas hymns. Surely one could not have heard them under stranger
conditions, for as the sound of that beautiful carol, "Peace on Earth,
Good Will to Men!" swelled from the throats of several hundreds of our
troops, the heavy guns thundered out round after round with increasing
intensity. Strange that at such a moment so terrific a bombardment
should have taken place. It seems as if some strange telepathic
influence was at work, commanding all the guns in the vicinity to open
fire with redoubled fury. And high in the air, our steel "birds" were
hovering over the enemy lines, directing the fire, and flecked all round
them, like flakes of snow, was the smoke from the shrapnel shells fired
on them by the Germans.

"Peace on earth, good will to men," came the strains of music from the
little church. Crash! went the guns again and again, throwing their
shrieking mass of metal far overhead. I fell into a deep reverie, and
my thoughts naturally strayed to those at home.

Returning to my room. I donned my thick woollen coat, as I intended to
rush off to G.H.Q. to see Tong, who had got a bad attack of dysentery,
and try and cheer him up. Getting into my car, I told the chauffeur to
drive like the wind. I had fifty kilometres to go. Away we rushed
through the night, and as we went through villages where our Tommies
were billeted, the strains of the old home songs--Irish, Scotch and
English--were wafted to my ears. Except for the incessant shelling, the
flash of guns, and the distant glare from the star-shells, it was almost
impossible to believe we were in the terrible throes of war. I arrived
at G.H.Q. about 8.30 p.m.

Poor Tong was very queer and feeling dejected. Not being able to speak
French, he could not let the people of the hotel know what he wanted. I
soon made him as comfortable as possible, and sat beside his bed
chatting about this, the strangest Christmas Day I had ever experienced.
After remaining with him for about an hour and a half, I again started
for the front line, where I arrived about 1 a.m., dog-tired, and at once
turned in.

So ended my second Christmas Day at the Front, and, as I dozed off to
sleep, I found myself wondering whether the next Chris