Chapter XV 



The Rev. Rupert Inglis — A "Blue" — Becomes an Army Chaplain — Letter to his 

 Parishioners — 'No. 23 General Hospital — A^ Wounded Boy's Appetite — 

 A Friendly Postman — A New Disease — A Much-Travelled Bullet — Chaplains' 

 Duties — No "Cushy Job" — American Terms of Endearment — Princess 

 Christian's Ambulance Train — A Lesson for the Kaiser — Doubtful Kindness 

 ^Bishop of Winchester's Son Killed — Tragic Meeting of Brothers — The Rev- 

 Neville Talbot Wins Military Cross— Twenty-seven Wounds — A Peep into 

 German Trenches — Curious Find in a Church — A Promise Fulfilled — A Gifted 

 Corporal : His Romantic Life — Shell-shock Sufferers — Doctors and Nurses 

 Quarrel — A Factory Dressing-Station — Scratch Pack at Mess — Domestic 

 Life in the Trenches — Mr. Inglis " Cute " at Dressing Patients — Tragedy of 

 the Towels — Sunday Work — Liquid Fire Shells — Gordon Geddes Inspecting 

 — Chaplain Inglis and Captain English get Mixed — Some " Topping Things " 

 A " Little Beast "—Talking Sport— An Awful Night— A Week-end in a Shell- 

 Hole — A Resurrection — The Shropshires' " Little Affair " — ^Through Fire and 

 Water — Gallant Lance-Corporal — Doctors Worn Out — ^The Prince of Wales 

 in the Trenches — A " Full House" — German Written Orders — Padre IngHs 

 Missing — Some Letters and a Memorial Chapel. 



IN 1914 Mr. Inglis was the rector of a little Kentish village 

 where he had lived some years, and where he took it for 

 granted he would die in due course and be buried 

 after the fashion of previous rectors. 



On September 18, 1916, he was killed in the battle of the 

 Somme at the age of fifty-three, while rescuing wounded with 

 conspicuous gallantry. 



Years ago I remember being thrilled by the adventures of 

 Conan Doyle's " Brigadier Gerard," a soldier of Napoleon's 

 Grand Armee. It seemed to me that it was wonderful that 

 there could ever have been days of such heroic adventures, of 

 such great battles, such bravery, such suffering, and it seemed 

 quite clear that there could never be such days again. 



To-day the story of a quiet middle-aged rector, suddenly 

 snatched from his vestry meetings and Sunday-schools and flung 

 into the world-war, where the dormant passions of his fighting 

 forefathers awoke and carried him through scenes of terror and 

 horror to a most noble death, is a commonplace one, one of a 

 thousand others as strange, and stranger. Yet in those few 



