It was a sordid sight, but for a non-combatant job, to be a member of a burial party was certainly not a pleasant one, and I do not think anyone could grudge them whatever pennies they made, and most of them would have to go back in the trenches when their burial party disbanded.
Down in the Valley of the Ancre, just beside the Thiepval Hill Road, there was a great colony of Indians.

They were all Catholics, and were headed by an old padre who had worked in India for forty-five years--a fine old fellow.

He held wonderful services each Sunday afternoon on the side of the Hill in the open air; he had an altar put up with wonderful coloured draperies behind it, which hung from a structure about thirty feet high.

In the mornings, it was a very beautiful (p.

039) sight to see these nut-brown men washing themselves and their bronze vessels among the reeds in the Ancre; one could hardly believe one was in France.