Christian Soldier

RETREAT--C. R. Benstead--Century ($2.50).

When the Rev. Elliot Warne left his snug little parish in England to go to France as an earnest, sensitive, high-minded chaplain, he could not have picked a worse time. He joined his unit, an artillery brigade in Cough's Fifth Army, in the spring of 1918, four hours before Ludendorff launched his spring offensive. The first barrage shattered Chaplain Warne's nerve. For the next three weeks of nightmare, as the lines bent daily backward but never quite broke, he was in an increasing agony of bewildered fear and uselessness. Said one of the mess: "This parson of ours came out, I should say, thinking he was going to preach a Jihad.* All parsons do, to a certain extent. And what happens--some of 'em turn into quite good mess caterers, and that's about all." Chaplain Warne did not even turn into a good mess-caterer. Confronted by the daily reality of war and what seemed to his unseeing eyes the no less horrible callousness of his fellows, first his courage, then his preconceived notions, then his faith, then his reason, gave way. He was carried off at last to a hospital to die like a dog with rabies.

Though Retreat does not throw a beam of flattering light on army chaplains, the book has been praised by no less a churchman than gloomy Dean Inge, of London's St. Paul's Cathedral. Said he: "One of the best and most original of the new war books." Author C. R. Benstead, 33, 6 ft., 5 in., entered the War as a private, won a commission in the Gunners. He served at the Somme, the Ancre, Vimy Ridge, Arras, Passchendaele, was with the Fifth Army in the near-disastrous spring of 1918 his book tells about. He was mentioned in despatches, decorated with the Military Cross. After the War he finished at Cambridge, joined the Navy, is now Instructor Lieutenant Commander, H. M. S. Emperor of India. Other books: Round the World with Battle Cruisers; St. Ange, the Adventure of Richard Conway Bowen; Beginner's Luck.

*Holy war.

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