III

As always, the services were brief, lasting until about eight-thirty, when we returned to our units, and I to bed, as I went on duty that morning at three.

By the time I was relieved, had eaten a hasty breakfast and had dressed, I just had time to make our truck, which pulled [out] of our area at seven, as the town where the [next] services was held was some twenty-miles away, and a convoy had to be formed at a designated place to go into town. The services started at seven eight-thirty, which was the scheduled time, which was quite a feat in itself, as the expected six hundred had swelled into well over eight hundred, which taxed the capacity of the theater to the limited. A great many outfits other than those of our division had taken advantage of the chaplain’s invitation, so that he really had a splendid audience. As usual, the Jewish Welfare Board had been right on the ball, and despite the Chaplain’s pleading and writing for prayer books for the holiday, they had supplied with him with a lot of promises and not one tangible book, so that he was quite handicapped in conducting the services from our own limited number of prayer books, and what he had amongst his personal possessions.

The theater had evidently once been an attractive place, but had fallen into the usual state of decay that we find everything. Neverthless with luscious nudes rampaging across pink clouds on the ceilings in all sorts of phases of ecstacy, we surely had an unusual temple for our prayers.

The chaplain had a bare stage for a pulpit, which he

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