With the memoir A Padre in France, Irish clergyman James Owen Hannay (who used the pseudonym "George A. Birmingham") takes a break from the humorous political satires that were his typical stock in trade. Still, Hannay's characteristic wit and lighthearted take on life shine through in this firsthand account of his stint as a chaplain during World War I.

The case is very different behind the lines. There, indeed, we see the seamy side of war. There are the men who, in some way or other, have secured and keep safe jobs, the embusqués whom the French newspapers constantly denounce. There are the officers who have failed, proved unfit for command, shown themselves lacking in courage perhaps, and in mercy have been sent down to some safe base. There are the men who have been broken in spirit as well as in body, who drag on an existence utterly dull, very toilsome, well-nigh hopeless, and are illuminated by no high call for heroic deeds. There the observer sees whatever there is to be seen of petty spite and jealousies, the manipulating of jobs, the dodging of regulations, all that is most ignoble in the soldier's trade. There also are the men with grievances, who, in their own estimation, are fit for posts quite other than those they hold. Some one described war at the front as an affair of months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. If that philosopher had been stationed at a base he might have halved his epigram and described war as months of boredom unpunctuated even by terror.

Padres in No Man's Land is the compelling story of brave and deeply committed army chaplains who brought faith and courage to Canada's troops during one of history's most devastating wars. Tracing the growth of the Canadian Chaplain Service from its chaotic and controversy-ridden early days to its maturation as an efficient field force, Duff Crerar highlights both the role of the Service on the battlefield and the personal experiences of the chaplains. Refuting the widely held view that chaplains serving overseas were cloistered from front-line realities, Crerar describes the padres' experiences in camps, hospitals, and on the battlefield. He examines how they maintained their faith in the face of death and destruction, and explores the bonds forged between chaplains and troops. Padres in No Man's Land concludes in the postwar era with the decline of the chaplains' hopes for spiritual renewal upon their return to Canada - their dreams dashed not by the war, but by the subsequent peace.

These letters are in no sense a history—except that they contain the truth. They were written at the time and within close range of the events they describe. Half of the fighting, including the brave attack before Fromelles, is left untouched on, for these pages do not attempt to narrate the full story of the Australian Imperial Force in France. They were written to depict the surroundings in which, and the spirit with which, that history has been made; first in the quiet green Flemish lowlands, then with a swift, sudden plunge into the grim, reeking, naked desolation of the Somme. The record of the A.I.F., and its now historical units in their full action, will be painted upon that background someday. If these letters convey some reflection of the spirit which fought at Pozières, their object is well fulfilled.