HELLO! SKY-PILOT!
At the outset of the war there was much speculation as to the response the
Lion's cubs would make to the call for help. Britain, herself, never
doubted that her children, now fully grown and very strong, would rally to
the old flag as in the earlier days of their greater dependency. But
Britain, England, is of the Brer Rabbit type--she sits still and says
nuffin'.
The neutrals speculated on the attitude of Canada. German propaganda had
been busy, and certain sections of the Canadian public had been heard to
say that they had no part with England--but that was before the war. The
speculative neutral had a shock and a disappointment. Not a Canadian, man
or woman, but remembered that England was "home," and home was threatened.
As one man they answered the short sharp cry.
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa provided food for conversation
among the nations then not engaged in the fight. South Africa had a rising,
fostered by German money and German lies, but it fizzled out before the
determined attitude, not of England, but of the men who counted in South
Africa itself. All of these countries, which used to be colonies, came
without question when the need arose. They may have had minor disagreements
with the Old Country, they may have resented the last lingering parental
attitude of the Motherland, but let any one touch as an enemy that
Motherland and that enemy had well have cried, "Peccavi!" on the moment.
Above all, the neutrals wondered about India. That vast Far Eastern Empire
with her millions of men--what would India do?
What did India do? The maharajahs threw into the coffers of the homeland
millions of money, they threw in jewels in quantity to be judged by weight
of hundreds, in value to be judged in millions of pounds. They offered
their men and their lahks of rupees without reservation. The regular troops
of the Eastern Empire, the Ghurkas, the Pathans, the Sikhs, a half dozen
others, clamored to be taken over to Europe to fight at the front for the
great White Chief.
The Indian troops came to Europe, landed in France, and took up their stand
on the western front. To them I must make special reference. Some idea may
be abroad that because the Hindu troops are not still in France that they
proved poor fighters. This is very far from the truth. The Indian regiments
were among our best, but they could not stand the rigors of the European
climate. They had been used to the warmth and brightness and dryness of
their homeland; they came to cold and rain and mud and unknown discomforts.
It was too much. Again, the Indian is made for open, hand-to-hand warfare.
Give him a hill to climb and hold, give him a forest to crawl through and
gain his point, give him open land to pass over without being seen, he can
not be beaten. But the strain, mental and physical, of trench life was too
much.
To the Indian, war is a religion. One day I went down the line to where a
body of Ghurkas were lying to our left. I walked along about a mile through
the muddy ditches and at last came up with one of the men. I stopped and
spoke, then offered him a fag. After this interchange of courtesies we
fell into conversation. He did not know very much English, and I no
Hindustani at all, but in a short time one of the Ghurka officers
approached. The officers and men of these regiments are very friendly, more
chummy almost than are our officers to our men. This officer acted as an
interpreter, and together they told me much that I was anxious to know.
After a little I asked the Ghurka to show me his knife, but he would not.
The Ghurka knife is a weapon of wonderful grace. It is short and sharpened
on both edges, while it is broad and curved almost to the angle of a
sickle. It is used in a flat sweeping movement, which, when wielded by an
expert, severs a limb or a head at one blow. I was told that at twenty
yards, when they throw it, they never miss.
At last, through the agency of the officer, I found that it is against all
the laws of battle for a soldier of this clan to remove his knife from the
scabbard unless he draws blood with the naked blade. The unfailing courtesy
of the Hindu forbade a continued refusal, and as I urged him the soldier
at last slowly drew the blade from its sheath. He did not raise it for me
to examine, nor did he lift his eyes to mine until he had pricked his hand
between the thumb and first finger and raised a jet of his own red blood.
Then only did I have the privilege of looking at his treasured weapon.
The Hindu warrior believes that to die in battle is to win at once a
coveted eternity in Erewohne. He does not wish to be merely wounded, he
desires death in fight rather than immunity from injury. He does not evade
danger; rather he seeks it.
Shortly after this, at the great battle of Neuve Chapelle, where the
British took over five miles of trenches and four miles of front from the
enemy, the Hindu troops distinguished themselves in magnificent charges.
They leaped out of the trenches almost before the word of command had
reached their hearing. Fleet of foot and lithe of action, they had sprung
into the enemy trenches and slashed the Hun to submission before the
heavier white men had got across the intervening country. They were
wonderful, full of dash and courage, but the difficulties of the situation
called for an alteration of their fighting _milieu_.
Feeding these troops also was a matter of considerable moment. Their
religion forbade the eating of any meat but that of the goat. These animals
must be freshly killed and must be killed by the Hindu himself. This
entailed the bringing up to the line of herds of live goats. In addition,
many other formalities of food supply had to be taken into account.
With the most fervent thanks for the good work done on our western front,
the authorities came to the conclusion that our cousins of the East would
be even greater in service on one of our other fronts. They have gone since
to Egypt, to Saloniki, to Mesopotamia, and to the East and West African
fronts. They are playing a magnificent and unforgetable part in the world
war. They have endeared themselves to the hearts of the folks at home and
they have earned the lasting gratitude of all of us. They have defended
their section of the empire as we have defended our northern part of the
red splotches which mark Britain on the map.
I was sorry that the Indian regiments had to be removed from the west
front, because, undoubtedly, they were the most feared by the Hun. The
Indian was at his best in a charge, but at night he had an uneasy habit of
crawling out of the trench toward Fritz, with his knife held firmly between
his teeth. Before dawn he would return, his knife still in his teeth, but
in his hand a German head.
To-day the Canadians in France are known by the enemy as the "white
Ghurkas," and this, to us, is one of the highest compliments. The Ghurkas
are considered bravest of the brave. Shall we not be proud to share a title
such as this?
As the religion of the Ghurka follows him to the battle-field, so in a
different sense does the religion of the white man. We have our thoughts,
our hopes and our aspirations. Some of us have our Bibles and our
prayer-books, some of us have rosaries and crucifixes. All of us have deep
in our hearts love, veneration and respect for the sky-pilot--chaplain, if
you would rather call him so. To us sky-pilot, and very truly so, the man
who not only points the way to higher things, but the man who travels with
us over the rough road which leads to peace in our innermost selves.
It does not matter of what sect or of what denomination these men may be.
Out on the battle-field there are Anglican clergy, there are Roman
Catholic priests, there are ministers of the Presbyterian, the Methodist,
the Baptist and other non-conformist faiths. Creed and doctrine play no
part when men are gasping out a dying breath and the last message home. The
chaplain carries in his heart the comfort for the man who is facing
eternity. We do not want to die. We are all strong and full of life and
hope and power of doing. Suddenly we are stricken beyond mortal aid. The
chaplain comes and in a few phrases gives us the password, the sign which
admits us to the peaceful Masonry of Christianity. Rough men pass away,
hard men "go West" with a smile of peace upon their pain-tortured lips if
the padre can get to them in time for the parting word, the cheerful,
colloquial "best o' luck."
Does the padre come to us and sanctimoniously pronounce our eternal doom
should he hear us swear? The clergyman, the minister of old time, is down
and out when he reaches the battle-fields of France, or any other of the
fronts we are holding. No stupid tracts are handed to us, no whining and
groaning, no morbid comments on the possibility of eternal damnation. No,
the chaplain of to-day is a real man, maybe he always was, I don't know. A
man who risks his life as do we who are in the fighting line. He has
services, talks, addresses, but he never preaches. He practises all the
time.
Out of this war there will come a new religion. It won't be a sin any more
to sing rag-time on Sunday, as it was in the days of my childhood. It won't
be a sin to play a game on Sunday. After church parade in France we rushed
to the playing fields behind the lines, and many a time I've seen the
chaplain umpire the ball game. Many a time I've seen him take a hand in a
friendly game of poker. The man who goes to France to-day will come back
with a broadened mind, be he a chaplain or be he a fighter. There is no
room for narrowness, for dogma or for the tenets of old-time theology. This
is a man-size business, and in every department men are meeting the
situation as real men should.
Again, at Neuve Chapelle, there was magnificent bravery. Just across the
street, at a turn, there lay a number of wounded men. They were absolutely
beyond the reach of succor. A terrible machine gun fire swept the roadway
between them and a shelter of sandbags, which had hastily been put up on
one side of the street. By these sandbags a sergeant had been placed on
guard with strictest orders to forbid the passing of any one, without
exception, toward the area where the wounded lay. It was certain death to
permit it. We had no men to spare, we had no men to lose, we had to
conserve every one of our effectives.
As time wore on and the enemy fire grew hotter, a Roman Catholic chaplain
reached the side of the sergeant. "Sergeant, I want to go over to the aid
of those wounded men."
"No, sir, my orders are absolutely strict. I am to let no one go across, no
matter what his rank."
The chaplain considered a moment, but he did not move from where he stood
beside the sergeant.
A minute passed and a chaplain of the Presbyterian faith came up.
"Sergeant, I want to go across to those men. They are in a bad way."
"I know, sir. Sorry, sir. Strict orders that no one must be allowed to
pass."
"Who are your orders from?"
"High authority, sir."
"Ah!" The padre looked at the sergeant....
"Sorry, Sergeant, but I have orders from a Higher Authority," and the
Presbyterian minister rushed across the bullet-swept area. He fell dead
before he reached his objective.
"I, too, have orders from a Higher Authority," said the Roman Catholic
priest, and he dashed out into the roadway. He fell, dead, close by the
body of his Protestant brother. They had not reached the wounded, but
Heaven is witness that their death was the death of men.
Hand in hand with the chaplains at the front is the Y.M.C.A. It is doing a
marvelous work among the troops. The Y.M.C.A. huts are scattered all over
the fighting front. Here you will find the padre with his coat off engaged
in the real "shirt-sleeve" religion of the trenches. Here there are all
possible comforts, even little luxuries for the boys. Here are
concerts,--the best and best-known artists come out and give their services
to cheer up Tommy. Here the padres will hold five or six services in an
evening for the benefit of the five or six relays of men who can attend.
Here are checker-boards, chess sets, cards, games of all sorts. Here is a
miniature departmental store where footballs, mouth organs, pins, needles,
buttons, cotton, everything can be bought.
"What's the place wid the red triangle?" asked the Irish soldier, lately
joined up and only out, from a Scotch-Canadian who stood near by.
"Yon? D'ye mean to say ye dinna know the meaning o' thon? Why, mon, yon's
the place whaur ye get a packet o' fags, a bar o' chocolate, a soft drink
and salvation for twenty-five cents."
Yes; we get all that in the Y.M.C.A. huts where the padre toils and the
layman sweats day and night for the well-being of the soldier men. In some
of the huts it is actually possible to get a bath. It is always possible to
get dry. 'Twas Black Jack Vowel, good friend Jack, who wrote over to tell
us that there was no hut at one time near his front.
"Bad luck here, this time in. No Y.M.C.A. hut near. I was coming
out last night for a turn in billets when I fell into a shell
hole. It was pretty near full of water, so I got soaked to the
neck, and I hit against a couple of dead Boches in it, too. Not
nice. Reached the billet dripping wet. Have got a couple of sugar
boxes, one at my head and one at my feet. Have coke brazier
underneath. If I lie here about three hours and keep turning, I
guess I'll be dry by then."
That's when no padre was handy to lead the way to a hut.
Can folk wonder why we love the padres, why we reverence the Y.M.C.A.? Can
folk wonder why the men who used to look on such men as sissy-boys have
changed their opinions? Can folk wonder that the religion which is
Christian is making an impression on the soldier? Can folk deny the fact
that this war will make better men?
Once again I mention Major the Reverend John Pringle. Best of pals, best of
sports, best of sky-pilots! Many a time as we have been marching along we
have met him. He would pick out a face from among the crowd, maybe a
British Columbia man. "Hello! salmon-belly!" would good Major John peal
out. Again, he would see a Nova Scotian: "Hello! fish-eater--hello,
blue-nose!"
Then through us all would go a rush of good feeling and good heart.
Through all of us would go a stream of courage and happiness and a desire
to stand right with the man as he was.
"Hello! Sky-pilot!"