You have all seen it in the latest V.C. list--"The Reverend Paul
Grayne, Chaplain to the Forces, for conspicuous bravery and gallant
example in the face of desperate circumstances."
You have all pictured him, the beau-ideal of muscular Christian, the
Fighting Parson, eighteen hands high, terrific in wind and limb, with
a golden mane and a Greek profile; a Pekinese in the drawing-room, a
bulldog in the arena; a soupçon of Saint Francis with a dash of John
L. Sullivan--and all that.
But we who have met heroes know that they are very seldom of the type
which achieves the immortality of the picture post card.
The stalwart with pearly teeth, lilac eyes and curly lashes is C3 at
Lloyd's (Sir Francis), and may be heard twice daily at the Frivolity
singing, "My Goo-goo Girl from Honolulu" to entranced flappers; while
the lad who has Fritzie D. Hun backed on the ropes, clinching for
time, is usually gifted with bow legs, freckles, a dented proboscis
and a coiffure after the manner of a wire-haired terrier.
The Reverend Paul Grayne, v.c., sometime curate of Thorpington Parva,
in the county of Hampshire, was no exception to this rule.
Æsthetically he was a blot on the landscape; among all the heroes I
have met I never saw anything less heroically moulded.
He stood about five feet nought and tipped the beam at seven stone
nothing. He had a mild chinless face, and his long beaky nose, round
large spectacles, and trick of cocking his head sideways when
conversing, gave him the appearance of an intelligent little
dicky-bird.
I remember very well the occasion of our first meeting. I was in my
troop lines one afternoon, blackguarding a farrier, when a loud
nicker sounded on the road and a black cob, bearing a feebly
protesting Padre upon his fat back, trotted through the gate, up to
the lines and began to swop How d'y' do's with my hairies. The
little Padre cocked his head on one side and oozed apologies from
every pore.
He hadn't meant to intrude, he twittered; Peter had brought him; it
was Peter's fault; Peter was very eccentric.
Peter, I gathered, was the fat cob, who by this time had butted into
the lines and was tearing at a hay net as if he hadn't had a meal for
years.
His alleged master looked at me hopeless, helpless. What was he to
do? "Well, since Peter is evidently stopping to tea with my horses,"
said I, "the only thing you can do is to come to tea with us." So I
lifted him down and bore him off to the cowshed inhabited by our mess
at the time and regaled him on chlorinated Mazawattee, marmalade and
dog biscuit. An hour later, Peter willing, he left us.
We saw a lot of the Padre after that. Peter, it appeared, had taken
quite a fancy to us and frequently brought him round to meals. The
Padre had no word of say in the matter. He confessed that, when he
embarked upon Peter in the morning, he had not the vaguest idea where
mid-day would find him. Nothing but the black cob's fortunate rule
of going home to supper saved the Padre from being posted as a
deserter.
He had an uneasy feeling that Peter would one day suddenly sicken of
the War and that he would find himself in Paris or on the Riviera.
We had an uneasy feeling that Peter would one day develop a curiosity
as to the Boche horse rations, and stroll across the line, and we
should lose the Padre, a thing we could ill afford to do, for by this
time he had taken us under his wing spiritually and bodily. On
Sundays he would appear in our midst dragging a folding harmonium and
hold Church Parade, leading the hymns in his twittering bird-like
voice.
Then the spinster ladies of his old parish of Thorpington Parva gave
him a Ford car, and with this he scoured back areas for provisions
and threaded his tin buggy in and out of columns of dusty infantry
and clattering ammunition limbers, spectacles gleaming, cap slightly
awry, while his batman (a wag) perched precariously atop of a rocking
pile of biscuit tins, cigarette cases and boxes of tinned fruit, and
shouted after the fashion of railway porters, "By your leave! Fags
for the firin' line. Way for the Woodbine Express."
But if we saw a lot of the Padre it was the Antrims who looked upon
him as their special property. They were line infantry, of the type
which gets most of the work and none of the Press notices, a
hard-bitten, unregenerate crowd, who cared not a whit whether Belgium
bled or not, but loved fighting for its own sake and put their faith
in bayonet and butt. And wherever these Antrims went, thither went
the Padre also, harmonium and his Woodbines. I have a story that,
when they were in a certain part of the line where the trenches were
only thirty yards apart (so close indeed that the opposing forces
greeted each other by their first names and borrowed one another's
wiring tools), the Padre dragged the harmonium into the front line
and held service there, and the Germans over the way joined lustily
in the hymns. He kept the men of the Antrims going on canteen
delicacies and their officers in a constant bubble of joy. He
swallowed their tall stories without a gulp; they pulled one leg and
he offered the other; he fell headlong into every silly trap they set
for him. Also they achieved merit in other messes by peddling yarns
of his wonderful innocence and his incredible absent-mindedness.
"Came to me yesterday, the Dicky Bird did," one of them would relate;
"wanted advice about that fat fraud of his, Peter. 'He's got an
abrasion on the knob of his right-hand front paw,' says he. 'Dicky
Bird,' says I, 'that is no way to describe the anatomy of a horse
after all the teaching I've given you.' 'I am so forgetful and horsy
terms are so confusing,' he moans. 'Oh, I recollect now--his
starboard ankle!' The dear babe!"
In the course of time the Antrims went into the Push, but on this
occasion they refused to take the Padre with them, explaining that
Pushes were noisy affairs, with messy accidents happening in even the
best regulated battalions.
The Padre was up at midnight to see them go, his spectacles misty.
They went over the bags at dawn, reached their objective in twenty
minutes and scratched themselves in. The Padre rejoined them ten
minutes later, very badly winded, but bringing a case of Woodbines
along with him.
My friend Patrick grabbed him by the leg and dragged him into a
shell-hole. Nothing but an inherent respect for his cloth restrained
Patrick from giving the Dicky Bird the spanking of his life. At 8
a.m. the Hun countered heavily and hove the Antrims out. Patrick
retreated in good order, leading the Padre by an ear. The Antrims
sat down, licked their cuts, puffed some of the Woodbines, then went
back and pitchforked the Boche in his tender spots. The Boche
collected fresh help and bobbed up again. Business continued brisk
all day, and when night fell the Antrims were left masters of the
position.
At 1 a.m. they were relieved by the Rutland Rifles, and a dog-weary
battered remnant of the battalion crawled back to camp in a sunken
road a mile in the rear. One or two found bivouacs left by the
Rutlands, but the majority dropped where they halted. My friend
Patrick found a bivouac, wormed into it and went to sleep. The next
thing he remembers was the roof of his abode caving in with the
weight of two men struggling violently. Patrick extricated himself
somehow and rolled out into the grey dawn to find the sunken road
filled with grey figures, in among the bivouacs and shell-holes,
stabbing at the sleeping Antrims. Here and there men were locked
together, struggling tooth and claw; the air was vibrant with a
ghastly pandemonium of grunts and shrieks; the sunken road ran like a
slaughter-house gutter. There was only one thing to do, and that was
to get out, so Patrick did so, driving before him what men he could
collect.
A man staggered past him, blowing like a walrus. It was the Padre's
batman, and he had his master tucked under one arm, in his
underclothes, kicking feebly.
Patrick halted his men beyond the hill crest, and there the Colonel
joined him, trotting on his stockinged feet. Other officers arrived,
herding men. "They must have rushed the Ruts., Sir," Patrick panted;
"must be after those guns just behind us." "They'll get 'em too,"
said the Colonel grimly. "We can't stop 'em," said the Senior
Captain. "If we counter at once we might give the Loamshires time to
come up--they're in support, Sir--but--but, if they attack us,
they'll get those guns--run right over us."
The Colonel nodded. "Man, I know, I know; but look at 'em"--he
pointed to the pathetic remnant of his battalion lying out behind the
crest--"they're dropping asleep where they lie--they're beat to a
finish--not another kick left in 'em."
He sat down and buried his face in his hands. The redoubtable
Antrims had come to the end.
Suddenly came a shout from the Senior Captain, "Good Lord, what's
that fellow after? Who the devil is it?"
They all turned and saw a tiny figure, clad only in underclothes,
marching deliberately over the ridge towards the Germans.
"Who is it?" the Colonel repeated. "Beggin' your pardon, the
Reverend, Sir," said the Padre's batman as he strode past the group
of officers. "'E give me the slip, Sir. Gawd knows wot 'e's up to
now." He lifted up his voice and wailed after his master, "'Ere, you
come back this minute, Sir. You'll get yourself in trouble again.
Do you 'ear me, Sir?" But the Padre apparently did not hear him, for
he plodded steadily on his way. The batman gave a sob of despair and
broke into a double.
The Colonel sprang to his feet. "Hey, stop him, somebody! Those
swine'll shoot him in a second--child murder!"
Two subalterns ran forward, followed by a trio of N.C.O.'s. All
along the line men lifted their weary heads from the ground and saw
the tiny figure on the ridge silhouetted against the red east.
"Oo's that blinkin' fool?"
"The Padre."
"Wot's 'e doin' of?"
"Gawd knows."
A man rose to his knees, from his knees to his feet, and stumbled
forward, mumbling, "'E give me a packet of fags when I was broke."
"Me too," growled another, and followed his chum. "They'll shoot 'im
in a minute," a voice shouted, suddenly frightened. "'Ere, this
ain't war, this is blasted baby-killin'."
In another five seconds the whole line was up and jogging forward at
a lurching double. "And a little child shall lead them," murmured
the Colonel happily, as he put his best sock forwards; a miracle had
happened, and his dear ruffians would go down in glory.
But as they topped the hill crest, came the shrill of a whistle from
the opposite ridge, and there was half a battalion of the Rutlands
back casting for the enemy that had broken through their posts. With
wild yells both parties charged downwards into the sunken road.
When the tumult and shouting had died Patrick went in quest of the
little Padre.
He discovered him sitting on the wreck of his bivouac of the night;
he was clasping some small article to his bosom, and the look on his
face was that of a man who had found his heart's desire.
Patrick sat himself down on a box of bombs, and looked humbly at the
Reverend Paul. It is an awful thing for a man suddenly to find he
has been entertaining a hero unawares.
"Oh, Dicky Bird, Dicky Bird, why did you do it?" he inquired softly.
The Padre cocked his head on one side and commenced to ooze apologies
from every pore.
"Oh dear--you know how absurdly absent-minded I am; well, I suddenly
remembered I had left my teeth behind."