THE experience I shall never forget happened to me while serving with
the Dublin Fusiliers in France. My battalion had just come out of the
trenches and we were billeted in different villages near at hand—my
company in the village of Courcelles. In this village was a
shell-wrecked church, and my billet was a broken-down cottage just
opposite. One evening I took a stroll through this church and, to my
amazement, I heard the sound of deep and heavy breathing. Thinking
someone was asleep, I had a good look round but found nothing.
Looking across the road I saw my chum talking to an officer and I
went over and asked them to come over and listen. When they heard the
noise my chum turned deathly white, and they asked me what it was or
who it was. I was just as wise as they were. We searched about the
church, even to moving about the stones and bricks, but found
nothing. The same night, when asleep in the ruined cottage opposite,
my chum woke me up with a startled cry, “Cyril, look quick, the
Virgin Mary!” Looking up, I was astonished to see a white figure
gliding through the room and out of the broken window across to the
church and into it. We went all about the church the next morning but
all was quiet. What could it have been?