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THE GREATER LOVE
by
CHAPLAIN GEORGE T. McCARTHY,
U. S. Army
[Illustration: CHAPLAIN McCARTHY
(Before the Attack at Rembercourt.)]
Extension Press
Chicago
Copyright 1920
by
Extension Press
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Preface 9
I Leave Home--Base Hospital No. 11--Camp Dodge 13
II Camp Mills--St. Stephen's, New York--Enter Army 21
III Camp Merritt--Leviathan--At Sea 36
IV Brest--Ancey-le-Franc 46
V In Billets--Departure for Front 56
VI Puvinelle Sector--Bois le Pretre--Vieville en Haye 83
VII The Greater Love 97
VIII Thiacourt--Aerial Daring 104
IX Rembercourt 122
X Armistice Day--Gorz 141
XI Domremy--Home 148
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Chaplain McCarthy (Before the Attack at Rembercourt)
_Frontispiece_
United States Unit No. 2--Blessing of Unit's
Colors at St. Stephen's 18
Sisters of Unit No. 2--The Only Sisters of the A. E. F. 26
Seventh Division Troops Boarding Leviathan at Hoboken 34
In Rue de Belgrade--Lull Before Battle 42
Taps and Farewell Volleys for Our Heroic Dead 50
The Battle Swept Roadside Was Sanctuary and Choir 66
The Men Behind Our Mess at Bouillonville 74
Our Dugouts Afforded Shelter and Habitation 82
Thiacourt Under Shell-Fire 90
Doctor Lugar and Aids Working in a Gas Attack Near Jolney 98
The Wounded Were Carried to the Nearest Shelter 114
St. Joan of Arc 122
Where St. Joan of Arc Made Her First Communion 130
In the Church at Domremy 138
"Greater Love Than This No Man Has" 146
PREFACE
To him who will but observe the genesis and development of moral
qualities, whether in the individual Man or in the collective State,
there finally comes, with compelling force, the conviction--God is in
His world and has care of it! Out of the slime of things mundane, out of
the very clay of Life's daily round of laughter and tears, loving and
hating, striving and failing, living and dying--the romance of Peace,
the Tragedy of War--God is still creating men and nations and vivifying
them with souls Immortal. Providence but looks upon the water of the
commonplace, and behold! it becomes wine of Cana!
The recent world war, hallowed by the very purity of motive and
intention with which our American Manhood took up its burden, led us
nationally unto those heights of moral perspective and spiritual vision
known only to him who toils upon the hill of Sacrifice. No Spartan of
Athenian fields, no Regulus of Rome or Nathan Hale, was nobler, higher
motived or less afraid than our own heroic American Doughboy!
Into the shaping and formation of his moral character many forces
entered; and, not least of these, the Military Chaplain. This man--and
every sect and denomination generously gave him--was pre-eminently
God-fearing, thoroughly patriotic, unselfishly charitable, untiringly
zealous, and whole of soul devoted to duty.
Mine was the privileged and sacred duty, as Vicar General of the
Fourteen States comprising the Great Lakes Vicariate, of knowing
intimately and directing the splendid work of these heroic soldiers of
the Cross. The inspiration I drew, both from these priests and from
contact with their work and written reports, whether in cantonments,
camps, hospitals, transports, battleships, or on the flaming front of
the battlefields, I shall ever treasure and recount with pride.
Archbishop Hayes, appointed by the Holy Father "Chaplain Bishop" in
charge of all priests in Military Service, and who conducted the vast
responsibilities of that most important work with such eminent success,
has declared our Chaplains to be "the Flower of the American
Priesthood." One of such is Father McCarthy, Author of this book "The
Greater Love." The same zeal that prompted him to follow the boys in
Khaki and Blue Over There--making himself one with them in hardship,
danger and wounds for the sake of their immortal souls, now impels him
to the writing of this Book. "The Greater Love" is a religious message
which teaches that as man needed God in war--with a crescendo of need
reaching full tide in the front trench--even so he needs him in Peace.
The message is clothed in the narrative of adventure--personal
experiences of the Author--and every page an epic of absorbing interest.
No one is better qualified to bring us message from Over There.
RT. REV. MSGR. WM. M. FOLEY, V. G.
"THE GREATER LOVE" BY GEORGE T. MCCARTHY, Chaplain, U. S. Army
CHAPTER I
LEAVE HOME--BASE HOSPITAL NO. 11--CAMP DODGE
"Very well then, Father, you have my permission and best wishes."
How the approving words and blessing of good Archbishop Mundelein
thrilled me that memorable morning in 1918. The rain-washed freshness of
April was abroad in Cass street; and the soft breeze, swaying the
curtain of the Chancery window where he was seated, brought incense of
budding tree and garden.
Patiently he had listened, while I presented my reasons for wishing to
become a war Chaplain. How, obedient to that call to National Service
which is
"The pride of each patriot's devotion,"
millions of our boys were exchanging the shelter of home and parish
influence for the privation and danger of camp and ship and battlefield.
To accompany them, to encourage them, to administer to their spiritual
and moral needs, to fortify their last heroic hours with "Sacramenta
propter homines," here was a Christlike work pre-eminently worthy the
best traditions of the Priesthood.
Even as, earnestly, I pleaded my case, I bore steadily in mind
recollection of that lofty patriotism and brilliant leadership which had
already made Chicago's Archbishop a foremost National Champion. It was
but yesterday that the Secretary of the United States Treasury had
called, personally, to thank and congratulate him on his inspiring
patronage of Loan and Red Cross Drives.
In the sympathetic glow of his face I read approval even before hearing
the formal words of permission.
"Moreover, Father, I will appoint an administrator at once, to care for
the parish during your absence. You will receive, through Father Foley's
office, letters duly accrediting you to Bishop Hayes, Chaplain
Ordinary, and the National authorities."
A fond ambition, long cherished, was about to be realized! I had, of
course, been doing something of a war "bit," co-operating with
parishioners, and town folks like Mayor Gibson and Doctor Noble, in the
various patriotic rallies and drives. Father Shannon of the "New World"
thought so highly of our city's efforts as to visit us and eloquently
say so at a monster Mass Meeting of citizens. "Do you know, George," he
remarked that night as he marched beside me in the street parade, "if I
could only get away, I would gladly go as a Chaplain."
Then I told him my secret, how I had filed my war application some
months before, and had been meanwhile seasoning my body to the
out-of-doors and practicing long hikes.
But a single cloud now remained in the radiant sky of dreams--the
thought of parting! Ten years of residence in so Arcadian a place as
Myrtle Avenue, and in so American a town as Harvey, engender ties of
affection not easily to be sundered. Then, too, the school children, how
one grows to love them, especially when you have given them their first
Sacraments, and even joined in wedlock their parents before them. Of
course for the priest who, more perhaps than any other man, "has not
here a lasting city," whose life is so largely lived for others, and
whose "Holy Orders" so naturally merge with marching orders, the
leave-taking should not have been so trying. Preferable as would have
been
"No moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea,"
the parting that night with the people in the school hall, and again,
the following morning at the depot, was keenly painful--a grief,
however, every soldier was to know, and, therefore, bravely to be
endured.
How sacred and memorable were the depot platforms of our beloved country
in war time! Whether the long, smoke stenciled, trainshed of the
Metropolis, or the unsheltered, two-inch planking sort, of the wayside
junction; they saw more of real life, the Tragedy of tears and the
Comedy of laughter, than any stage dedicated to Drama. There, life was
most real and intense. The prosaic words "All Aboard" seemed to set in
motion a final wave of feeling that surged beyond all barriers of the
conventional--the last pressure of heart to heart and of hand to hand;
the last response of voice to voice; the last sight of tear dimmed eye
and vanishing form, as the train rumbled away beyond the curve, leaving
a ribbon of black crepe draped on the horizon.
First impressions, we are told, are most lasting. Arrival at Camp Dodge,
Iowa, the following morning and subsequent meeting with the officers and
enlisted men of Base Hospital No. 11, made an impression so agreeable
time itself seems merely to have hallowed it.
Association with the soldierly and gracious Colonel Macfarlain, the
splendid Major Percy, the energetic Captain Flannery, together with
Doctors Roth, Ashworth, Carter (the same T. A. Carter whose skill later
saved the lives of poisoned Shirley and Edna Luikart), Lewis, Shroeder,
and others, became at once an inspiration and pleasure. Most of these
gentlemen had been associated with either St. Mary of Nazareth or
Augustana Hospitals, Chicago; and had patriotically relinquished
lucrative practices to serve their country in its need. Words cannot too
highly praise, nor excess of appreciation be shown our gallant
public-spirited doctors and corpsmen, who, whether here or overseas,
made every sacrifice to build up and maintain the health of the largest
Army and Navy of our history.
The personnel of enlisted men, too, with Base 11, was exceptionally
superior, coming from some of the best families of the Middle West.
Anderson, McCranahan and the two Tobins of the famous Paulist choir were
there, and what wealth of vocal melody they represented! Talbot, Bunte,
and Leo Durkin of Waukegan; Dunn, Farrell, Lewis, Talbot--these, and
five hundred others like them, were the splendid fellows to whom I now
fell heir.
Camp Dodge, like many another Cantonment, the War Department miraculously
"raised" over night, was a vast school, pulsating with martial throb.
Hundreds of the brain and brawn of the far-flung prairies were arriving
daily, and being classified, drilled and seasoned into efficient soldiers.
[Illustration: U. S. UNIT NO. 2--BLESSING OF UNIT'S COLORS AT ST.
STEPHEN'S.]
Poets have to be born; but soldiers, in addition to qualities inbred,
have to be made; and while the process of making was invariably
laborious and often discouraging, it usually repaid patient effort. The
raw recruit of yesterday became the pride of the line today!
They call me the "Raw Recruit,"
The joke of the awkward squad,
The rook of the rookies to boot,
And a bumpkin, a dolt and a clod;
But this much I'll plead in defense
I seem popular with these chaps,
For they keep me a'moving thither and hence
From Reveille to Taps.
Though no doubt I have had them for years,
For the first time I'm _sure_ I have feet!
When the Corporal said "Halt" it appears
That my feet thought he ordered "Retreat"!
And my eyes o'er who's blue ladies 'd rave,
And called them bright stars of the night,
Now simply refuse to behave
And mix up "Eyes Left" with "Eyes Right."
I'll admit that I'm no hand to brag;
But the fact is I've won a First Prize!
'Twas not that I have any drag,
Nor excel in the officers' eyes.
It was close, but I won, never fear;
My home training helped me, I guess;
I beat every man about here;
At being the first in, at "Mess"!
My Corporal admits I'm not bad
Through the night, when I'm buried in sleep!
It's waking that I drive him mad,
And cause very demons to weep.
But Rome was not built in a day!
And once I get used to my suit,
I'll just force all these pikers to say
"He once _was_ a raw recruit!"