IN TRAINING ABROAD
BREST
_November_ 13th, 1917
We moved out of Camp Mills on the night of October 29th and took
trains at the nearby station—off at last for foreign service. Parts
of Companies L and M were left to guard the camp. We found at
Hoboken that we were to sail on a fine ship—the converted German
liner _Amerika_ which had been re-christened with the change of the
penultimate letter. Our trip was uneventful. The seas were calm,
and sailing on the _America_ was like taking a trip on the end of a
dock—you had to look over the side to realize that she was in motion.
No submarines, though we were on constant watch for them. “What are
you doing here?” asked one of the ship’s officers of big Jim Hillery,
who stood watch. “Looking for something Oi don’t want to foind,”
answered Jim with a grin.
We did not know where our journey was to end but finally on November
12th we made port in the beautiful harbor of Brest, where we have
been idling all week because we have been the first convoy to put
in here, and no preparations have been made to land us and our
equipment, and afford transportation to our destination.
_November_ 15th, 1917
This morning I told Colonel Hine that I wanted a day in town to get
some necessaries for my church work, and permission was readily
granted. I inquired the way to the nearest church, timing my visit
to get in around the dinner hour, so as to get an invitation for a
meal. As I rang the bell of the rectory, the door opened and a poor
woman with two children came out carrying a basket into which the
housekeeper had put food. I said to myself: Where charity exists,
hospitality ought to flourish. I waited in the customary bare
ecclesiastical parlor for the Curé, and at last he came, a stout
middle-aged man, walking with a limp. I presented myself, very tall
and quite imposing in my long army overcoat, and told him I came
in search of altar breads. He immediately proposed to take me to a
convent some distance away where my wishes might be satisfied. As
I followed him along the cobbled streets I said to myself, “I had
thought these Bretons were a kind of Irish, but they lack the noblest
of the traditions of the Celtic race, or this old gentleman would
have asked me to dinner.” It was only later that I found that my
tremendous presence had embarrassed him and he had therefore decided
to bring me to somebody whom nothing would embarrass. One need not
say that this was a woman—the Mother Superior of an institution which
was school, orphanage and _pension_ in one.
She was of a type not unusual in heads of religious
communities—cultivated, balanced, perfectly serene. After supplying
my needs she asked gently, “Monsieur has dined?” “No, Monsieur has
not dined.” “Perhaps Monsieur would accept the humble hospitality
of the convent.” “Monsieur is a soldier, and soldiers have but one
obligation—never to refuse a meal when they can get it.” She smiled
and brought me to the dining room, where I met the old chaplain and
two equally elderly professors from some college, who pumped me about
America and myself and Wilson and myself and Roosevelt and myself
until the meal was over. Then I sallied forth with my stout Curé who
evidently had absorbed, as he sat silent through the meal, all the
information I had been giving out, particularly about myself. For he
brought me into forty stores and stopped on the street at least a
hundred people (and he knew everybody in town) to introduce proudly
his prize specimen of an American priest in uniform. The introduction
invariably took this form:
“Monsieur is an American.” “He is an officer.” “Monsieur, though
one would not know it, is a priest. He has a large parish in the
City of New York. He has been a Professor in the Seminary—of
Philosophy, mind you. Monsieur has a parish with three vicaires. He
receives from the noble government of the United States a stipend
of ten thousand francs a year. That is what this great country
gives their Chaplains. He is a Chaplain. He has crosses on his
collar. Also on his shoulders. If I were taller I could see them. I
saw them when he was sitting down.”
And at the end, and always with a little break in his voice as
he fumbled with the button of my tunic, “M. L’Aumonier wears the
tricolor of our country with the badge of the Sacred Heart, which was
pinned there by the great Cardinal of New York.” And this was the man
that I thought at first to be cold and unfriendly.
I had to break away finally to get back to my ship as evening was
beginning to gather. I started for the dock, interested all the
way to observe the Celtic types of the passers-by and giving them
names drawn from my Irish acquaintance, as Tim Murphy or Mrs.
O’Shaughnessy. Feeling that I was not making for the dock from
which I left, I turned to a knot of boys, introducing myself as a
priest and telling them that I wanted to get back to the American
transports. They jumped to help me as eagerly as my own altar boys
at home would do. One alert black-eyed lad of fourteen took command
of the party, the rest of them trailing along and endeavoring to
give advice and support. But from the beginning this one youngster
was in undoubted command of the situation. I tried once or twice to
ask where he was bringing me, but received only a brief “Suivez-moi,
Monsieur.” Our journey ended in an alley where the calls of my
guide brought out two fishermen who needed only red night-caps and
knives in their teeth to bring up associations of Stevenson’s
pirate-mutineers. But they were ready to ferry me over to my ship for
a compensation, a compensation which became quite moderate when my
Mentor explained their obligation as Catholics and as Frenchmen to a
priest and an ally.
I was about to embark in their fishing smack when a French marine
came along the dock and said that under no circumstances could a boat
cross the harbor after sunset. My fishermen argued; I argued; even my
irresistible young guide stated the case; but to no avail. Finally
I said to the youngster, “Why waste my time with this creature of a
marine. Lead me to the person the most important in Brest, the Mayor,
the Governor, the Master of the Port, the Commander of the Fleet.
From such a one I shall receive permission.” The youth gave me a
quick look and I think he would have winked if my face were not so
sternly set with the importance I had assumed. He led me off to the
office of the Harbormaster. It was closed. I could find no person
except the janitor who was sweeping the front steps. I was so put
out at the prospect of not getting back from my leave on time that
I had to talk to some person, so I told the janitor my worries. He
insinuated that something might be arranged. I had traveled in Europe
before and had learned how things get themselves arranged. So I
produced from my pocket a nice shiny two-franc piece; and in a moment
I discovered that I had purchased for thirty-five cents in real money
the freedom of the Port of Brest. My janitor descended upon the
faithful marine with brandished broom and bellowed objurgations that
such a creature should block the way of this eminent American Officer
who wished to return to his ship.
I stood in the prow of the smack as we made our way across the dark
and rainy harbor and I felt for the first time the touch of romance
as one gets it in books. I thought back over the day, and I had the
feeling that my adventures had begun, and had begun with a blessing.
NAIVES EN BLOIS
_Nov._ 27th, 1917
Naives in Blooey we call it, with a strong hoot on the last word. If
Thomas Cook and Son ever managed a personally conducted party as we
have been handled and then landed it in a place like this, that long
established firm would have to close up business forthwith. Guy Empey
and all the rest of them had prepared us for the “Hommes 40; Chevaux
8” box-cars, but description never made anybody realize discomforts.
Anyway, we went through it and we would have been rather disappointed
if they had brought us on our three-day trip across France in
American plush-seat coaches (by the way we growled about them when
we went to the Border). A year from now if we are alive we shall be
listening with an unconcealed grin of superiority to some poor fish
of a recruit who gabbles over the hardships he has undergone in the
side-door Pullmans.
We are forgetting our recent experiences already in the meanness of
these God-forsaken villages. We are in six of them—each the worst in
the opinion of the Companies there. Naives will do for a description
of Vacon, Broussey, Villeroi, Bovée or Sauvoy. A group of 40 houses
along the slopes of a crinkled plain. The farmers all live together
in villages, as is the custom in France. And many features of the
custom are excellent. They have a church, school, community wash
houses with water supply, good roads with a common radiating point
and the pleasures of society, such as it is.
The main drawback is that the house on the village street is still
a farm house. The dung heap occupies a place of pride outside the
front door; and the loftier it stands and the louder it raises its
penetrating voice, the more it proclaims the worth and greatness
of its possessor. The house is half residence and half stable with
a big farm loft over-topping both. The soldiers occupy the loft. I
censored a letter yesterday in which one of our lads said: “There
are three classes of inhabitants in the houses—first, residents;
second, cattle; third, soldiers.” Over my head are some boys from
Company B who got in ahead of us with the First Battalion, coming by
way of England and then via Havre, after a long and tedious trip.
They are Arthur Viens, Tom Blackburn and Jim Lannon of my own parish
with Gilbert, Gilgar, Weick, and Healey. Their life is typical of
the rest. Up in the morning early and over to Sergeant Gilhooley’s
wayside inn for breakfast. Then cut green wood for fire, or drill
along the muddy roads or dig in the muddier hillsides for a target
range—this all day with a halt for noon meal. Supper at 4:00 o’clock;
and already the sun has dropped out of the gloomy heavens, if indeed
it has ever shown itself at all. Then—then nothing. They cannot
light lanterns—we have landed right bang up behind the front lines
the first jump; we can hear the heavy guns booming north along the
St. Mihiel lines; and the aeroplanes might take a notion to bomb the
town some night if lights stood out. No fire—dangerous to light even
a cigarette in a hay loft. There are a couple of wine shops in town
but they are too small to accommodate the men. If they had a large
lighted place where they could have the good cheer of wine and chat
evenings it would be a blessing. They are not fond enough of “Pinard”
to do themselves harm with it and I think the pious inn keepers see
that it is well baptized before selling it. Good old Senator Parker
of the Y. M. C. A. has been right on the job with tents for the
men—of course without any curse of “rum” in them—but the cold weather
makes it difficult to render them habitable.
So most of the men spread their blankets in the straw and go to bed
at six o’clock—a good habit in the minds of old-fashioned folks. The
squad overhead have another good old-fashioned habit. From the stable
below I can hear them say their beads in common before settling down
to sleep. “Father” Pat Heaney of Company D got them into the way of
it on the boat. Good lads!
In comparison with them my fittings are palatial. I have a large
square low-ceilinged room with stone floor, and French windows with
big wooden shutters to enclose the light. The walls are concealed by
the big presses or _Armoires_ so dear to the housewives of Lorraine.
The one old lady who occupies this house has lived here for all of
her 70 years (a German officer occupied the high canopied bed in
1870) and she has never let any single possession she ever had get
away from her. They are all in the _Armoires_, old hats, bits of
silk, newspapers—everything. She is very pious and very pleased to
have M. l’Aumonier, but she wouldn’t give me a bit of shelf room or a
quarter inch of candle or a handful of _petit bois_ to start a fire
in the wretched fireplace, without cash down.
“Monsieur is a Curé.”
“Yes, Madame.”
My landlady has been quizzing me about the Regiment, my parish and
myself. She doesn’t understand this volunteer business. If we didn’t
have to come, why are we here? is her matter of fact attitude.
She was evidently not satisfied with what she could learn from me
herself, so one day she called to her aid a crony of hers, a woman
of 50 with a fighting face and straggly hair whom I had dubbed “the
sthreeler,” because no English word described her so adequately. I
had already heard the Sthreeler’s opinion of the women in Paris—all
of them. It would have done the hussies good to hear what she thought
of them. Now she turned her interrogatory sword point at me; no
parrying about her methods—just slash and slash again.
“Monsieur has three vicaires.” “Yes, Madame.”
“Then why has M. l’Aumonier come over here? Why not send one of the
Vicaires and stay at home in his parish?”
“But none of the vicaires was aumonier of the Regiment; but myself,
M. le Curé.
“Oh, perhaps the Germans destroyed your parish as they did that of
our present curé.”
“No, the Germans have not got to New York yet so my parish is still
safe.”
“Ah, then, I have it. No doubt the Government pays you more as
aumonier than the church does as curé.”
This was said with such an evident desire to justify her good opinion
of me as a rational being in spite of apparent foolishness, that I
said: “That is precisely the reason”; and we turned with zest to the
unfailing topic of the Parisiennes with their jewels and paint and
high heels. Not having her courage, I did not venture to ask the
sthreeler if she did not really envy them.
They are going in strong for education in the A. E. F. and we
have lost temporarily the services of many of our best officers.
Lieutenant Colonel Reed has gone off to school and also the three
Majors and half the Captains. I hope they are getting something out
of their schooling for nobody here is learning anything except how to
lead the life of a tramp. The men have no place to drill or to shoot
or to manœuvre. I hear we are moving soon to fresh fields further
south—Heaven grant it, for we waste time here.
GRAND
_December_ 23rd, 1917
I think it was Horace who said something to the effect that
far-faring men change the skies above them but not the hearts within
them. That occurs to me when I see our lads along the streets of this
ancient Roman town. It is old, old, old. You have to go down steps
to get to the floor of the 700-year-old Gothic nave of the church
because the detritus of years has gradually raised the level of
the square; and the tower of the church, a huge square donjon with
walls seven feet thick slitted for defensive bowmen, is twice as
old as the nave. And it has the ruins of an amphitheatre and a well
preserved mosaic pavement that date back to the third century, when
the Caesars had a big camp here to keep the Gauls in order. I shan’t
say that the men are not interested in these antiquities. They are
an intelligent lot, and unsated by sight-seeing, and they give more
attention to what they see than most tourists would. When I worked
the history of the place into my Sunday sermon I could see that
everybody was wide awake to what I had to say.
But in their hearts they are still in good little old New York. The
quips and slang of New York play houses are heard on the streets
where Caesar’s legionaries chaffed each other in Low Latin. Under
the fifteen centuries old tower Phil Brady maintains the worth of
Flushing because Major Lawrence hails from there. Paul Haerting and
Dryer exchange repartee outside the shrine of St. Libaire, Virgin and
Martyr, after their soldiers orisons at his tomb. Charles Dietrich
and Jim Gormley interrupt my broodings over the past in the ruins of
the amphitheater to ask me news about our parish in the Bronx.
The 2nd and 3rd Battalions are not in such an antique setting, but
in two villages along the bare hillsides to the south of us. It is
a good walk to get to them; but I have my reward. When I get to the
2nd Battalion, if the men are busy, I drop in on Phil Gargan for
a cup of coffee. I am always reminded of my visits to Ireland by
the hospitality I encounter—so warm and generous and bustling and
overwhelming. I get my coffee, too much of it, and too sweet, and hot
beyond human endurance, and food enough offered with it to feed a
platoon. And I am warm with a glow that no steaming drink could ever
produce of itself. It is the same wherever I go. For instance if my
steps lead me to the 3rd Battalion Pat Boland spices his coffee with
native wit; or if my taste inclines me to tea I look up Pat Rogan who
could dig up a cup of tea in the middle of a polar expedition.
While I am on the question of eating—always an interesting topic
to a soldier—let me say a word for French inns. I came to Grand
with Regimental Sergeant Major Steinert, ahead of the Regiment in
charge of a billetting detail, and thus made the acquaintance of
the establishment of Madame Gerard at the Sign of the Golden Boar.
I have seen a M. Gerard but, as in all well regulated families, he
is a person with no claim to figure in a story. I am in love for the
first time, and with Madame Gerard. Capable and human and merry, used
to men and their queer irrational unfeminine ways, and quite able to
handle them, hundreds at a time. A joke, a reprimand, and ever and
always the final argument of a good meal—easy as easy. She reigns
in her big kitchen, with its fireplace where the wood is carefully
managed but still gives heat enough to put life and savor into the
hanging pots and the sizzling turnspits. Odors of Araby the blest!
And she serves her meals with the air of a beneficent old Grande
Dame of the age when hospitality was a test of greatness. Private or
General—it makes no difference to her. The same food and the same
price and the same frank motherly humor—and they all respond with
feelings that are common to all. I sit before the kitchen fire while
she is at work, and talk about the war and religion and our poor
soldiers so far from their mothers, and the cost of food and the fun
you can get out of life, and when I get back to my cold room I go to
bed thinking of how much I have learned, and that I can see at last
how France has been able to stand this war for three and a half years.
The Colonel’s mess is at the Curé’s house. It too is a pleasant
place to be, for the Colonel lays aside his official air of severity
when he comes to the table, and is his genial, lovable self. The
Curé dines with us—a stalwart mountaineer who keeps a young boar in
his back yard as a family pet. One would have thought him afraid of
nothing. But courage comes by habit; and I found that the Curé had
his weak side. His years had not accustomed him to the freaks of a
drunken man—a testimonial to his parishioners. We had a cook, an old
Irishman, who could give a new flavor to nectar on Olympus; that is,
if he didn’t drink too much of it first. But he would, trust Paddy
for that, even if threatened with Vulcan’s fate of being pitched out
headfirst for his offense.
One day Tom Heaney and Billy Hearn came running for me. Paddy on
the rampage! The aged _bonne_ in hysterics. The Curé at his wits’
end. Come! I went. I found Paddy red-eyed and excited, and things
in a mess. I curtly ordered him into a chair, and sent for Doc.
Houghton, our mess officer, to do justice. Meanwhile I studied a map
on the wall, with my back turned to the offender, and the following
one-sided dialogue ensued—like a telephone scene at a play.
“It’s that’s making me mad.” A pause,
“I don’t like you anyway.” A pause.
“You’re no good of a priest. If I was dying I
wouldn’t”—(reconsidering)—“I hope to God when I’m dying I won’t
have to put up with the likes of you.” A long pause.
“I’ve long had me opinion of you. I’ll tell it to you if you like.”
A pause—with me saying to myself “Now you’ll get the truth.”
“I’ll tell it to you. I’ve been wanting to do it time and times....
You smoke cigarettes with the Officers, that’s what you do.” A
sigh of relief, and the thought “I could have said more than that
myself.”
Then in bursts Colonel Hine and Paddy was hustled away for
punishment. But I know what will happen. We shall eat army food _au
naturel_ for a week or so; and some noon the meal will be so good
that we shall all eat more than is good for men with work still to
do, and nobody shall ask a question about it, for everybody will know
that Paddy, God bless him! is back on the job once more. Of course
I have a special liking for him because when he was in a mood to
denounce me he let me off so light.
GRAND
_December_ 25th, 1917
If there is one day in all the year that wanderers from home cannot
afford to forget it is Christmas. The Company Commanders have had
their Mess Sergeants scouring the countryside for eatables.
It was my business to give them a religious celebration that they
would remember for many a year and that they would write about
enthusiastically to the folks at home, who would be worrying about
the lonesome existence of their boys in France. The French military
authorities and the Bishop of the diocese had united in prohibiting
Midnight Masses on account of the lights. But General Lenihan, the
Mayor, and the Curé decided that we were too far from the front to
worry about that, and it was arranged _tout de suite_. I knew that
confessions and communions would be literally by the thousands, so
with the aid of Joyce Kilmer and Frank Driscoll, ex-Jesuit-novice, I
got up a scheme for confessions of simple sins in English and French,
and set my French confrères to work; the Curé, a priest-sergeant in
charge of a wood cutting detail, a _brancardier_, and another priest
who was an officer of the artillery—all on the _qui vive_ about the
task. Christmas Eve found us all busy until midnight. I asked one
of the men how he liked the idea of going to confession to a priest
who cannot speak English. “Fine, Father,” he said with a grin, “All
he could do was give me a penance, but you’d have given me hell.”
Luckily the church was vastly larger than the present needs of the
town, for everybody, soldiers and civilians, came. General Lenihan
and Colonel Hine and the Brigade and the Regimental Staffs occupied
seats in the sanctuary which was also crowded with soldiers. The
local choir sang the Mass and I preached. Our lads sang the old
hymns, “The Snow Lay on the Ground,” “The Little Town of Bethlehem,”
and all, French and Americans, joined in the ancient and hallowed
strains of the _Adeste Fideles_ until the vaults resounded with
_Venite Adoremus Dominum_. It took four priests a long time to give
Communion to the throng of pious soldiers and I went to bed at
2:00 A. M. happy with the thought that, exiles though we are, we
celebrated the old feast in high and holy fashion.
Christmas afternoon we had general services in the big market shed.
The band played the old Christmas airs and everybody joined in, until
the square was ringing with our pious songs.
Everybody had a big Christmas dinner. The Quartermaster had sent the
substantial basis for it and for extra trimmings the Captains bought
up everything the country afforded. They had ample funds to do it,
thanks to our Board of Trustees, who had supplied us lavishly with
funds. The boxes sent through the Women’s Auxiliary have not yet
reached us. It is just as well, for we depart tomorrow on a four-day
hike over snowy roads and the less we have to carry the better.
LONGEAU
_January_ 1st, 1918
I cannot tell just what hard fates this New Year may have in store
for us, but I am sure that no matter how trying they may be they will
not make us forget the closing days of 1917. We left our villages in
the Vosges the morning after Christmas Day. From the outset it was
evident that we were going to be up against a hard task. It snowed
on Christmas, and the roads we were to take were mean country roads
over the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. New mules were sent to
us on Christmas Eve. They were not shod for winter weather, and many
of them were absolutely unbroken to harness, the harness provided
moreover being French and ill-fitting. To get it on the mules big Jim
Hillery had to throw them first on the stable floor.
It was everybody’s hike, and everybody’s purgatory; but to my mind
it was in a special way the epic of the supply company and the
detachments left to help them. Nobody ever makes any comment when
supplies are on hand on time. In modern city life we get into the way
of taking this for granted, as if food were heaven-sent like manna,
and we give little thought to the planning and labor it has taken to
provide us. On a hike the Infantry will get through—there is never
any doubt of that. They may be foot-sore, hungry, broken-backed,
frozen, half dead, but they will get through. The problem is to get
the mules through; and it is an impossible one very often without
human intelligence and human labor. On this hike the marching men
carried no reserve rations, an inexcusable oversight. No village
could feed them even if there was money to pay for the food; and the
men could not eat till the Company wagons arrived with the rations
and field ranges.
The situation for Captain Mangan’s braves looked desperate from the
start. A mile out of town the wagons were all across the road, as the
lead teams were not trained to answer the reins. The battle was on.
Captain Mangan with Lieutenant Kinney, a Past Grand Master when it
comes to wagon trains, organized their forces. They had experienced
helpers—Sergeant Ferdinando, a former circus man, Sergeant Bob Goss
and Regimental Supply Sergeant Joe Flannery, who will be looking
for new wars to go to when he is four score and ten. It would be
impossible to relate in detail the struggles of the next four days;
but that train got through from day to day only by the fighting
spirit of soldiers who seldom have to fire a rifle. Again and again
they came to hills where every wagon was stalled. The best teams had
to be unhitched and attached to each wagon separately until the hill
was won. Over and over the toil-worn men would have to cover the same
ground till the work was done, and in tough places they had to spend
their failing strength tugging on a rope or pushing a wheel. Wagoners
sat on their boxes with hands and feet freezing and never uttered a
complaint. The wagons were full of food but no man asked for a mite
of it—they were willing to wait till the companies ahead would get
their share.
The old time men who had learned their business on the Border were
naturally the best. Harry Horgan, ex-cowboy, could get anything out
of mules that mules could do. Jim Regan, old 1898 man, had his four
new mules christened and pulling in answer to their names before a
greenhorn could gather up the reins. Larkin and young Heffernan and
Barney Lowe and Tim Coffee were always first out and first in, but
always found time to come back and take the lines for some novice to
get his wagon through a hard place. Al Richford, Ed Menrose, Gene
Mortenson, Willie Fagan, Arthur Nulty, Wagoner Joe Seagriff and good
old Pat Prendergast did heroic work. “Father” James McMahon made me
prouder of my own title. Slender Jimmy Benson got every ounce of
power out of his team without ever forgetting he belonged to the
Holy Name Society. Sergeant Lacey, Maynooth man and company clerk,
proved himself a good man in every Irish sense of the word. Hillery
and Tumulty, horseshoers; Charles Henning of the commissary, and Joe
Healy, cook, made themselves mule-skinners once more, and worked with
energies that never flagged.
Lieutenant Henry Bootz came along at the rear of the Infantry column
to pick up stragglers. The tiredest and most dispirited got new
strength from his strong heart. “I think I’m going to die,” said
one broken lad of eighteen. “You can’t die without my permission,”
laughed the big Lieutenant. “And I don’t intend to give it. I’ll take
your pack, but you’ll have to hike.” And hike he did for seven miles
farther that day, and all the way for two days more. The first day
Bootz threatened to tie stragglers to the wagons. The remaining days
he took all that could move without an ambulance and tied the wagons
to them. And they had to pull.
Captain Mangan, the most resourceful of commanders, was working
in his own way to relieve the strain. One day he took possession
of a passing car and got to the H. Q. of a French Division where
the kindly disposed French Officers were easily persuaded to send
camions to carry provisions ahead, to be stored for the troops at the
terminus of the day’s march. Horses were rented from the farmers,
or, if they were stiff about it, abruptly commandeered. That wagon
train had to get through.
It got through; but sometimes it was midnight or after before
it got through; and meanwhile the line companies had their own
sufferings and sacrifices. They hiked with full packs on ill-made and
snow-covered roads over hilly country. At the end of the march they
found themselves in villages (four or five of them to the regiment),
billetted in barns, usually without fire, fuel or food. They huddled
together for the body warmth, and sought refuge from cold and hunger
in sleep. When the wagons came in, their food supplies were fresh
meat and fresh vegetables, all frozen through and needing so much
time to cook that many of the men refused to rise in the night to eat
it. Breakfast was the one real meal; at midday the mess call blew,
but there was nothing to eat.
When they got up in the morning their shoes were frozen stiff and
they had to burn paper and straw in them before they could get them
on. Men hiked with frozen feet, with shoes so broken that their feet
were in the snow; many could be seen in wooden sabots or with their
feet wrapped in burlap. Hands got so cold and frost-bitten that the
rifles almost dropped from their fingers. Soldiers fell in the snow
and arose and staggered on and dropped again. The strong helped the
weak by encouragement, by sharp biting words when sympathy would
only increase weakness, and by the practical help of sharing their
burdens. They got through on spirit. The tasks were impossible for
mere flesh and blood, but what flesh and blood cannot do, spirit can
make them do. It was like a battle. We had losses as in a battle—men
who were carried to hospitals because they had kept going long after
their normal powers were expended. It was a terrible experience. But
one thing we all feel now—we have not the slightest doubt that men
who have shown the endurance that these men have shown will give a
good account of themselves in any kind of battle they are put into.
LONGEAU
_January_ 10th, 1918
The Regiment is in five villages south of the old Fortress town of
Langres in the Haute Marne; Headquarters and Supply in Longeau,
1st Battalion in Percey, 2nd in Cohons, the 3rd in Baissey and the
Machine Gun Company in Brennes. They are pleasant prosperous little
places (inhabited by _cultivateurs_ with a sprinkling of _bourgeois_)
the red roofs clustering picturesquely along the lower slopes of the
rolling country. None of them is more than an hour’s walk from our
center at Longeau. The men are mostly in the usual hayloft billets,
though some companies have Adrian barracks where they sleep on board
floors. Apart from sore feet from that abominable hike, and the
suffering from cold due to the difficulty of procuring fuel, we are
fairly comfortable.
The officers are living in comparative luxury. I am established
with a nice sweet elderly lady. I reach the house through a court
that runs back of a saloon—which leaves me open to comments from
the ungodly. The house is a model of neatness, as Madame is a
childless widow, and after the manner of such, has espoused herself
to her home. She is very devout, and glad to have M. l’Aumonier in
the house, but I am a sore trial to her, as I have a constant run
of callers, all of them wearing muddy hobnailed brogans. She says
nothing to me, but I can hear her at all hours of the day lecturing
little Mac about doors and windows and sawdust and dirt. I never
hear him say anything in reply, except “Oui, Madame,” but somehow
he seems to understand her voluble French and they get along very
well together. I notice that our lads always strike up a quick
acquaintance with the motherly French women. They work together,
cooking at the fireplaces or washing clothes in the community
fountain, keeping up some sort of friendly gossip and laughing all
the while, though I never can understand how they manage it, for the
villagers never learn any English and the soldiers have not more
than forty words of French. After all a language is only a makeshift
for expressing ourselves. “Qu’est-ce que c’est”—“Kesky,” and pointing
supplies the nouns, gestures the verbs, and facial expressions the
adjectives.
LONGEAU
_January_ 21st, 1918
Last night the church bells rang at midnight; and waking, I said:
“Bombers overhead!” A minute later I heard the cry Fire! Fire! and
the bugles raising the same alarm. It was a big stable at the south
end of the town—we had gasoline stored in it and some soldier was
careless. The street was thronged in an instant with running soldiers
and civilians. The village firemen or _pompiers_ came running up
at a plowman gait—looked the fire over—and went back to put on
their proper uniforms. One old lad came all the way from Percey in
a gendarme’s chapeau. He could not properly try to put out a fire
in that headgear, so he went all the way back and arrived at last,
puffing but satisfied, in the big _pompier_ nickel-plated helmet.
Their big pump was pulled up to Longeau, and the hose was laid with
the proper amount of ceremony and shouting, and the stream finally
put on the blazing shed. The remainder of the population displayed
little of the proverbial French excitability. They looked on with the
air of men who can enjoy a good spectacle, happy in the thought that
the rich American Government would have to pay for it.
The soldiers were happy too at having a chance to fight something.
Colonel Barker gave orders in his quiet way, which Captains Anderson
and Mangan put into execution. The fountain ran out and bucket
lines were formed. I am afraid that some of the contents instead of
getting to the fire was dumped on the gaudy uniforms of the funny
old _pompiers_, who insisted upon running around giving orders that
nobody could understand. This is the second French fire we have
witnessed and the general verdict is that our moving picture people
have missed the funniest unstudied episode left in the world by not
putting a French village fire department on the screen. It was a good
show in every way—but incidentally the building was a total loss.
LONGEAU
_January_ 25th, 1918
I walked over to Cohons today and dropped in on Company H. Instead
of having to make my visit through the scattered billets that line
the entrance to the valley I found what looked like the whole Company
along the roadside in vehemently gesticulating groups. I hurried to
find what the trouble might be. “What’s the matter here,” I asked.
Val Dowling, the supply Sergeant, picked a uniform out of a pile and
held it up. “Look at the damn thing? Excuse me, Father, but you’ll
say as bad when you look at it. They want us to wear this.” He held
it out as if it had contagion in it, and I saw it was a British
tunic, brass buttons and all. I disappointed my audience—I didn’t
swear out loud. “Got nice shiny buttons,” I said. “What’s the matter
with it?” What was the matter with it? Did I know it was a British
uniform? Frank McGlynn of Manhattan and Bill McGorry of Long Island
City were as hot as Bill Fleming or Pat Travers or Chris O’Keefe or
William Smythe. “They look a little betther this way,” said John
Thornton, holding up one with the buttons clipped off. “That’s all
right,” I said, “but don’t get yourselves into trouble destroying
government property.” “Throuble,” said Martin Higgins. “What the
blazes do they mane by insultin’ min fightin’ for thim like this. I’d
stand hangin’ rather than put wan of thim rags on me back.”
I went home in a black mood, all the blacker because I did not want
to say what I felt before the men; and when I got to mess I found
Lawrence, Anderson and Mangan and young McKenna as sore as myself.
We all exploded together, and Colonel Barker, at first mildly
interested, seemed to get worried. “Well,” he said, “at least they
wouldn’t object if they had to wear English shoes, would they?” “No,”
I said. “They’d have the satisfaction of stamping on them.” The laugh
at my poor joke ended the discussion, but I waited after supper to
talk with Colonel Barker. I didn’t want him worried about us, and he
naturally couldn’t know; but I felt he could appreciate our attitude
from his own very strong anti-German feelings. “Colonel,” I said. “We
do not want you to feel that you have a regiment of divided loyalty
or dubious reliability on your hands. We are all volunteers for this
war. If you put our fellows in line alongside a bunch of Tommies,
they would only fight the harder to show the English who are the
better men, though I would not guarantee that there would not be an
occasional row in a rest camp if we were billeted with them. There
are soldiers with us who left Ireland to avoid service in the British
Army. But as soon as we got into the war, these men, though not yet
citizens, volunteered to fight under the Stars and Stripes.
“We have our racial feelings, but these do not affect our loyalty
to the United States. You can understand it. There were times
during the past two years when if England had not restrained her
John Bull tendencies on the sea we might have gotten into a series
of difficulties that would have led to a war with her. In that
case Germany would have been the Ally. You are a soldier, and you
would have fought, suppressing your own dislike for that Ally. But
supposing in the course of the war we were short of tin hats and they
asked you to put on one of those Boche helmets?”
The Colonel whacked the table, stung to sudden anger at the picture.
Then he laughed, “You have a convincing way of putting things,
Father. I’ll see that they clothe my men hereafter in American
uniforms.”
And though, as I found later, many of the offensive uniforms had
been torn to ribbons by the men, nobody ever made any inquiry about
“destruction of government property.”
PERCEY
_February_ 2nd, 1918
I usually manage to get to two different towns for my Church services
Sunday mornings. General Lenihan always picks me up in his machine
and goes with me to my early service, at which he acts as acolyte
for the Mass, a duty which he performs with the correctness of a
seminarian, enhanced by his fine soldierly face and bearing and his
crown of white hair. The men are deeply impressed by it, and there
are few letters that go home that do not speak of it. He brought me
back from Cohons this morning and dropped me off at Percey, where I
had a later Mass. These French villagers are different from our own
home folks in that they want long services; they seem to feel that
their locality is made little of, if they do not have everything
that city churches can boast, and I sometimes think, a few extras
that local tradition calls for. It is hard on me, for I am a Low
Church kind of Catholic myself; and besides “soldier’s orisons” are
traditionally short ones. The only consolation I have here in Percey
is that the old septuagenarian who leads the service for the people
sings in such a way that I can render thanks to Heaven that at last
it has been given to my ears to hear raised in that sacred place the
one voice I have ever heard that is worse than my own.
I called on Donovan this evening and found him sitting in a big,
chilly chamber in the old chateau in front of a fire that refused
to burn. He had had a hard day and was still busy with orders for
the comfort of men and animals. “Father,” he said, “I have just been
thinking that what novelists call romance is only what men’s memories
hold of the past, with all actual realization of the discomforts left
out, and only the dangers past and difficulties conquered remaining
in imagination. What difference is there between us and the fellow
who has landed at the Chateau in Stanley Weyman or Robert Stevenson’s
interesting stories; who has come in after a hard ride and is giving
orders for the baiting of his horse or the feeding of his retinue, as
he sits, with his jackboots pulled down, before the unwilling fire
and snuffs the candle to get sufficient light to read his orders for
the next day’s march.” I get much comfort from the Major’s monologue.
It supplies an excellent romantic philosophy with which to face the
sordid discomforts which are the most trying part of war.
BAISSEY
_February_ 8th, 1918
Over today and dined at Hurley’s mess. Pat Dowling told of a rather
mysterious thing that happened to him while he was a Sergeant in the
regular army. He was sent from one post to another, a distance of
two hundred miles, with a sealed letter which he delivered to the
Commanding Officer, who opened it, read it, and said: “Sergeant, you
will return to your own post immediately.” “I have often wondered,”
said Pat, “what could have been in that letter.” “I can tell you,”
said Tom Martin, in his quiet way. “Well, what was in it?” “That
letter read, ‘If you like the looks of this man, keep him.’”
LONGEAU
_February_ 10th, 1918
The Regiment has made huge progress in military matters during
the past month. I go over to Cohons and the new French Chauchat
automatics are barking merrily at the hill that climbs from the road.
At Percey I see our erstwhile baseball artists learning an English
overhead bowling delivery for hurling hand grenades at a pit, where
they explode noisily and harmlessly. At Baissey Major Moynahan walks
me up the steep hill to show me his beautiful system of trenches,
though I see no reflection of his enthusiasm in the faces of Jerry
Sheehan or Jim Sullivan—they had the hard job of helping to dig
them. West of the town against the steep base of the highest hill
Lieutenants O’Brien and Cunningham with the 37 mm. or one-pound
cannon, and Lieutenants Walsh and Keveny with the Stokes mortars are
destroying the fair face of nature. Vociferous young Lieutenants
are urging the men to put snap into their bayonet lunges at stuffed
mannikins.
I had a little clash of my own with some of these enthusiastic
youngsters early in the game. In the British school of the bayonet
they teach that the men ought to be made to curse while doing these
exercises. I see neither grace nor sense in it. If a man swears in
the heat of a battle I don’t even say that God will forgive it; I
don’t believe He would notice it. But this organized blasphemy is an
offense. And it is a farce—a bit of Cockney Drill Sergeant blugginess
to conceal their lack of better qualities. If they used more brains
in their fighting and less blood and guts they would be further on
than they are. Our fellows will do more in battle by keeping their
heads and using the natural cool courage they have than by working
themselves up into a fictitious rage to hide their fears.
Latterly we have had the excellent services of a Battalion of French
Infantry to help us in our training. They have been through the
whole bloody business and wear that surest proof of prowess, the
Fourragère. I asked some of the old timers amongst them how much use
they had made of the bayonet. They all said that they had never seen
a case when one line of bayonets met another. Sometimes they were
used in jumping into a trench, but generally when it came to bayonets
one side was running away.
The “Y” is on the job and has some sort of place in each town. With
me is Percy Atkins, a good man with only one fault—he is working
himself to death in spite of my trying to boss him into taking care
of himself.
We have suffered a real pang in the transfer of Colonel Hine to
the Railway Service. It gives a foretaste of what we are to be up
against in this war. There is evidently to be no regard for feelings
or established relations of dependency or intimacy, but just put men
in where they will be considered to fit best. I was ready for that
after the battles began, but it is starting already. First Reed, now
Hine. I shall miss Colonel Hine very much—a courteous gentleman, a
thorough soldier, a good friend. He was a railroad man for many years
and they say he is needed there. God prosper him always wherever he
goes.
His successor was picked by General Pershing from his own staff:
Colonel John W. Barker, a West Pointer, who had seen much service and
had been on duty in France since the beginning of the war. He is a
manly man, strong of face, silent of speech, and courteous of manner.
We have learned to like him already—we always like a good soldier. We
are also beginning to get some real training, as the weather is more
favorable and our officers are getting back from school.