THE BACCARAT SECTOR
BACCARAT
_March_, 1918
To speak in guide-book fashion, Baccarat is a town of 15,000 people
situated in the wide, flat valley of the Meurthe River. It possesses
a well-known glass factory and a rather elegant parish church, whose
elegance is just now slightly marred by two clean shell-shots, one
through its square tower and the other through the octagonal spire.
The most extensive ruins, dating from the German capture of the town
in 1914, are those of the blocks on both sides of the street between
the church and the river. They were caused, not by shell fire, but
by deliberate arson, for some actions of the townspeople, real or
fancied. A few broken walls are standing with all the chimneys still
intact, sticking up amongst them like totem poles. Charlie Brooks,
making believe that the ruins were caused by shell fire, said to me
“In case of bombardment, I know the safest place to get. Sit right up
on top of a chimney and let them shoot away.”
West of the river the hill rises steeply and is crowned by the
picturesque old walled village of Deneuvre, dating certainly from the
early Middle Ages, and, local antiquarians say, from Roman times.
Here are established our regimental headquarters, with the four
special companies, and the whole of the third battalion, or what
is left of it, as Company K consists of Lieutenant Howard Arnold,
Sergeant Embree, Company Clerk Michael Costello and two privates,
who were absent on other duties when the Company was gassed; and
Company M is reduced to half its strength. The first battalion is
very comfortably situated in the Haxo Barracks at the north end of
Baccarat, the 2nd Battalion being at present at Neufmaisons, ten
kilometers out toward the front lines. The regiment was selected
as division reserve on account of the depleted strength of our 3rd
Battalion.
BACCARAT
_April_ 2, 1918
At last we have located the gassed members of our 3rd Battalion in
the hospitals at Vittel and Contrexéville; and today, as Lieutenant
Knowles had the kindly thought of bringing their pay to them,
Donovan, Mangan and myself took advantage of the opportunity to go
and see them. The hospitals were formerly hotels in these summer
resorts and serve excellently for their present purpose. Many of the
men are still in bed, lying with wet cloths over their poor eyes, and
many of them have been terribly burned about the body, especially
those whose duties called upon them to make exertions which used
perspiration. Among these is John McGuire of the Supply Company
and many of the sanitary detachment, such as Sergeant Lokker, Ed.
McSherry, James Butler, Michael Corbett and John J. Tierney, who have
been recommended for the Croix de Guerre for courage and devotion
in saving the wounded. Sergeant Russell, with Corporals Beall and
Brochon of the Headquarters Company are also suffering for their zeal
in maintaining liaison.
But it is Company K that had to bear the brunt of it. Of the
officers, Lieutenant Crane is in the most critical condition, and
it was a touching thing as I went through the ward to hear every
single man in his platoon forget his own pain to inquire about the
Lieutenant. Some of the men are still in very bad shape, Richard
O’Gorman, George Sicklick, Val Prang, Sergeant Gleason, Bernard
Leavy, Francis Meade, James Mullin and also Mortimer Lynch,
Christopher Byrne, Daniel Dooley, Gerard Buckley, Harold Benham,
Harold Broe, Kilner McLaughlin, and Buglers Nye and Rice. The
cooks did not escape—Pat Boland, William Mulcahy, Moriarty, Thomas
O’Donnell and Michael O’Rourke, who, by the way, is one of those
Czecho-Slovaks who has chosen to fight under a martial name. The
Wisconsins also have been hard hit, and two of their men here,
Corporal John Sullivan and Leo Moquin, are painfully burned on
account of their exertions in carrying others. I have turned the
names of these two in with a recommendation for citation, with those
of Staber, Farrell, Ross, Van Yorx, Montross, Beall, Brochon, McCabe
and the medicos mentioned. Sergeant Leo Bonnard, in liaison with the
French, has received his cross on their recommendation. Lieutenant
Tom Martin and Dr. Patton also received the same decoration.
Apart from Lieutenant Crane, none of the officers is in serious
condition, though more than half of the officers in the battalion
are in the hospital, including Major Moynahan, Captains Hurley,
Merle-Smith, and Meaney, Lieutenants Leslie, Stevens, and Rerat,
with nearly all the lieutenants of Company K and M, and also Major
Lawrence with Lieutenants Patton and Arthur Martin of the Sanitary
Detachment, who deserve high praise for their handling of a difficult
situation.
The Company M men were not so badly gassed, with the exception of
Sergeant Emerson. A good many of them were walking about with eyes
only slightly inflamed. I was immediately surrounded by Eustace,
Flanigan, Jack Manson, Harry Messmer, Bill Lanigan, Mark White,
Jock Cameron and a lot of others, all clamoring for news about the
regiment. I made myself a candidate for being canonized as a saint by
working at least a hundred first-class miracles when I announced that
we had come with the pay. The news was received with a shout, “Gimme
me pants, I’m all better now.”
There was one thing that disturbed us. We found most of our injured
in these two towns, but there was still a considerable number whose
pay we had that we could not find, and nobody was able to tell where
they had been sent.
BACCARAT
_April_ 7th, 1918
The reports which have arrived of the death in hospital of Robert
Allen, Walter Bigger and Lawrence Gavin of Company K gave us our
first information concerning the whereabouts of soldiers whom we
could not discover in our trip to the hospital. They died at the new
Army Hospital at Bazoilles near Neufchateau. As Tom Johnson of the
New York _Sun_ was visiting us, he offered to take me back with him
in his car to see them. They are in long, one-story hospital barracks
and most of them are almost recovered although Amos Dow and Herbert
Kelly are still very sick boys. With the assistance of the two First
Sergeants of K and M, Tim Sullivan and James McGarvey, who are also
patients, I paid them all off.
I also gave them a bit of news which was more gratefully received
than the pay, and that is saying a great deal. One of the hospital
authorities told me that a special order had arrived that men of the
165th who would be fit for duty by a certain date should be returned
direct to the regiment without going through a casual camp. He told
me also that the order was entirely an exceptional one, adding
laughingly that he would be glad to get rid of them. He said they
were the liveliest and most interesting lot of patients he ever had
to deal with, but they made themselves infernal pests by agitating
all the time to get back to their confounded old regiment. Howard
Gregory came up with a side car to take me back and I had another
chance to see our men in the other two hospitals and was glad to find
that they are all on the road to recovery.
REHERREY
_April_ 25th, 1918
On April 23rd, and a miserable day of rain and mud it was, we
relieved the Ohios in the positions on the left of our Division
Sector. Looking east from Baccarat one sees only a steep hill which
forms the valley of the Meurthe and blocks the view in the direction
of the combat line; but a road from the north of the town leads
through an opening in the hills to undulating country with small
villages dotting the landscape every two or three miles. One of these
is Reherrey, which is to be our regimental P. C. during our stay
in this section. The next village to the east, called Migneville,
shelters our support battalion, the P. C. of the advance battalion
being at Montigny, still farther on.
The trenches are more varied and more interesting than those in the
Forest of Parroy. Those on the left of our sector run along the front
edge of the Bois Bouleaux, which gives its occupants the shelter of
trees, but leaves them in a position to see an approaching enemy.
The trenches to the right run over open ground and finally straight
across the eastern tip of the town of Ancervillers, utilizing the
cellars, broken walls, etc. Machine gun nests have been established
in some of the cellars which dominate the open spaces, the guns being
raised to be able to fire at ground level through carefully concealed
concrete openings. The 1st battalion is in line, the 3rd in support,
while the 2nd is in “Camp Mud,” a group of barracks to the rear of
us in surroundings which provoke its title. Poor fellows, they would
much rather be in a battle.
REHERREY
_April_ 28th, 1918
Went over Saturday to St. Pol where Companies L and M are in support
positions and passed the night with Merle-Smith and his Lieutenants,
Carroll, Baker, Givens and Knowles. The village church is pretty
badly wrecked, parts of the walls and most of the roof being tumbled
down in crumbled ruins. One shell went through just in front of the
altar, but the roof above the altar is fairly well intact. I had
doubts as to whether I could use it for services, but Cornelius
Fitzpatrick and Frank Eustace offered to have it cleaned up and
put in shape for me by next morning. When I arrived to say Mass I
was delighted at the transformation they had effected. The half
ruined reredos of the altar was a mass of bloom with big branches of
blossoms which they had cut from the fruit trees in the garden. It is
one of the pictures of the war that I shall long carry in my mind.
One of the men told me that Joyce Kilmer had been out here on his
duties as Sergeant of the Intelligence Section to map out the ground
with a view to its defence if attacked. As his party was leaving the
ruined walls he said, “I never like to leave a church without saying
a prayer,” and they all knelt down among the broken fragments under
the empty vault and said a silent prayer—a beautiful thought of a
true poet and man of God.
REHERREY
_May_ 5th, 1918
Headquarters, both American and French, have been very anxious for
somebody to take prisoners, and we were all very much pleased this
morning to hear that a patrol from Company D had gone out and bagged
four of them. Out across No Man’s Land from Ancervillers there
is, or used to be, a few houses which went by the name of Hameau
d’Ancervillers. There was some reason to believe that a German
outpost might be found there; so at midnight last night a patrol of
two officers and twenty-four men, mainly from Company D, went on a
little hunting expedition. They crossed No Man’s Land to the old
German trenches, which they found to be battered flat.
Lieutenant Edmond J. Connelly remained with a few men in No Man’s
Land to guard against surprise, and Lieutenant Henry K. Cassidy took
the rest of them, including Sergeant John J. O’Leary of Company A,
Sergeant Thomas O’Malley of Company D and Sergeant John T. Kerrigan
of the Intelligence Section to examine the ruins of the hamlet. Part
of the wall of one house was left standing. O’Leary led three men to
one side of it, and O’Malley three others to the other side, while
Lieutenant Cassidy approached it from the front. They were challenged
by a German sentry and the two Sergeants with their followers rushed
at once to close quarters and found themselves engaged with six
Germans, two of whom were killed, and one wounded, the survivors
dashing headlong into a dugout.
Lieutenant Cassidy, pistol in hand, ran to the opening of the dugout
and called on them to surrender. If any one of them had any fight
left in him we would have had to mourn the loss of a brave young
officer, but they surrendered at discretion, and our whole party,
with no casualties, started back as fast as they could, carrying
the wounded prisoner and dragging the others with them. It was an
excellent job, done with neatness and dispatch. Valuable papers
were found on the wounded man and other information was obtained at
Division by questioning. The only thing to spoil it was that two of
our men, Corporal Joseph Brown and Charles Knowlton got lost in the
dark coming in, and have not yet reported.[1]
REHERREY
_May_ 9th, 1918
War is a time of sudden changes and violent wrenches of the heart
strings; and we are getting a taste of it even before we enter
into the period of battles. We are to lose Colonel Barker. Back in
Washington they are looking for men who know the war game as it is
played over here, and, as Colonel Barker has been observing it, or
engaged in it, since the war began, they have ordered him back to
report for duty at the War Department.
Our regrets at his going are lessened by two considerations. The
first is that we feel he will get his stars by reason of the change
and it will make us glad for him and proud for ourselves to see
one of our Colonels made a General. The other is the news that his
successor is to be Frank R. McCoy, of General Headquarters. He was
not a Colonel on the General Staff when we crossed his path first,
but Captain McCoy of the 3rd Cavalry, stationed at Mission, Texas.
I did not meet him down there, but heard a whole lot about him—all
good—from Colonel Haskell, and from Colonel Gordon Johnston of the
12th New York, who had been a captain with McCoy in the 3rd Cavalry.
About the time we got to Mission he was made Chief of Staff to
General Parker at Brownsville. Later I read of his going to Mexico
as military attaché with our new Ambassador, Mr. Fletcher, and then
that General Pershing had reached out after him there to bring him
over here with the A. E. F. In the more remote past he has been
Aide de Camp to General Woods, Military Aide at the White House
under President Roosevelt, and on special duty for the government on
various semi-diplomatic missions. If this list of employments had any
tendency to make me wonder how much of a soldier he was, it would
have vanished quickly after one look at his left breast which is
adorned with five service bars. They say in the army that McCoy has
done all kinds of duty that an officer can be called upon to do, but
has never missed a fight—a good omen for the “Fighting Sixty-Ninth.”
He is a man of good height, of spare athletic figure, with a lean
strongly formed face, nose Roman and dominating, brows capacious,
eyes and mouth that can be humorous, quizzical or stern, as I learned
by watching him, in the first five minutes. He has dignity of
bearing, charm of manner and an alert and wide-ranging intelligence
that embraces men, books, art, nature. If he only thinks as well
of us as we are going to think of him I prophesy that he will have
this regiment in the hollow of his hand to do what he likes with it.
Everything helps. “_McCoy_, is it? Well, he has a good name anyway,”
said one of the “boys from home.”
Colonel McCoy came to us in the lines, the P. C. being at Reherrey.
The _popotte_ (mess) occupied two low-ceiled rooms in a three-room
cottage. We sat close together on benches at a long plank table,
but it was a jolly company. To give the new Colonel a taste of
his Regiment I told him a monologue by one of our men that I had
overheard the evening before. There are a couple of benches right in
front of my billet, in the narrow space between the dung-heap and
the window, and there is always a lot of soldiers around there in
their free time. They know I am inside the open window, but pay no
attention to my presence—a real compliment.
There was a military discussion on among the bunch from Company C.
They got talking about the German policy of evacuating the front line
trenches when we send over a concentrated barrage preparatory to a
raid, and then letting fly at us with their machine guns as we return
empty-handed. Somebody said he thought it was a good thing. This
irritated my friend Barney Barry, solid Irishman, good soldier, and I
may add, a saintly-living man. “But Oi don’t loike it,” he said, “Oi
don’t loike it at all. It looks too much loike rethreatin’,—I think
they betther lave us be. Take the foive uv us here—me and Jim Barry
and Pat Moran and Moike Cooney, and you Unger—you’re a Dootchman, but
you’re a good man—the foive of us in a thrench with our roifles and
what we’d have on us to shoot, and a couple uv exthra bandoliers, and
a bunch of thim guinny foot-balls (hand grenades) and a bit of wire
up in front; and if the young officers u’d only keep their heads,
and not be sayin’ ‘Do this; and don’t do that’; gettin’ themselves
excoited, and whot’s worse, gettin’ us excoited, but just lave us
be, I give ye me wurrd that be the toime mornin’ u’d come, and ye’d
come to be buryin’ thim, ye’d think ye had your old job back diggin’
the subway.”
The Colonel was delighted with this sample of the spirit of his Irish
regiment. And I determined to let him see the whole works at once.
He might as well get the full flavor of the Regiment first as last.
We had a concert going on in the next room. Tom O’Kelly sang in his
fine full rich baritone the “Low Back Car” and that haunting Scottish
melody of “Loch Lomond.”
“Give us a rebel song, Tom,” I called. “What’s that, sir—Father,
I mean.” McCoy twinkled delightedly. “A rebel song,” I repeated.
“Alright, Father, what shall I sing.” “Oh, you know a dozen of them.
‘The West’s Awake,’ ‘O’Donnel Aboo’ or ‘A Nation Once Again.’” Tom
responded readily with “O’Donnel Aboo,” and as its defiant strains
ended in a burst of applause he broke into the blood stirring old
rebel ballad, “The Wearing of the Green.” Colonel McCoy’s face was
beaming. He evidently likes things to have their proper atmosphere.
I can see the old Irish 69th is just what he expected it to be, and
what he wanted it to be. I see there is no worry in his mind about
how these singers of rebel songs will do their part in this war.
I had a long talk with him today about the Regiment, and I find him
anxious to keep up its spirit and traditions. They are as dear to him
for their romantic flavor and their military value as those of the
Household Guards or the Black Watch are to the Englishman or the Scot.
REHERREY
_May_ 12th, 1918
Majors Moynahan and Stacom are being transferred to other duties,
much to everybody’s regret. It looks like a break up of the old
Regiment. It would be, I fear, if anybody but McCoy were Colonel.
But he has a slate for promotion already; a 69th slate, and he will
put it through if anybody can—Anderson and James McKenna for Majors,
Prout and Bootz and W. McKenna for Captains. It will save the spirit
of the regiment if he can carry this through. If the vacancies are
filled by replacement we shall not know ourselves in a short time.
I feel all the more grateful to our new Colonel because he had a
share in planning the replacement idea; and besides, I know that
there are plenty of officers at General Headquarters, friends of his,
who are anxious to get to the front and to have the 69th on their
service records. It would be an embarrassment to any other man to go
to G. H. Q. and ask them to change the scheme of filling vacancies
by replacement instead of by promotion. But I know just what will
happen, when they say “Why, you helped to make this plan.” He will
smile benignly, triumphantly and say “That just proves my point. Now
that I am in command of a regiment I find by first hand knowledge
that the original plan does not work out well.”
DENEUVRE
_May_ 15th, 1918
Our allotted three weeks in line being up, we returned to our
original stations, the only change being that the 2nd Battalion comes
to Deneuvre, while the 3rd has to go to Camp Mud. I am billetted
with the Curé, a devout and amiable priest—who was carried off as
a hostage by the Germans in their retreat of 1914 and held by them
for over a year. He likes to have Americans around, and we fill
his house. Captain Anderson, Lieutenants Walsh, Howe, Allen and
Parker are domiciled with me. Joe Bruell and Austin McSweeney have
their wireless in a room in the house, and draw down all sorts of
interesting messages from the other Sergeants. Sergeants McCarthy,
Esler and Russell are next door neighbors, and better neighbors no
man could choose. I can go down to the dooryard if time hangs on my
hands and hear remarks on men and things, made more piquant by New
York slang or Irish brogue.
It is a delight to go to our mess with McCoy’s stimulating wit and
Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell’s homely philosophy and Mangan’s lively
comments, and the various aspects of war and life opened up by
all sorts of interesting people—Bishops, diplomats, soldiers and
correspondents who drift in from afar, drawn by the magnetism of our
Colonel. The food may not always be to the taste of an epicure but
“we eat our Irish potatoes flavored with Attic salt,” as Father Prout
says.
But my chiefest joy in life is to have Joyce Kilmer around. In the
army it matters little whether a man was a poet or a grave digger—he
is going to be judged by what he is as a soldier. And Joyce is
rated high by everybody from the K. P. to the Colonel because he
is a genuine fellow. He is very much a soldier—a Sergeant now, and
prouder of his triple chevron as member of the 69th than he would
be of a Colonel’s eagles in any other outfit. If they do not let us
commission officers within the Regiment he will come out of the war
as Sergeant Joyce Kilmer—a fine title, I think, for any man, for it
smacks of the battlefield with no confounded taint of society about
it. His life with us is a very full and a very happy one. At first
I selfishly took him to help in my own duties regarding statistics.
He was glad to help, but he regretted leaving a line company, and
especially parting from a lot of friends he had made among the Irish
“boys from home,” whose simplicity amused him and whose earnest faith
aroused his enthusiasm.
Over here he got restless at being on the Adjutant’s force, and when
Lieutenant Elmer began his lectures on the work and opportunities
of the Intelligence Section—scouting, and all the rest of it—Joyce
pleaded with me to get him away from a desk and out in the line. Now
he is happy all the day long. He has worked himself into various
midnight patrols, and Captain Anderson has told me to advise him that
he lacks caution in taking care of himself, but as Kilmer has told
me the same thing about Anderson, I feel helpless about them both.
I know Kilmer well. He has evidently made up his mind to play the
game without flinching, without any admixture of fear. On our last
day in Lunéville, when the town was being shelled, I called to him
to stand in a doorway where there was a little less danger and he
answered with a story about Tom Lacey and a French Major, the moral
of which was that a soldier is expendable and officers not; and the
outcome of which was that I went forth and walloped him till he
came in, though still chuckling. He has been for some time out on
an observation post in a beautiful spot which overlooks the German
lines, with Watson, Kerrigan, Beck, Mott, Levinson, Titterton—all
great admirers of his. Whenever he gets a day off he is in to see me
and we break all the rules chatting till midnight and beyond. Books
and fighting and anecdotes and good fellows and things to eat and
religion; all the good old natural human interests are common to us,
with a flavor of literature, of what human-minded people have said in
the past to give them breadth and bottom.
Kilmer or I, or both of us, may see an end to life in this war, but
neither of us will be able to say that life has not been good to us.
DENEUVRE
_May_ 17th, 1918
Just over to the Regimental Supply Office to see Mangan. I am always
looking for reasons to spend a while with Captain Jack. He has a
great outfit. I watched his trained youngsters, Lacey, Kennedy,
Burke, Nulty and the two delightful Drennan boys at their business
of taking care of the Regiment, which they have learned to do so
efficiently. I wonder if they will find in civil life jobs to suit
the talents they display here. The Regimental Supply Sergeants,
Joe Flannery and Eddie Scanlon, could run anything. First Sergeant
Comiskey is back with us, and so is Harry Mallon, mule-skinner and
funmaker. Everybody was glad to see Harry once more. Walter Lloyd’s
gentle voice booming from a nearby stable let me know that the
Company kitchen was near, so I wandered in that direction for a cup
of coffee from Healy and McAviney—always the height of hospitality
for everybody there. Stopped a row between Frankie Meade and
Carburetor Donnelly—Frankie is the proud guardian of the Regimental
ratter and the other boy-soldier passed a remark about it that no
man would let be said about his dog. I held up Charlie Feick for a
canteen, and before I left Henry and Klauberg and Beverly had dug me
up an O. D. suit, underwear, socks, shoe-laces and a web belt. Had a
good day.
BACCARAT
_May_ 21st, 1918
The new regulations provide for a senior chaplain in each Division. I
felt that General Menoher would appoint me for the job as I am senior
in service, and I had a notion that my friend Colonel MacArthur would
suggest my name. It has been a worry to me as I do not intend to
leave the regiment for anything else on earth and I am afraid I may
have to go through the war hanging around Division Headquarters. So I
asked Colonel McCoy if he would back me in my refusal to accept the
office if I had to quit the regiment, to which I received a hearty
affirmative.
I received news of the outcome from McCoy a few days later. Colonel
MacArthur had told him I was to be senior chaplain, but he was in
entire accord with my wish to remain with a fighting unit. Our Chief
of Staff chafes at his own task of directing instead of fighting,
and he has pushed himself into raids and forays in which, some older
heads think, he had no business to be. His admirers say that his
personal boldness has a very valuable result in helping to give
confidence to the men. Colonel McCoy and Major Donovan are strong on
this point. Donovan says it would be a blamed good thing for the
army if some General got himself shot in the front line. General
Menoher and General Lenihan approve in secret of these madnesses;
but all five of them are wild Celts, whose opinion no sane man like
myself would uphold.
At any rate, Colonel McCoy was so satisfied with the result of
the outcome in my case that he went further and said, “Now, if my
chaplain is to be senior chaplain of the Division it is not right
that he should remain a First Lieutenant. He ought to be a Major at
least.” McCoy told me with twinkling eyes, “MacArthur said, ‘Now,
McCoy, if I were you I would not bring up the question of the rank
of Father Duffy, for I had serious thoughts of making him Colonel of
the 165th instead of you.’ You are a dangerous man, Father Duffy,”
continued the genial McCoy, “and I warn you, you won’t last long
around here.”
DENEUVRE
_May_ 25th, 1918
Being made Senior Chaplain of the Division I judged that my first,
if not my sole duty, was to give a dinner to the brethren. We had a
meeting in the morning in a large room under the Curé’s hospitable
roof, and everyone was there. Chaplains Halliday, Robb, Harrington,
Smith and McCallum I had known since our first days in Camp Mills,
and we had worked together ever since as if we belonged to one
religious family. Those who were added to our body since we came to
France impress us all as being first class men. Three of them I call
the “Young Highbrows”: Chaplains N. B. Nash of the 150th F. A., who
was a Professor in the Episcopal Theological Seminary at Cambridge,
Charles L. O’Donnell, the poet priest of Notre Dame University, who
is attached to the 117th Engineers, and Eugene Kenedy, who has been a
professor in various Jesuit Colleges and who is now working with the
150th Machine Gun Battalion, after a month of breaking in with our
regiment. Chaplain Ralph M. Tibbals, a Baptist Clergyman from the
Southwest, and Chaplain William Drennan, a priest from Massachusetts,
were new men to most of us, but made a decidedly favorable impression.
We discussed a number of matters of common interest and every
single topic was decided by unanimous vote. The clergy discover
in circumstances like these that their fundamental interests are
absolutely in common. I do not mean to say that there is any tendency
to give up their own special creeds; in fact, they all make an effort
to supply the special religious needs of men of various denominations
in their own regiments by getting the other chaplains to have
occasional services or by announcing such services to the men. I told
Bishop Brent that the way the Clergy of different churches got along
together in peace and harmony in this Division would be a scandal to
pious minds.
I think it would be a good thing if representatives of various
churches would have a meeting every year at the seashore in bathing
suits, where nobody could tell whether the man he was talking to was
a Benedictine Abbot, a Methodist Sunday-School Superintendent or a
Mormon Elder. They would all find out how many things of interest
they have in common, and, without any disloyalty to their own church,
would get together to put them over.
At this meeting there was one thing that I wanted for myself. Some
day we shall have three Chaplains for each Infantry regiment, but
the time is long in coming, and I am anxious to get someone to hold
religious services for my Protestant fellows. I have asked the
Division Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. to supply me with one of his
Secretaries who is a clergyman, to be attached permanently to the
regiment; promising that he would be treated as well as I myself.
I have been after this for a long while but the Division Secretary
has not too many men, and he is tied down in the placing of them by
the canteen situation which makes it necessary to leave the same
man in one place as long as possible. Chaplains Nash and Halliday,
who are very close to me in all my counsels, are going with me to
Chaumont to back me up in a request to the G. H. Q. Chaplains—Bishop
Brent, Chaplain Moody and Father Doherty, to have them ask the chief
officials of the Y. M. C. A. to assign one of their Protestant
clergyman permanently to my regiment.
I had left the matter of dinner in the capable hands of the
Regimental Supply Sergeant, Joe Flannery, so everybody went home
satisfied.
During my stay at Deneuvre I have seen a good deal of Bishop Brent,
formerly Episcopal Bishop in the Philippines and now Senior of the
G. H. Q. Chaplains. He knew Colonel McCoy in the Philippines, and
like everybody who ever knew him, is glad to have a chance to visit
him. The Bishop and I have become good friends, the only drawback
being that he talks too often about getting me with him at G. H.
Q., while my battle cry is that of every member of the regiment,
“I want to stick with my own outfit.” He is anxious to have some
first-hand experience of work in the trenches and he has paid us the
compliment of saying that if he can get away he will attach himself
to the 165th. I hope he can come for I know that everybody will be
as attached to him as I am myself, and he on his part will have some
interesting experiences.
_May_ 26th, 1918
I have just been talking with Donovan, Anderson, Mangan and others of
the old timers and we all remarked on what a hold Lieutenant Colonel
Mitchell had gotten on us during his short stay amongst us. He was
assigned to us as a replacement and drifted in so unassumingly that
we scarcely knew he had arrived until he was with us a week. But
as he has gone about from place to place doing all kinds of jobs,
—inspections, courtmartials, and the like, we have grown to know him
better, and to like him more the more we know him. He is efficient
without bustle, authoritative without bluster, never unreasonable and
full of quaint native humor. His father was a Chaplain in the Army
which is perhaps one of the reasons why the son and I are already
like old chums.
BACCARAT
_May_ 30th, 1918
The uniforms we wear as well as the losses we have already sustained
make us appreciate the significance of Memorial Day. General Menoher
left the arrangements for a proper celebration of the day to the
Chaplains. So I called a meeting at which all were present. It was
an easy matter to select speakers from our various commands to
address meetings of soldiers in every village in which elements of
the Division were quartered. The regimental bands of the Infantry and
Artillery Regiments were to be sent by trucks from one station to
another, so that all of our soldiers should have the benefit of their
services.
The main celebration was to be at Baccarat where our Division
Headquarters were, and the burden of arranging for it fell on the
165th, now in reserve. The dead of our Division, mainly men of the
84th Brigade, which has been in this Sector since the beginning of
March, are buried in a Military Cemetery; and our first duty was to
pay them solemn honors. Polychrom of Company A made wreaths from the
flowers lavishly offered by the people of Deneuvre. Everybody of all
ranks who could be spared was present at the ceremony, together with
large number of the civilian population. Children of the town were
selected to place the wreaths upon the graves of our dead, and the
last resting place of our French companions was not neglected.
After the ceremony Captain Handy came to me with an invitation from
General Menoher to ride back with him. General Menoher is a man who
begets loyalty and confidence. Americans are better acquainted with
the business type of man than the military type, and I think I can
best characterize him by saying that if he were out of uniform
he would impress one as a successful business man—one of the kind
that can carry responsibility, give orders affecting large affairs
with calmness and certainty, and still find time to be human. He
is entirely devoid of posing, of vanity, or of jealousy. His only
desire is to see results. Consequently his subordinates are doing
magnificent teamwork, and the excellent condition of the Division
is due to this factor as well as his direct care of us. We are
exceedingly fortunate in having such a man to rule over us.
Colonel McCoy saw to it that the grave of every one of our dead
was properly honored on this day—in Southampton, in Langres, in
Ancervillers and here in Baccarat. During the afternoon he and I went
to Croix-Mare; so likewise did General Menoher with Colonel MacArthur
and General Lenihan with Major Conway. We found that the Curé and his
parishioners, as also the French soldiers, had kept the graves there
in beautiful condition—a tribute to our dead which warms our heart to
the people of France.
LETTER TO A CURATE
_June_ 10th, 1918
In spite of all you tell me I have lost, I have a stray assortment
of arms and legs left, ungainly, I admit, but still serviceable,
whether for reaching for the bread at messtime or for pushing me
around my broad parish. I hear that I am dead—wounded—gone crazy. I
hate to contradict so many good people, but I must say that I know I
am alive, and that I never felt better in my life. As for the third
count, perhaps I had better leave it to others to testify, but I’m
no worse than I always was. I may be considered a bit off for coming
over here, but that’s a decent kind of craziness, and one I am glad
to see becoming quite popular.
I wish that my case could serve as a warning to good folks at home
who are distracted by all sorts of rumors about their lads here. If
anything happens to any one of us, the folks will hear of it from
Washington within a hundred hours. If it says “Slightly Wounded,”
they may take it as good news. For let me tell you, if I was worrying
continually about the fate of some dear one over here, and got word
he was “Slightly Wounded,” I would sigh a sigh of relief that the
beloved was out of harm’s way and having a good time for a while.
I don’t mind rumors in the army. They are part of the game. With
eating and growling, they constitute our chief forms of recreation.
Fact is, I am made the father of most of them in this regiment. When
some lad starts his tongue going, and everybody tells him just what
kind of a liar he is, he says that Father Duffy said so, and Father
Duffy got it straight from Secretary Baker or General Pershing, or,
who knows?—by revelation. It is a great compliment to me, but a
left-handed one to my teaching.
At home, though, rumors don’t just interest—they hurt. I know how
much they hurt, for my pile of “agony letters” keeps mounting up
with every mail. And I can’t answer them all at length, as I would
wish—not if I want to do anything else.
First-class mail is the bane of my life as Chaplain. Like everyone
else, I don’t mind reading it, but I know what it means when it comes
to answering it. Gosh! how I hate that. I like to keep on the go.
I have to keep on the go to get anything done, with the regiment
scattered in five different villages, miles apart, and outside work
to do in the other outfits for men that want the sacraments, and
hospitals to visit. And to have to stick a whole day at a table to
soothe sorrows that don’t exist, or oughtn’t to—whew!
The letters I am most ready to answer are from those who have gotten
real bad news from Washington. God be good to them. I’d do anything
for them. And the ones I am glad to get—if I don’t have to answer
them myself—are those that put me onto something I can do for the
men—see that Jimmy keeps the pledge, or that Tom goes to Church, or
find what’s the matter with Eddie who lost his stripes, or break
bad news to Michael, or see that Jack doesn’t fall in love with
any of those French hussies, but comes back to the girl that adores
him. These all help, and I get round to them in time—and make the
victim write a letter, to which I put my name as censor—a proof of my
efforts.
But the biggest bulk of my mail consists of inquiries why no mail has
arrived from Patrick for three weeks—and is he dead—or why Jerry’s
allotment had not been made. When I interview Patrick, he informs me
disgustedly that he has written home every twenty minutes. And I know
that before any letter of mine can get there, the Sullivans will have
received a bunch of mail that will make them the gossips and the envy
and the pride of the parish till they begin to get worried and write
to me again.
As for the allotments, the nearest I come—don’t ask me how near—to
falling into the sole vice of our army of using strong language
is when I get a letter from some poor mother or wife about their
non-payment. Our men have been extraordinarily decent about helping
out the folks at home. But it has been new forms to make out, or the
demand for a change of the name of Mrs. Michael J. Farrell to Mrs.
Mary Farrell—and all the time decent folks going short at home, and
the best men we’ve got fretting in the trenches. That’s the way these
fountain-pen soldiers are helping to win the war. How have they kept
it so secret? Even men like those that make up our Board of Trustees
have written me that our men are slack about making allotments.
And the poor fellows in most cases have stripped themselves to ten
dollars a month, and are scudding along on bare poles half way
between paydays—I know all about that, and the Trustees, all good men
and true, will hold back _their_ language when I report that I had to
use their money for lads that had left themselves destitute for their
folks, while their folks were being left destitute by those people in
Washington.
You ask me to tell you about my work here. Well, in the main it is
what I did at home, though under different circumstances. The old
Sixty-Ninth is a parish—an itinerant parish. Probably a sixth of the
“parishioners” do not look to me for dogmatic instruction, but you
know how much that counts for in my ordinary relations with them.
Remember the afternoon last Spring, when Father Prunty went into the
play-hall to get helpers from my gang for his patriotic gardening
and found afterward that his five volunteers consisted of two
Protestants, two Jews and Andy O’Hare.
I have this class of parishioners very much on my conscience. I can’t
get the other chaplains to help except on the few occasions when
regiments, or parts of them occupy the same place. Every chaplain
has five times what he can do to supply Sunday services for his own
scattered command.
At any rate, I can assure you that the different elements in the old
regiment have fused properly. By the way, I cannot remember anything
that delighted me more than when I heard Sergeant Abe Blaustein was
to get the Croix de Guerre—he was recommended for it by Major Donovan
and Major Stacom (the pride of our parish) and Lieutenant Cavanaugh.
He is a good man, Abe, and the 69th appreciates a good man when it
sees him. John O’Keefe’s poem made a hit with all of us.
That reminds me of something at my expense. Captain John Prout
approached me with a genial grin to tell me that at our Christmas
Mass he had seen a Jew boy present, and later on he asked him “What
were you doing at Mass?” “Oh, Captain,” he said, “you know I’d go to
Hell with you.” Prout said to me, “The compliment to myself is very
obvious, Father,—I hope that you will be able to find in it one for
yourself too.”
But I started to tell you about my work. I have a congregation of the
old faith, approximately three thousand souls. They are generally
scattered through five or six French villages, when _en repos_, and
more scattered still through trenches and abandoned towns when in
line.
To begin with the form of pastoral activity you are no doubt most
interested in, for you will be getting a parish one of these days—I
take up no collections. ’Tis a sad confession to make, and I expect
to be put out of the Pastor’s Union when I get back for breach of
rules. But the lads are not left entirely without proper training.
The old French curés (God bless them, they are a fine lot of old
gentlemen) take up the collection. A tremendously important-looking
old beadle in a Napoleonic cocked hat and with a long staff goes
before, with a money-or-your-life air about him, and in the rear
comes the apologetic mannered curé, or perhaps a little girl,
carrying a little dish that is a stimulus to stinginess, which is
timidly pushed forward a few inches in the direction of the man on
the outside seat. If the man is an American he grabs the dish and
sticks it under the nose of his neighbor, with a gruff whisper,
“Cough up.” They cough up all right—if it isn’t too far from payday.
Even at that they are good for more of the Cigar Store coupons and
the copper washers that pass for money here than are the local
worshippers. The curés proclaim us the most generous people in the
world—and so we are—which makes it unanimous. They listen with open
mouths to my tales of financial returns in city parishes at home and
wish secretly that they had started life where things are run like
that—until I tell them of the debts we have to carry, and they are
content once more that their lot has been cast in the quiet, old-time
villages of Lorraine.
But to do them justice, they are most impressed by the way our men
practice their religion. Two companies of our regiment jam a village
church—aisles, sanctuary, sacristy, porch. A battalion shows its good
will by filling the churchyard, the windows being ornamented by rough
martial visages which don’t look exactly like those of the placid
looking saints in the stained glass above—but I feel that the saints
were once flesh-and-blood people themselves, and that they have an
indulgent, perhaps even an admiring eye, on the good lads that are
worshipping God as best they can.
There is no doubt anyway about the opinion of the good priests who
are carrying on the work of the dead and gone saints. They are full
of enthusiasm about our fellows. What attracts them most is their
absolute indifference to what people are thinking of them as they
follow their religious practices. These men of yours, they tell me,
are not making a show of religion; they are not offending others;
they touch their hats to a church, or make the sign of the Cross,
or go to Mass just because they want to, with the same coolness
that a man might show in taking coffee without milk or expressing a
preference for a job in life. They run bases with scapulars flying,
and it don’t occur to them that they have scapulars on, any more than
they would be conscious of having a button of their best girl or
President Wilson pinned to their shirts—they may have all three.
Come to think of it, it is a tribute not only to our religious
spirit, but to the American spirit as a whole. The other fellows
don’t think of it either—no more than I do that one of our Chaplains
who is closest to me in every thought and plan wears a Masonic ring.
We never advert to it except when some French people comment on our
traveling together—and then it is a source of fun.
I often drop in on soldiers of other outfits around their kitchens or
in the trenches, or during a halt on the road, and hear confessions.
Occasionally Catholic soldiers in country regiments, with the
small-town spirit of being loth to doing anything unusual while
people are looking at them, hold back. Then my plan is to enlist the
co-operation of the Protestant fellows, who are always glad to pick
them out for me and put them in my clutches. They have a lot of sport
about it, dragging them up to me as if they were prisoners; but it is
a question of serious religion as soon as their confession begins,
the main purpose of the preliminaries being simply to overcome
a country boy’s embarrassment. It proves, too, that the average
American likes to see a man practice his religion, whatever it may be.
With my own men there is never any difficulty of that kind. I never
hear confessions in a church, but always in the public square of a
village, with the bustle of army life and traffic going on around
us. There is always a line of fifty or sixty soldiers, continuously
renewed throughout the afternoon, until I have heard perhaps as many
as five hundred confessions in the battalion. The operation always
arouses the curiosity of the French people. They see the line of
soldiers with man after man stepping forward, doffing his cap with
his left hand, and making a rapid sign of the cross with his right,
and standing for a brief period within the compass of my right arm,
and then stepping forward and standing in the square in meditative
posture while he says his penance. “What are those soldiers doing?” I
can see them whispering. “They are making the Sign of the Cross. Mon
Dieu! they are confessing themselves.” Non-Catholics also frequently
fall into line, not of course to make their confession, but to get a
private word of religious comfort and to share in the happiness they
see in the faces of the others.
Officers who are not Catholics are always anxious to provide
opportunities for their men to go to confession; not only through
anxiety to help them practice their religion, but also for its
distinct military value. Captain Merle-Smith told me that when I was
hearing confessions before we took over our first trenches he heard
different of his men saying to his first sergeant, Eugene Gannon,
“You can put my name down for any kind of a job out there. I’m all
cleaned up and I don’t give a damn what happens now.”
That is the only spirit to have going into battle—to be without any
worries for body or soul. If battles are to be won, men have to be
killed; and they must be ready, even willing, to be killed for the
cause and the country they are fighting for. While we were still in
Lunéville the regiment attended Mass in a body and I said to them,
“Much as I love you all I would rather that you and I myself, that
all of us should sleep our last sleep under the soil of France than
that the historic colors of this Old Regiment, the banner of our
republic, should be soiled by irresolution or disgraced by panic.”
The religion of the Irish has characteristics of its own—they make
the Sign of the Cross with the right hand, while holding the left
ready to give a jab to anybody who needs it for his own or the
general good. I cannot say that it is an ideally perfect type of
Christianity; but considering the sort of world we have to live in
yet, it as near as we can come at present to perfection for the
generality of men. It was into the mouth of an Irish soldier that
Kipling put the motto, “Help a woman, and hit a man; and you won’t go
far wrong either way.”
BACCARAT
_May_, 1918
The Knights of Columbus have secured a splendid place in Baccarat.
The Curé had a large hall with extra rooms and a nice yard outside,
for the young men of the Parish; and this he was glad to hand over
to the K. of C. for the use of American soldiers. Early in the game
Mr. Walter Kernan had tried to get in touch with me but had failed as
we were moving around too much. However, he had sent me a check for
5,000 francs with instructions to use it for the men. I had no need
of money, as our Board of Trustees were willing to supply whatever I
should ask, and there were very few things that could be purchased on
the scale demanded by a regiment of 3,600 men. We have now received
the services of Messrs. Bundschuh, May and Mr. Kernan’s brother,
Joseph, with a French-American priest whom I assigned to look after
the Catholics in two of the artillery regiments.
We opened the building with solemn pomp and ceremony in the presence
of representatives of Division Headquarters, M. Michaud, the Mayor of
the City, Colonel McCoy and many of the Chaplains and a large throng
of officers and men. With this commodious building in addition to the
quarters of the “Y” the matter of recreation for men in town will be
well looked after.
CHASSEURS
_June_ 10th, 1918
Our Division has taken over a new sector from the French just to the
right of our line bordering on the sector occupied by the Iowas and
it is at present occupied by Major Donovan with Companies A and B
of his battalion. It has a picturesque name, “The Hunter’s Meeting
Place—Rendezvouz des Chasseurs,” and is even more picturesque than
its name. There is a high hog-back of land jutting out towards the
German line between deep thickly-wooded valleys. When this was a
quiet sector the French soldiers in their idle time put a great
deal of labor on it to make it comfortable and attractive, and when
I came out here a few days ago I could easily have believed it if
told there was no such a thing as war, and that this whole place had
been designed as a rustic semi-military playground for the younger
elements on some gentleman’s country estate. The officers’ dugouts
are against the side of the steeply sloping hill so that only the
inner portion is really under ground, windows and doors on one side
opening on terraces which have flower beds, strawberry plots, and
devices made of whitewashed stones.
We dine _al fresco_ under the trees. An electric light plant is
installed and I spent last night on the Major’s bunk indulging an
old habit of reading late. Donovan, like McCoy, always has some
books with him no matter where he goes; and I got hold of a French
translation of “Cæsar’s Commentaries,” with notes by Napoleon
Bonaparte.
I enjoy being with Donovan. He is so many-sided in his interests, and
so alert-minded in every direction, and such a gracious attractive
fellow besides, that there is never a dull moment with him. His two
lieutenants, Ames and Weller, are of similar type; and as both are
utterly devoted to him, it is a happy family. Ames takes me aside
periodically to tell me in his boyish, earnest way that I am the only
man who can boss the Major into taking care of himself, and that
I must tell him that he is doing entirely too much work and taking
too great risks, and must mend his evil ways. I always deliver the
message, though it never does any good. Just now I am not anxious
for Donovan to spare himself, for I know that he has been sent here
because, in spite of its sylvan attractiveness, this place is a
post of danger, so situated that the enemy could cut it off from
reinforcements, and bag our two companies unless the strictest
precautions are kept up.
Major Allen Potts, a genial and gallant Virginian, who is now in
charge of the military police, has obtained permission to bring up
one company of his M. P.’s to help our fellows hold the line. It is
a good idea. The M. P. have a mean job as they have to arrest other
soldiers for breach of regulations; and they are exposed to resentful
retorts of the kind, “Where’s your coat?” “Where you’ll never go to
look for it—out in No Man’s Land.” Nobody can talk that way to Major
Potts’s outfit.
There was a gas attack last night on the French sector called
Chapellotte on the edge of the bluff to our immediate right, and
Donovan and I went over this morning to see the extent of the damage.
As we climbed the steep hill to reach the French positions we met
Matthew Rice of Company A, who was in liaison with the French; and
he told us in the coolest way in the world a story of a sudden gas
attack in the middle of the night, which put out of action nearly
two hundred men, leaving himself and four or five Frenchmen the only
surviving defenders of the hill. If the same thing were to happen
at Chasseurs the Germans could easily follow it up and capture the
whole outfit; and I can see the reason for Major Donovan’s ceaseless
precautions.
BACCARAT
_June_ 15th, 1918
My principal occupation these days is visiting the hospitals, of
which there are three in Baccarat. The Spanish Influenza has hit the
Division and a large number of the men are sick. The fever itself
is not a terrible scourge, but when pneumonia follows it, it is of
a particularly virulent type. Our deaths, however, have been few:
John F. Donahoe of Company F, Richard J. Hartigan of Company I, Fred
Griswold of Machine Gun Company and Patrick A. Hearn of Company
D, whose death had a particular pathos by reason of the sorrow of
his twin brother who is in the same Company. All in all, we have
been a singularly healthy regiment, whatever be the reason—some
doctors think it is because we are a city regiment. We have been
almost absolutely free from the “Children’s Diseases” such as mumps,
measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, etc., which have played havoc
with the efficiency strength of almost every other regiment in the
Division. Occasionally replacements introduce some of those diseases,
but they have never made any headway. Since we left home our full
total of deaths in a Regiment of thirty-six hundred men has been,
outside of battle cases, just fourteen. John L. Branigan, of Company
B, died in an English hospital. In the Langres area we lost Charles
C. Irons, Company G; Edward O’Brien, Company M, and James Reed,
Company E, by illness, and Sydney Cowley, Company G, by accidental
shooting. Accidents were also the causes of the deaths of Corporal
Winthrop Rodewald, Company H, Donald Monroe, Company F, and Daniel J.
Scanlon of Company G, who also left a brother in the Company to mourn
his loss. Louis King and Joseph P. Morris of Company I and George W.
Scallon of Company A died of meningitis.
In this sector we have had just three battle losses. When Company
G was in line, a direct hit of a German shell killed two of our
old-timers, Patrick Farrell and Timothy Donnellan, and wounded Peter
Bohan. Recently at Chasseurs, Corporal Arthur Baker, a resolute
soldier, was killed while leading a daylight patrol in No Man’s Land.
Sergeant Denis Downing of Company G was killed by one of our own
sentries who mistook him for a German.
BACCARAT
_June_ 16th, 1918
Donovan’s men have been recalled from Chasseurs. The 42nd Division
has finished its preliminary education and is to start off for some
more active front two days from now. We are to be relieved by the
77th Division, New York City’s contribution to the National Army.
Today while returning from a funeral I met two M. P.’s from that
Division who were members of the Police Force at home. Met also two
old pupils of mine, Father James Halligan and Lieutenant Arthur
McKeogh.
MOYEMONT
_June_ 19th, 1918
Yesterday was New York “Old Home Day” on the roads of Lorraine. We
marched out from Baccarat on our hunt for new trouble, and met on
the way the 77th Division, all National Army troops from New York
City. It was a wonderful encounter. As the two columns passed each
other on the road in the bright moonlight there were songs of New
York, friendly greetings and badinage, sometimes good humored,
sometimes with a sting in it. “We’re going up to finish the job that
you fellows couldn’t do.” “Look out for the Heinies or you’ll all be
eating sauerkraut in a prison camp before the month is out.” “The
Germans will find out what American soldiers are like when we get a
crack at them.” “What are you givin’ us,” shouted Mike Donaldson; “we
was over here killin’ Dutchmen before they pulled your names out of
the hat.” “Well, thank God,” came the response, “we didn’t have to
get drunk to join the army.”
More often it would be somebody going along the lines shouting
“Anybody there from Greenwich Village?” or “Any of you guys from
Tremont?” And no matter what part of New York City was chosen the
answer was almost sure to be “Yes.” Sometimes a chap went the whole
line calling for some one man: “Is John Kelly there?” the answer
from our side being invariably, “Which of them do you want?” One
young fellow in the 77th kept calling for his brother who was with
us. Finally he found him and the two lads ran at each other burdened
with their heavy packs, grabbed each other awkwardly and just punched
each other and swore for lack of other words until officers ordered
them into ranks, and they parted perhaps not to meet again. At
intervals both columns would break into song, the favorites being on
the order of
“East side, West side,
All around the town,
The tots sang ring-a-rosie
London Bridge is falling down,
Boys and girls together,
Me and Mamie O’Rourke,
We tripped the light fantastic
On the sidewalks of New York.
The last notes I heard as the tail of the dusty column swung around a
bend in the road, were “Herald Square, anywhere, New York Town, take
me there.” Good lads, God bless them, I hope their wish comes true.
MORIVILLE
_June_ 22nd, 1918
Our first day’s march brought us to Moyemont, our second a short hike
to Moriville, where we are waiting to entrain at Châtel-sur-Moselle.
I am billetted with the Curé and have sent Father McDonald, an old
pupil of mine who has just been sent to me, to the 2nd Battalion. He
is not well enough to stand what we will have to go through, so I
have sent a telegram to Bishop Brent asking to have him kept for a
time at some duty where he can regain his health.
Now I have to turn my attention to the Curé, who is also an invalid.
He is living here in this big, bleak stone house, with an old
housekeeper who is deaf, and the biggest, ugliest looking brute of
a dog I have ever seen. He is run down and dispirited. We Americans
don’t like that atmosphere so I started in to chirk him up. First I
called in Dr. Lyttle, who pronounced the verdict that there was no
reason why with rest and change and a new outlook on life he could
not last for ten years.
Today is Sunday and I told the lads in church that I wanted a
collection to give a poor old priest a holiday; and they responded
nobly. For a second Mass I went down to McKenna’s town and found a
new device, a green shamrock on a white background, over the door
of his battalion headquarters. His is to be known as the Shamrock
battalion of the regiment. After Mass and another collection I took
breakfast with him. I had brought with me some money that Captain
Mangan owed him. While I was at breakfast Mangan came in himself,
and in his presence I handed the money over to McKenna. “If I didn’t
have you around, Father, to threaten Mangan with hell-fire, I’d never
get a cent of it.” “If you weren’t such a piker you wouldn’t keep a
cent of it, now you’ve got it. You’d give it to Father Duffy for his
poor old Curé.” “All right, I’ll give it, and double it if you cover
it.” That meant forty dollars apiece for my nice old gentlemen. But
McKenna was not satisfied. “Come on, Cassidy, come across,” and the
Lieutenant with a smile on his handsome face came across with more
than any Lieutenant can afford. McKenna shouted to the others, “Come
all the rest of you heretics; you haven’t given a cent to a church
since you left home,” and with a whole lot of fun about it, everybody
gave generously. I could not help thinking what a lesson in American
broadmindedness the whole scene presented. But the immediate point
was that I was able to do handsomely for my old Curé. I went back
to him, and from the different collections I poured into his hat in
copper pennies, bits of silver, dirty little shin-plasters and ten
franc notes, the sum of two thousand francs. He was speechless. The
old housekeeper wept; even the dog barked its loudest.
“I’m giving you this with one condition,” I said. “Namely, that you
spend it all at once.” “But ma foi! how can one spend two thousand
francs in a short while. I never had so much money before in all my
life.” “Of course you can’t spent it in this burg. I want you to go
away to Vittel, to Nancy, to Paris, anywhere, and give yourself a
good time for once in your life.” “But the Bishop would never permit
it. He has few priests left and cannot supply the parishes with
them.” “Well, he will have to do it if you’re dead, and you’ll be
dead soon if you hang around here. Stay in bed next Sunday and have
your parishioners send in complaints to the Bishop. Do that again the
Sunday after, and by that time the Bishop will have to send somebody.
Then you go off and spend that 2,000 francs on a summer holiday, and
don’t come back until you have spent the last cent of it.”
The old gentleman gave a dazed assent to my entire scheme; but I
am leaving here with little expectation that he will carry it all
through. He may get a holiday from the Bishop, and he may spend a
little of the money on it, but even if he lives for ten years I am
willing to bet he will have some of our 2,000 francs left when he
dies. In some ways it is a great handicap to be French.
BREUVERY
_June_ 27th, 1918
On June 23rd we boarded the now familiar troop trains at
Châte-sur-Moselle, and before we were off them we had zig-zagged
our way more than half the distance to Paris, going up as far as
Nancy, down to Neufchateau, northwest again by Bar-le-Duc, finally
detraining on June 24th, at Coolus, south of Chalons-sur-Marne. We
are now in five villages along the River Coole. We have left Lorraine
at last and are in the province of Champagne. It is a different
kind of country. The land is more level and less heavily wooded; the
houses are built of a white, chalky stone with gray tiles instead of
red; and with outbuildings in the rear of them—with the result (for
which heaven be praised) that the dung heaps are off the streets. The
inhabitants strike us as being livelier and less worried, whether
from natural temperament or distance from the battle line, I do not
know. The weather is beautiful and it is the joy of life to walk
along the shaded roads that border the sleepy Coole and drop in on
a pleasant company at mess time to share in their liveliness and
good cheer. Today it was a trip to St. Quentin with the Machine
Gun Company. Johnnie Webb and Barnett picked me up on the road and
formed my escort, leading me straight to the kitchen, where Sergeant
Ketchum and Mike Clyne were making ready for the return of the hungry
gunners. Lieutenant De Lacour wanted me to go to Captain Seibert’s
mess but I preferred by lunch on the grass with Milton Cohen, John
Kenny, Ledwith, McKelvey, Murphy, Chester Taylor and Pat Shea. This
is the kind of a war I like.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] These men became confused and wandered into the German lines
where they were made prisoners. Information concerning their fate
came to us through the Red Cross about two months later, and both
rejoined the regiment after the Armistice.