AN UNEXPECTED TURNING
It was now November. The days were passing very quickly for I was
kept busy; convoys were coming daily. Passchendael was being fought.
I had to visit the D. I.’s and S. I.’s very often, for many were
being admitted. One morning I stopped just long enough to prepare
an Australian for death. He had been wounded through the throat and
could not swallow, so that it was impossible for me to give him Holy
Communion. I absolved him and anointed him quickly, then I told him I
must pass on as I had many more to visit. It was almost impossible for
him to speak, and he did so with great pain, but as he gave me his hand
and his dying eyes looked at me, he made a great effort. “Cheerio,” he
whispered. Truly these wonderful lads were not downhearted!
During the month of November thousands of patients passed through the
hospital. Everybody was working extremely hard. Sometimes during the
night, convoys arrived. The anaesthetist, who sat next me at mess, told
me that he was beginning to feel that he could not continue very much
longer; for days he had been giving chloroform almost steadily, as
there were very many operations. We were both longing for a little lull
in the work so that we might get a few hours’ rest.
There were many places where the officers of the hospitals used to go.
There was “The Blue Cat” at Paris Plage, a famous seaside resort about
three miles from Etaples, where they went to have tea and bathe in the
sea. There was the village of Frencq, where a little old lady kept a
small coffee house and made omelettes that were famous. Then there were
two officers’ clubs and an officers’ circulating library at Etaples.
I had been to the library at different times while at the base. There
was a large reading-room exceptionally well lighted, for it was a part
of an old studio. Tea was served every afternoon from 3:30 to 6:00
o’clock, at which a number of old English officers assembled. It was
very amusing to listen to them relating past experiences, in which
often a good dinner was not forgotten. They treated the soldier-waiter
as if he were one of their own personal servants, calling him often;
and although there was but one syllable in his name (it was Brown) they
managed to twist the last letter into a rather complaining inflection.
I watched Brown a number of times, and although he came “on the double”
and stood head erect, looking at his nose, as all good butlers do,
still I thought I detected on more than one occasion a merry light in
his bright brown eyes, and he seemed to be exerting a little extra will
power in keeping his lips composed.
Then one day there came a lull in the rush of work, and being advised
by one of the officers to take a little recreation, I obeyed.
I recall that afternoon particularly. I went to the officers’
circulating library, which was at the rear of the town hall, where I
passed the afternoon very pleasantly looking through a delightfully
illustrated edition of “Our Sentimental Garden,” by Agnes and Egerton
Castle, whose home I had visited while at Bramshott. The quarto volume
contained many drawings of their pretty garden from different angles.
It was very restful sitting in the quaint old studio, through the great
windowed wall of which streamed the autumn sunlight.
Towards five o’clock tea was served by my old friend, the butler
humorist. Then as the sun went quietly down into the sea, far out, I
walked back to No. 7, feeling very much benefited by my visit, meeting
hundreds of soldiers, nurses and civilians on the way.
It was dusk when I entered my little burlap hut. I lit the lamp, and as
I did, the light flashed over an open letter on my newspaper-covered
desk. All the feeling of exhilaration which had cheered my return walk
left me suddenly, and an overwhelming, foreboding cloud came over my
spirits; for the letter said: “Please come quickly, Padre, there is one
of your men dying in Ward 3, bed 17.” It was signed by the adjutant of
No. 1 hospital, and the hour of the day was marked on the letter. It
had been sent at 2:30. It was now 6:00 p. m. I turned down the lamp and
went quickly out of the little hut praying, as I ran up the road, that
the lad might be still alive. I walked down the ward, not noticing the
friendly faces that turned to greet me, as was their custom. The red
screens were around the bed. I moved them gently and stood quietly by
the lad’s bed. An orderly moved a little to one side.
“He’s dead, sir,” said the orderly. “Died just a minute ago.”
I put on my purple stole, gave the lad conditional absolution and
anointed him conditionally. Then I stood for a long while looking on
his still white face, wishing with all my heart that I had not left the
hospital that day. Then the orderly made a little movement and I turned
and went down the aisle of the ward, repressing a great desire to burst
into tears; it was the first time, through my neglect, that I had ever
missed a call to the dying. In passing I talked to a few patients, but
there seemed to be a strange numbness in my brain, so that I did not
follow the words spoken by the occupants of different beds where I
stopped; one or two ceased speaking and looked at me keenly.
Just as I was about to leave the ward little Sister Daughney came in.
She stopped and spoke to me, and her words were as sweetest music to my
ear.
“Ah, Father,” she said--Sister was from Ireland--“I sent for you this
afternoon for the lad who has just died. He would have been glad to
see you, Father, although there was no need; for he said he had been
anointed and prepared for death just six hours before up in the C. C.
S.”
I looked at the little sister talking so quietly and in such a
matter-of-fact way: while thundering in my ears was the desire to break
forth into a great _Te Deum Laudamus_. She spoke to me of two or three
new patients who might develop more serious symptoms, then passed on to
other duties, whilst I went up the lane to my little marquee chapel to
kneel before the tabernacle and make known to God my fervent gratitude.
And so, after all, I had passed a very pleasant day.