MORE ORDERS
December came. During the first week of that month I prepared my hut to
stand the cold of the winter months and began to look forward to a time
of relative repose after the past five months of strenuous work. The
fighting was not to be so intense during the winter, therefore there
would not be so many casualties. I had been given a fine little coal
stove, and I was beginning to enjoy coming into the hut at night to
be greeted by its cheerful red glow. There were worse places to dwell
in, I told myself, than a burlap hut with a coal fire burning in it.
I was looking forward to peaceful winter evenings with books to read,
or perhaps a few hours writing, when one evening just before dinner a
knock sounded on the door and an officer stepped into my hut. I had
never seen him before. He looked at me somewhat strangely for a second
or two, then asked if I had not been expecting him, “for,” he said,
“I am Captain Hawke, the new R. C. chaplain to No. 7 Canadian General
Hospital. You are to go up the line.”
For just a second a faint dizziness came over me, and the vision
of bright coal fires faded from before my mind and I thought, with
considerable falling of spirits, of winter in the trenches.
I shook hands with the new chaplain and then I told him I had not been
expecting him, and that so far no orders had come to me to report at
the front. Just as I spoke, however, another knock sounded on the
door, and before I had time to open it an orderly entered and passed me
a D. R. L. S. letter: I was to report at the Seventy-fifth Battalion
the following day.
So on the morning of December 11th, 1917, I left No. 7 with real
regret. I had always found the doctors very friendly and they had shown
me many kindnesses. I had grown to love my work in the hospital, and
the peace and quiet of the little marquee chapel at No. 1 Can. Gen.
after the day’s work was done. Now, I must break new ground!
It was a cold morning when I took my place on the seat of the ambulance
alongside the driver. The waiters crowded about the door of the
mess--the doctors had not yet come from their huts--and one of them,
an old Scotchman wearing a glengarry, who had already seen service up
the line, stepped forward and patted me on the back and wished me “guid
luck.” Then the ambulance leaped into high gear and we were off to the
station.
There were certain formalities to be gone through at the military
station at Etaples: certain papers had to be shown to the R. T. O.
and instructions received from him. It did not take long to give my
instructions. I was to take the train on No. 9 track. I was to detrain
at Calonne-Ricouart; there I would receive further instructions.
There was a great crowd of troopers on my train who leaned from car
windows and sang merrily as the train passed through French villages.
Then, I remember, as we stopped at one village, I heard in the
distance the sound of the guns, and always as we advanced came clearer
and clearer the deep booming. For the first time I heard sounds of the
actual conflict of the World War.
An officer whom I had met on the train accompanied me to the
staging camp, which was but a short distance from the station at
Calonne-Ricouart. I presented my papers at the little office. The
orderly room clerk looked at me quickly. “Why, sir,” he said, “you’re
in luck! The Seventy-fifth Battalion is just a few yards up the road.
Better stay here for lunch, then I’ll send a runner with you.”
I may have been lucky in finding the Seventy-fifth but there my
luck ended for a few days: for when I entered headquarters of the
Seventy-fifth, which was in an old chateau, I was told that there
had been some mistake. They had a chaplain, a Presbyterian, who was
then away on leave. The R. C. chaplain of the brigade was quartered
with the Eighty-seventh. The adjutant treated me politely, but with a
little suspicion. He asked me for my papers. Then he requested me to
be seated. I did so, but with a feeling of vague uneasiness; now and
then an orderly clerk looked at me quietly though searchingly and then
continued his writing.
I wondered where the mistake had been, and where I was really to
go; but most of all I wondered at the suspicious glances that were
flashed at me by different ones who came into the room. I waited for
a long time, almost two hours; once or twice I was questioned by the
adjutant, and after each visit I wondered why he was questioning me so.
Then the colonel came in, and he had not questioned me very long till I
became aware that I had been suspected as a spy. I was asked to remain
in the orderly room till more word might be received.
I felt very much like laughing at my predicament, for I knew that it
would not be very long before headquarters would learn my history.
In about an hour I was told that I might take the battalion chaplain’s
billet and that I was to stay with the Seventy-fifth till orders would
come. There had been some misdirection of orders.