A STRAFE AND A QUARTET
My room was a partitioned off portion at the end of the cellar in which
was headquarters: there was no fire in it and the month was December.
Through cracks in the portion of the building that was above ground,
blew the cold, wintry wind.
That night at dinner in “the mess,” which was in the portion of the
cellar adjoining my billet, I met a number of the officers--though
the majority were still in the line--and they were among the finest
men I had ever met. The commanding officer, Colonel Peck, one of the
best-loved men on the Western Front, was a huge man with a black
drooping mustache which gave him a rather fierce appearance, but there
was a look of real kindness in his eyes. He possessed the Distinguished
Service Order Medal, and later he won the highest decoration of the
British army, the Victoria Cross. At that time, although we did not
know it till later, he had been elected a member of the Canadian
parliament.
When I returned to my billet I found a lighted candle sticking to the
bottom of an upturned condensed milk tin; some one had been showing me
an act of kindness. I had no sooner entered than there was a knock on
the door. A young soldier opened it and came in. He said he had come
to open my bed-roll and prepare my bed. I looked at the berth, which
was a piece of scantling about seven feet long running the width of
the room, to which was attached two thicknesses of burlap about a yard
wide that were fixed to the wall. I wondered how I was going to sleep,
for I was shivering then. Suddenly the young soldier ceased tugging
at the straps, listened quietly for a second or two, then not looking
at me, but keeping his eye fixed on the bed-roll, he said slowly and
solemnly, as if addressing some imaginary person in the bed-roll: “All
is quiet on the Western Front.”
He neither smiled nor looked at me, but continued his work.
For months I had read those words in the daily papers of England; but
now there was something so comical in the lad’s manner of saying them
that I could not help laughing as he went on with his unpacking.
But it was not for long that “all was quiet on the Western Front.”
Suddenly I heard a far-distant rumble which had the rhythmic roll of
snare-drums, yet the sound was much stronger and it was increasing
quickly in intensity and volume. Soon it was a great thundering roar
with a minor rattle. The earth seemed to be trembling.
I looked at the soldier. “A bombardment?” I questioned.
“No, sir,” he said quietly, “that’s just a strafe over on the LaBassée
front. Those are our guns. Fritzy’ll open up after they stop. You
should go outside and see it, sir.”
I stepped out, almost falling into a trench that was just outside my
door. Away to the northeast for about a mile flitted short, sharp
yellow flashes of light. Although the rumbling of the guns was so loud,
I judged them to be five or six miles distant. Everything was quiet
about where I stood. It was a moonlight night and along the white road,
as far as I could see, was a line of broken trees, with here and there
the irregular walls of a ruined village.
Presently there was a lull, then complete silence; in the clear
moonlight, the devastated countryside gave one a weird impression. Then
“old Fritzy opened up,” and although the rumble of his guns was not so
distinct, I judged that he was giving us about as much as we had given
him. I wondered how much harm would be done, and whether many of our
lads would be killed. Then slowly the firing ceased and presently again
“all was quiet on the Western Front.”
I was just about to reënter my quarters when I received another
surprise. From a hut just a few yards away came sounds of singing. I
listened: it was a low, sweet song that I had never heard before--a
quartet, and the harmony seemed perfect. I had never before heard such
sweet singing. An officer came out of the mess and stood near me,
listening in silence. Then he said: “That’s pretty good, Padre.” I
agreed with him, but I confessed I had never heard the song before.
“Why, Padre,” he said, “the name of that song is ‘Sweet Genevieve’.
Strange you never heard it! Wherever men are congregated one will hear
that song. It’s an old song, Padre. Strange you never heard it!”
So I had heard two sounds that I had never before heard: one was the
sound of a “strafe” on the Western Front; the other was the singing of
“Sweet Genevieve.”