FOSSE-DIX
We were in rest nearly two weeks when orders came to go back again to
the line. We left one morning immediately after breakfast and were
reviewed on the march by General Sir Arthur Currie, commander of
the Canadians. Along the way we were greeted by the same outspoken
admiration as on our passing out. On a veranda in front of a little
estaminet an old Frenchman, wearing the glazed, peaked yachting cap
which was the most common head-gear among men in this part of France,
tried to dance the “Highland Fling,” to the great amusement of half the
people in the little street and the voiced encouragement of the passing
soldiers.
Fosse-dix was a very small village; it cannot be found on the map,
but Sains-en-Gohelle can be seen, of which Fosse-dix was a suburb.
We were to wait here a few days in reserve before going into the
trenches; the Fifteenth and Sixteenth were here and the Thirteenth and
Fourteenth at Bully-Grenay. I was billeted with the curé at Fosse-dix
and I found him a very pleasant little man and one of the most zealous
priests I have ever met. From three neighboring parishes the pastors
had been called to the colors; so this little priest, who was none too
robust--otherwise, he, too, would have been called--tried to attend the
shepherdless flocks, and succeeded remarkably well.
It was a mining district we were in: all over the countryside could be
seen the high smoke-stacks of the blast furnaces. This was the part of
France said to contain the most natural wealth, and the Canadians were
proud that they had been chosen to defend it.
On Sunday I was to say two Masses: one at Fosse-dix at nine o’clock,
the other at Bully-Grenay at ten-thirty. So on Saturday I went
around to arrange for these, taking nearly the whole day to visit the
different units in the area. Bully-Grenay, unlike Fosse-dix, had been
almost totally demolished by shell-fire. The church had been damaged
in places, though not too seriously; but when I came in sight of the
curé’s house my heart turned sick. Nearly the whole of the second
story had been blown off, but the brave old priest still lived in the
lower story. I picked my way through little piles of broken stone and
plaster, with a few pieces of splintered wood amongst the debris. I
knocked at the door and the old pastor himself opened it. He was a
stout, white-haired, kind-faced man who smiled brightly as he shook
my hand. “Ah,” he said, “I have not seen you before! You are a new
arrival. Is it not so?”
I assured him that I had just lately come to the Third Brigade, but
that I had been on active service in France since early in the past
summer. “Ah,” he said again, and he stood back and looked me over
from head to muddy boots. Then he called his old housekeeper, and
when she had come he said: “He has but just lately come,” and the old
housekeeper looked at me quietly and smiled in a motherly way, then she
went to prepare a bowl of hot coffee for the “newly arrived.”
As the old curé and I sipped the black coffee, I asked him about his
life; why he stayed there, etc. He told me that many times the little
village had been shelled, and often the Germans had drawn very near
its outskirts, but always he had stayed. They had struck his house
on different occasions. Many of his people had gone, but there still
remained about eighty, all told; those, with their families, who were
in different ways connected with operations of the mine. Some of his
flock were obliged to stay here, and--well, he must not leave them
shepherdless. So the old pastor remained.
When we had finished our coffee, he rose to his feet. “Come,” he said,
and I followed him through a tiny passageway into a darkened room, for
all the panes of glass had been shattered in the window-frame and the
opening had been boarded across, save a small opening where a piece
of translucent paper had been pasted. It was a few seconds before my
eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, but when they did I was
scarcely prepared for what they viewed. In the middle of the room,
reaching almost to the ceiling, rose a great pyramid of bags of sand;
in one side was an opening, and in this, on the floor, was spread a
mattress and some bedding; this was where the old man slept.
As I walked up the sunlit street after I had said “au revoir” to the
priest and his kind housekeeper, I was filled with profound admiration
for the old pastor. I think it was the greatest admiration I have ever
felt for any man, and I quoted to myself: “The good Shepherd loveth his
flock.”
The following morning, as I stood in the shell-torn church of
Bully-Grenay after I had officiated for the lads of the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth at Fosse-dix, I found the church packed with the lads of
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth. There was scarcely room in the church
for them all. I said a word about the old pastor and--well, I don’t
think it was often that the collection plate was so well filled at
Bully-Grenay as it was that morning.
I returned to the church in the afternoon to hear confessions and
give Holy Communion, accompanied by Father MacPherson of the Fifth
Divisional Artillery. We found the old pastor in the church teaching
catechism to the few little ones of his flock. They sat on the
high-backed chairs which are also used as kneeling-benches by the
people of France. And whenever one or the other of us would come to
the altar-rail bearing the Bread of Life to a group of soldiers, the
old white-haired Shepherd, with his little flock, would kneel, while
through the roof, which had been pierced in many places by shells,
trickled the rain to drop on the floor beneath, carrying with it
powdered plaster and flakes of calcimine.