INCAPACITATED
The work at Ecurie Wood was most consoling, but the shelling was
incessant and we were having many funerals in the military cemetery
down the hill at Roclincourt. The Fourteenth Battalion suffered most.
Early one morning a shell burst in the headquarters hut, wounding the
colonel, killing the second in command and the adjutant, and disabling
other officers and privates. The whole camp was under observation and
Fritz was doing deadly work.
One Sunday morning, as I prepared for the Holy Sacrifice, I seemed to
feel much better than I had felt for some time; and as I preached,
the words came quickly and without any great effort. I wondered why I
should feel so well. But after Mass, as I walked back to my hut after
having seen so many of those wonderful lads receive Holy Communion,
I raised my hand to my forehead; it was very warm and the day was
cool--in fact, a fine mist of rain was falling. I now began to feel
slightly dizzy and more inclined to rest on my camp bed than to drink
my cup of tea.
George came in, looked at me once, placed the cup of tea beside me on
the seat, looked at me again, and then told me I didn’t look very well.
I told him I did not feel very well. Both agreed that I would be better
in bed, so I went.
The corporal of the stretcher-bearers came in, shook his little
thermometer, looked at it, shook it again, then told me to open my
mouth. He placed it under my tongue. Then, while I looked at the
ceiling of the hut, he waited.
“One hundred and two,” said the corporal.
“Is that high?” I asked, for I could not remember ever having my
temperature taken before.
“High enough,” he said. Then he told me I had a malady that was
becoming very prevalent in the army. He did not know what to call it.
Later, it was called the “flu.”
I remained in bed for nearly a week, and it was one of the finest weeks
I spent in the army; so many officers and men came into the little hut
to see me. I was just beginning to understand the charity of the army.
Just as I was getting about again the Fifty-first Division of Scotch
Highlanders came into our area. This was the division that had met
almost every advance of the enemy, so that even the Germans themselves
could not but admire them. A sergeant in one of the battalions of the
division possessed a paper for which he had refused six pounds: for the
paper had been dropped into their lines from a German airplane, and
this is what was written on it: “Good old Fifty-first still sticking
it! Cheerio!”