NO MAN’S LAND AGAIN
I was billeted in a little hut with the billeting officer. It was a
very tiny hut, with two berths in it, one above the other. As I was on
leave when the battalion came to Ecoivres, no provision had been made
for me, so I was obliged to share the billeting officer’s hut which
he so kindly offered. He was a genial companion, but he used to sit up
very late at night puzzling over a chess-board. He was playing a game
of chess with a partner who was actually residing in England, and every
night, after great puzzling over the board, he was obliged to write the
result of his efforts to his partner in England. One evening--I suppose
it was his partner’s turn to play and it was for this reason that
his chess-board was idle--he took his Bible from his table and said,
naively: “Now, Padre, I won’t try to change your views, and you won’t
try to change mine, but just take your Bible, and I will read certain
passages from mine, and you will read the same passages from yours.”
I could not help smiling, as I reached for my Bible, at the thought of
the billeting officer not wishing to change my views, for these words
had just come to my mind: “Upon this rock I will build My Church.”
I can’t recall the texts he picked out and asked me to read from my
Bible, but I remember that each one seemed contrary to the teachings
of the Catholic Church on the subject treated. As every one familiar
with the Douai-Rheims version of the Bible knows, there are little
notes on texts that might be disputed, giving the true meaning and also
reference to other texts which would prove the teaching. Glancing at
the footnote, I would give the true interpretation and then refer the
amateur exegete to the other texts. In a little while he closed his
Bible. “Why, Padre,” he exclaimed, “you know the whole Bible by heart!”
“Well,” I said modestly, as I suppressed a desire to smile, “I don’t
think I know it by heart, but you know it is my business to teach the
truths that are in it,”--but I did not mention the foot-notes!
The following morning the billeting officer came hurriedly into the
room. “Padre,” he said, “we are leaving here tomorrow night for the
trenches. We’re taking over the line in front of Monchy.”
For just a second or two a peculiar numbness seemed to spread through
every nerve in my body: it was nothing new, however, for years before,
when a boy at the public school, after the teacher had opened the
drawer in her desk and removed a black, snakelike piece of leather, and
had said quietly: “Bennie Murdoch, come up here,” this strange numbness
had come over me together with a slight contraction of the muscles of
the throat.
But it quickly passed, and after I had swallowed once or twice to make
sure of my throat, I said the obvious thing: “Well, that means another
move!”
Going into the trenches was not the only hard piece of work I had to
do. A very difficult task was before me, though I did not know it till
I went up to the mess for lunch. Three or four letters were lying near
my plate. One envelope was much larger than the others and bore in the
upper left-hand corner the words “Assembly Chamber, State of New York,
Albany” and beneath, was the address of Joseph V. McKee, 890 East 176th
St., New York City, the brother of one of my “Canadians” who was an
American by birth, and had lived all his life in the United States.
There were many such, in the Third Brigade--Private McKee was in the
Fifteenth Battalion. I knew him well and he was one of my very best
Catholics.
I opened the letter and began to read it, and as I did I felt that I
was turning sick. The letter contained a request that I please notify
Private McKee that his mother had departed this life.
After lunch I left on foot for Anzin, for I had learned that the
Fifteenth Battalion was quartered there. It was a distance of only
three miles, yet it was one of the hardest journeys I ever made in
France. Life at the front was very hard for these lads, but it was
always brightened by the hope of finally seeing the dear ones at home.
It had not been very long before, that Private McKee had spoken to me
of his mother. One of the loveliest things in this world is the love of
a good man for his mother. Every step was bringing me nearer the lad,
and I so dreaded the thought of telling him! My head began to pain,
and I went back in memory to the first time I was called on to break
sorrowful news. I had been a priest just a little over a year when one
night the telephone bell rang, and a trembling voice told me one of my
men had been killed by a falling log. There were fifteen men in the
small railway station where the voice was coming from; they were only
about two hundred yards from the house where lived the widow of the man
that was killed, and I was six miles away. Yet not one would break the
terrible news. I was implored to come.
I shall never forget that night. A full moon was throwing its light
over all the white land, darkened here and there by a clump of green,
white-patched trees, but the thought of what I had to do had numbed me
to all sense of beauty. And as I drove along even the horse seemed to
feel what terrible work had to be done, for once he actually stopped
in the road and I had difficulty in starting him; yet I could see no
reason for his having stopped.
As I walked along, dreading all the time what was before me, I noticed
that the soldiers who were quartered along the road wore the purple
patch of the Fifth Division. They were artillerymen. Then a sign on a
door of a shell-torn house told me that an R. C. chaplain dwelt within.
I inferred that it was Father McPherson, the Fifth Divisional Artillery
chaplain, one of the holiest priests in France; often I had seen him
kneeling down in a dugout or some poor billet reading his Breviary.
I knocked on the door and was shown up to Father McPherson’s room, and
the sight of his pleasant kindly face did me good. I told him of the
task I had to perform. He spoke sympathetically and invited me to call
in on my return and have tea with him.
After leaving Father McPherson, the thought of what I had to do did not
weigh so heavily. Perhaps it was that the prayers of the good priest I
had just left followed me.
They told me at the Fifteenth Battalion orderly room that Private McKee
was quarantined,--the “flu” was now becoming quite prevalent among the
men. I found him sitting in a bell tent, one of a group pitched in a
large garden of a chateau. I called him, and when he came we walked up
and down a long garden path under the trees while I broke as gently as
I could the terrible news I had for him.
He took it well--took it bravely and quietly like the good soldier
he was, with great submission to the holy will of God, like the good
Catholic his dear mother had brought him up to be. I talked with him a
little while, and when I left I asked Our Lady of the Seven Dolors to
stay with the lad and to comfort him.