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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Greater Love, by George T. McCarthy
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Greater Love
+
+
+Author: George T. McCarthy
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 25, 2008  [eBook #24889]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREATER LOVE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Tamise Totterdell, Alicia Williams, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
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+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREATER LOVE
+
+by
+
+CHAPLAIN GEORGE T. McCARTHY,
+U. S. Army
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CHAPLAIN McCARTHY
+
+(Before the Attack at Rembercourt.)]
+
+
+
+
+Extension Press
+Chicago
+
+Copyright 1920
+by
+Extension Press
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+
+         Preface                                                  9
+
+       I Leave Home--Base Hospital No. 11--Camp Dodge            13
+
+      II Camp Mills--St. Stephen's, New York--Enter Army         21
+
+     III Camp Merritt--Leviathan--At Sea                         36
+
+      IV Brest--Ancey-le-Franc                                   46
+
+       V In Billets--Departure for Front                         56
+
+      VI Puvinelle Sector--Bois le Pretre--Vieville en Haye      83
+
+     VII The Greater Love                                        97
+
+    VIII Thiacourt--Aerial Daring                               104
+
+      IX Rembercourt                                            122
+
+       X Armistice Day--Gorz                                    141
+
+      XI Domremy--Home                                          148
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                              PAGE
+
+    Chaplain McCarthy (Before the Attack at Rembercourt)
+                                                    _Frontispiece_
+
+    United States Unit No. 2--Blessing of Unit's
+    Colors at St. Stephen's                                     18
+
+    Sisters of Unit No. 2--The Only Sisters of the A. E. F.     26
+
+    Seventh Division Troops Boarding Leviathan at Hoboken       34
+
+    In Rue de Belgrade--Lull Before Battle                      42
+
+    Taps and Farewell Volleys for Our Heroic Dead               50
+
+    The Battle Swept Roadside Was Sanctuary and Choir           66
+
+    The Men Behind Our Mess at Bouillonville                    74
+
+    Our Dugouts Afforded Shelter and Habitation                 82
+
+    Thiacourt Under Shell-Fire                                  90
+
+    Doctor Lugar and Aids Working in a Gas Attack Near Jolney   98
+
+    The Wounded Were Carried to the Nearest Shelter            114
+
+    St. Joan of Arc                                            122
+
+    Where St. Joan of Arc Made Her First Communion             130
+
+    In the Church at Domremy                                   138
+
+    "Greater Love Than This No Man Has"                        146
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+To him who will but observe the genesis and development of moral
+qualities, whether in the individual Man or in the collective State,
+there finally comes, with compelling force, the conviction--God is in
+His world and has care of it! Out of the slime of things mundane, out of
+the very clay of Life's daily round of laughter and tears, loving and
+hating, striving and failing, living and dying--the romance of Peace,
+the Tragedy of War--God is still creating men and nations and vivifying
+them with souls Immortal. Providence but looks upon the water of the
+commonplace, and behold! it becomes wine of Cana!
+
+The recent world war, hallowed by the very purity of motive and
+intention with which our American Manhood took up its burden, led us
+nationally unto those heights of moral perspective and spiritual vision
+known only to him who toils upon the hill of Sacrifice. No Spartan of
+Athenian fields, no Regulus of Rome or Nathan Hale, was nobler, higher
+motived or less afraid than our own heroic American Doughboy!
+
+Into the shaping and formation of his moral character many forces
+entered; and, not least of these, the Military Chaplain. This man--and
+every sect and denomination generously gave him--was pre-eminently
+God-fearing, thoroughly patriotic, unselfishly charitable, untiringly
+zealous, and whole of soul devoted to duty.
+
+Mine was the privileged and sacred duty, as Vicar General of the
+Fourteen States comprising the Great Lakes Vicariate, of knowing
+intimately and directing the splendid work of these heroic soldiers of
+the Cross. The inspiration I drew, both from these priests and from
+contact with their work and written reports, whether in cantonments,
+camps, hospitals, transports, battleships, or on the flaming front of
+the battlefields, I shall ever treasure and recount with pride.
+
+Archbishop Hayes, appointed by the Holy Father "Chaplain Bishop" in
+charge of all priests in Military Service, and who conducted the vast
+responsibilities of that most important work with such eminent success,
+has declared our Chaplains to be "the Flower of the American
+Priesthood." One of such is Father McCarthy, Author of this book "The
+Greater Love." The same zeal that prompted him to follow the boys in
+Khaki and Blue Over There--making himself one with them in hardship,
+danger and wounds for the sake of their immortal souls, now impels him
+to the writing of this Book. "The Greater Love" is a religious message
+which teaches that as man needed God in war--with a crescendo of need
+reaching full tide in the front trench--even so he needs him in Peace.
+The message is clothed in the narrative of adventure--personal
+experiences of the Author--and every page an epic of absorbing interest.
+No one is better qualified to bring us message from Over There.
+
+                                 RT. REV. MSGR. WM. M. FOLEY, V. G.
+
+
+
+
+"THE GREATER LOVE" BY GEORGE T. MCCARTHY, Chaplain, U. S. Army
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+LEAVE HOME--BASE HOSPITAL NO. 11--CAMP DODGE
+
+
+"Very well then, Father, you have my permission and best wishes."
+
+How the approving words and blessing of good Archbishop Mundelein
+thrilled me that memorable morning in 1918. The rain-washed freshness of
+April was abroad in Cass street; and the soft breeze, swaying the
+curtain of the Chancery window where he was seated, brought incense of
+budding tree and garden.
+
+Patiently he had listened, while I presented my reasons for wishing to
+become a war Chaplain. How, obedient to that call to National Service
+which is
+
+    "The pride of each patriot's devotion,"
+
+millions of our boys were exchanging the shelter of home and parish
+influence for the privation and danger of camp and ship and battlefield.
+
+To accompany them, to encourage them, to administer to their spiritual
+and moral needs, to fortify their last heroic hours with "Sacramenta
+propter homines," here was a Christlike work pre-eminently worthy the
+best traditions of the Priesthood.
+
+Even as, earnestly, I pleaded my case, I bore steadily in mind
+recollection of that lofty patriotism and brilliant leadership which had
+already made Chicago's Archbishop a foremost National Champion. It was
+but yesterday that the Secretary of the United States Treasury had
+called, personally, to thank and congratulate him on his inspiring
+patronage of Loan and Red Cross Drives.
+
+In the sympathetic glow of his face I read approval even before hearing
+the formal words of permission.
+
+"Moreover, Father, I will appoint an administrator at once, to care for
+the parish during your absence. You will receive, through Father Foley's
+office, letters duly accrediting you to Bishop Hayes, Chaplain
+Ordinary, and the National authorities."
+
+A fond ambition, long cherished, was about to be realized! I had, of
+course, been doing something of a war "bit," co-operating with
+parishioners, and town folks like Mayor Gibson and Doctor Noble, in the
+various patriotic rallies and drives. Father Shannon of the "New World"
+thought so highly of our city's efforts as to visit us and eloquently
+say so at a monster Mass Meeting of citizens. "Do you know, George," he
+remarked that night as he marched beside me in the street parade, "if I
+could only get away, I would gladly go as a Chaplain."
+
+Then I told him my secret, how I had filed my war application some
+months before, and had been meanwhile seasoning my body to the
+out-of-doors and practicing long hikes.
+
+But a single cloud now remained in the radiant sky of dreams--the
+thought of parting! Ten years of residence in so Arcadian a place as
+Myrtle Avenue, and in so American a town as Harvey, engender ties of
+affection not easily to be sundered. Then, too, the school children, how
+one grows to love them, especially when you have given them their first
+Sacraments, and even joined in wedlock their parents before them. Of
+course for the priest who, more perhaps than any other man, "has not
+here a lasting city," whose life is so largely lived for others, and
+whose "Holy Orders" so naturally merge with marching orders, the
+leave-taking should not have been so trying. Preferable as would have
+been
+
+    "No moaning of the bar
+    When I put out to sea,"
+
+the parting that night with the people in the school hall, and again,
+the following morning at the depot, was keenly painful--a grief,
+however, every soldier was to know, and, therefore, bravely to be
+endured.
+
+How sacred and memorable were the depot platforms of our beloved country
+in war time! Whether the long, smoke stenciled, trainshed of the
+Metropolis, or the unsheltered, two-inch planking sort, of the wayside
+junction; they saw more of real life, the Tragedy of tears and the
+Comedy of laughter, than any stage dedicated to Drama. There, life was
+most real and intense. The prosaic words "All Aboard" seemed to set in
+motion a final wave of feeling that surged beyond all barriers of the
+conventional--the last pressure of heart to heart and of hand to hand;
+the last response of voice to voice; the last sight of tear dimmed eye
+and vanishing form, as the train rumbled away beyond the curve, leaving
+a ribbon of black crepe draped on the horizon.
+
+First impressions, we are told, are most lasting. Arrival at Camp Dodge,
+Iowa, the following morning and subsequent meeting with the officers and
+enlisted men of Base Hospital No. 11, made an impression so agreeable
+time itself seems merely to have hallowed it.
+
+Association with the soldierly and gracious Colonel Macfarlain, the
+splendid Major Percy, the energetic Captain Flannery, together with
+Doctors Roth, Ashworth, Carter (the same T. A. Carter whose skill later
+saved the lives of poisoned Shirley and Edna Luikart), Lewis, Shroeder,
+and others, became at once an inspiration and pleasure. Most of these
+gentlemen had been associated with either St. Mary of Nazareth or
+Augustana Hospitals, Chicago; and had patriotically relinquished
+lucrative practices to serve their country in its need. Words cannot too
+highly praise, nor excess of appreciation be shown our gallant
+public-spirited doctors and corpsmen, who, whether here or overseas,
+made every sacrifice to build up and maintain the health of the largest
+Army and Navy of our history.
+
+The personnel of enlisted men, too, with Base 11, was exceptionally
+superior, coming from some of the best families of the Middle West.
+Anderson, McCranahan and the two Tobins of the famous Paulist choir were
+there, and what wealth of vocal melody they represented! Talbot, Bunte,
+and Leo Durkin of Waukegan; Dunn, Farrell, Lewis, Talbot--these, and
+five hundred others like them, were the splendid fellows to whom I now
+fell heir.
+
+Camp Dodge, like many another Cantonment, the War Department miraculously
+"raised" over night, was a vast school, pulsating with martial throb.
+Hundreds of the brain and brawn of the far-flung prairies were arriving
+daily, and being classified, drilled and seasoned into efficient soldiers.
+
+[Illustration: U. S. UNIT NO. 2--BLESSING OF UNIT'S COLORS AT ST.
+STEPHEN'S.]
+
+Poets have to be born; but soldiers, in addition to qualities inbred,
+have to be made; and while the process of making was invariably
+laborious and often discouraging, it usually repaid patient effort. The
+raw recruit of yesterday became the pride of the line today!
+
+    They call me the "Raw Recruit,"
+      The joke of the awkward squad,
+    The rook of the rookies to boot,
+      And a bumpkin, a dolt and a clod;
+    But this much I'll plead in defense
+      I seem popular with these chaps,
+    For they keep me a'moving thither and hence
+      From Reveille to Taps.
+
+    Though no doubt I have had them for years,
+      For the first time I'm _sure_ I have feet!
+    When the Corporal said "Halt" it appears
+      That my feet thought he ordered "Retreat"!
+    And my eyes o'er who's blue ladies 'd rave,
+      And called them bright stars of the night,
+    Now simply refuse to behave
+      And mix up "Eyes Left" with "Eyes Right."
+
+    I'll admit that I'm no hand to brag;
+      But the fact is I've won a First Prize!
+    'Twas not that I have any drag,
+      Nor excel in the officers' eyes.
+    It was close, but I won, never fear;
+      My home training helped me, I guess;
+    I beat every man about here;
+      At being the first in, at "Mess"!
+
+    My Corporal admits I'm not bad
+      Through the night, when I'm buried in sleep!
+    It's waking that I drive him mad,
+      And cause very demons to weep.
+    But Rome was not built in a day!
+      And once I get used to my suit,
+    I'll just force all these pikers to say
+      "He once _was_ a raw recruit!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CAMP MILLS--ST. STEPHEN'S, NEW YORK--ENTER ARMY
+
+
+Given sufficient time and mellowing, the butterfly eventually merges
+from the chrysalis; and it was with rapturous delight early June saw us
+exchange Camp Dodge for Camp Mills, Long Island! We were now on the
+shores of the Atlantic, and would soon tread the deck of our ship of
+dreams--a transport bound for Over There!
+
+Enter, now, the "season of our discontent!" It all grew out of the
+nature of the Commission I was holding. It was not at all satisfying.
+Commission in the Red Cross, I discovered, did not authorize front line
+service; it would hold a person somewhere in the rear area; this would
+not do; I determined to enter the regular Army.
+
+A kind Providence helped bring this about! Instructions were abruptly
+received from the War Department classifying all Red Cross Chaplains as
+mere civilians, denying them the right to sail with the Units they had
+accompanied East!
+
+Fully fifteen other such Chaplains were then at Camp Mills waiting
+sailing orders. They, too, had left their home towns and positions fully
+expecting service overseas. Receipt of this heart-breaking news induced
+many to give up the work and return home, utterly discouraged. It only
+served to hasten my entrance into the regular Army.
+
+Going at once to the Rectory of St. Stephen's, East 29th St., New York,
+direction and cordial welcome was there received from one of God's
+noblest of men, Bishop Hayes. Appointed by the Holy Father to the
+special direction and care of all Chaplains in the National service,
+this brilliant and big-hearted Prince of the Church was father and
+friend to all.
+
+Father Waring, the Vicar General, and the vicars and assistants in the
+Ordinariate and parish of St. Stephen's co-ordinated in their own
+charming manner with the vastly important work and cordial hospitality
+of their devoted chief.
+
+Within a week the physical and mental examinations had been successfully
+passed and commission received as First Lieutenant in the National
+Army.
+
+While those days at St. Stephen's were of surpassing pleasure in the
+rare companionship afforded, they were characterized, too, by a round of
+strenuous activity. There was the necessary visit to Fifth Avenue, where
+the good ladies of the Chaplain's Aid, doing the same great good in the
+East that Father Foley's Aid Society was doing in the West, generously
+supplied the necessary Mass and Sacramental equipment. Then, too, the
+farewell Musical by the Paulist vocalists of Base 11, given at Garden
+City; and for which Mrs. Charles Taft kindly acted as hostess. Genuine
+regret marked that unavoidable parting. To co-labor with such splendid
+officers and men was truly a privilege; and to have served, even
+briefly, with the gallant "11" that wrought so worthily overseas, is an
+honor proudly ever to be cherished.
+
+It was during these days an event occurred which the "Parish Monthly,"
+of St. Stephen's, was good enough to record:
+
+"On Tuesday, July 23, Unit No. 102, Overseas Nursing Corps, gathered in
+our church, to ask, in truly Catholic fashion, God's blessing on their
+journey across the Atlantic. Ten 'Cornet' Sisters of Charity are in
+charge of this Unit, which is almost wholly Catholic in its membership
+and which has been recruited from hospitals conducted by these Sisters
+in the South and West.
+
+"At six-thirty, Chaplain George T. McCarthy, U. S. A., of Chicago,
+celebrated Holy Mass. A congregation which numbered, besides the Unit,
+our own Sisters of Charity, many overseas Nurses attached to other units
+and a goodly quota of our parishioners was present. All received Holy
+Communion. At the conclusion of the Mass, the "Star-Spangled Banner" was
+sung, and after he had blessed a large American flag--the colors of the
+Unit--Father McCarthy bade the nurses farewell."
+
+
+SERMON
+
+"In this holy hour and place, while Jesus, the gentle Master, still
+lingers in your Eucharistic hearts, we are met for a two-fold
+purpose--to bless the starry banner of the free--the colors of your
+Unit--and to wish you Godspeed on your heroic way.
+
+"Here within these historic walls of St. Stephen, the Proto-Martyr,
+whose every stone and pillar and vaulting arch is richly storied with
+the memories of surpassing men and women and their splendid
+achievements--here, as it were, on the shore of the far-flung billows of
+the Atlantic, you are gathered from the length and breadth of our
+beloved country. With all the sacred courage of an Agnes of Italy, an
+Ursula of England, a Joan of France, you have, during the past few days
+and weeks, been called upon to bid your loved ones at home a fond and
+tender farewell, as you go to follow the trail of the Crimson Cross to
+service overseas.
+
+"Our first and most holy purpose here, indeed, is to bless this flag
+that is to lead you on your way; but most truly may the question be
+asked: 'Can the flag of our beloved Country be blessed more fully than
+it already is?' Its red is consecrated by the blood of countless heroes;
+its white is stainless and unsullied as the Truth and Justice for which
+it has forever stood; its blue is of the mid-day heavens, lofty in its
+purpose to point the way of freedom to all mankind, that 'Government of
+the people, for the people, and by the people' may not perish from the
+earth!
+
+"As we unfurl it to the breeze, it speaks with an eloquence irresistible
+and it tells a story of heroism and patriotism unsurpassed. It brings
+memory of Lexington and Concord; it tells of suffering at Valley Forge,
+and of Victory at Yorktown. It was waved in triumph on the hills of
+Gettysburg; and the blue of Grant and the gray of Lee entwined it
+forever in the reunion of Appomattox. Dewey carried it to victory in
+Manila Bay, even as Shafter and Joe Wheeler did at San Juan and
+Santiago.
+
+"When a military Power overseas attacked the cause of universal freedom
+in the world, Pershing with his boys in khaki, and Benson with his boys
+in blue, carried that flag to the forefront of the battle line; and
+today, side by side with the banners of England, martyred Belgium,
+gallant Italy, and unconquerable France, it waves defiance to the foe.
+It kisses the poppies of Flanders and to the lilies of France it
+whispers 'Lafayette, we are here.' In asking, therefore, the God of
+Truth and Justice to bless this flag, we offer Him no indignity. As He
+loves the right, He must love Old Glory, and therefore we ask Him to
+re-adorn it with victory.
+
+[Illustration: SISTERS OF UNIT NO. 2--THE ONLY SISTERS OF THE A. E. F.
+
+Standing from Left to Right: Sisters Valeria, Catherine, De Sales, M.
+David, Angela, Agatha, Florence. Left to Right Seated: Sisters Lucia,
+Chrysostom, Mariana.]
+
+"Ours, too, is the performance of another duty, it is to speak the
+briefest, yet the hardest of all words to utter, the word of final
+farewell. Had I the gift of eloquence, I would pour into that word, as
+into a casket of alabaster, all the love, all the affection, all the sad
+sweet smiles, all the 'God be with you until we meet again,' of your
+loved ones back home. Through the gates of memory you have left ajar, I
+seem to see your old home town--the streets guarded by sentinels of
+maple, oak, and elm; the cottage of white, with lattice of climbing
+roses; and in the door, her dear face looking sweetly sad yet bravely,
+towards you, the mother who kissed you as you turned to go. Tenderly she
+hung the service flag in the window; bravely will she wait and pray
+beside the vacant chair.
+
+"Many of you have come from the dear old Southland; and there seems to
+come to me now, floating down the valley of dreams, the song old mammy
+used to sing:
+
+    "'I hear the children calling
+    I see their sad tears falling,
+    My heart turns back to Dixie
+      And I must go.'
+
+"Yes, my dear Sisters and nurses, you must go. There is need of you over
+there. Our Country's heroes are there, bleeding and dying, and they need
+you, beloved angels of mercy, to bind their wounds. In the cities, the
+academies and hospitals from which you came, there are those who would
+love to be with you on this mighty errand of National Service. The
+Providence of God has chosen you, however, for the work, and not them.
+As of old, on the shores of Galilee, the God of Mercy commissioned His
+chosen followers to carry into the broad world His blessing, even so
+from these shores of the Atlantic He is sending you forth on your
+mission of love.
+
+"From yonder tabernacle, He stoops to each one of you and sweetly
+whispers: 'My daughter of the crimson Cross, of the faithful soul, of
+the clean heart, and skillful hand, I am sending you over there as My
+own representative. I know you will not fail Me, and that even unto
+death you will be true to the Cross and Flag that go before you!' The
+Nation is proud of you and you are the holiest and best offering of our
+Country to the cause.
+
+    "And thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
+      Between their loved home and wild war's desolation.
+    Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
+      Praise the Power that has made and preserved us a nation.
+    Then conquer we must, since our cause it is just,
+    And this be our motto, 'In God is our Trust!'
+    And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
+    O'er the land of the free and home of the brave."
+
+As Base Hospital 102 is vested with the proud distinction of comprising
+on its roster the only Sisters accompanying the American Expeditionary
+Forces, it may be here permitted to anticipate and insert a brief
+account of its heroic personnel and their splendid service.
+
+Its Chief Nurse was Sister Chrysostom Moynahan of Mullanphy Hospital,
+Saint Louis, Missouri; Sister Agatha Muldoon, Sister Angela Drendel,
+Sister Catherine Coleman, and Sister Florence Means were from the
+Sisters of Charity Hospital, New Orleans. Sister De Sales Loftus and
+Sister David Ingram were from the City Hospital, Mobile, Ala. Sister
+Lucia Dolan, St. Mary's Hospital, Evansville, Ind. Sister Mariana Flynn,
+St. Joseph Hospital, St. Joseph, Mo., and Sister Valeria Dorn, St.
+Vincent Hospital, Sherman, Mo. The ninety nurses were graduates of the
+various nurses' schools connected with the hospitals in charge of the
+Sisters of Charity.
+
+They took the oath of allegiance July 2, 1918, and reported at New York
+on July 4. There they were equipped by the Red Cross with uniforms for
+overseas duty and were given the necessary military training by an army
+officer.
+
+The officers and enlisted men, of whom there were thirty-six of the
+former and two hundred of the latter, in charge of Dr. Dana, reported at
+Fort McHenry, and when they were ready the Sisters and nurses joined
+them there. Its chaplain was the Rev. Godfrey P. Hunt, O. F. M., of
+Washington, D. C.
+
+Thus completed, the unit sailed August 4 on the Umbria, which ship was
+afterward lost with Italian troops in the Adriatic. The second day out
+the work of the unit began, when fifteen men, who had been struggling
+with the waves in a row boat for twenty-four hours, were picked up. They
+belonged to the O. A. Jennings, oil tank, which had been torpedoed. They
+were given treatment by the unit, which turned back with them for a
+day's journey; then, given supplies, they were started toward land,
+which was in sight. The gratitude of the rescued men amply rewarded the
+unit for its work of mercy.
+
+The Umbria was without convoy, and though in one night alone it received
+fourteen warnings of submarines, it threaded its perilous way in safety,
+and on August 18 reached Gibraltar, where a stop of three days was made.
+The officers and nurses were given shore leave, and put in their time
+visiting places of interest.
+
+On August 21 the start for Genoa was made, which port was reached on the
+27th. The American Ambulance Corps, with a band of music, met the unit
+at the boat, and Italian officers went aboard to greet the Americans in
+the name of the Italian Government. The Sisters and nurses were taken
+to the Victoria Hotel, while the commanding officer, Colonel Hume of
+Frankfort, Ky., and Lieutenant Colonel Dana, went to Rome to secure a
+place at the front for the base hospital.
+
+The place selected was Vicenza, about fifteen miles from the firing
+line. It was located in the Rossi Industrial School, which in olden days
+had been a Dominican convent.
+
+Here for seven months the Americans carried on their work of mercy and
+during that time three thousand patients were cared for, of which number
+only twenty-eight were lost, and they were victims of the influenza,
+which was very severe in that locality. It was a remarkable record, the
+lowest loss of any of the American units. The 332d regiment of Ohio boys
+was in the section. The Ambulance Corp, composed chiefly of college men,
+did excellent work. The Sisters found the Italians very grateful, and
+their admiration for the Americans was great. There were many gas cases,
+and while hundreds had their eyes badly burned, such was the success
+attending the treatment they received, not one patient suffered the loss
+of his sight. A great deal of good was also done by the Sisters and the
+chaplain in bringing back neglectful soldiers to their religious duty.
+
+On several occasions air raids threatened the town, but as the Italian
+aviation force was superior to that of the enemy, no injury was done,
+although earlier in the year Vicenza had suffered severe bombardments.
+
+As the work increased a second hospital was opened for Italians for
+medical cases exclusively. Besides Italian and American soldiers,
+British soldiers were also treated at the base hospital.
+
+The signing of the armistice was joyfully celebrated in Vicenza, and so
+keenly did the Italian people recognize that the ending of the war was
+largely due to America, it was a common occurrence for American soldiers
+to be caught up and carried in triumph through the streets by the
+emotional Italians.
+
+As their work grew lighter, leaves of absence were given the
+hard-working Sisters and nurses. During one of these the Sisters visited
+Rome, and had the happiness of assisting at the Mass of the Holy Father
+and receiving Holy Communion from him. Later they were received in
+private audience by the Pope. The Sisters had also the pleasure of
+visiting the mother-house of their Order in Paris. It was while there
+they were ordered to proceed to Genoa for embarkation.
+
+They sailed from Genoa March 21 for Marseilles, where they were joined
+by several American officers and nurses who had served in France,
+arriving in New York April 4.
+
+While they were the only Sisters with the A. E. F., still they found
+everywhere abroad Sisters doing their share of work. One band of Italian
+Sisters of Charity walked sixty-five miles with a retreating force. They
+were in the war since its beginning. This is not only true of the
+Italian Sisters, but also of the French and Belgian, and presumably of
+those in the enemy countries. The American Sisters were glad of the
+opportunity to give their service in this war, in which their country
+was engaged, as they have done their part in the other wars of the
+Republic.
+
+[Illustration: SEVENTH DIVISION TROOPS BOARDING LEVIATHAN AT HOBOKEN.]
+
+I had made known to good Bishop Hayes my decided preference for a combat
+force, and have always felt he favored me, for, on July 30, the
+message from the War Department came: "Report at once to Officer
+Commanding Seventh Division, Camp Merritt, New Jersey."
+
+Good Father Dinneen, the Bishop's Secretary, added to my joy by
+venturing opinion, that the "Seventh" was about to sail! He also
+generously equipped me financially--"Just a little pin money for you,"
+as he charmingly expressed it.
+
+What magnificent men these priests of St. Stephen's and the Ordinariate!
+How worthy to be associated with the Bishop who so kindly, so wisely,
+and so well cared for the Chaplains in the National service.
+
+Reporting at once to Camp Merritt I entered upon my Army duties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CAMP MERRITT--LEVIATHAN--AT SEA
+
+
+The gallant Seventh Division, destined to render a service well worthy of
+Old Glory, was then commanded by Brigadier General Baarth with Col. W. W.
+Taylor, Jr., Chief of Staff, and Col. John Alton Degan, Adjutant.
+
+It comprised the 34th, 55th, 56th and 64th Regiments of Infantry; the
+6th and 7th Regiments of Field Artillery; 19th, 20th and 21st Machine
+Gun Battalions, 10th Field Signal Battalion and Divisional Sanitary and
+Supply Trains, with a complete field equipment of 32,000 men.
+
+The Chaplain's Corps of the Seventh comprised Rev. Fathers Martin and
+Trainor, and Rev. Messrs. Cohee, Rixey, Hockman and Evans. Fathers Gwyer
+and LeMay joined in France. All these Chaplains rendered a brave and
+excellent service, meriting the respect and confidence of officers and
+men alike.
+
+Departure of that mighty fighting force from Camp Merritt was deeply
+impressive. At the midnight hour of the First Friday in August, Mass was
+said for the last time, and hundreds of the boys received Holy
+Communion. Within an hour all were on the march, under full pack, along
+the country road, leading to the Palisades of the Hudson.
+
+The night was densely dark, and grimly each soldier trudged along,
+guided only by the bobbing pack of the comrade in front of him. Chill
+gray dawn saw the head of the column emerge from the hills at a secluded
+point on the Jersey shore, where waiting ferry boats were boarded, which
+conveyed us to the wharf of the Leviathan at Hoboken.
+
+How thrilled we were to find this giant of all the seven assigned to
+carry us "Over There!" Nine hundred feet long, one hundred feet wide,
+thirty-six feet draft and nine stories deep! Like some fabled monster of
+the sea, which well her weird camouflaged sides suggested, she opened
+her cavernous jaws and received as but a morsel thirteen thousand men.
+
+Here was our first contact with the gallant Navy--here did the mighty
+tide of khaki gold merge with the deep sea blue of heroes.
+
+    "Columbia loves to name
+      Whose deeds shall live in story
+    And everlasting fame."
+
+Leaning nonchalantly on the rail of their mighty ship, the Jackies, all
+perfect specimens of young American manhood, quietly watched us march
+aboard. We were as novel to them as they to us, yet what confidence they
+inspired! Curiously yet kindly they looked us over, approvingly observed
+the long orderly lines of our glittering rifles stretching away through
+the dim sheds, and seemed to say, "You are worth while fellows!--we'll
+take you over all right, all right, for our little old Uncle Sam!"
+
+To quarter, feed, and sleep 32,000 men; to carry them across 3,000 miles
+of angry pathless sea, where lurked the deadly mine, and prowled, as
+panthers of the deep, the submarines--this was the task assigned to the
+Leviathan and our convoy ships, the Northern Pacific and the Northland.
+How well our superb Navy "carried on" not only for us but for seventy
+times our number, let the most brilliant pages of seafaring annals
+tell!
+
+With perfect co-ordination between our Army and the ship authorities,
+all troops, equipment, and provisions were aboard within ten hours; and
+promptly at three o'clock the following afternoon the Leviathan swung
+out from her pier on the North River and headed seaward.
+
+In serried ranks, silent and still as at attention, the troops lined
+both sides of the upper and lower decks. As at the funeral of Sir John
+Moore "not a drum was heard," for who can cheer at the thought of dear
+ones left behind, with the kiss of fond farewell still lingering in
+loving memory on the lip, with the soldier's requiem echoing through
+lonely hearts:
+
+    "Farewell, mother, you may never
+      Press me to your heart again;
+    When upon the field of battle
+      I'll be numbered with the slain."
+
+As we passed down the city front, every building, on both the New York
+and Jersey sides, burst into color; handkerchiefs signaled a last
+farewell; and out of the mists of our tears seemed to rise a mighty
+rainbow, spanning ship and receding shores, and spelling in letters of
+heavenly hue, "God be with you till we meet again."
+
+With destroyers ahead, astern, and on the beam, two hydroplanes circling
+and paralleling above, and a solitary observing balloon hovering over
+the Long Island shore, our ship and convoys stood boldly out to sea.
+
+We were now in the war zone, easily within range of hidden mines and
+torpedoes, and, like the charger who scents the battle from afar, we
+thrilled and were glad with the thought of daring deeds before us.
+
+The ship Chaplain was good Father McDonald, Captain United States Navy,
+one of the most beloved and notable figures of the war. Every evening at
+the sunset hour he would go to the bridge. The Commander of the
+Leviathan, Captain Bryan, together with his staff, would be there
+assembled; and, as the last rays of the sun sank beneath the waves,
+every soldier and sailor on board would stand rigidly at attention and
+offer prayer as Father McDonald would raise his hand in absolution and
+benediction.
+
+How near God seemed in that vast, horizon-wide cathedral of the sea! Its
+vaulting dome more radiant than St. Peter's sculptured prayer; its
+altar, clothed with the lace of ocean foam; its pavement strewn with
+silvery sheen; its sanctuary light the candelabra of the stars. "I will
+lead thee into solitude and there I will speak to thy soul." God,
+Eternity, and Things Divine were here made real; and to each lonely boy
+wrapped in blanket on the dark cold deck, there came the message that:
+
+    "Far on the deep there are billows
+      That never shall break on the beach;
+    And I have had thoughts in the silence
+      That never shall float into speech."
+
+A town of 13,000 population, ashore, is one thing--at sea, it is
+something else! First of all the question of clothing, most young men
+back home are fastidious--here all must wear the life preserver style
+trimmed à la canteen, which means our canteen, filled with water ration,
+must be our inseparable companion--very much attached to us, as it were.
+
+On shore, juvenile America spends his evenings downtown; here, he must
+remain at home--indoors, if you please, not even deck promenades being
+permitted. Again, to the average young man, the disposition of cigarette
+butts is of little concern--m'lady's best parlor centerpiece, polished
+floor or cherished urn usually preferred; woe betide the luckless Buddie
+who denies his poor dead fag decent burial in the ubiquitous spit kit!
+To throw butts, gum wrappers, matches or anything but glances overboard,
+clew to the vulture eye of the lurking submarine, was a positive court
+martial offense. It was beginning to be evident that Sherman was right!
+
+Yet all went well; and that indomitable humor which ever characterized
+our boys, which rose superior to all hardship and danger, and smiled in
+the very face of Death, made tolerable, if not happy, those seven
+thrilling days at sea. "Some swell place" would be Buddie's comment on
+the tossing waves of mid-Atlantic; and usually having been well, and not
+used to see sickness, he was easily prone to seasickness!
+
+[Illustration: IN RUE DE BELGRADE--LULL BEFORE BATTLE.]
+
+One day private Barry, 64th Infantry, came to me. "Chaplain, I am in
+great trouble! Before leaving Camp Merritt my best girl and her
+mother called to see me off, came from away back home to say good-bye.
+Now I am not satisfied with the details of that parting; I am just crazy
+about the girl, and what worries me is the thought that, in the
+excitement of leaving, I may not have made it perfectly clear to her how
+much I really love her. Now, Chaplain, I want you to write her a letter,
+make it good and strong, and tell her how much I love her. Will you do
+that?"
+
+What else was I to do? I was his Chaplain, his big brother, friend and
+pal. His comrade in arms, climbing with him even then the road to
+Calvary's hill! "Sure thing--leave it to me, old man--but say, tell me,
+just how did you act and what did you say to her in parting?"
+
+He told me. "Well, that looks pretty convincing; I think she saw you
+loved her all right--however, I will write the letter provided you help
+me."
+
+We sat down on a coil of rope and together wrote the letter,
+collaborating in the most unique, most compelling, missive ever written
+on board the Leviathan!
+
+How he treasured that letter! How carefully he guarded it, how
+prayerfully, in due time he followed its journey from Ponteneuson
+Barracks, Brest, back to Chicago. Was it successful? Here's to you,
+Barry, old top, now happily married, in your snug little home in old
+Chi--and my best regards to Mrs. Barry.
+
+One day in mid-ocean, with a fresh gale blowing abeam, and the three
+troopships rolling and throwing spray high in the air from a heavy
+white-capped sea, the cry rang out "man overboard from the Northern
+Pacific!" A soldier had slipped on the watery deck; and, before his
+mates could reach him, was overboard.
+
+Alarm was at once sounded, lifebuoys thrown toward him, the vessels came
+about and circled diligently around, but no sign was seen of him. His
+untimely and tragic death deeply affected us all; and though the ocean
+was his grave and the spume of the sea his shroud, his memory abides
+with us in the sanctuary of our prayers.
+
+On the morning of the sixth day, a flotilla of destroyers bore down on
+us. So apparently from nowhere did they come, we were tempted to believe
+they rose from the depths of the sea. How thrilled we were to see those
+six greyhound terrors of the submarine take position around us--one
+ahead, one astern, and two on each beam.
+
+It was now full speed ahead on a zigzag course. We were in the most
+deadly submarine infested zone of the ocean. Only yesterday the
+Susquehanna had been torpedoed in these very waters, and, no doubt, the
+same evil periscopes were watching us now from beyond yonder kopje of a
+wave! Our temples throbbed poundingly; our throats grew dry, our eyes
+stared straight ahead--the same psychic phenomena we were to note in
+ourselves, even more accentuated, later in the trenches. What a prize we
+would be--to sink the largest ship afloat, with the greatest human
+cargo, 13,000 souls, that ever put to sea!
+
+It was, as it were, an old-time, nerve-racking ninth inning at the White
+Sox grounds! A clean single will tie, a double will beat us. Uncle Sam's
+Navy is in the box; Von Tirpitz's best sticker is at the bat. Two
+strikes have been called. What will the next be?
+
+A sudden hush grips the watching thousands. Here it comes--the batter
+swings with terrific force--"Strike three, you're out!" and proudly our
+gallant Armada sweeps into the welcoming and sheltering harbor of
+Brest!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BREST--ANCEY-LE-FRANC
+
+
+Vive la France! With all the emotion that must have thrilled the heart
+of Lafayette, sailing up the Chesapeake to Washington's assistance at
+Yorktown, we gazed on the rugged coast of Brittany. Our convoy alone, if
+you will, more than compensated, in point of _number of troops_ at
+least, for the 20,000 who wore the fleur-de-lis at the surrender of
+Cornwallis. Mere _number_ of troops, however, was not the question--it
+was all we then needed. France would, no doubt, have sent us more in
+1783, even as we would have sent more to her in the world war, had there
+been the need.
+
+Brest was the only harbor along the western France coast with sufficient
+depth of water to accommodate the Leviathan; and, inside her breakwater,
+on Sunday, August 10, we dropped anchor.
+
+This harbor and city, with a history rich in recorded and traditional
+lore, antedated the Christian era. The Phonecian, the Carthaginian, the
+Roman, and the Frank, had each, in turn, left upon its sheltering bay
+and rock hewn hills the impress of his generation.
+
+Apart and aloof from the beaten paths that lead from London to Paris it
+held, through the centuries, "the even tenor of its way."
+
+Here had the painter ever found color and form for his canvas; the
+romanticist, theme and character for his story. In the deep-voiced
+caverns of these towering cliffs lived the Pirates of Penzance. The
+solitude of yonder St. Malo inspired Chateaubriand with his immortal
+"Monks of the West"; and Morlix, just east of Brest, was, in days of
+peace, the dwelling place of peerless Marshal Foch.
+
+By nightfall all the troops had been ferried to the wharfs and formed by
+companies in the railroad yards along the water front.
+
+Promptly at five o'clock, with headquarters troop at the head of the
+column, Colonel Taylor and all officers on foot, we began our march to
+Ponteneuson Barracks. Each of us, on leaving the Leviathan, had been
+rationed with a sandwich. We had hoped to dejeuner on the wharf before
+beginning the march, but such was not our good fortune--the single
+sandwich was all the food--or drink for that matter--we tasted until ten
+o'clock the following morning.
+
+The march of eight torturous, hill-climbing, miles, while exhausting in
+the extreme, was not without interest. It brought us within seeing and
+speaking distance of the inhabitants. A group of little boys and girls
+trudged along at our side singing what they no doubt believed to be our
+Marseillaise, "Cheer, cheer, the gang's all here." The shrill voices of
+these petit garcons expressed our only bienvenue to France!
+
+Their elders, in their quaint Breton Sunday costumes, sitting on
+doorsteps or grouped along the roadsides, viewed us interestedly, but
+quietly and without demonstration. Although it was the highway used by
+thousands of American troops passing through Brest, we heard no word of
+cheer, nor saw a single banner of welcome in those eight weary miles of
+back torture under full packs.
+
+At nine o'clock we arrived at Ponteneuson. Well might this place be
+called, at least at that time, the vestibule of hell! If there is any
+boy of the A. E. F. who has anything good to say--or the slightest
+happy memory to recall--of Ponteneuson, I have yet to meet him.
+
+It was officially called a "Rest Camp"--where we might recuperate from
+our long confinement on shipboard. But if lying hungry and cold on the
+fog-drenched rocks of Brittany, with a chill wind sweeping up from the
+neighboring ocean, freezing the very marrow of one's aching bones, be
+considered rest, it was a kind entirely new to us.
+
+Lying near me on the chill ground that night was Major Winthrop
+Whittington of Cleveland, Ohio, one of the most efficient, kindest and
+wittiest of our officers, and who later served as our Chief of Staff.
+Someone had just remarked that Napoleon used frequently to come to
+Ponteneuson. "That explains," quietly remarked the Major, "the
+three-hour sleep theory held by Napoleon--(sufficient for any man);
+three hours is all any man could sleep in such a hell of a place."
+
+How we survived that night and the following six days and nights can
+only be ascribed to that merciful dispensation of God which has carried
+us through many a trial. Our habitation was now the open field, drenched
+in a dust storm that blew constantly. We sat on the roadside and ate our
+meager fare, making joke and jest of our utter lack of comfort.
+
+Immediately adjacent to us was the guard house, a prison camp, pitched
+in the open field, and surrounded by barbwire fencing. The only shelter
+these wretched boys had--they were all Americans--were holes they had
+burrowed in the ground and little shacks they had constructed from odd
+pieces of boards they had found. Through the days and nights the chorus
+of their angry, cursing voices was borne to our ears on the howling
+wind.
+
+One day we were hurried into formation and sent past the reviewing
+stand. President Poincare of France was paying us a call. His motor car,
+escorted by an outriding troop of French cavalry, and heralded by shrill
+bugle calls, came whirling into our midst on the wings of a dust cloud.
+
+[Illustration: TAPS AND FAREWELL VOLLEYS FOR OUR HEROIC DEAD.]
+
+Alighting in front of the improvised reviewing stand, he immediately
+became the center of an animated group; the khaki of our camp
+officers mingling with the blue, red and gold of the French. No time
+was lost by the little man in black suit and cravat in starting the
+review. The long lines of our doughboys, their rifles, with fixed
+bayonets, flashing and dazzling in the rays of the setting sun, swept by
+like some rushing, splashing Niagara torrent. The review was evidence,
+at least, as to our number, stamina and equipment.
+
+The following morning, a full hour before the dawn, we were quietly
+aroused, ordered to roll our blanket packs and get into line. Glorious
+news! We were on the move, starting for our training area and thence
+into the fighting lines! Within forty minutes we were on the march,
+leaving Ponteneuson, as we had entered it, under cover of the night.
+
+Our immediate destination was the railroad yards at Brest, where we
+would find our trains. Those wretched days of exposure, lack of food and
+sleep greatly weakened many. Chaplain Kerr, who had entered the service
+with me at Governor's Island, New York, died of pneumonia, and was
+buried at Brest. Although frequent halts for rest were made, many of
+the troops fell out and were carried to the First Aid Stations.
+
+How shall I describe the cars that carried our boys from the sea coast
+towns to the fighting fronts of France? Each car, plainly marked "Hommes
+20, Chevals 8," offered equal accommodations for 20 men or 8
+horses--especially were they equipped for the comfort of horses. It was
+sans air brake and sans spring; and when the engineer made up his mind,
+which he often did, to stop that train, he did so in a manner the most
+alarming to aching limbs and weary eyes. "Let's go," the soldiers' war
+cry, rang out along the creaking, swaying, grinding train, and we were
+off on our 400-mile journey to the training area assigned to our
+Division somewhere in France.
+
+How we enjoyed, at least, our eyesight on that journey! The appeal to
+the eye was constant--the color and form of scenes unfamiliar offering
+views of compelling attraction and delight. Each unadorned car window
+and door became the frame of pictures not a Millet nor a Rembrandt could
+depict.
+
+The villages, their sturdy houses of gray stone and red tile roofs;
+their streets, transformed from "routes" to "rules," where country roads
+came to town; their shopping squares stirred to enterprise by signs of
+"Boulangerie," "Boucherie," "Cafe" and "Menier Chocolat." Towering over
+all, the never-failing church, its lofty, cross-surmounted tower, giving
+to the scene tone and character.
+
+Rolling fields, aglow with harvest gold of wheat, oats and rye;
+orchards, teeming with luscious fruit ready to be gathered; rivers,
+threading their silvery way through meadow and wood; splendid roads,
+binding the beauteous bouquet of landscape with ribbons of silky white.
+
+The outstanding feature of that three-day journey was the apparent utter
+lack of enthusiasm on the part of a supposedly demonstrative people.
+
+Waiting at crossroads or railway stations, they would look at us in that
+same quiet, observing manner we had noticed at Brest. We passed through
+Morlix, home city of Foch; Versailles, and Sennes; and at no place did
+we hear so much as a single cheer. There were no welfare workers at any
+point, and if "Cafes" were numerous, we always paid well for our wine,
+bread and "cafe au lait."
+
+Coming from our own beloved America, where welfare workers greeted and
+feted us at every station, this apparent lack of hospitality more
+noticeable was difficult to understand. Possibly their impoverished
+condition forbade the refreshment part; but cheers and vives are
+possible, even to the poorest!
+
+Tuesday morning, August 19th, found us paralleling the picturesque river
+Yonne, which waters the vine-clad valleys of Burgundy. The sound of big
+gun firing had reached us in the early dawn, and we were all a-thrill
+at the thought of mighty things impending. Vaguely the words "Toul,"
+"St. Mihiel," "Verdun," and "Metz," had filtered back from the flaming
+front; and, like hounds tugging at the leash, we were eager for the fray.
+
+At high noon we reached the quaint old town of Ancey-le-Franc,
+Department of Yonne. Here we left the train and drew up in formation
+along the roads and back through the lanes and fields. On the platform
+of the "gare" our gallant Division Commander, Brigadier General Baarth,
+attended by his staff, who had come on ahead of us by way of Paris,
+greeted us warmly and reviewed the troops. We were the first American
+soldiers to enter this area, and the village folks of Ancey-le-Franc,
+Shacenyelles, Fontenoy, and Nuites sur Yonne, welcomed us to their
+humble homes, barns and fields where we were to be billeted, with simple
+and cordial hospitality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN BILLETS--DEPARTURE FOR FRONT
+
+
+Stepping from the train into the streets of Ancey-le-Franc was verily
+performing a miracle--with a single stride we were out of the twentieth
+century and into the eighteenth! We were among our contemporary
+ancestors, far on the road to yester century. Not a building under at
+least one hundred years of age--not a street but trodden by the
+Crusaders of St. Louis--the church of St. Sebastian dated 1673; and the
+Chateau, founded in 1275, by that hardy old Knight of Malta, Duke de
+Clermont Tonnere.
+
+With characteristic good humor, ingenuity and tact, officers and men
+adjusted themselves to their unusual surroundings, merging into the
+various billets allotted to them, along lines of least resistance. By
+nightfall Buddie owned the town! Meriting it by sheer force of good
+nature, gentlemanly deportment, and a willingness to follow the adage of
+the ancient poet: "Si fueris Romae Romano vivite more."
+
+Mine was the rare good fortune of being assigned to No. 10 Rue de
+Belgrade. Here, through many generations, had stood the house of
+Barnicault. Michel Barnicault, present head of the family, welcomed me
+most cordially. He felt it indeed an honor to have as his guest Monsieur
+le Chaplain, Americaine Soldat! In the evening he would sit in front of
+his venerable home, smoking his pipe and looking with pride at my
+Chaplain flag of blue and white that hung above the door.
+
+Petit garcon Andree, aged six years, had always considered his
+Grandfather Michel the greatest man in the world; then I came into his
+life; and whether it was I, or the American bon bons I lavished on him,
+or the overseas chapeau I let him strut about in now and then, I
+completely won his little heart. Darling little Andree in far off
+Ancey-le-Franc, now eight going on nine, I salute you!
+
+Monseigneur le Cure of the village church welcomed me cordially. Daily I
+said Mass on the altar of St. Anne.
+
+As we might go into the front trenches now any day, the Chaplains'
+ministerial work grew apace. "Be ye always ready you know not the day
+nor the hour." Father Martin was with the 56th Infantry at Molsme;
+Father Trainor with the Machine Gunners at Ceneboy-le-Bas; and I, with
+all other Divisional Units, with Headquarters at Ancey-le-Franc. Three
+priests among 32,000 men, 48 per cent of whom were Catholic. The other
+Chaplains were distributed: Chaplain Cohee, Christian, with the 34th
+Infantry. (Mr. Cohee won the Distinguished Service Medal for gallantry
+under fire at Vieville-en-Haye.) Chaplain Hockman, Lutheran, 55th
+Infantry. Chaplain Webster, Episcopalian, 7th Engineers. Chaplain Rixey,
+Methodist, 64th Infantry. Chaplain Evans, Baptist, Sanitary Trains.
+
+At this time we gave an old-fashioned Mission in the village church. A
+choir was organized from the Headquarters Troop, and each evening we
+would have Rosary, Sermon and Benediction. A special memorandum, signed
+by Colonel Degan, setting forth the purpose and advantages of the
+Mission, was posted throughout the District. The villagers likewise
+attended and the church was always filled. At this time, casting all
+fear aside, I boldly plunged into my first public speaking in French! I
+felt that grand-pere Barnicault and petit Andree would at least be on my
+side in case of a riot. Much to my delight the populace greeted my
+attempt approvingly and showered me with compliments.
+
+On Sundays I would say Masses at six and eight for the troops, preaching
+in English. Assisting at the ten o'clock Missa, Cantata Parochialis was
+always a source of devotion and unusual interest. Promptly at 9:30 the
+tower bells, in triple chime, would ring out, echoing near and far, o'er
+meadow and hill. By path and trail and through the cobbled streets would
+come the people--old men and women, white with the snows of many
+winters; middle-aged women invariably clothed in the black of
+widowhood--France had then been bleeding and dying three
+years--fair-cheeked, dark-eyed modest maidens--type of Evangeline of
+Grand-Pre--handsome little boys and girls, the kind with which Raphael
+frames his Madonnas. Kneeling for a little prayer at the grave sides in
+the church yard--pleasantly exchanging with neighbors the "bon jour" and
+the "bonheur"--they make their way into the church, up the aisles
+chiseled by Time itself, to the pew generations of their name have
+worshiped in.
+
+Mass is beginning. At the head of the procession, emerging from the
+Sacristy, marches the Master of Ceremonies, a venerable man of
+patriarchal mien, clothed in quaint cassock of black velvet, richly
+trimmed with silver braid, resonantly striking the stone pavement with
+official staff and responding in aged, yet pleasing voice to the
+Gregorian Chant of Celebrant and Congregation. Handsome little boys--all
+garcons are handsome--in acolytical splendor of purple and cardinal,
+with the daintiest of "calottes," come singing their way into your heart
+in a way to delight our own Father Finn of the Paulist choristers. The
+village cure--Monsignor of the Diocese of Sens--in those rich full tones
+that centuries of congregational singing have given to France, gives
+voice to the Ceremonial Beauty "ever ancient yet ever new." Very little
+need, there, for books; most young and old sing Introit, Credo, Preface
+and Agnus Dei from memory, artistically exact in pronunciation,
+expression and tempo.
+
+If there was distraction for our troops at all, it was perhaps at the
+collection. Not that the giving of their centimes or francs was
+distracting, rather was it the manner of Collection à la Francais. It is
+taken up by the most handsome young ladies of the congregation--our
+American Tag Days were perhaps suggested by it. Marching before the
+Mademoiselles and striking sharply on the pavement with his staff,
+solemnly comes the aged Master of Ceremonies. No prayers so absorbing
+nor slumber so profound, but the anvil clang of his staff will arouse. A
+hand embroidered silken bag is handed to you in the most charming
+manner. What Buddie could resist such appeal?
+
+It was during our days in this area I was appointed Division Burial
+Officer--undertaker for the entire Division. The order, duly bulletined,
+at first shocked me--what qualifications had I for a work so unusual?
+However, I promptly accepted it for reasons two-fold: First, it is not
+the part of a soldier to question the wisdom of orders, and, second,
+anything and everything done for Old Glory is an honor. Jealously I
+raided the archives of the Personnel Department at Headquarters, my
+"towney" Captain Brown of Grand Haven, Michigan, helping me, and studied
+all Orders and Bulletins bearing on the subject, "how to identify,
+register and bury the dead." The responsibility was indeed weighty and
+the work vast--to organize, equip and drill burial details; to bury our
+own dead, all enemy dead and horses; to assemble personal effects and
+identification tags found on the persons of the deceased; to bathe,
+clothe and prepare bodies for burial; to furnish coffins, gravediggers,
+firing squads and buglers. Daily report of all burials was to be made to
+the Graves' Registration Service at Chaumont. It can easily be realized
+how important this work became as we grew nearer the fighting front. On
+battlefields, drenched with deadly gas, under fire and amid conditions
+and scenes most revolting and appalling, the burial parties worked,
+usually in gas masks for protection against odors and fumes.
+
+Physical exhaustion, occasioned by exposure at Brest, the fatiguing
+journey across France, and the forced march of many kilometers, under
+full pack, from rail heads to billets, accounted for the numerous
+pneumonia cases that now appeared. In the unsettled, formative condition
+of things, we were not prepared to fully cope with the situation. Our
+nearest United States Base Hospital was at Dijon, sixty kilometers
+distant; and to this point it became necessary to send such of the
+seriously ill as could be safely transported. Many, however, were too
+weak to undertake such a journey; and, as no suitable buildings were
+available, the situation became truly distressing. There was not a
+single Army corps nurse or welfare worker of any sort within miles of
+us, and the critical nature of it all can be more readily imagined than
+described. Our doctors and corpsmen of the Sanitary Regiment did
+everything possible and rendered admirable service; but what could even
+the best intentioned do without equipment? On September 5th, I took mess
+with two of our best physicians, Captain O'Malley of Mercy Hospital,
+Chicago, and Lieutenant Poole of South Carolina. One week later I buried
+the Lieutenant at Longre, a victim of pneumonia, following an illness of
+but four days.
+
+Four French Sisters of Charity now came most providentially to our
+assistance. The unjust and stupid Association Laws of France had,
+shortly before the war, forbidden them the right of teaching. Later they
+had returned and converted the old building, their former school, into a
+hospital. With its four spacious classrooms and pretty garden in the
+rear, it easily lent itself to the purpose. Under the able direction of
+Doctor Thiery, who was at that time mayor of the village, and whose
+soldier son had been killed at St. Quentin, emergency medical and
+surgical cases received there a care that, no doubt, saved many lives.
+Our own Army doctors were at once incorporated in this improvised
+hospital's staff, with corpsmen assigned to duty in its wards.
+
+How wonderfully inventive and skillful Love becomes under the
+inspiration of Religion! The humble Sisters who, in days of peace, had
+dedicated their virgin lives to Education, a spiritual Work of Mercy,
+now, under the stress of war, directed those same self-sacrificing
+energies to Nursing, a corporal Work of Mercy, sanctioned by Him who is
+the world's first Good Samaritan. Though not able to utter a single
+English word, their kindness spoke eloquently for them in those
+numerous little ways a gentle woman has of assuaging pain and soothing
+even "the dull cold ear of Death." The Mother Superior, by simply
+removing two or three pieces of furniture, converted her office into the
+hospital morgue; and here, assisted by the corpsmen, I prepared the
+bodies of my dear boys for burial. How my heart ached to see them die!
+In the loneliness and seclusion of those whitewashed classrooms, far
+removed from any sight or association that spoke of Home; to see the
+light of their lives burn out, and the flowers of Spring displaced by
+the snows of Winter!
+
+To me their deaths, amid the uninspiring surroundings of that wayside
+hospital, took on a grandeur and sublimity all surpassing.
+
+Far easier, indeed, would it have been for them to die on field of
+battle, with cheer of comrades following their flight of soul. That ward
+was a braver field! For there they died bereft of all that inspires, and
+with no pomp or thrill of war to make glad their chivalrous souls.
+
+The village carpenter was never so busy. Reinforcing his working staff,
+he set speedily to work building coffins. These he made of plain pine
+boards, staining them to a dull brown, and furnishing with each a cross
+and marking stake. Thirty-two of these it was my sad duty to provide and
+distribute during our stay in Burgundy.
+
+We soon outgrew the old churchyard at Ancey-le-Franc; and the good Cure
+and Monsieur le Docteur Thiery of the local hospital, set aside for us
+ground for another cemetery just outside the village. We enclosed this
+with a white picket fence and felt confident, when we marched away, that
+the graves of our brave boys there resting, would always be tenderly
+cared for by the devoted people.
+
+    "On Fame's eternal camping ground
+      Their silent tents are spread,
+    And Glory guards with solemn round
+      The bivouac of the Dead."
+
+At the place of honor, just inside that "God's Acre," I buried Sergeant
+Omer Talbot of Kansas City, Kansas, one of the bravest and most beloved
+of Headquarters Troop, who received the last Sacraments, and died in my
+arms.
+
+[Illustration: THE BATTLE SWEPT ROADSIDE WAS SANCTUARY AND CHOIR.]
+
+Our burials were always religiously attended by the villagers. A French
+veteran would go through the streets sounding his drum and giving early
+notice of the burial of an American soldier. The people would gather at
+the church, the farmer from the field, the artisan from the shop, all
+dressed as for Sunday. The cure, the mayor, the councilmen, the town
+major, all would be present. On foot, bearing flowers, they would follow
+the military cortège to the cemetery. There, following the Benedictus,
+the mayor would give an impassioned address, expressing the profound
+appreciation of France for the service and sacrifice of the gallant
+American soldiers. His closing words, repeated and echoed through the
+cemetery by the multitude, would be, "Vive l'Amerique! Vive Pershing!
+Vive Wilson!"
+
+Among the most devoted attendants at our funerals were Monsieur and
+Madame Moidrey and their beautiful daughter Annette, a girl of sixteen
+years. In rain and shine they came, always with flowers most beautiful
+to place upon coffin and grave.
+
+Returning one day from the cemetery, Monsieur respectfully addressed
+me--"If it would please Monsieur le Chaplain to ever visit our home
+(they lived just inside the village in a quaint old manor house I had
+often admired), we would consider it an honor indeed to entertain
+Monsieur le Chaplain and his friends," then naively adding, as if by way
+of further inducement, "we have the only piano in the village."
+
+Now Sergeant Eddie Quinlan, 55th Infantry, who came from South Carpenter
+Street, Chicago, was one of my best pals. He was then attending the
+Field Signal Battalion School at Shacereyelles, two kilometers away. I
+sent word to him, directing him to report at my billet the following
+evening accompanied by the ten handsomest doughboys, besides himself, in
+his platoon. At the appointed hour and place, the Buddies were
+faithfully on hand; and need I add, all were from Chicago? How proud I
+was of them, stalwart huskies, well groomed, brown as berries, and with
+muscles of iron.
+
+"Fellows, if you have no other engagement for this evening, would you
+care to accompany me to the Moidrey residence, honored guests of the
+family? They have a piano; and I might add, a most charming daughter of
+sixteen summers." Here they nearly mobbed me! "Would they go?" "Other
+engagements!" "Say, Father, you are not kidding us, are you?" etc., etc!
+By way of information permit me to here observe that these boys had been
+sleeping in fields then for two weeks. They had not seen the inside of
+an honest-to-goodness home, nor sat at a dining-table with real
+tablecloth, napkins or plates, since they landed in France. Neither had
+they heard a piano, nor been the guest of any lady, young or
+old--well--since they left Camp Merritt. Their over-flowing cup of joy,
+at this alluring prospect, can therefore easily be imagined.
+
+As we no doubt would be invited to sing, we first rehearsed several
+popular songs, holding forth with a gusto that raised the roof, even of
+the ancient and sturdy house of Barnicault. To the air of "Old Kentucky
+Home," Quinlan tried out our latest, A Song of Home:
+
+    You may sing of Erin's Shannon flowing softly to the sea,
+      The Thames where it passes London town;
+    You may boast the bonnie Clyde where it mingles with the tide,
+      And the Seine with its romance of renown.
+
+    You may paint in blue the Danube or the far Italian Po,
+      But of all the streams enshrined in memory,
+    Is the good old Mississippi, that wherever I may go,
+      Is the dearest one in all the world to me.
+
+    CHORUS:
+
+    Then sing the song, my comrades,
+      O we'll sing this song today,
+    That wherever we may roam, we'll sing a song of home
+      For the dear old Mississippi far away.
+
+    You may boast of Irish Nora, or sweet Bessey of Dundee,
+      The charm of England's Geraldines so fair;
+    You may choose the maids of Belgium or Ma'm'selles of Picardy
+      All famed for grace and beauty everywhere.
+    But if you will but listen, and leave the choice to me
+      I'll point with pride to dear old U. S. A.
+    Where there's maidens fair to see, sweet and dear as Liberty
+      And never cloud o'ershadows beauty's day.
+
+    CHORUS:
+
+    Then sing this song, my comrades,
+      O we'll sing this song today,
+    That wherever we may roam, we'll sing a song of home
+      For the maidens fair back home in U. S. A.
+
+A trench mirror four inches by six hung on the wall of my billet. There
+was a mad scramble for a last facial and tonsorial inspection; for each
+fellow boldly made his boast, "Just watch me, Bo, make the hit of the
+evening with Ma chere Miss Frenchy."
+
+Down the village street in column of twos we made our way.
+
+    "All gentle in peace and all valiant in war,
+    There never was Knight like the young Lochinvar."
+
+As we went singing carefree, secretly my heart was sad. As a Staff
+Officer I knew, although the boys did not, that this was to be their
+last evening party; that on the morrow they were to leave for the front
+line trenches; that many weary days, weeks and months of stern, bitter,
+deadly realities lay just before them; and I wanted them to at least
+enjoy this one last evening of home-spun, joyful valedictory.
+
+The Moidrey residence stood back a little from the road, protected by a
+tall iron fence of artistic design. As we drew near, my Minstrel Boys
+prudently "soft pedaled" their singing, so as not to over-alarm our kind
+host. Responsive to our sounding the huge brass, lion-headed knocker on
+the massive gate, the house door opened. Monsieur, Madame and
+Mademoiselle Annette came down the winding garden path to admit and
+welcome us.
+
+Introductions followed, formal, gracious and charming. Quite true it was
+that our kindly hosts could not speak a word of English, nor the
+Buddies of French, at least of French fit to grace the occasion. There
+is a language, however, that is not of the tongue, but of the heart. It
+is expressed in the flash of a love-lit eye; it is felt in the pressure
+of a kindly hand. It is spoken and understood the world over and needs
+no interpreter. This language my boys spoke very fluently; and our
+charming hosts did them the honor to understand.
+
+In the parlor was the wonderful piano, brought all the way from Paris.
+Obligingly, charmingly, Mademoiselle Annette responded to our profuse,
+overwhelming invitations to play first. Sweet and innocent she looked
+sitting there; her cheeks fair as the roses in her garden, her eyes
+modestly aglow with star light, her raven hair in a single braid of
+ample length, neatly adorned with a red ribbon and bewitchingly tossed
+over her shoulder. Never was a young lady better guarded at a piano;
+five stalwart doughboys on either side, jealously turning the pages of a
+sheet of music that was upside down. Artistically she played and the
+loud applause that greeted her would have made envious our own Fanny
+Bloomfield Zeisler.
+
+Our turn came next. The polite piano from Paris fairly groaned beneath
+the burden of our song. It was not used to such boisterous treatment.
+Bravely it struggled on "The Long, Long Trail A-winding." It galloped
+"Over There." It wailed bitterly "I'm Sorry, Dear," and it did its
+bravest to "Keep the Home Fires Burning."
+
+When, finally, the barrage of music lifted, we made our way to the line
+of attack at the spacious dining-table our hosts had meanwhile spread.
+How good it seemed to sit at a regular table, with tablecloth, napkins
+and silverware! How delicious too the sweetbreads, the salad, the
+fromage; and crowning all, the exquisite service of sparkling wine,
+vintaged in the long ago in these famed Burgundian valleys.
+
+[Illustration: THE MEN BEHIND OUR MESS AT BOUILLONVILLE.]
+
+Call to Quarters sounded at 8:45 and "Tattoo" at 9:00. It was now time
+to go. Cordially each boy thanked our gracious hosts. "And should I live
+a thousand years I'll ne'er forget." Reverently, gallantly, devotedly,
+each said bon jour to darling Annette. To each she represented
+womanhood--beautiful, modest, lovable. Each saw visualized in her, as it
+were, his own mother, sister, sweetheart, back home. Would he ever see
+his own loved ones again? God only knew. And when the last good-bye
+was said, and the door slowly closed and we walked away into the night,
+the bugle call of "Taps" plaintively sounding through the quiet streets
+found sad and mystic echo in our souls.
+
+Our last day in Ancey-le-Franc dawned chill and rainy. I breakfasted in
+the old Chateau with Senior Chaplain of the A. E. F., Bishop Brent,
+Episcopal Bishop of Eastern New York Diocese, who had journeyed over
+from Chaumont to visit us. A thorough gentleman and efficient officer
+was the good Bishop; and naught but the best and most cordial good will
+has ever characterized our relations.
+
+It was but a few days subsequent to his visit that I received from
+General Pershing the special orders making me Senior Chaplain of the
+Seventh Division and brevet of Captaincy. For this honor I have ever
+been grateful to Bishop Brent and our gallant Division Commander General
+Baarth.
+
+Although our sojourn with the Burgundians had been brief, the conduct of
+officers and men had won universal respect. Genuinely sad the villagers
+were to see us fall in, that rainy afternoon, under marching orders. We
+had just been equipped with gas masks; and for the first time wore our
+prized chapeaus, the steel helmets.
+
+Sad was the house of Barnicault! Petit Andree followed me about, weeping
+constantly. Madame prepared her best omelet and cafe-au-lait and
+Monsieur opened his most prized bottle of Burgundy. I left with them
+many odds and ends the zealous merchants back home in the States had
+thoughtfully recommended, but which stern Army regulations decried for
+front line use. Trunks were left behind; and all we needed we carried in
+our ever-faithful packs. With a last blessing to the dear old couple,
+kneeling sobbing at my feet, a last hug from Andree, whose fond little
+arms I had to forcibly release from my neck, I put on my helmet,
+shouldered my pack and was gone!
+
+The rain fell in torrents; and quickly I took position in the long,
+waiting line. We marched at once, taking the road to Neuite-sur-Yonne;
+and far on our way the old church bells called sadly after us in their
+benison of last farewell. We never returned to Ancey-le-Franc; but to
+its beloved inhabitants we still live, for,
+
+    "To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."
+
+We reached our Rail Head, the main line to the regions of
+Meurthe-et-Moselle, at nine o'clock; and struck camp in the yards and
+fields for the night. As the night was chill and our camp sufficiently
+secure from observation, fires were kindled by the various companies.
+Gathered in their cheering circles of warmth and glow, the boys beguiled
+the hours preceding Taps, with jest and song. They sang of love and war
+and God; and through all their melody, as a golden thread, could be
+traced the thought of home and of a Great Tomorrow! Gradually, as glow
+of sunset paling in the west, the fires burned low; and out of dying
+embers rose shadowy forms that beckoned weary eyes to the land of
+dreams.
+
+    To each sleeping soldier boy
+    Magi dreams bring gifts of joy;
+    Sweet and pure as mother love
+    Brought by angels from above.
+
+    Dreams of home across the sea
+    And of scenes loved tenderly,
+    As he left them yesterday
+    When he turned and marched away.
+
+    Dreams of mother at the door
+    Standing as in days of yore,
+    Calling him to come from play
+    At the closing of the day.
+
+    Dreams of maiden, boyhood friend,
+    Down the road beyond the bend,
+    Where the trees made welcome shade
+    Trysting place for boy and maid.
+
+    Where he told her of his love
+    Pure and true as stars above,
+    And she answered with her eyes
+    Beautiful as Paradise.
+
+     *     *     *     *     *
+
+    Dream on, soldier boy of mine,
+    May sweet memory entwine
+    Love that thrills with hope that cheers,
+    Wakening day with yester years!
+    May sweet morrow's dawning beam
+    Hallow and make real thy dream.
+
+At midnight as I lay wrapped in my blanket beside the fire's expiring
+embers, Colonel Degan came to me and said, "I am leaving you, Chaplain.
+Good-bye and the best of luck." He was on his way to another sector; and
+although I have never seen him since, I still recall him as a splendid
+soldier and a devoted friend.
+
+At Units the following morning, I said Mass and gave the Sacraments to
+quite a number of the boys. Among these I recall Machine Gunner Brady of
+the 34th Infantry, brother of my friend, Father Brady, of St. Agnes
+Church, Chicago.
+
+Meanwhile the waiting trains had been boarded and promptly at noon we
+rolled away into the mysterious Northeast. How good it seemed to be once
+more on the move! The utmost caution was now to be observed--no lights
+on the train at night, not even a headlight on the engine. Softly the
+boys sang,
+
+    "We don't know where we're going,
+    But we're on our way."
+
+In monotone the steel rails seemed to plaintively reply,
+
+    "Art is long and Time is fleeting,
+      And your hearts though stout and brave,
+    Still, like muffled drums, are beating
+      Funeral marches to the grave."
+
+Our afternoon hours were given something of a thrill in watching the
+evolutions of a half dozen planes, skirmish escort men of the air,
+flying high and wide covering our movements. We were now on the division
+of road operated by our own gallant 13th Engineers, of which my friend,
+Sergeant McDowell of Blue Island, was Locomotive Inspector.
+
+Night fell; and the long troop trains like monstrous serpents creeping
+on their prey crawled steadily, silently forward into the abysmally
+black unknown. Slower and more uncertain they moved, feeling their way;
+and at midnight came to a final stop at the near approaches to No Man's
+Land. Quickly we detrained and took cover in a near-by forest; the empty
+cars trailed off rapidly to the south; and dawn found neither a car nor
+a soldier in sight. All that day we remained hidden in the shadowy
+solitudes of Bois l'Evque on the banks of the Moselle.
+
+Beautiful was this softly flowing river, mirroring azure skies and
+radiant in the colorful glow of early autumn. How hard to realize that
+death lurked in the quietude of its borders; that Man had chosen this
+bosom of shade, tuneful with the voice of sweetly calling birds, as a
+fitting shambles to slay his fellow men!
+
+If day for the soldier was for rest, night was for the march; and a new
+dawn found us in the sheltering woods of Gonderville on the Toul-Nancy
+highway.
+
+Turquoise, palest violet, tender green and gold, the country lay before
+us. Then, even as we watched from covert, our ears made acquaintance
+with a new and ominous sound. From an infinite distance the morning
+breeze from the north carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now
+regular as the muffled rolling of drums, now softly irregular with
+intervals of stillness. It was the dominating monotone of cannonading.
+No need to tell the boys what it meant!
+
+"Guess we're in time for the big show all right," Buddie quietly
+remarked; and from that moment an expression overspread his countenance
+and a note crept into his voice I had not noticed there before. It was
+not one of nervousness, but of seriousness; a clearer vision and
+apprehension of big manly things henceforth to be done.
+
+"When I was a boy I lived as a boy; but when I became a man I put away
+the things of boyhood and acted the part of a man."
+
+_Boys_ went _into_ the trenches, but _men_ came _out_ of them!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: OUR DUGOUTS AFFORDED SHELTER AND HABITATION.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PUVINELLE SECTOR--BOIS LE PRETRE--VIEVILLE EN HAYE
+
+
+Gallant Pershing was even then maneuvering his masterly all-American
+offensive in the San Michel. Our Seventh Division, with the 28th on the
+left and the 92d on the right, now reached the high full tide of martial
+responsibility; merging from the reserve into the attack; and taking its
+place with the Immortal Combat Divisions of proud Old Glory.
+
+The front line sector, which that night we took over, extended in a
+general westerly direction from north of Pont à Musson on the Moselle
+river to Vigneulles--a distance of ten kilometers.
+
+Approximate positions found the 55th Infantry at Thiacourt, the 64th at
+Vieville, the 37th at Fay-en-Haye, and the 56th at Vilcey-sur-Trey, with
+Machine Gun Battalions distributed equally among them. During September,
+Division Headquarters was at Villers-en-Haye; moving forward in echelon
+to Noviant and Euvezin October 24th.
+
+Although Villers-en-Haye was mostly in ruins, the Sacristy of the
+village church was in good shape, and this I at once occupied. On the
+preceding Sunday, good Father Harmon of Chicago had said Mass in this
+church, as a note, fastened to its front door, announced.
+
+Thoroughly tired, I spread my blanket on the floor and fell quickly to
+sleep. I dreamed I was tied to a railroad track with a train rushing
+towards me. With a start I awoke, just as a siren voiced shell came
+screaming across the fields, bursting at the foot of the hill on which
+the church stood.
+
+The gas alarm was at once sounded and every trooper sought refuge in the
+dugouts. It was then half-past eight. At four-minute intervals and with
+the most deadly regularity these shells came at us for four
+nerve-racking hours.
+
+Boom! You could hear it leave the eight-inch howitzer six miles away,
+then in a high tenor pitch, it rushed toward you with a crescendo of
+sound, moaning, wailing, screaming, hissing, bursting with frightful
+intensity apparently in the center of your brain. Falling here, there,
+and everywhere in the ruins and environs of the village, mustard gas,
+flying steel and mortar, levied cruel toll on six boys, whose mangled
+bodies I laid away the following afternoon at Griscourt under the hill.
+One of these, I now recall, was Corporal Donald Bryan of the 7th
+Engineers, a most handsome and talented young man who, before the war,
+had won fame in the field of movie drama.
+
+"Where were you last night?" inquired gallant Colonel Cummings of
+Missouri, our Machine Gun Regimental Commander.
+
+"In the sacristy," I replied.
+
+"The worst possible place for you!" he exclaimed; "you would find it far
+safer in a dugout."
+
+I preferred the sacristy, however, for its convenience to the altar,
+where I could say daily Mass, and so won my point.
+
+Chaplain and burial work had been meanwhile growing tremendously. Burial
+details to be organized, equipped and dispatched far and wide along the
+front; conferences with Chaplains; forwarding to them of Departmental
+Orders; receiving their weekly reports, and compiling these in daily
+reports to the Graves Registration Service; with monthly reports to be
+prepared for Bishop Brent at Chaumont, Monsignor Connolly at Paris, and
+Archbishop Hayes at New York.
+
+At this time welfare workers joined us and we had thirty Y. M. C. A.
+secretaries under Rev. Mr. Todd; eight American Red Cross secretaries
+under Mr. Kolinski of Chicago; six Salvation Army lady secretaries under
+Adjutant Mr. Brown, and ten Knights of Columbus secretaries under Mr.
+McCarthy of Kansas City, who joined us at Bouillonville.
+
+All these workers rendered most valuable and devoted service; especially
+at a time and place when we were far afield in ruined shell-swept areas,
+and completely cut off from every vestige of ordinary comforts. How good
+a bar of chocolate, a stick of Black Jack, a "dash" of despised
+inglorious "goldfish" tasted to Buddie, lying cold, hungry, dirty and
+"cootified" in his dugout!
+
+A distinct contribution to modern civilization, and a form of national
+and international altruism making for the betterment, not only of him
+who receives but as well of him who gives, was organized welfare work.
+The need of such work always existed; and the organization of trained
+and equipped auxiliary forces intelligently to perform it must have ever
+been apparent. It remained for the World War, conceived, at least in the
+American mind in unselfish motive, to create and give flesh and blood
+expression to so Divine a vocation; and assign it honored rank among
+National institutions eminently to be desired, and, without invidious
+comparison, devotedly to be maintained.
+
+One day, timing and dodging dropping shells, I came to ruined, bombarded
+Essey. A single piece of bread had been my only fare for many trying
+hours and I was hungry to the point of exhaustion.
+
+Above the door of a dugout I saw the welcome sign "Salvation Army," and,
+making my way to the door, I knocked. It was at once opened by two lady
+secretaries.
+
+The savory odor of fresh, crisp fried cakes greeted me, and in the
+center of the room beyond, I saw a table heaped high with the precious
+viands themselves! Truly it was Angel Food! Not the lily-white sort
+served and known as such at home, but the golden ambrosial kind angels
+dream of--and surely were the Salvation Army ladies who saved me that
+day from starving, angels. Not only did they kindly point to the table
+of delight and generously say, "Help yourself, Chaplain," but Adjutant
+Brown, husband of one of them, entering at that moment, cheerily
+remarked:
+
+"Chaplain, won't you join us? we are just sitting down to dinner."
+
+Having no other dinner engagement just then, I accepted! The table was
+placed under a stairway, just room for the four of us. Outside, the air
+was filled with the spume and shriek of bursting shells. The windows
+were tightly barricaded, and a candle, placed in the mouth of a bottle,
+gave the only light.
+
+"Chaplain, will you offer Grace?"
+
+Reverently all four bowed our heads in prayer; and may the good God who
+brought us there together, join us some future day in his heavenly home
+above!
+
+The problem of transportation was most insistent and difficult. The
+Division being far below its quota of automobiles and motorcycles,
+Chaplains and burying details were compelled frequently to journey on
+foot, with possible aid from some passing truck.
+
+Under these conditions I found "Jip" truly "bonne chance." "Jip" was the
+horse assigned me by my good friend, Lieutenant Davis, of Headquarters
+Troop, and whom I named after my faithful dog "Jip" of Harvey. He was a
+noble animal, utterly without fear; broken by chasseurs-a-cheval to gun
+fire. My only comrade on many a long, lone ride, we grew fond of each
+other to a degree only he can appreciate who has spent days and weeks of
+solitude and danger with a devoted horse. All the pet names and phrases
+"Jip" of Harvey knew, I lavished on him, leaning forward to whisper in
+his ear. Although it was not the familiar French he heard, it seemed to
+please him, and obediently he bore me on, little heeding the danger of
+the trail, so that he shared my sorrows and pleasures.
+
+One beautiful day in mid-October, he carried me many miles through Bois
+de Puvinelle, deep in whose solitudes, at Jung Fontaine the 20th Machine
+Gun Battalion was camped; passing on our way ruined Martincourt, then
+heavily shelled, to the borders of grim Bois-le-Pretre.
+
+Before starting on this mission, which had for its object inspecting of
+front line conditions and burial work, I had talked over the situation
+thoroughly with Colonel P. Lenoncle, French Army, who, during two years,
+had fought over every foot of Bois-le-Pretre, and won there his Croix de
+Guerre.
+
+"Monsieur le Chaplain," he said, "this forest is a household word for
+danger and death throughout all Germany. I know, in your goodness, you
+will not fail to bury any of my brave poilu whose bodies you there may
+find."
+
+Glorious was our canter down the dim leafy aisles of the Bois oak,
+maple, ash, and pine flamed with the glorious coloring of autumn.
+Crimson ivy festooned each swaying limb, weaving canopies against a
+mottled sky of blue and white; morning-glories nodded greeting from the
+hedges, while forest floors were carpeted with the red of geranium,
+yellow of marigold and purple of aster.
+
+[Illustration: THIACOURT UNDER SHELL-FIRE.]
+
+Through the winding tunnel of foliage "Jip" was keenly alert. He seemed,
+with his good horse sense, to feel that he was carrying a very
+well-meaning but inexperienced Chaplain, more interested perhaps in
+things botanical and floral than military. When I, for example, showed
+inclination to dismount and inspect a beautiful saddle lying by the
+roadside, it was evidently a German officer's, "Jip," with ears back,
+snorted and galloped furiously past. A veteran sergeant afterwards
+quietly remarked:
+
+"'Jip' likely saved you that time, Chaplain, from a 'planted' bomb, for
+which that saddle was the bait."
+
+Evening found us at the near approaches of Saint Marie farm. As the area
+from this point forward was drenched with gas, and therefore no place
+for "Jip," who stubbornly refused to wear his mask, I decided to leave
+him and continue forward on foot. Making my way to a dugout, then
+Company Headquarters of the gallant 19th Machine Gunners, I happened
+upon a young gunner named Costigan.
+
+"Will you look after 'Jip' for me, Buddie?"
+
+"I will be glad to, Father," he replied. "Your sister used to be my
+teacher in the Ogden school, Chicago!"
+
+How small the world was! To find that Bois-le-Pretre was just around the
+corner from Chestnut and North State Street!
+
+Grim and terrible, however, was the work just ahead. Entering that
+forest was like going into some vast fatal Iroquois Theatre saturated
+with death-dealing gas. It was even then being swept by a tornado of
+screaming, bursting shells, scattering far and wide fumes of mustard and
+chlorine, a single inhalation of which meant unspeakable agony and
+death. But our brave boys were there with souls to be prepared, and poor
+mangled bodies were there, reverently to be buried!
+
+It was supreme test for the gas mask! That frail piece of rubber alone
+stood between us and death. The slightest rent or leakage would be
+fatal, as injury to the suit of the deep sea diver. These masks had been
+issued in sizes 3, 4 and 5. Some fitted better than others; others bound
+painfully about the temples. We had been trained to adjust them quickly
+from "alert" to the face in seven seconds, and woe to him who breathed
+before the clasp was on his nose, the tube in his mouth, or the chin
+piece properly in place. Under ordinary conditions, they were supposed
+to filter the poisonous air for thirty-six hours. It was extraordinary
+conditions, however, rising either from faulty adjustment, rubber
+strain, or mechanical injury that usually proved their undoing.
+
+On that October day I had remained in the gas waves but four hours and
+felt I had escaped without injury. Such, however, proved not my good
+fortune. My mask had evidently not functioned properly and that night of
+torture to body, head and eyes was accounted for in the simple words of
+the kind Doctor Lugar:
+
+"Chaplain, you are gassed."
+
+A few days' nursing and care at the Field Hospital restored strength and
+vigor needed for a new and even more interesting encounter.
+
+On the afternoon of Sunday, October 25th, I had held services at three
+o'clock in a dugout at Vieville-en-Haye. Carefully hidden in a forest
+immediately south of this village were then located three of our large
+guns. The boys had proudly named them, "President's Answer," "Theda
+Bara" and "Miss McCarthy." They were throwing high explosive shells
+along the Metz highway. The enemy was frantically replying with
+eight-inch Howitzers from points some six kilometers north, dropping
+shells at two-minute intervals into Vieville-en-Haye and its environs.
+
+As there was much gas along this front, I had left "Jip" at home and was
+using a Harley-Davidson cycle side-car Lieutenant Trainor of
+Headquarters had kindly loaned me--further giving me daring Corporal
+Plummer of Aurora, one of the most skillful of his chauffeurs.
+
+Following the services our next work was a trip to Vilcey-sur-Trey, some
+four kilometers away, at the eastern approach of Death Valley. Emerging
+from the dugout our plans were quickly outlined. Taking advantage of the
+regular two-minute intervals between falling shells, we planned to first
+let one come over, then make a quick dash up the front street and get
+out into the shelter of Death Valley before the next one fell.
+
+Rev. Mr. Muggins, Y. M. C. A. secretary, a very estimable and highly
+respected man, shook his head.
+
+"Chaplain, you can hardly make it."
+
+"How about it, Corporal?" I said to Plummer.
+
+"Sure, we can make it," he replied.
+
+"Let's go," I said, and quickly slid into the side-car.
+
+We let a shell come over, saw where it burst, then dashed up the street.
+Skillfully avoiding heaps of brick and mortar scattered along the way,
+quicker than it takes to tell, we traversed two blocks and reached a
+point just opposite the ruined church. Here we rushed full into an ugly
+crater, our machine fouled and our way was blocked!
+
+We knew a German gun across those fields was even then trained on this
+spot and would pay its respects in about one minute. Plummer tried to
+kick and shake life into the machine; I did the praying. Just before lay
+ruins of the old church. I thought of the countless times Holy Mass had
+been offered there, and humbly I asked God to spare me and my boy, to
+turn aside from us the stroke of death--but,
+
+"Not my will but Thine be done."
+
+"Boom!" Across the fields came the sickening report! Ordering Plummer to
+throw himself to the ground, I was in the act of alighting, and was
+partly free of the machine, when the shell burst, about one hundred feet
+away. My right arm seemed to burn; but I was alive, and flat on the
+ground. Breathlessly we waited, like a boxer in his corner, until the
+next shell came over. This struck about a block away. At once we sprang
+to our feet and rushed into the shelter of Death Valley. Plummer was
+unhurt; but I was slightly bleeding from right arm and left leg. They
+were but scratches; and most humbly I thanked God for sparing us.
+
+"Well, Chaplain, they winged you this time," said good Captain Cash,
+Abilene, Texas, Medical Corps, when I reported. My right forearm was
+broken, but nothing serious enough to make me an ambulance case.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE GREATER LOVE
+
+
+I never recall those really worth while times without being reminded of
+a certain Lieutenant whose name I do not feel at present free to reveal.
+The attending circumstances were so deeply pathetic, and his confidence
+in me of a nature so sacred, I will but narrate the details without
+divulging his identity.
+
+Handsome, generous, brave, highly competent in military art, he was as
+skillful in getting action from his giant gun as he was masterful in
+evoking music from his violin! If there was anything his platoon boys
+admired more, even than himself, it was the music of his ever generous,
+ever delighting violin. Deep in some dugout we would gather around him.
+Tenderly and fondly he would take the instrument from the battered box,
+patting it like a young mother her baby's cheek.
+
+Beginning with some light popular air in which all would vocally join,
+he would soon glide like a spirit of melody to the unprofaned height of
+the music masters. Bach was his favorite. And when, with the mute, to
+soften the waves from unfriendly ears, he would interpret some symphony
+of the soul, we would forget our grim surroundings and dream we "dwelt
+in marble halls."
+
+He knew my passionate fondness for music and took delight in pleasing
+me. What pictures he could paint on the canvas of my fancy! Under the
+spell of his music I would drop anchor in the harbor of the fairest
+dream. Now, it would be a landscape the brush of his bow would paint--a
+midsummer day with sheep gently grazing on some hillside: again, it
+would be a forest, with treetops cowering before an on-rushing storm.
+
+One evening he was playing with the mute on "Humoresque." His big brown
+eyes, that were not the least attractive feature of his handsome face,
+looked steadily into mine across the bridge of his violin.
+
+"What is the picture tonight, Chaplain?"
+
+[Illustration: DOCTOR LUGAR AND AIDS WORKING IN A GAS ATTACK NEAR JOLNEY.]
+
+"I see a coast," I replied; "it is a fair summer day, with waves of all
+blue and silver, dancing in the breeze. A yacht is just off shore; the
+sail, a creamy bit of color; at the tiller a chap, handsome as
+yourself, and at his side a girl"--here he stopped playing and looking
+intently at me exclaimed:
+
+"Why, that's the very thing I was thinking of myself!"
+
+Laying aside the violin he drew from his kit a bundle of letters tied
+with ribbon. Delightedly, radiantly, he showed me _her_ picture--yes,
+her pictures, for surely he had twenty of them. Then he narrated "the
+sweetest story ever told"; how wonderful she was, how tenderly he loved
+her, how they had sacredly promised to marry on his return, and planned
+to seek their young fortunes in South America.
+
+The days following were filled with big thrilling events. The ebb and
+flow of battle called into action all that was best and noblest in the
+boys, and my Lieutenant served his Battery and wrought deeds of valor to
+a degree all excelling and inspiring. I knew the secret of it all, it
+was the thought of her, his promised wife, and of the bliss awaiting a
+gallant soldier's return.
+
+It was just one week later the letter came. Few received mail that day;
+he was one who did. My attention was first called to him by the sound
+of a moan that seemed to come from a heart utterly broken. He stood
+leaning against a caisson staring at the letter, his face deathly white.
+Instinctively I realized it all. It was from her, and its message was as
+some stroke of lightning from a cloudless sky. Mutely he came to me,
+pressed the letter in my hand, and turned away.
+
+A glance through its lines told me the worst; that while she admired his
+courage and unselfishness more than any man in the world, and always
+would, still, as she did not, could never, love him as she felt a wife
+should love her husband, would he now release her and give up their
+engagement!
+
+Knowing him as I did, noble, unselfish, and devotedly, tenderly loving
+her with all his soul, most deeply did I pity him. It was the supreme
+hour and crisis of his life. If there were ever a time when he needed
+her love to sustain him, when day and night he grappled with death and
+fought with all his soul, as only the patriot _can_ fight, it was now.
+
+It was the beginning of the end. Sub-consciously I sensed impending
+tragedy, and was depressed beyond expression. Not indeed that he became
+morose, ugly or unsoldierly. On the contrary, never was he more
+attentive to Battery duties or considerate toward his men. Bravely would
+he laugh and jest and try to appear happy; but I knew it was all merely
+heroic endeavor, and that his heart was utterly broken. If he gave
+expression to his loss at all it was through his violin. It was all in a
+minor strain, and its notes were of the soul of one
+
+    "Who treads alone,
+      Some banquet hall deserted:
+    Whose lights are fled, and garlands dead,
+      All, all save he departed."
+
+It was the afternoon of ten days later. In an orchard on a hillside his
+Battery had just come into position. By some alert enemy-observing plane
+the movement had evidently been noted, for it was not seven minutes
+later that a high explosive shell came screaming over the hill, directly
+hitting his gun, instantly killing gunner No. 1, and mortally wounding
+himself.
+
+Ten minutes later I reached his side. He was still conscious, had
+received First Aid, but was sinking rapidly. "I am not afraid to die,
+Chaplain. It's my turn I guess. There is a letter here in my blouse
+pocket. I wrote it to her the other night. Read it, will you please, and
+if it is all right, post it for me when I am gone."
+
+Blinded with my tears I carefully took the letter from his pocket. It
+was wet with his heart's blood. I do not now recall its every word, but
+in substance, it released her. "My Duchess" was the endearing title at
+the top of the page. It declared his deep, abiding love for her: a love
+so unselfish and complete as not wanting to ever, either directly or
+indirectly, mar her happiness. In life and death her memory would
+continue to be the one supreme inspiration of his life. As she
+requested, he had burned the letters, retaining but one, stained with a
+rose she had once given him.
+
+"Oh my boy! I am proud of you," I cried, when I finished reading. "If it
+is all right, Chaplain, please post it when I am gone."
+
+The deathly pallor of his face warned me the end was near. Though not
+directly of my faith, he had often remarked his preference for my
+ministrations; and with all my soul I helped him make Acts of Faith,
+Hope, Charity, and perfect Contrition. Gently his eyes closed, his head
+fell forward on my breast, and his brave sweet spirit passed to its
+Maker.
+
+Kneeling around, with tears seaming their ashen battle-stained faces,
+were his boys. Tenderly they helped me carry his poor torn body to the
+shelter of a neighboring ravine. On the hillside we buried him, marking
+his grave with the Sign of Him who shall remember the Brave, the Pure,
+the Good.
+
+I posted the letter, as he requested, enclosing it all, as it was
+blood-stained, in another envelope. I have forgiven, as he would have me
+do, the inconsiderate action of the girl who brought such sorrow to the
+supreme hour of his sacrifice. Some day, when the wounds of cruel war
+are healed, I may forget. And yet, reviewing it all in the light of the
+supernatural and the greater reward awaiting him beyond the stars, may
+we not believe that an all-wise, ever-merciful Father permitted this
+crowning sorrow of his young life that it might be but opportunity,
+humbly and prayerfully endured, of a soul-cleansing nature, and add
+luster to his reward of the Greater Love through eternal years!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THIACOURT--AERIAL DARING
+
+
+"Where are you saying Mass next Sunday Chaplain?"
+
+"In Thiacourt," I replied.
+
+Just the shadow of a doubt flitted across the handsome face of Colonel
+Cummings, who nevertheless promptly responded, "All right, I'll be
+there."
+
+That Mass _could_ safely be said in such a veritable inferno as
+Thiacourt November 1st offered very reasonable room for doubt. Located
+but a single kilometer from the front line trench, its ruins were
+shelled by day, and air bombed by night, with daring Fokers and Taubes
+finding rare sport in spraying its main street with machine gun fire.
+
+The gallant boys of the 55th Infantry, nine hundred of whom came from
+Chicago, were then bravely holding that death-swept point; and I was
+determined to bring them the consolation and strength of Religion in
+their supreme need.
+
+Dawn was breaking that Sunday morning when I rode through Bouillonville.
+Leading north from this village the road leaves the shelter of a
+friendly hill and plunges boldly across the open plain. Our Batteries
+were firing constantly from every available angle of the hills, and the
+enemy's spirited reply made very heavy the din of gun fire. In all
+directions, on roadside, field and hill, geysers were rising, and
+yawning yellow craters forming from the impact of bursting shells.
+
+It was seldom I urged "Jip" out of a canter. This morning, however,
+things were different. The road through the open plain lay full in view
+and range of eagle-eyed enemy snipers.
+
+Across the pommel of the saddle, in front, was fastened a bag of oats;
+and behind, my Mass kit. Tightly I strapped on my steel helmet, with gas
+mask tied at "alert."
+
+Leaving the shelter of the hill I leaned forward and spoke to "Jip."
+"Allez! Allez! Mon petit cheval!" Right bravely he responded. With ears
+back, and raven mane and tail streaming to the breeze, he fairly hurled
+himself forward across the death-swept plain. His speed and courage
+stood between me and eternity.
+
+It is not easy for even the best sniper to hit such a fast moving horse.
+At a point two hundred yards to the right of us burst a huge shell. To
+just the slightest degree "Jip" trembled, but with never a break of his
+even flying stride. "Thank God!" was my heartfelt prayer as we reached
+the ruined mill at Thiacourt.
+
+Quickly dismounting I led "Jip" deep into the rear of a building whose
+front was shot away.
+
+O how I hugged and patted that brave little horse; and from the manner
+he pawed the ground and rubbed his nose against my side I felt he fairly
+thrilled with the pride of his race with death. For your sake, my brave
+little "Jip," I will never be unkind to a horse as long as I live.
+
+Rewarding him with an extra ration of oats, and leaving him secure from
+gas, I proceeded forward on foot.
+
+Shrapnel was bursting all about, and its sharp, sizzling echo, against
+walls still standing, made maddening din.
+
+Dodging from building to building up the deserted front street I reached
+a point opposite the Hotel de Ville in time to see the front of a
+building one hundred yards to the left blown completely out by a
+bursting shell. The church was but a heap of smoking ruins.
+
+In the courtyard of a large building, that a few days before was
+headquarters of the German staff, I was welcomed by boys of the 55th
+Infantry. It was a platoon in command of Lieutenant Coughlan of Mobile,
+Alabama.
+
+This gallant young man, nephew of Capt. Coughlan who sailed with Dewey
+into Manila Bay, was every inch a hero. Just the day before he had held
+a front sector against terrible odds when the platoon on his right had
+fallen back under heavy gas attack with its commander mortally wounded.
+In this encounter Coughlan was badly gassed himself, and could not speak
+above a whisper. "I know the Latin, and can serve your Mass all right,
+Chaplain, if you can stand for my whispers."
+
+An altar was improvised out of a richly carved sideboard standing in the
+courtyard. After a goodly number had gone to Confession, a crowd of some
+two hundred assembled for the Mass. At this moment Colonel Cummings,
+true to his word that he would be on hand, strode into the yard.
+
+The boys knelt around, wearing their steel helmets, and with masks at
+"alert." My vestments consisted simply of a stole worn over my cassock.
+Helmet and mask lay easily within reach at one side. The firing,
+meanwhile, was terrific--high explosive shells shrieking overhead and
+bursting on every side. Rifle and machine-gun bullets added their shrill
+tenor notes to the orchestral wail of gun fire.
+
+I had prepared a sermon, but, amid such din, I, for a moment, questioned
+the possibility and even propriety of delivering it. I decided in the
+affirmative, and raised my voice in challenge to the wild clamor of
+death.
+
+As I looked upon the battle-stained faces before me, I felt how pleasing
+it all must have been in the sight of Him who feared not Death of old,
+and who said on the hills of Galilee: "Greater love than this no man
+has, that he give up his life for his friends."
+
+Mass over, the boys quickly disappeared into neighboring dugouts.
+Colonel Cummings was greatly pleased with it all, remarking, "As soon
+as you began Mass, Chaplain, the gun fire seemed to ease a bit, and a
+comparative zone of quiet prevailed where we were gathered."
+
+"I shall know after this, Colonel," I laughingly replied, "what is
+bringing you to Mass--to get into a zone of quiet!" Permit me to add
+here, however that the good Colonel needed no urging to attend Mass. I
+never met a better Christian overseas nor a more gallant loyal comrade
+than Colonel Cummings.
+
+The remaining hours of that day were spent in ministering to the living
+and burying the dead. Along that battle swept front the Chaplain was
+always gladly welcomed and his divine Message reverently received. Death
+in its thousand ghastly forms, ever impending, ever threatening,
+impressed with serious religious thought the consciousness of even the
+most careless. In direct proportion to the coming and going of danger
+was the ebb and flow of the tide spiritual. "Haven't you noticed,
+Chaplain, an improvement in my language of late? I sure have been trying
+to cut out swearing." Often would some officer or enlisted man--of any
+or no church membership--so remark, and who had hitherto been prone to
+sins of the tongue.
+
+On such occasions two thoughts would come to me--the reflection of
+Tertullian that "The soul of man is by nature religious;" and the
+admonition of Ecclesiastes 7:40, "Remember thy last end and thou shalt
+never sin." Far into that All Saints night I heard Confessions, and was
+edified with the large number who approached Holy Communion All Souls
+morning.
+
+In burial work, we always made it a point, where it was at all possible,
+to bury the enemy dead as reverently as our own. We would gather their
+poor shell-torn bodies, often in advanced stages of decomposition, and
+place them in graves on sheltered hillsides, safe from gun fire,
+carefully assembling in Musette bags their belongings, which we would
+forward to the Prisoner of War Department. One day, while so assembling
+the scattered remains of four dead Germans, evidently killed by the same
+shell, one of our boys of the 34th Infantry, Sam Volkel by name, who
+before the war lived in my old parish at Harvey, passed by. This good
+boy's parents had been born in Germany. When he saw the reverent care we
+were giving those four of the enemy dead, he came up to me and with
+tears streaming down his smoke and dust-covered face exclaimed,
+"Father, God bless you."
+
+"De mortuis nil nisi bonum" is a principle of conduct dating back to Him
+who of old declared burial of the dead a corporal work of mercy. It is
+the mark, neither of the Christian individual nor nation, to disrespect
+a body nor desecrate its resting place. The fact that in life it was
+tenanted by the soul of an enemy is no justification for dishonoring it;
+for He who is Infinite Truth and Justice declares "Love thy enemy; do
+good to those who hate you, and bless those who persecute you." This, of
+course, is not the way of the world; but _is_ the way of Him whose
+standards of living must guide our lives, and whose will to reward or
+punish us shall prevail through Eternity.
+
+We had now been many weeks at the extreme front on minimum ration of all
+things bearing on bodily comfort or mental relaxation. Water was but a
+word, a memory, cherished dream of him who wrote "The Old Oaken Bucket."
+If we could but find enough of the chlorinated drug store kind to
+nourish our canteen, we were prepared to dispense with the common, or
+laundry serving, variety.
+
+In the eternal fitness of things, there came now into being an Army
+institution, officially known as the Delousing Station. It appears to
+have been named in memory of a certain small wingless insect. There was
+an appeal to it that at once caught the popular fancy of the soldiers,
+always itching for novelty, and it became the most frequented of
+watering places. It was a thoroughly democratic affair, officers and
+enlisted men freely approving and patronizing it, under the undenying
+impulse, no doubt, of a common human need. It little mattered that its
+location was usually the wreckage of some wind-swept barn; or that its
+furniture consisted of a barrel of water jauntily poised on the rafters;
+the spectacle of Buddie, bar of soap in hand, sporting and splashing in
+the limpid stream of that miniature Niagara, offered wealth of theme for
+the inspired artist, poet, and writer of commercial advertising.
+
+I greatly wonder that the hallowed memory of this loving institution has
+so far escaped the popular fancy as to be left "unwept, unhonored and
+unsung." That it _was_ inspirational might be shown from the case of a
+boy of the 64th Infantry changing the words of the popular song, "They
+go wild, simply wild, over me," to "They _run_ wild, simply wild, over
+me."
+
+Huts designed to offer any manner of mental relaxation, reading, music,
+and the like, were necessarily many miles to the rear. No sound but gun
+fire was ever to be heard. No matin bugle call of Reveille to rouse, nor
+plaintive note of Taps to "mend the ravelled sleeve of care." No
+regimental band to "soothe the savage breast," nor lead to the charge in
+the way it is described in books of history.
+
+No lights to show from dugout or trench, not even on motor cars or
+cycles dashing along treacherous roads and trails. If mess and water
+carts could be kept in touch with advanced posts, the mail and welfare
+supply trucks could be dispensed with.
+
+Days and weeks would pass without so much as sight of a letter,
+newspaper, book, or word from the rear of any kind. Such times were like
+living in the bottom of a well, glimpses of the sky overhead, but all
+around you, dark, foul, and deathly.
+
+Amid such surroundings our chief pleasure and relaxation was often the
+sky. Reclining in the soft yielding mud we could watch the canvas of the
+heavens, stretched from horizon to horizon, in panoramic splendor.
+Whether it was the hour of the "powerful king of day rejoicing in the
+east," the mid-day brooding calm, or when "Night folds her starry
+curtains round," the ever-changing, ever-beautiful pictures of cloudland
+lulled to rest our fancies sweet as music which
+
+    "Gentler on the spirit lies
+    Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes."
+
+How thrilled we were when cloudland became of a sudden peopled with
+armed men! When that azure blue became an ocean, with ships of the air
+scudding in and out of cloudy coves, around billowy headlands, "zuming,"
+spiraling, volplaning, maneuvering for position to hurl broadsides of
+death.
+
+It was all, as it were, a tournament staged for our amusement. Herald of
+its beginning would be a splash of white against the blue above the
+German lines. Faintly, then with steadily increased volume in tone,
+would come to our ears the unmistakable high tenor engine trum of a
+Foker plane.
+
+[Illustration: THE WOUNDED WERE CARRIED TO THE NEAREST SHELTER.]
+
+All eyes would intently watch its approach. It was coming over to deal
+death or destruction of some sort, possibly to attack our anchored
+observing balloon, just to the rear.
+
+Seconds as well as minutes count in such an adventure, and quicker than
+the eye can count them, puffy balls of white appear above, below and all
+around on the on-rushing Foker; they are the shrapnel bursts of our
+vigilant anti-aircraft guns that have now opened briskly from every hill
+and forest.
+
+On it comes!--and now black puffs appear in its path, the dynamite shells
+of our guns finding their range. Boom! boom! rat-ta-tat-boom-rat-ta-tat
+is the music that greets our ears and every hill is a tremble under the
+shock of thousands of rounds of fire.
+
+In such an emergency our orders are clear. We must remain perfectly
+motionless: we will not be seen unless we move about. We must not fire
+at him; he must know neither our location nor what arms we have.
+
+The tons of steel being hurled into the air must meanwhile fall in
+splinters to the earth. Here is where our steel helmets prove so
+serviceable, protecting the head not only from falling splinters, but
+from bullets of the machine gun the Foker flyer is now vigorously firing
+earthward.
+
+Now a new and welcome sound greets our eyes. Coming on the wings of the
+wind out of the south is the strong deep bass of Liberty Motor
+music--the all-American made--which, though arriving in quantity late in
+the war, proved at once its superiority to all others. Our ground guns
+have driven the Foker high into the air; which, evidently noting that
+the on-coming ships are merely observing and not fighting planes, comes
+steadily on!
+
+How vividly I recall that stirring afternoon! We were on a hillside,
+just above Thiacourt, directing the work of a burial detail. As the
+Foker reached a point directly over us he dove full in our direction.
+There was nothing for us to do, no shelter to take refuge in, just an
+unprotected slope of the hill.
+
+Whether it was the fact that we were a burial party and he wished to
+spare us--and this explanation I like to believe--or whether, by firing
+on us, he might betray his presence, and thus defeat his main purpose,
+which was to destroy the balloon anchored in the neighboring valley, I
+will never know; but _this_ I _do_ know--at a point directly above us,
+and where he could most easily have killed us with machine gun fire, he
+suddenly changed his course.
+
+Gliding down the valley, he raced full upon the observing balloon and
+hurled incendiary shells into it, setting it on fire; then, coming
+about, he dashed away to the north, escaping over his own lines amid a
+shower of leaden hail! "Ill blows the wind that profits no one"--the
+position of undertaker, we at first hesitated in accepting, had saved
+our life; burial boys were, after this, more reconciled than ever to
+their work!
+
+Air craft battles, although of frequent occurrence along our front, were
+always watched with keen delight. Our fliers were chiefly of the 108th
+Squadron from the fields of Toul and Colombey-le-Belles.
+
+It was in our area, on the banks of the Moselle, that the heroic and
+gallant Lufberry fell, fighting, to his death. He is buried in the
+little cemetery of Evacuation Hospital No. 1, near Toul.
+
+Eddie Rickenbacker, Reed Landis, Tuper Weyman, Elmer Crowel, Bernard
+Granville, Douglas Campbell, these and others were the gallant Aces of
+our Army, flying and fighting daily over the front.
+
+On September twenty-eighth Douglas Campbell fell in flames at Pannes. In
+the cemetery of the old church there he is buried. It was with special
+interest we cared for his grave, inasmuch as his home was in Kenilworth,
+near our own Chicago.
+
+Infantry contact flying was necessarily hazardous. It meant flying at an
+elevation easily in reach of rifle fire.
+
+Usually at mess, the evening before, the flyer, chosen for this mission,
+would be notified. His companions, too, would hear of the selection; and
+often indulged, in their own grim humorous way, of reminding him of the
+fact! The man next to him at the table would softly and weirdly hum a
+strain from Chopin's Funeral March, setting its music to the solemn
+words, "Ten thousand dollars going home to the States!"
+
+It was this trait in Buddie's character, however, ability to make the
+best of things, to see the smooth and not the seamy side of Death's
+mantle, that made him the most intelligent, cool, and resourceful of all
+fighting men. His buoyancy of disposition and resiliency of spirit gave
+him a self-confidence and initiative that made him rise superior to all
+hardship, and, as it were, compelled circumstances to side with him.
+
+The 10th Field Signal Battalion, commanded by the brilliant and
+big-hearted Major Gustav Hirch of Columbus, Ohio, was a favorite
+rendezvous of mine. The nature of work of these Signal men appealed to
+me; and their nomadic habits co-ordinated happily with my duties,
+frequently requiring me, along the changing front, "to fold my tent with
+Arabs and silently steal away."
+
+They had direct charge of the Intelligence Maintenance of War work, and
+constituted the axes of liaison between the various Units of the
+Division.
+
+Their skill in the transmission of messages was most remarkable. Masking
+their operations in the language of secret signs and ciphers, they made
+use of the telephone, telegraph, radio, wig-wag, panel, carrier pigeon,
+blinker, and last, and perhaps most dependable of all, the living
+runner. The duty of the latter consisted in carrying messages to or from
+exposed positions when no other means would do. Usually a volunteer from
+any branch, he was selected because of courage, agility and ability to
+get through somehow, no matter how great the opposing odds. I was
+present in an Observation Post near Jolney talking to Colonel Lewis,
+when a runner came rushing across No Man's Land through a leaden hail,
+saluted, handed a message to Captain Payne, and fell unconscious at his
+feet. There were no greater heroes of the war.
+
+Operators and linesmen "carried on" under conditions demanding the
+greatest courage--remaining to the last in exposed positions like the
+wireless heroes of a sinking ship. I have known lines to be shelled and
+blown to pieces a dozen times during the day, and just as often repaired
+by daring linesmen.
+
+Frequently sharing their mess and dugouts, I cultivated the friendship,
+not only of their generous Commander, but of Captain Cash, of Abilene,
+Texas; Captain Jim Williams, of Troy, Alabama; and Lieutenant Phillips
+of Brooklyn, New York--three of the most beloved of soldiers. Lieutenant
+Andy O'Day, of Detroit, also with them, was heavily gassed at Jolney.
+
+Attached to the Battalion, too, was a brilliant young man, Lieutenant
+D'Orleans, French Army. He was from Brittany, had won the Croix de
+Guerre, and spoke English, if not fluently, at least interestingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+REMBERCOURT
+
+
+On Saturday night, November ninth, I had repaired to my dugout near
+Bouillonville, planning to say two Masses at distant points the
+following morning. I retired early to snatch a little rest.
+
+At midnight, Lieutenant D'Orleans rushed into the dugout and roused me,
+hoarsely whispering,--"Chaplain, a big movement is on!"
+
+Rolling from my blanket I hurried outside. The night was intensely dark;
+but there, in the valley before me, I could make out a long column of
+troops.
+
+For some days there had been growing signs and vague hints of a big
+attack impending. Was this its beginning?
+
+Reporting at once to the head of the column, I found Colonel Lewis and
+Major Black. The troops were the 2nd Battalion of the 64th Infantry. The
+Colonel, a trimly built little man, and every inch a fighter, was eating
+a bar of chocolate. "Here, Chaplain, have a bar of chocolate; I have
+an extra one. By the way we are going to attack at dawn."
+
+[Illustration: ST. JOAN OF ARC.]
+
+The personification of coolness, how proud I was of him! He was ready;
+he knew his troops were ready; he was about to lead them to the heights
+of grim Rembercourt, one of the most prized and fought for positions
+along our front!
+
+These brave boys of the Second Battalion, going, many of them, to their
+death, needed us. Good Chaplain LeMay of the Battalion would need
+assistance; moreover the 55th Infantry would be in that attack, and
+they, at that time, had no Catholic Chaplain. Many needed Sacramental
+Confession; all needed God's blessing. At once, I decided to cancel the
+two Masses I had planned, and accompany them.
+
+In column of squads the troops moved down the valley. As we were but
+eight hundred marching against a strongly held hill, every approach to
+which fairly bristled with machine gun nests, success depended primarily
+on the element of surprise. We were prepared to pay something for that
+hill, but if we could rush it, the cost would be minimum.
+
+The alert enemy had thrust forward tentacles of listening posts deep
+into our neighborhood, and, if a chance star shell revealed us, he would
+lay down a deadly barrage.
+
+We were favored indeed by a blanket of chill fog, that hung over the
+valley, but our going in the slimy, sticky clay was labored and slow.
+
+Dawn found us in the shelter of a hill near the old mill north of
+Jolney. This old stone building overhung the river, and stood at the
+eastern end of the bridge. Later that day it was occupied by General
+Wahl, commanding the 13th Brigade, and used as his Headquarters. At this
+point the column was halted; and Colonel Lewis, Major Black, I, and two
+privates walked forward about five hundred yards around the foot of the
+hill to reconnoitre. The railroad leading to Metz paralleled this
+valley; and, but a few yards ahead, half a dozen box cars, hit by our
+shells, were burning.
+
+The river at this point is about one hundred yards wide and at no place
+over five feet deep. It is spanned by a stone bridge sharply arched,
+built for heavy strain.
+
+Our objective lay on the opposite shore, a hill, some three hundred feet
+high, covered with scrub oak and cedar. This hill, which commanded the
+village of Rembercourt and the entire valley, had been firmly held and
+desperately defended by the enemy even against Pershing's September
+attack. Ours was now the coveted honor of wresting it from his grasp,
+once and for all.
+
+Two courses lay open to our crossing, one, to use the bridge, the other
+to wade the river. The Colonel discouraged the use of the bridge, as the
+fog was even then thinning out, and, if the column were discovered, in
+silhouette, artillery would speedily destroy it. He therefore directed
+Major Black to have his troops wade the river, keeping on the sheltered
+side of the bridge.
+
+Holding their guns clear of the water the men waded across in silence,
+keeping single file. The first man to step into that icy water was the
+gallant little Colonel, his blue French gas mask at "alert," his
+"forty-five" and precious bars of chocolate held safely above the water.
+I was directly behind him. A long column marching in single file through
+a muddy stream soon cuts a deep channel; and the last two hundred men
+to cross made wet work of the wading.
+
+That our thoughts were at least partially human at that time, I now
+recall the following form of reasoning expressed by a Buddie near by. "I
+am going to get pneumonia out of this wetting; but, most likely, I'll be
+killed anyway in this hill attack, so I should worry!"
+
+Just at the river edge, a boy suddenly dropped his rifle and began to
+alternately wildly laugh and cry. A sergeant quickly placed his hand
+over his mouth to silence him lest his calls might reveal our presence
+to the enemy. Gently leading him to one side he left him for the First
+Aid detail. His poor mind had given out under the terrible strain; shell
+shock, it was called. No comment was made by the men marching past; they
+pitied him, knowing it was not that he was a coward or a quitter, but
+simply that he had gone insane under the deadly reality of it all. Why
+more did not go mad in that Valley of Death only God can explain!
+
+Emerging on the far shore, we picked our heavy way across the stretch of
+swamp, that led toward the base of our objective. Although the enemy
+was not aware of our presence in force, he was keeping up a desultory
+shelling of his hill base as a matter of ordinary precaution. Like the
+flare of June bugs along the roadside in summer, high explosive shells
+would burst every few minutes, here, there, and in most unexpected
+places. Colonel Lewis ordered that the men be kept in as open formation
+as possible, so that fewer would be hit at a time, and falling shells be
+reduced to minimum zones of destruction.
+
+Here we had just assembled and were forming for the attack when the
+sheltering fog suddenly lifted. It was now eight o'clock. We had not yet
+been discovered. The men were ordered to lie in their tracks and await
+orders.
+
+From the spiritual point of view this delay was opportune; as it offered
+opportunity of passing down the line, to hear confessions and extend to
+all the boys divine aid.
+
+Surely that halt was a God-send! The prayer of many a mother, far
+overseas, had moved the Good Master to give her soldier boy this last
+chance to pause for a prayer on the threshold of death!
+
+This was pre-eminently the Chaplain's hour! Above all others were his
+every ministration and word and glance prized and respected.
+
+There were no infidels, no religious scoffers, among those soldiers
+seriously awaiting the zero hour. In the rear areas and rest billets,
+the profane and irreligious word might often have been heard; but face
+to face with Death, Judgment, Heaven or Hell, the skeptic was silenced.
+Boys who might have been hitherto negligent in approaching the
+Sacraments were now the first to call to me, "Father, I want to go to
+Confession."
+
+In a time so uncertain, momentarily awaiting orders "Over the Top," to
+hear each one individually was physically impossible. For just this
+emergency, the far-seeing, merciful Church of the All Merciful God has
+provided a means.
+
+It is the General Absolution, so beautifully administered by Chaplain
+McDonald of the Leviathan, and which our Faculties provided. When a
+person in such emergency could not actually confess, he made an act of
+Perfect Contrition, being sorry for his sins because by them he had
+offended the Good God, and with the intention of going to Confession as
+soon as he could. While confession was always desirable, sorrow was
+ever, indispensable.
+
+In our case the priest was morally and physically present and he gave
+Sacramental Absolution to all, using the plural, "Ego vos absolvo a
+peccatis vestris."
+
+Whether on the battlefield or in hospital wards filled with men dying of
+disease or wounds, the priest has a divine message to deliver and a
+sacramental duty to perform from which no manner or danger of death can
+deter him. "Is any man sick amongst you," says St. James in the 24th
+Chapter of his Epistle (Douay or King James version) "let him call in
+the priests of the Church, and they shall anoint him with oil in the
+Name of the Lord." It was in the fulfillment of this Divinely imposed
+duty that 1600 priests of America voluntarily turned aside from their
+parochial work, and, reconsecrating their hearts to the Greater Love,
+entered the National service as Chaplains during the war.
+
+Seriously the boys studied the hill. On its rugged side was about to be
+staged a tragedy in which every soldier knew he was to take part. The
+training of months past was but rehearsal. The leaving home, the oath of
+military service, the weary grind of march, and weapon drill, the rigid
+discipline, all these were but evolving phases, making for the formation
+of the seasoned soldier. And now they had reached the high altar of
+National service on which they were prepared to sacrifice their young
+lives.
+
+"Morituri salutemus!" Look closely into the faces of those heroic boys:
+approach with reverence the sanctuary of their thoughts.
+
+In long, regular lines they lie, immediately at the base of the hill.
+Most are still and motionless, helmeted, and with bayoneted rifles, like
+figures some Bartholdi or Rodin might have chiseled from bronze. Some,
+with free hand, are molding from the yellow, slimy clay, quaint little
+images, suggested, possibly, by thought of the little tin soldiers of
+boyhood days. Some, lying prone, are dreamily observing the blue sky
+showing here and there through billowy clouds. Some have made of their
+helmet a pillow and appear to sleep. Some with jest and story are
+radiating a subdued merriment. Some, with eyes staring straight ahead,
+seem as in a trance.
+
+In that tragic hour I looked with their eyes and saw with the vision of
+their soul. The picture we all in common saw was painted on the
+canvas of memory.
+
+[Illustration: WHERE ST. JOAN OF ARC MADE HER FIRST COMMUNION.]
+
+It represented any American town; preferably one bowered with maple and
+elm, and cast in a setting of emerald landscape. Just back from the
+winding road, a cottage, trellised with moss roses and forget-me-nots.
+Framed in the doorway, a sweet-faced mother, silver threads amid her
+gold of hair, is looking across distant fields. A path leads over the
+hill, and it would seem she watched and waited for someone!
+
+Last night she knelt beside a vacant chair, and, in the lonely vigil of
+her tears, prayed that God would bless and spare her boy. In the window
+hangs a service flag. Tomorrow, My God! there shall a message come from
+overseas changing its silver into gold!
+
+    Who is it can smile with heart breaking the while
+      When the soldier bids loved ones "Farewell"?
+    Whose heart is it grieves, when the patriot leaves,
+      With an anguish that no tongue can tell?
+    It's only the mother! For man knows no other
+      Whose soul feels the weight of such woe;
+    Who can smile and look brave and for lonely hours save
+      The torrent of tears that must flow.
+
+    Whose heart is it knows that wherever he goes
+      He'll be true to his country and flag?
+    That he'll fight the good fight and die, serving the Right
+      With never a boast or a brag?
+    It's the mother whose breast as a babe he caressed
+      And who watched o'er his childhood with joy.
+    Though the years may have flown, and to manhood he's grown,
+      Yet to mother he's always--"My boy"!
+
+    Who is it can yearn for the soldier's return,
+      When the trumpet of war calls no more:
+    When victorious he sees his proud flag kiss the breeze
+      Of his own, his beloved, native shore?
+    It's the mother whose face like a halo of grace
+      Hovered near him to cheer him afar.
+    Angels envy her joy as she welcomes her boy
+      Triumphant returned from the war!
+
+    Who is it shall kneel at the graveside and feel
+      The full woe of a soldier boy, dead!
+    Who shall measure such loss, who shall carry the cross,
+      And yet live, when his spirit is fled?
+    It's the mother who'll wait at Death's golden gate,
+      Where sorrow and parting shall cease!
+    And she evermore with her boy as of yore,
+      Shall be crowned in the Kingdom of Peace!
+
+One of the brave company commanders in this Battalion was Captain Hall.
+Coming to me he said, "Chaplain, if I get 'bumped' in this attack, I
+want you to do me a favor." He then gave me a written message to a
+certain person in the Division who owed him $300.00. "Get after him,
+will you, Chaplain, and see that the money reaches my folks." "I will be
+glad to, Captain," I replied. Then, as one good turn deserved another, I
+wrote out and handed him a little note, which, if he, and not I, came
+through alive, was to be forwarded to my Chicago home. The Captain was a
+graduate of West Point, and had seen hard service both on the western
+plains and in the Cuban war. His hair was gray, and he wore a long gray
+mustache of which he was proud, and which he was in the habit, when
+especially thoughtful, of stroking. My hair also was gray, especially
+since our last gas attack in Bois-le-Pretre.
+
+A Captain from Philadelphia lying in the mud not far from us, noticing
+our two gray heads close together, mischievously and in a stage whisper
+remarked, "Old men for counsel, but young men for action!" What Captain
+Hall, blazing with sudden wrath, thereupon said to him, I think it just
+as well not to here record! At the time, however, it seemed that he sort
+of expressed my own feelings on the subject!
+
+Gallant Captain Hall came through alive; but I can see him even now in
+the very thick of the fighting that followed a few minutes later.
+Standing out on the hillside in full view he fought with his steel blue
+"45" a duel to the death with a German officer who rashly attacked him.
+For a moment I held my breath, as they deliberately exchanged shot for
+shot. Then I saw the German fall heavily; and Hall, his right hand
+twirling his gun, and his left fondly stroking his mustache, coolly
+surveyed the line looking for another shot.
+
+It was two in the afternoon before the fog began to thicken. The zero
+hour was at hand!
+
+Although we had marched many weary miles, had lain motionless in the mud
+for five hours, and had meanwhile tasted neither food nor drink, we did
+not mind it. One ignores bodily needs under heavy mental stress. I
+carried a little meat and bread in my pocket, which, that noon, I shared
+with good Father LeMay.
+
+At two-thirty, when the sheltering fog was thickest, quietly the word
+was passed down the line "Get ready." At that moment I was near the
+western end of the column near a stone quarry, strongly defended by the
+enemy with machine guns and automatic rifles.
+
+Promptly the boys made ready, slipping off packs, many even their
+blouses. It was to be a bayonet rush up that hill, and the idea was to
+feel as cold and shoulder free as possible. The pain of mustard gas is
+not so intense if one's body is cool and dry. Officers as well as men
+were lightly clothed; their only weapons, automatics. I substituted a
+sweater for my blouse. All felt the tense strain, and throats grew dry
+and temples throbbed.
+
+At that moment was given a final General Absolution and Blessing.
+
+Sharply, along the crouching line like a flash of fire, boomed the
+command to advance--"Guns and bayonets now, boys, and give them hell!"
+Instantly leaping forward, the men hurled themselves up the hill.
+Helmeted, masked, their bayonets flashing, like the crested foam of some
+giant wave they swept forward.
+
+We had not advanced fifty feet when over the hillside there burst a hail
+storm of lead. The enemy hurled into our faces every manner of
+destruction; bullets and steel fragments screamed through the air,
+"thudding" into every foot of ground!
+
+The first boy to fall was Riorden of New Jersey, who pitched forward,
+terribly torn, shortly to my right. Onward and upward swept the line. As
+I paused a moment beside Riorden to absolve him, Walsh of Syracuse, New
+York, running some thirty feet in advance, waved his arm for me to
+hurry. "Holy Joe" was the name given the Chaplain. I never knew its
+origin, but it was the title most generally used and always with the
+utmost respect.
+
+Even then could be heard the horrible crash of steel on steel, hand to
+hand bayonet contact, screams of terror and pain, when the blade
+dripping blood was withdrawn from its human scabbard. The advance soon
+reached the hilltop and the gray-clad Germans resisted desperately. The
+most terrible, horrible, and indescribable of all sights and sounds were
+now before me. Wild-eyed, panting, fiercely visaged boys in American
+khaki and German gray, feinting, parrying, and madly lunging with
+glittering bayonets--the crash and shrill metallic stroke of steel on
+steel, and Oh! the grunt and scream of agony when the blade sank to its
+hilt in a blood-spurting human breast! Each boy, in that moment of
+deadly shock, was fighting for his own life--it was destroy first or be
+destroyed, and the first to get in a fatal blow survived. No alien
+soldier lives however, who can withstand that most terrible and supreme
+of all fighters--the American Doughboy! Hands were being raised and
+cries of "Kamerad" heard from every side. The grim heights of
+Rembercourt were ours; but, my God! see the price we have paid for that
+eight minutes of struggle.
+
+Boys are down all over the hillside, dead and dying. Tossing, moaning,
+begging for help, their cries of agony pierce the heart. From the
+military point of view, indeed, it was called a splendid, clean-cut
+piece of work. Rembercourt and its approaches in our hands at last, with
+hundreds of prisoners and spoils of war--all at a loss to us of but nine
+killed and fifty-two wounded.
+
+[Illustration: IN THE CHURCH AT DOMREMY.]
+
+Ah! but who shall measure the cost of those nine dead boys to mothers
+and beloved ones at home! See their lifeless forms lying there amid the
+wreckage of the hillside. A few minutes ago they knew the thrill of
+vigorous young manhood; they knew that death might claim them in that
+charge; bravely they went over the top, hoping for the best.
+
+From one to another I hurried with service for all. The dying claimed
+first care; the dead had to wait; and the chill shadows of night had
+crept to the hill crest before all the wounded were removed and the last
+poor body buried.
+
+A terrific cannonade had meanwhile been in progress. Our batteries had
+opened along the entire front. Tons upon tons of steel were passing on
+wings of thunder not three hundred feet above our heads. Little heed the
+boys gave it, so occupied were they with duties near at hand.
+
+Finally, numbed and over-powered to the point of utter exhaustion, I
+sought an abandoned shack at the foot of the hill. Without removing so
+much as a single garment, still wet from wading the river, with no taste
+for food or drink, I threw myself on the floor and fell at once asleep.
+
+It was dawn of the following morning, Monday, November 11, when I awoke.
+If the cannonading of the evening before was terrible, that morning's
+bombardment was infinitely more so. It was the first time I had heard a
+full powered "Drum Head" barrage--where so many batteries and guns are
+engaged that the sound of firing and subsequent explosion is continuous
+and unified in volume. The hills and valleys shook under the rocking
+recoiling guns as from an earthquake.
+
+Going among the men, I found even the most seasoned of them grimly
+silent. Their faces, set, as in plaster cast along cadaverous lines,
+deeply furrowed and caked with dust, perspiration, and powder smoke,
+made hideous appearance. Never have I seen such wan, frightful
+expression in human eye. As grim automatons they handled their guns, and
+moved silently about. Possibly they were too wearied to talk; for to
+speak, so as to be heard, meant calling at the top of one's voice.
+
+Not far away I met Colonel Cummings. Briefly I narrated the happenings
+of the day before at our west end of the line. Most warmly he
+congratulated us and then, in confidence, informed me "Foch has agreed
+to an Armistice!"
+
+He had just come from Headquarters, which was sending out orders to line
+and battery commanders to cease firing, that very morning at eleven
+o'clock.
+
+Silently we gripped hands; but the hearts of both of us thrilled with
+"Te Deum."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ARMISTICE DAY--GORZ
+
+
+Meanwhile our entire front was advancing, following the barrage waves.
+No more desperate struggle than ours could have been found at any point.
+Writing of that day, the official A. E. F. newspaper, "Stars and
+Stripes," under date of November 15th, declared:
+
+    "Attack Before Vigneulles
+
+    "Probably the hardest fighting being done by any Americans in
+    the final hour was that which engaged the troops of the 28th,
+    92nd, 81st, and 7th Divisions with the Second American Army,
+    who launched a fire-eating attack above Vigneulles just at dawn
+    on the 11th. It was no mild thing, that last flare of the
+    battle, and the order to cease firing did not reach the men in
+    the front line until the last moment, when runners sped with it
+    from fox hole to fox hole."
+
+I hurried along the line deeply pondering the startling report of the
+good Colonel. We had been hearing various rumors that the enemy was
+frantically suing for peace; all these we had set down as but
+propaganda. If the end were in sight, why this terrific eleventh hour
+barrage?
+
+The only reason I could imagine was, that its very frightfulness might
+so deeply impress the resisting troops themselves as to utterly destroy
+their morale. Once the soldiers themselves realized the weakness of the
+tottering dynasty behind them, and the overwhelming force of the army in
+front of them, total failure of their cause must be apparent.
+
+Supreme was my confidence in Foch and Pershing, and I felt that the
+course they were pursuing would prove, from the military point of view,
+the best.
+
+At five minutes to eleven I walked a little apart, up the trail, and
+began saying my Rosary Beads. They were always companion and comfort to
+my trying hours. Fervently I implored her, who is "Mightier than an army
+in battle array," to intercede for us to her Divine Son. That, it were
+pleasing and good in _His_ holy sight, this hour of eleven would mark
+the end.
+
+So occupied was my mind I had not noticed the falling off in firing.
+Battery after battery was silencing! Gun after gun growing still.
+
+"Cease firing!" The command sped down the line; and it seemed these two
+words leaped into the blue vaulted sky above and were echoed in Heaven!
+
+The utter silence that of a sudden came down upon that front was
+terrifying. More awful in its gripping impressiveness than the most
+terrific cannonading. You seemed, in that tense moment, to have lost
+your footing on some storm-swept hill, and fallen headlong into a deep
+valley. There was no cheering. The boys simply looked at each other and
+waited; waited like the boxer who, having delivered a fatal blow, stands
+intently watching his fallen opponent, until the referee has tolled off
+the final count, and raised his arm in token of victory.
+
+Then came the reaction. Lusty cheers rose from all sides, helmets were
+tossed into the air, rifles were stacked, and impromptu cake walks and
+fox trots staged with grotesque abandon.
+
+No one ventured into No Man's Land, that was strictly forbidden; but all
+over the rear approaches jubilation reigned supreme.
+
+Groups quickly formed, excitedly discussing it all, "What's the big
+idea?" "Has Jerry quit for good?" "How do you get that way?" Some burst
+into song: "I Don't Want to Go Home."
+
+Suddenly a glorious sound came floating up the rear ravine; it was the
+Regimental band of the 7th Engineers, playing Sousa's "Stars and Stripes
+Forever!"
+
+Oh, how it thrilled and touched our very depth of soul! Its melody burst
+upon our unaccustomed ears with something, at least, of the joy the
+shepherds felt, when Angels brought them "Good tidings" at Bethlehem!
+
+Out of all this trance of joy, however, stern Duty soon called us. Many
+a silent body, our own and the enemy's, lay unburied along the front. On
+requisition at Headquarters, two companies from a Pioneer Infantry
+Regiment were assigned to us, co-ordinating with our regular Burial
+Details. Near and far we combed hills and plains for bodies, penetrating
+trenches, dugouts, and ruins. Six days of untiring effort, brought
+reward of warmly commending words from our Division Commander.
+
+At Mass the following Sunday in the old ruined Church of St. Sebastian
+at Euvezin, the subject was recalled of those days of old when the
+Galilean Sea was tempest tossed. Then in the boat rose the Master who
+said to the storm, "Peace! Be still! And there came a great calm." Even
+so, had that same Divine Power now spoken along our torn battle front;
+and "May the Peace and Calm that now has come reign on forever!"
+
+That afternoon an artillery Regimental band gave a concert. Illustrative
+of the mental breadth and generous nature marking the real American boy,
+in its repertoire was to be observed Strouse's "Blue Danube Waltz!"
+
+It was during one of these eventful days word reached us from across No
+Man's Land that old men, women and children in the town of Gorz, across
+the German border, were entirely without food, and dying of starvation.
+
+Our forces were marking time in the positions the close of hostilities
+found them occupying, and, as the time for moving forward with the Army
+of Occupation was indefinite, we decided to go forward at once with food
+supplies for the starving inhabitants.
+
+This aid work was to be entirely informal and on our own initiative, no
+military provision having been made for such emergency. With little
+difficulty five tons of army rations were secured, and, accompanied by
+good Major Hirch, I set out.
+
+Our journey took us through miles of devastated country. Tons upon tons
+of war material, abandoned by the retiring German troops, littered roads
+and fields. Clothing, helmets, small arms of all description, whole
+batteries of Howitzers still in position, dense black fumes from burning
+ammunition dumps, acres of barbed wire fields and hillsides shell-torn,
+bodies still unburied--all this was the spectacle of war havoc greeting
+the eye on every side.
+
+In the chill of that bleak November evening we crossed the German
+frontier and entered Gorz. Aged and feeble men and women looked sadly at
+us from their doors. Children, whose pinched faces clearly showed the
+ravages of hunger, timidly followed our supply trucks up the deserted
+street.
+
+[Illustration: "GREATER LOVE THAN THIS NO MAN HAS."]
+
+We were the first American soldiers they had ever seen. Drawing up in
+front of the old market place, Major Hirch explained our mission,
+speaking to the people in German.
+
+When the poor starved creatures realized we were bringing them food,
+their joy knew no bounds; the children shouted with very joy and swarmed
+up into the trucks. We found ourselves crying, but supremely happy in
+the realization that we were doing the Master's work.
+
+The inhabitants fluently spoke French as well as German; and when the
+children saw the Chaplain's cross and found I was a priest, their
+reverence and affection was most pronounced.
+
+The food, indeed, was but the coarse Army fare, "bully" beef, hard tack,
+and condensed milk; but, withal, it was relished most keenly. We felt
+gratified in the humble part we had played in saving the lives of those
+unfortunate non-combatants, and organizing our first Divisional Relief
+Expedition into Germany.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+DOMREMY--HOME
+
+
+"Major Whittington, I have not had a furlough since we landed in
+France."
+
+"I guess that's so, Chaplain; which city would you prefer visiting,
+Paris or Metz?"
+
+"Domremy--."
+
+"Domremy!" he exclaimed, "I never heard of the place. However, you may
+go." Then, with forced seriousness, added, "I believe you are needed in
+Domremy on Official Business."
+
+It was December eleventh. We had long been anxious to visit the
+birthplace of Joan of Arc. The story of her heroic brilliant life had
+ever interested and inspired us; and now, to actually be in the hills of
+her native Lorraine, to make a pilgrimage to her shrine, became our
+supreme ambition.
+
+I could indeed have visited Domremy before, but purposely had I waited
+for this date. On December thirteenth, President Wilson, coming to the
+Peace Conference, was to land in France. I wanted to say Mass, that
+very morning, at the shrine of the Maid for the welfare of the
+President.
+
+A one hundred and fifty mile trip from Thiacourt to Domremy, south of
+Verdun on the Meuse, especially in an open motorcycle car and through a
+blinding storm of hail and rain, is not particularly pleasant.
+
+When we recalled, however, the arduous journey she, a girl, of eighteen
+years, had once made on horseback from Domremy to Chinon, three hundred
+miles, through snow-covered roads, we determined that nothing short of a
+Firing Squad should stop us.
+
+A cold I had contracted at Rembercourt had settled in my back. Lumbago
+had painfully doubled me into an inverted "L," a figure not happily
+adapted to a cycle car.
+
+Laboriously adjusting myself to the machine I plainly told the Maid, "I
+wish you clearly to appreciate, Saintly Joan, that I am making this
+journey for you. Of old, you were supremely helpful to the ruler of
+_your_ country. I want you to do as much for the President of _mine_. I
+am going to say Mass on your home altar for him, and I want you to help
+me. If God spares me, and I return to America, I promise to proclaim
+your glory and encourage all I can, young and old, in the practice of
+your devotion."
+
+Early dawn found us on our way. The steel helmet pulled low offers
+splendid protection to one's eyes. Traversing the old battlefields of
+St. Michel, we passed ruined Even and Essey and took the highroad
+leading south. The shell-torn steeple of Flirey church still leaned over
+the road; and the grewsome Limey Gondrecourt front, its deserted dugouts
+resembling grinning skulls, elicited a sigh and a prayer for its dead
+legions.
+
+Through Noviant and Men-le-Tour we sped, and at noon were beyond Toul
+and racing through the historic valley of the Moselle.
+
+At Bullney, our speeding car was curiously observed by thousands of
+German prisoners peering through the barbed wire enclosure of their
+roadside camp.
+
+Columbes-les-Belles, with its huge hangars, grimly stood in silhouette
+against a crimson burst of sunset.
+
+At Neufchateau we reached the river Meuse with whose glory the names of
+heroic inconquerable Petain and Verdun shall be forever shared.
+
+We were now in the picturesque "valley of colors," whose winding trails
+were trodden by the soldiers of Julius Caesar when "Omnis Gallia divisa
+est in partes tres" was written.
+
+With pulse beat quickened by thought of our hallowed pilgrimage nearing
+its end, we rushed like a specter down the road, through winding vistas
+of giant cottonwood and poplar; rounding a hill we came in full view of
+Domremy, and, with a final burst of speed, rushed splashing, and all
+a-thrilled with emotion, into its single street.
+
+Drawing up in front of the church, that of St. Remi, Apostle of the
+Franks, we were at once surrounded and curiously observed by a group of
+children. "Are these children now to see a soldier, still crippled with
+lumbago, or one the intercession of Joan has made whole?" This was the
+question I soliloquized, as I started to excavate myself from the
+mud-littered car!
+
+My chauffeur eyed me askance; and the look of pleasure with which he
+noted my evident recovery, told me he was as proud as I. The Saintly
+Maid had wrought her cure completely and with generous finality.
+
+At once we entered the Church. Five hundred years before Jacques and
+Isabelle d'Arc had crossed that very threshold, carrying the precious
+babe Joan to be baptized. The glowing ray of the sanctuary light
+welcomed us, and, perhaps, turned to jewels the tears of joy and
+reverence coursing our cheeks.
+
+The rough hobble nails of our shoes rang alarmingly on the stone
+pavement as we made our way up the hallowed aisle. On our knees before
+the altar we literally cried our prayers.
+
+Looking toward the lowly Tabernacle we felt that Jesus, the gentle
+Master there present, was pleased with us. He seemed to look approvingly
+upon us and to say, "My soldiers, rest here your weary head upon My
+Heart."
+
+At the very railing where we knelt, Joan had made her First Communion.
+Just at our left on the Epistle side was the ancient font where she had
+been cleansed from original sin, made a Christian, a child of God, and
+heir to the Kingdom of Heaven. In the twilight, too, we could see the
+faded plaster statue of St. Catherine Martyr, for whom she had special
+devotion. We felt, in that holy hour, that Joan, high in heaven, was
+pleased even with us; for we, too, had fought and bled for the same holy
+cause, the cause of Truth and Justice in the world, for which she had
+with the Greater Love offered the sacrifice of her life. How often, in
+that hallowed long ago, had the sun of early morning or the twilight
+glow of eventide found Joan here at prayer. In this sanctuaried Garden
+of the Lord grew the fairest Flower of Chivalry. Here did she receive
+the Bread of Life, the Wine that maketh Virgins; here, by frequent
+confession, was her soul kept fair and pure as the lilies of Paradise.
+
+Darkness had fallen over the village when we left the Church. A call at
+the Rectory informed us that Monsieur le Cure was absent, and would not
+return till a late hour. At the end of the street we found a dear old
+couple, living alone, who agreed to shelter us for the night. With what
+skill good Madame made ready that evening meal! Sitting in the square of
+light cast by the glowing fireplace, and with our shadows, to the tempo
+of crackling fagots, in rhythmic gyrations on the ancient walls, my
+driver and I watched her prepare it.
+
+First there was the pommes de terre to be peeled, washed and sliced to
+the exact size of centuries old French fry. Monsieur was permitted to
+assist her in this, and wielded the keen bladed knife with precision.
+Then there was the salad and the seasoning of it to just that degree of
+the "delicieux" the palate revels in. With the art, as it were, of a
+magician, she drew from a huge cupboard the most inviting piece of beef
+and proudly flourished it before our devouring eyes. Here was the
+makings of a "filet de boeuf" fit for Epicurius himself. In the center
+of the table was next placed the great round loaf of bread, neither
+wheat nor oats nor rye, but a happy combination of all and delightfully
+toothsome. Crowning all, the liquid amber of cafe-au-lait, which Madame,
+timing our needs to a nicety, poured at just the right moment.
+
+During the meal, we diligently inquired if any lineal descendants of the
+d'Arc family were to be found in Domremy. No, not one! No person of the
+name lived in the village; although most every girl and woman there bore
+the name of Joan!
+
+After the meal, and when all had retired, I made my way out into the
+moon-lit night. Domremy was sleeping, nor did it give thought of "the
+stranger within its gates." Back to the Church, and to the home of Joan,
+still standing beside it, I made my way. I revelled in the historical
+ensemble of it all; and my desire was to become so imbued with its very
+atmosphere, as to verily breathe it all my remaining life. In fancy I
+reviewed the story of her life like pages of a book, and its thrilling
+deeds and transcending achievements were made real before me.
+
+This very street was the Alpha of her public life; the market place of
+Rouen its Omega! Riding forth in the bitter cold of that February
+morning, 1429, with but meager escort and along three hundred miles of
+brigand-infested roads and trails, she traversed France to the court of
+Chinon. Convincing Charles VII of her divine vocation; throwing herself
+into the war; rallying the people to her standard; wounded in battle yet
+never wavering; animating veteran soldiers; bearing the brunt of the
+attack and shielding with her stainless bosom the heart of France.
+
+Her recompense? Abandoned by her king and by her countrymen, by the
+cruel path of flame she returns to God!
+
+The several hours following Mass, we passed in the home where she was
+born, and on the hillside where she toiled as humble shepherdess.
+Reverently, and in very awe of its beauty, we visited the magnificent
+Basilica the people of France have raised to her memory. The structure
+is but partially finished; and I urged the good Fathers there in charge
+to visit America some day and give its people opportunity to contribute
+to so worthy a cause.
+
+Returning to the front we found the "War Cross" which had arrived during
+our absence. Colonel Lenoncle wrote as follows:
+
+    "A Monsieur l'Aumonier McCarthy.
+
+    En appreciation de la belle action de Charite
+      qu'el est venie accomplir pour notre chere
+      terre de France.
+
+    P. Lenoncle, Col. Chas.
+    in Compagne."
+
+The above referred to services in Bois-le-Pretre.
+
+"Tempora mutantur et nos ubique in illis." It is only the things that
+God has made that change not. The moon, bathing in silvery sheen the
+village street, had made radiant, in that long ago, the face of Joan at
+prayer. The Meuse, softly flowing by, still voiced the echo of her
+dreams, and bore her spirit to the tideless sea.
+
+Nature had not changed; neither had the Author of Nature whose creatures
+are all men and whose ways are wise and just. For He whose "Mills grind
+slowly yet grind exceedingly small" is likewise He whose Master hand has
+written in this our own day, the illuminated Manuscript of her solemn
+Canonization.
+
+The golden fingers of next morning's sun were scattering incense of
+light over Joan's Altar as I began Mass. The lips of Old Glory kissed
+the Gospel side, while the tri-color of France was draped on the
+Epistle. A nun of the village answered the responses. Reverently I
+besought the Author of All that is Right and Mighty upon the earth to
+bless our President; to be light to his path, wisdom to his mind, and
+right hand to his endeavor. That rulers of earth might base their
+deliberations on the rock of the Divine; mindful, that "unless the Lord
+build the house in vain does he labor who would build it."
+
+On December fifteenth I wrote as follows:
+
+    Headquarters Seventh Division, American Expeditionary
+    Forces, France
+
+    Hon. Woodrow Wilson, President, American Embassy, Paris.
+
+    My dear Mr. President:
+
+    May I be permitted the honor of informing you that on Saturday
+    morning, December fourteenth, I said Mass on the Altar of
+    Jeanne d'Arc in her old church at Domremy, praying and
+    believing that God would bless and direct you, as of old He did
+    the Maid, as His chosen representative of Justice and enduring
+    Peace.
+
+        Most respectfully and devotedly yours,
+                          GEORGE T. MCCARTHY,
+        Senior Chaplain, Seventh Division,
+                          A. P. O. 793.
+
+On December twenty-fifth I received the following:
+
+    Rev. George T. McCarthy, Senior Chaplain, Seventh Division,
+    A. P. O. 793.
+
+    My dear Chaplain McCarthy:
+
+    The President directs me to acknowledge receipt of your letter
+    of December fifteenth and to thank you for it. It is indeed
+    gratifying for him to know that you are thinking of him and
+    praying for him especially in these critical times.
+
+        Very cordially yours,
+                 GILBERT CLOSE,
+        Confidential Secretary to the President.
+
+Christmas Day was memorable. A fall of snow gave festive atmosphere to
+our outpost homes. "Jip" carried me from Euvezin, where I said Mass for
+Headquarters troop, to Grey Hound, where I repeated the Sacrifice for
+the Signal Battalion. With the coming of the holiday the boys had been
+rehearsing an old-fashioned minstrel show, with boxing and wrestling
+matches as side attractions. A long rambling shack near Bouillonville
+had been secured for the entertainment, and its battered walls adorned
+with holly and cedar branches. The hearts of all were sad and pensive
+that Christmas Day, far overseas, and the entertainment, lasting through
+five hilarious hours, did wonders in the way of reviving depressed
+spirits.
+
+December twenty-ninth marked the "ne plus ultra" of my active service
+overseas! In an old shack on the hills, swept with rain and swarming
+with well meaning but annoying rats, I came down with the flu with a
+temperature of 103 degrees. Doctor Lugar, who had nursed me through the
+gas attack, shook his head and ordered me sent to Evacuation Hospital
+No. 1. Here I was delighted to meet my old friend Father Morris O'Shea
+of Buffalo, there stationed as Chaplain. A few days later I was sent to
+Base Hospital "51" at Toul. The Medical Staff ordered me from Toul to
+America, and on February first I arrived at St. Nazaire on Biscay Bay.
+My supreme joy here was in meeting my niece, Miss Honor Barry, who had
+served as an Army Corps nurse in Base Hospital 101, located at this
+seaport, during nine arduous months.
+
+On February ninth I sailed on the Manchuria, arriving in New York on
+February twenty-second. Reporting at General Hospital 28, Fort Sheridan,
+Ill., was thence ordered to the Army Hospital at Asheville, North
+Carolina. Six weeks in the ozoned hills of the Southland restored
+perfect health; and on May first reported for active duty at Fort
+Sheridan.
+
+With the memory of sweet Domremy still before us, we shall bring the
+humble record of service Over There to its close.
+
+In this period of valedictory may we be permitted a concluding
+reflection, projected in clear outline on the background of those
+thrilling days now forever over. That reflection, in silhouette, is
+this--the great crises of life--whether decisive of weal or of woe, are,
+to the soul of normal man, God impelling! In direct ratio as danger and
+death impended in the gloomy wastes of No Man's Land, all soldiers grew
+religious and turned instinctively to God. In the zero hour the profane
+grew silent and the curse died unuttered on his lip. All, all,
+_realized_ God! The trench became His sanctuary, the flaming front His
+Presence Light, the glow on the faces of dying comrades visualized the
+Gospel of His Greater Love.
+
+We needed God Over There, we need Him equally as much Over Here! Peace
+has its trials, its dangers, its lurking foes, its pitfalls, its hills
+of Pride to be conquered, its valleys of Despond to be overcome. The
+Rembercourt of Life lies before us. We survived _that_ attack--who shall
+survive Death's _final_ hill crest!
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREATER LOVE***
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