{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24889/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24889","id":"gutenberg_24889","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24889","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - American","Category: History - Warfare","Category: Religion/Spirituality","World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, American"],"text":"E-text prepared by Tamise Totterdell, Alicia Williams, and the Project\nGutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\nNote: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustrations.\n      See 24889-h.htm or 24889-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/8/8/24889/24889-h/24889-h.htm)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/8/8/24889/24889-h.zip)\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE GREATER LOVE\n\nby\n\nCHAPLAIN GEORGE T. McCARTHY,\nU. S. Army\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: CHAPLAIN McCARTHY\n\n(Before the Attack at Rembercourt.)]\n\n\n\n\nExtension Press\nChicago\n\nCopyright 1920\nby\nExtension Press\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    CHAPTER                                                    PAGE\n\n         Preface                                                  9\n\n       I Leave Home--Base Hospital No. 11--Camp Dodge            13\n\n      II Camp Mills--St. Stephen's, New York--Enter Army         21\n\n     III Camp Merritt--Leviathan--At Sea                         36\n\n      IV Brest--Ancey-le-Franc                                   46\n\n       V In Billets--Departure for Front                         56\n\n      VI Puvinelle Sector--Bois le Pretre--Vieville en Haye      83\n\n     VII The Greater Love                                        97\n\n    VIII Thiacourt--Aerial Daring                               104\n\n      IX Rembercourt                                            122\n\n       X Armistice Day--Gorz                                    141\n\n      XI Domremy--Home                                          148\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                                              PAGE\n\n    Chaplain McCarthy (Before the Attack at Rembercourt)\n                                                    _Frontispiece_\n\n    United States Unit No. 2--Blessing of Unit's\n    Colors at St. Stephen's                                     18\n\n    Sisters of Unit No. 2--The Only Sisters of the A. E. F.     26\n\n    Seventh Division Troops Boarding Leviathan at Hoboken       34\n\n    In Rue de Belgrade--Lull Before Battle                      42\n\n    Taps and Farewell Volleys for Our Heroic Dead               50\n\n    The Battle Swept Roadside Was Sanctuary and Choir           66\n\n    The Men Behind Our Mess at Bouillonville                    74\n\n    Our Dugouts Afforded Shelter and Habitation                 82\n\n    Thiacourt Under Shell-Fire                                  90\n\n    Doctor Lugar and Aids Working in a Gas Attack Near Jolney   98\n\n    The Wounded Were Carried to the Nearest Shelter            114\n\n    St. Joan of Arc                                            122\n\n    Where St. Joan of Arc Made Her First Communion             130\n\n    In the Church at Domremy                                   138\n\n    \"Greater Love Than This No Man Has\"                        146\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nTo him who will but observe the genesis and development of moral\nqualities, whether in the individual Man or in the collective State,\nthere finally comes, with compelling force, the conviction--God is in\nHis world and has care of it! Out of the slime of things mundane, out of\nthe very clay of Life's daily round of laughter and tears, loving and\nhating, striving and failing, living and dying--the romance of Peace,\nthe Tragedy of War--God is still creating men and nations and vivifying\nthem with souls Immortal. Providence but looks upon the water of the\ncommonplace, and behold! it becomes wine of Cana!\n\nThe recent world war, hallowed by the very purity of motive and\nintention with which our American Manhood took up its burden, led us\nnationally unto those heights of moral perspective and spiritual vision\nknown only to him who toils upon the hill of Sacrifice. No Spartan of\nAthenian fields, no Regulus of Rome or Nathan Hale, was nobler, higher\nmotived or less afraid than our own heroic American Doughboy!\n\nInto the shaping and formation of his moral character many forces\nentered; and, not least of these, the Military Chaplain. This man--and\nevery sect and denomination generously gave him--was pre-eminently\nGod-fearing, thoroughly patriotic, unselfishly charitable, untiringly\nzealous, and whole of soul devoted to duty.\n\nMine was the privileged and sacred duty, as Vicar General of the\nFourteen States comprising the Great Lakes Vicariate, of knowing\nintimately and directing the splendid work of these heroic soldiers of\nthe Cross. The inspiration I drew, both from these priests and from\ncontact with their work and written reports, whether in cantonments,\ncamps, hospitals, transports, battleships, or on the flaming front of\nthe battlefields, I shall ever treasure and recount with pride.\n\nArchbishop Hayes, appointed by the Holy Father \"Chaplain Bishop\" in\ncharge of all priests in Military Service, and who conducted the vast\nresponsibilities of that most important work with such eminent success,\nhas declared our Chaplains to be \"the Flower of the American\nPriesthood.\" One of such is Father McCarthy, Author of this book \"The\nGreater Love.\" The same zeal that prompted him to follow the boys in\nKhaki and Blue Over There--making himself one with them in hardship,\ndanger and wounds for the sake of their immortal souls, now impels him\nto the writing of this Book. \"The Greater Love\" is a religious message\nwhich teaches that as man needed God in war--with a crescendo of need\nreaching full tide in the front trench--even so he needs him in Peace.\nThe message is clothed in the narrative of adventure--personal\nexperiences of the Author--and every page an epic of absorbing interest.\nNo one is better qualified to bring us message from Over There.\n\n                                 RT. REV. MSGR. WM. M. FOLEY, V. G.\n\n\n\n\n\"THE GREATER LOVE\" BY GEORGE T. MCCARTHY, Chaplain, U. S. Army\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nLEAVE HOME--BASE HOSPITAL NO. 11--CAMP DODGE\n\n\n\"Very well then, Father, you have my permission and best wishes.\"\n\nHow the approving words and blessing of good Archbishop Mundelein\nthrilled me that memorable morning in 1918. The rain-washed freshness of\nApril was abroad in Cass street; and the soft breeze, swaying the\ncurtain of the Chancery window where he was seated, brought incense of\nbudding tree and garden.\n\nPatiently he had listened, while I presented my reasons for wishing to\nbecome a war Chaplain. How, obedient to that call to National Service\nwhich is\n\n    \"The pride of each patriot's devotion,\"\n\nmillions of our boys were exchanging the shelter of home and parish\ninfluence for the privation and danger of camp and ship and battlefield.\n\nTo accompany them, to encourage them, to administer to their spiritual\nand moral needs, to fortify their last heroic hours with \"Sacramenta\npropter homines,\" here was a Christlike work pre-eminently worthy the\nbest traditions of the Priesthood.\n\nEven as, earnestly, I pleaded my case, I bore steadily in mind\nrecollection of that lofty patriotism and brilliant leadership which had\nalready made Chicago's Archbishop a foremost National Champion. It was\nbut yesterday that the Secretary of the United States Treasury had\ncalled, personally, to thank and congratulate him on his inspiring\npatronage of Loan and Red Cross Drives.\n\nIn the sympathetic glow of his face I read approval even before hearing\nthe formal words of permission.\n\n\"Moreover, Father, I will appoint an administrator at once, to care for\nthe parish during your absence. You will receive, through Father Foley's\noffice, letters duly accrediting you to Bishop Hayes, Chaplain\nOrdinary, and the National authorities.\"\n\nA fond ambition, long cherished, was about to be realized! I had, of\ncourse, been doing something of a war \"bit,\" co-operating with\nparishioners, and town folks like Mayor Gibson and Doctor Noble, in the\nvarious patriotic rallies and drives. Father Shannon of the \"New World\"\nthought so highly of our city's efforts as to visit us and eloquently\nsay so at a monster Mass Meeting of citizens. \"Do you know, George,\" he\nremarked that night as he marched beside me in the street parade, \"if I\ncould only get away, I would gladly go as a Chaplain.\"\n\nThen I told him my secret, how I had filed my war application some\nmonths before, and had been meanwhile seasoning my body to the\nout-of-doors and practicing long hikes.\n\nBut a single cloud now remained in the radiant sky of dreams--the\nthought of parting! Ten years of residence in so Arcadian a place as\nMyrtle Avenue, and in so American a town as Harvey, engender ties of\naffection not easily to be sundered. Then, too, the school children, how\none grows to love them, especially when you have given them their first\nSacraments, and even joined in wedlock their parents before them. Of\ncourse for the priest who, more perhaps than any other man, \"has not\nhere a lasting city,\" whose life is so largely lived for others, and\nwhose \"Holy Orders\" so naturally merge with marching orders, the\nleave-taking should not have been so trying. Preferable as would have\nbeen\n\n    \"No moaning of the bar\n    When I put out to sea,\"\n\nthe parting that night with the people in the school hall, and again,\nthe following morning at the depot, was keenly painful--a grief,\nhowever, every soldier was to know, and, therefore, bravely to be\nendured.\n\nHow sacred and memorable were the depot platforms of our beloved country\nin war time! Whether the long, smoke stenciled, trainshed of the\nMetropolis, or the unsheltered, two-inch planking sort, of the wayside\njunction; they saw more of real life, the Tragedy of tears and the\nComedy of laughter, than any stage dedicated to Drama. There, life was\nmost real and intense. The prosaic words \"All Aboard\" seemed to set in\nmotion a final wave of feeling that surged beyond all barriers of the\nconventional--the last pressure of heart to heart and of hand to hand;\nthe last response of voice to voice; the last sight of tear dimmed eye\nand vanishing form, as the train rumbled away beyond the curve, leaving\na ribbon of black crepe draped on the horizon.\n\nFirst impressions, we are told, are most lasting. Arrival at Camp Dodge,\nIowa, the following morning and subsequent meeting with the officers and\nenlisted men of Base Hospital No. 11, made an impression so agreeable\ntime itself seems merely to have hallowed it.\n\nAssociation with the soldierly and gracious Colonel Macfarlain, the\nsplendid Major Percy, the energetic Captain Flannery, together with\nDoctors Roth, Ashworth, Carter (the same T. A. Carter whose skill later\nsaved the lives of poisoned Shirley and Edna Luikart), Lewis, Shroeder,\nand others, became at once an inspiration and pleasure. Most of these\ngentlemen had been associated with either St. Mary of Nazareth or\nAugustana Hospitals, Chicago; and had patriotically relinquished\nlucrative practices to serve their country in its need. Words cannot too\nhighly praise, nor excess of appreciation be shown our gallant\npublic-spirited doctors and corpsmen, who, whether here or overseas,\nmade every sacrifice to build up and maintain the health of the largest\nArmy and Navy of our history.\n\nThe personnel of enlisted men, too, with Base 11, was exceptionally\nsuperior, coming from some of the best families of the Middle West.\nAnderson, McCranahan and the two Tobins of the famous Paulist choir were\nthere, and what wealth of vocal melody they represented! Talbot, Bunte,\nand Leo Durkin of Waukegan; Dunn, Farrell, Lewis, Talbot--these, and\nfive hundred others like them, were the splendid fellows to whom I now\nfell heir.\n\nCamp Dodge, like many another Cantonment, the War Department miraculously\n\"raised\" over night, was a vast school, pulsating with martial throb.\nHundreds of the brain and brawn of the far-flung prairies were arriving\ndaily, and being classified, drilled and seasoned into efficient soldiers.\n\n[Illustration: U. S. UNIT NO. 2--BLESSING OF UNIT'S COLORS AT ST.\nSTEPHEN'S.]\n\nPoets have to be born; but soldiers, in addition to qualities inbred,\nhave to be made; and while the process of making was invariably\nlaborious and often discouraging, it usually repaid patient effort. The\nraw recruit of yesterday became the pride of the line today!\n\n    They call me the \"Raw Recruit,\"\n      The joke of the awkward squad,\n    The rook of the rookies to boot,\n      And a bumpkin, a dolt and a clod;\n    But this much I'll plead in defense\n      I seem popular with these chaps,\n    For they keep me a'moving thither and hence\n      From Reveille to Taps.\n\n    Though no doubt I have had them for years,\n      For the first time I'm _sure_ I have feet!\n    When the Corporal said \"Halt\" it appears\n      That my feet thought he ordered \"Retreat\"!\n    And my eyes o'er who's blue ladies 'd rave,\n      And called them bright stars of the night,\n    Now simply refuse to behave\n      And mix up \"Eyes Left\" with \"Eyes Right.\"\n\n    I'll admit that I'm no hand to brag;\n      But the fact is I've won a First Prize!\n    'Twas not that I have any drag,\n      Nor excel in the officers' eyes.\n    It was close, but I won, never fear;\n      My home training helped me, I guess;\n    I beat every man about here;\n      At being the first in, at \"Mess\"!\n\n    My Corporal admits I'm not bad\n      Through the night, when I'm buried in sleep!\n    It's waking that I drive him mad,\n      And cause very demons to weep.\n    But Rome was not built in a day!\n      And once I get used to my suit,\n    I'll just force all these pikers to say\n      \"He once _was_ a raw recruit!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCAMP MILLS--ST. STEPHEN'S, NEW YORK--ENTER ARMY\n\n\nGiven sufficient time and mellowing, the butterfly eventually merges\nfrom the chrysalis; and it was with rapturous delight early June saw us\nexchange Camp Dodge for Camp Mills, Long Island! We were now on the\nshores of the Atlantic, and would soon tread the deck of our ship of\ndreams--a transport bound for Over There!\n\nEnter, now, the \"season of our discontent!\" It all grew out of the\nnature of the Commission I was holding. It was not at all satisfying.\nCommission in the Red Cross, I discovered, did not authorize front line\nservice; it would hold a person somewhere in the rear area; this would\nnot do; I determined to enter the regular Army.\n\nA kind Providence helped bring this about! Instructions were abruptly\nreceived from the War Department classifying all Red Cross Chaplains as\nmere civilians, denying them the right to sail with the Units they had\naccompanied East!\n\nFully fifteen other such Chaplains were then at Camp Mills waiting\nsailing orders. They, too, had left their home towns and positions fully\nexpecting service overseas. Receipt of this heart-breaking news induced\nmany to give up the work and return home, utterly discouraged. It only\nserved to hasten my entrance into the regular Army.\n\nGoing at once to the Rectory of St. Stephen's, East 29th St., New York,\ndirection and cordial welcome was there received from one of God's\nnoblest of men, Bishop Hayes. Appointed by the Holy Father to the\nspecial direction and care of all Chaplains in the National service,\nthis brilliant and big-hearted Prince of the Church was father and\nfriend to all.\n\nFather Waring, the Vicar General, and the vicars and assistants in the\nOrdinariate and parish of St. Stephen's co-ordinated in their own\ncharming manner with the vastly important work and cordial hospitality\nof their devoted chief.\n\nWithin a week the physical and mental examinations had been successfully\npassed and commission received as First Lieutenant in the National\nArmy.\n\nWhile those days at St. Stephen's were of surpassing pleasure in the\nrare companionship afforded, they were characterized, too, by a round of\nstrenuous activity. There was the necessary visit to Fifth Avenue, where\nthe good ladies of the Chaplain's Aid, doing the same great good in the\nEast that Father Foley's Aid Society was doing in the West, generously\nsupplied the necessary Mass and Sacramental equipment. Then, too, the\nfarewell Musical by the Paulist vocalists of Base 11, given at Garden\nCity; and for which Mrs. Charles Taft kindly acted as hostess. Genuine\nregret marked that unavoidable parting. To co-labor with such splendid\nofficers and men was truly a privilege; and to have served, even\nbriefly, with the gallant \"11\" that wrought so worthily overseas, is an\nhonor proudly ever to be cherished.\n\nIt was during these days an event occurred which the \"Parish Monthly,\"\nof St. Stephen's, was good enough to record:\n\n\"On Tuesday, July 23, Unit No. 102, Overseas Nursing Corps, gathered in\nour church, to ask, in truly Catholic fashion, God's blessing on their\njourney across the Atlantic. Ten 'Cornet' Sisters of Charity are in\ncharge of this Unit, which is almost wholly Catholic in its membership\nand which has been recruited from hospitals conducted by these Sisters\nin the South and West.\n\n\"At six-thirty, Chaplain George T. McCarthy, U. S. A., of Chicago,\ncelebrated Holy Mass. A congregation which numbered, besides the Unit,\nour own Sisters of Charity, many overseas Nurses attached to other units\nand a goodly quota of our parishioners was present. All received Holy\nCommunion. At the conclusion of the Mass, the \"Star-Spangled Banner\" was\nsung, and after he had blessed a large American flag--the colors of the\nUnit--Father McCarthy bade the nurses farewell.\"\n\n\nSERMON\n\n\"In this holy hour and place, while Jesus, the gentle Master, still\nlingers in your Eucharistic hearts, we are met for a two-fold\npurpose--to bless the starry banner of the free--the colors of your\nUnit--and to wish you Godspeed on your heroic way.\n\n\"Here within these historic walls of St. Stephen, the Proto-Martyr,\nwhose every stone and pillar and vaulting arch is richly storied with\nthe memories of surpassing men and women and their splendid\nachievements--here, as it were, on the shore of the far-flung billows of\nthe Atlantic, you are gathered from the length and breadth of our\nbeloved country. With all the sacred courage of an Agnes of Italy, an\nUrsula of England, a Joan of France, you have, during the past few days\nand weeks, been called upon to bid your loved ones at home a fond and\ntender farewell, as you go to follow the trail of the Crimson Cross to\nservice overseas.\n\n\"Our first and most holy purpose here, indeed, is to bless this flag\nthat is to lead you on your way; but most truly may the question be\nasked: 'Can the flag of our beloved Country be blessed more fully than\nit already is?' Its red is consecrated by the blood of countless heroes;\nits white is stainless and unsullied as the Truth and Justice for which\nit has forever stood; its blue is of the mid-day heavens, lofty in its\npurpose to point the way of freedom to all mankind, that 'Government of\nthe people, for the people, and by the people' may not perish from the\nearth!\n\n\"As we unfurl it to the breeze, it speaks with an eloquence irresistible\nand it tells a story of heroism and patriotism unsurpassed. It brings\nmemory of Lexington and Concord; it tells of suffering at Valley Forge,\nand of Victory at Yorktown. It was waved in triumph on the hills of\nGettysburg; and the blue of Grant and the gray of Lee entwined it\nforever in the reunion of Appomattox. Dewey carried it to victory in\nManila Bay, even as Shafter and Joe Wheeler did at San Juan and\nSantiago.\n\n\"When a military Power overseas attacked the cause of universal freedom\nin the world, Pershing with his boys in khaki, and Benson with his boys\nin blue, carried that flag to the forefront of the battle line; and\ntoday, side by side with the banners of England, martyred Belgium,\ngallant Italy, and unconquerable France, it waves defiance to the foe.\nIt kisses the poppies of Flanders and to the lilies of France it\nwhispers 'Lafayette, we are here.' In asking, therefore, the God of\nTruth and Justice to bless this flag, we offer Him no indignity. As He\nloves the right, He must love Old Glory, and therefore we ask Him to\nre-adorn it with victory.\n\n[Illustration: SISTERS OF UNIT NO. 2--THE ONLY SISTERS OF THE A. E. F.\n\nStanding from Left to Right: Sisters Valeria, Catherine, De Sales, M.\nDavid, Angela, Agatha, Florence. Left to Right Seated: Sisters Lucia,\nChrysostom, Mariana.]\n\n\"Ours, too, is the performance of another duty, it is to speak the\nbriefest, yet the hardest of all words to utter, the word of final\nfarewell. Had I the gift of eloquence, I would pour into that word, as\ninto a casket of alabaster, all the love, all the affection, all the sad\nsweet smiles, all the 'God be with you until we meet again,' of your\nloved ones back home. Through the gates of memory you have left ajar, I\nseem to see your old home town--the streets guarded by sentinels of\nmaple, oak, and elm; the cottage of white, with lattice of climbing\nroses; and in the door, her dear face looking sweetly sad yet bravely,\ntowards you, the mother who kissed you as you turned to go. Tenderly she\nhung the service flag in the window; bravely will she wait and pray\nbeside the vacant chair.\n\n\"Many of you have come from the dear old Southland; and there seems to\ncome to me now, floating down the valley of dreams, the song old mammy\nused to sing:\n\n    \"'I hear the children calling\n    I see their sad tears falling,\n    My heart turns back to Dixie\n      And I must go.'\n\n\"Yes, my dear Sisters and nurses, you must go. There is need of you over\nthere. Our Country's heroes are there, bleeding and dying, and they need\nyou, beloved angels of mercy, to bind their wounds. In the cities, the\nacademies and hospitals from which you came, there are those who would\nlove to be with you on this mighty errand of National Service. The\nProvidence of God has chosen you, however, for the work, and not them.\nAs of old, on the shores of Galilee, the God of Mercy commissioned His\nchosen followers to carry into the broad world His blessing, even so\nfrom these shores of the Atlantic He is sending you forth on your\nmission of love.\n\n\"From yonder tabernacle, He stoops to each one of you and sweetly\nwhispers: 'My daughter of the crimson Cross, of the faithful soul, of\nthe clean heart, and skillful hand, I am sending you over there as My\nown representative. I know you will not fail Me, and that even unto\ndeath you will be true to the Cross and Flag that go before you!' The\nNation is proud of you and you are the holiest and best offering of our\nCountry to the cause.\n\n    \"And thus be it ever when freemen shall stand\n      Between their loved home and wild war's desolation.\n    Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land\n      Praise the Power that has made and preserved us a nation.\n    Then conquer we must, since our cause it is just,\n    And this be our motto, 'In God is our Trust!'\n    And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave\n    O'er the land of the free and home of the brave.\"\n\nAs Base Hospital 102 is vested with the proud distinction of comprising\non its roster the only Sisters accompanying the American Expeditionary\nForces, it may be here permitted to anticipate and insert a brief\naccount of its heroic personnel and their splendid service.\n\nIts Chief Nurse was Sister Chrysostom Moynahan of Mullanphy Hospital,\nSaint Louis, Missouri; Sister Agatha Muldoon, Sister Angela Drendel,\nSister Catherine Coleman, and Sister Florence Means were from the\nSisters of Charity Hospital, New Orleans. Sister De Sales Loftus and\nSister David Ingram were from the City Hospital, Mobile, Ala. Sister\nLucia Dolan, St. Mary's Hospital, Evansville, Ind. Sister Mariana Flynn,\nSt. Joseph Hospital, St. Joseph, Mo., and Sister Valeria Dorn, St.\nVincent Hospital, Sherman, Mo. The ninety nurses were graduates of the\nvarious nurses' schools connected with the hospitals in charge of the\nSisters of Charity.\n\nThey took the oath of allegiance July 2, 1918, and reported at New York\non July 4. There they were equipped by the Red Cross with uniforms for\noverseas duty and were given the necessary military training by an army\nofficer.\n\nThe officers and enlisted men, of whom there were thirty-six of the\nformer and two hundred of the latter, in charge of Dr. Dana, reported at\nFort McHenry, and when they were ready the Sisters and nurses joined\nthem there. Its chaplain was the Rev. Godfrey P. Hunt, O. F. M., of\nWashington, D. C.\n\nThus completed, the unit sailed August 4 on the Umbria, which ship was\nafterward lost with Italian troops in the Adriatic. The second day out\nthe work of the unit began, when fifteen men, who had been struggling\nwith the waves in a row boat for twenty-four hours, were picked up. They\nbelonged to the O. A. Jennings, oil tank, which had been torpedoed. They\nwere given treatment by the unit, which turned back with them for a\nday's journey; then, given supplies, they were started toward land,\nwhich was in sight. The gratitude of the rescued men amply rewarded the\nunit for its work of mercy.\n\nThe Umbria was without convoy, and though in one night alone it received\nfourteen warnings of submarines, it threaded its perilous way in safety,\nand on August 18 reached Gibraltar, where a stop of three days was made.\nThe officers and nurses were given shore leave, and put in their time\nvisiting places of interest.\n\nOn August 21 the start for Genoa was made, which port was reached on the\n27th. The American Ambulance Corps, with a band of music, met the unit\nat the boat, and Italian officers went aboard to greet the Americans in\nthe name of the Italian Government. The Sisters and nurses were taken\nto the Victoria Hotel, while the commanding officer, Colonel Hume of\nFrankfort, Ky., and Lieutenant Colonel Dana, went to Rome to secure a\nplace at the front for the base hospital.\n\nThe place selected was Vicenza, about fifteen miles from the firing\nline. It was located in the Rossi Industrial School, which in olden days\nhad been a Dominican convent.\n\nHere for seven months the Americans carried on their work of mercy and\nduring that time three thousand patients were cared for, of which number\nonly twenty-eight were lost, and they were victims of the influenza,\nwhich was very severe in that locality. It was a remarkable record, the\nlowest loss of any of the American units. The 332d regiment of Ohio boys\nwas in the section. The Ambulance Corp, composed chiefly of college men,\ndid excellent work. The Sisters found the Italians very grateful, and\ntheir admiration for the Americans was great. There were many gas cases,\nand while hundreds had their eyes badly burned, such was the success\nattending the treatment they received, not one patient suffered the loss\nof his sight. A great deal of good was also done by the Sisters and the\nchaplain in bringing back neglectful soldiers to their religious duty.\n\nOn several occasions air raids threatened the town, but as the Italian\naviation force was superior to that of the enemy, no injury was done,\nalthough earlier in the year Vicenza had suffered severe bombardments.\n\nAs the work increased a second hospital was opened for Italians for\nmedical cases exclusively. Besides Italian and American soldiers,\nBritish soldiers were also treated at the base hospital.\n\nThe signing of the armistice was joyfully celebrated in Vicenza, and so\nkeenly did the Italian people recognize that the ending of the war was\nlargely due to America, it was a common occurrence for American soldiers\nto be caught up and carried in triumph through the streets by the\nemotional Italians.\n\nAs their work grew lighter, leaves of absence were given the\nhard-working Sisters and nurses. During one of these the Sisters visited\nRome, and had the happiness of assisting at the Mass of the Holy Father\nand receiving Holy Communion from him. Later they were received in\nprivate audience by the Pope. The Sisters had also the pleasure of\nvisiting the mother-house of their Order in Paris. It was while there\nthey were ordered to proceed to Genoa for embarkation.\n\nThey sailed from Genoa March 21 for Marseilles, where they were joined\nby several American officers and nurses who had served in France,\narriving in New York April 4.\n\nWhile they were the only Sisters with the A. E. F., still they found\neverywhere abroad Sisters doing their share of work. One band of Italian\nSisters of Charity walked sixty-five miles with a retreating force. They\nwere in the war since its beginning. This is not only true of the\nItalian Sisters, but also of the French and Belgian, and presumably of\nthose in the enemy countries. The American Sisters were glad of the\nopportunity to give their service in this war, in which their country\nwas engaged, as they have done their part in the other wars of the\nRepublic.\n\n[Illustration: SEVENTH DIVISION TROOPS BOARDING LEVIATHAN AT HOBOKEN.]\n\nI had made known to good Bishop Hayes my decided preference for a combat\nforce, and have always felt he favored me, for, on July 30, the\nmessage from the War Department came: \"Report at once to Officer\nCommanding Seventh Division, Camp Merritt, New Jersey.\"\n\nGood Father Dinneen, the Bishop's Secretary, added to my joy by\nventuring opinion, that the \"Seventh\" was about to sail! He also\ngenerously equipped me financially--\"Just a little pin money for you,\"\nas he charmingly expressed it.\n\nWhat magnificent men these priests of St. Stephen's and the Ordinariate!\nHow worthy to be associated with the Bishop who so kindly, so wisely,\nand so well cared for the Chaplains in the National service.\n\nReporting at once to Camp Merritt I entered upon my Army duties.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCAMP MERRITT--LEVIATHAN--AT SEA\n\n\nThe gallant Seventh Division, destined to render a service well worthy of\nOld Glory, was then commanded by Brigadier General Baarth with Col. W. W.\nTaylor, Jr., Chief of Staff, and Col. John Alton Degan, Adjutant.\n\nIt comprised the 34th, 55th, 56th and 64th Regiments of Infantry; the\n6th and 7th Regiments of Field Artillery; 19th, 20th and 21st Machine\nGun Battalions, 10th Field Signal Battalion and Divisional Sanitary and\nSupply Trains, with a complete field equipment of 32,000 men.\n\nThe Chaplain's Corps of the Seventh comprised Rev. Fathers Martin and\nTrainor, and Rev. Messrs. Cohee, Rixey, Hockman and Evans. Fathers Gwyer\nand LeMay joined in France. All these Chaplains rendered a brave and\nexcellent service, meriting the respect and confidence of officers and\nmen alike.\n\nDeparture of that mighty fighting force from Camp Merritt was deeply\nimpressive. At the midnight hour of the First Friday in August, Mass was\nsaid for the last time, and hundreds of the boys received Holy\nCommunion. Within an hour all were on the march, under full pack, along\nthe country road, leading to the Palisades of the Hudson.\n\nThe night was densely dark, and grimly each soldier trudged along,\nguided only by the bobbing pack of the comrade in front of him. Chill\ngray dawn saw the head of the column emerge from the hills at a secluded\npoint on the Jersey shore, where waiting ferry boats were boarded, which\nconveyed us to the wharf of the Leviathan at Hoboken.\n\nHow thrilled we were to find this giant of all the seven assigned to\ncarry us \"Over There!\" Nine hundred feet long, one hundred feet wide,\nthirty-six feet draft and nine stories deep! Like some fabled monster of\nthe sea, which well her weird camouflaged sides suggested, she opened\nher cavernous jaws and received as but a morsel thirteen thousand men.\n\nHere was our first contact with the gallant Navy--here did the mighty\ntide of khaki gold merge with the deep sea blue of heroes.\n\n    \"Columbia loves to name\n      Whose deeds shall live in story\n    And everlasting fame.\"\n\nLeaning nonchalantly on the rail of their mighty ship, the Jackies, all\nperfect specimens of young American manhood, quietly watched us march\naboard. We were as novel to them as they to us, yet what confidence they\ninspired! Curiously yet kindly they looked us over, approvingly observed\nthe long orderly lines of our glittering rifles stretching away through\nthe dim sheds, and seemed to say, \"You are worth while fellows!--we'll\ntake you over all right, all right, for our little old Uncle Sam!\"\n\nTo quarter, feed, and sleep 32,000 men; to carry them across 3,000 miles\nof angry pathless sea, where lurked the deadly mine, and prowled, as\npanthers of the deep, the submarines--this was the task assigned to the\nLeviathan and our convoy ships, the Northern Pacific and the Northland.\nHow well our superb Navy \"carried on\" not only for us but for seventy\ntimes our number, let the most brilliant pages of seafaring annals\ntell!\n\nWith perfect co-ordination between our Army and the ship authorities,\nall troops, equipment, and provisions were aboard within ten hours; and\npromptly at three o'clock the following afternoon the Leviathan swung\nout from her pier on the North River and headed seaward.\n\nIn serried ranks, silent and still as at attention, the troops lined\nboth sides of the upper and lower decks. As at the funeral of Sir John\nMoore \"not a drum was heard,\" for who can cheer at the thought of dear\nones left behind, with the kiss of fond farewell still lingering in\nloving memory on the lip, with the soldier's requiem echoing through\nlonely hearts:\n\n    \"Farewell, mother, you may never\n      Press me to your heart again;\n    When upon the field of battle\n      I'll be numbered with the slain.\"\n\nAs we passed down the city front, every building, on both the New York\nand Jersey sides, burst into color; handkerchiefs signaled a last\nfarewell; and out of the mists of our tears seemed to rise a mighty\nrainbow, spanning ship and receding shores, and spelling in letters of\nheavenly hue, \"God be with you till we meet again.\"\n\nWith destroyers ahead, astern, and on the beam, two hydroplanes circling\nand paralleling above, and a solitary observing balloon hovering over\nthe Long Island shore, our ship and convoys stood boldly out to sea.\n\nWe were now in the war zone, easily within range of hidden mines and\ntorpedoes, and, like the charger who scents the battle from afar, we\nthrilled and were glad with the thought of daring deeds before us.\n\nThe ship Chaplain was good Father McDonald, Captain United States Navy,\none of the most beloved and notable figures of the war. Every evening at\nthe sunset hour he would go to the bridge. The Commander of the\nLeviathan, Captain Bryan, together with his staff, would be there\nassembled; and, as the last rays of the sun sank beneath the waves,\nevery soldier and sailor on board would stand rigidly at attention and\noffer prayer as Father McDonald would raise his hand in absolution and\nbenediction.\n\nHow near God seemed in that vast, horizon-wide cathedral of the sea! Its\nvaulting dome more radiant than St. Peter's sculptured prayer; its\naltar, clothed with the lace of ocean foam; its pavement strewn with\nsilvery sheen; its sanctuary light the candelabra of the stars. \"I will\nlead thee into solitude and there I will speak to thy soul.\" God,\nEternity, and Things Divine were here made real; and to each lonely boy\nwrapped in blanket on the dark cold deck, there came the message that:\n\n    \"Far on the deep there are billows\n      That never shall break on the beach;\n    And I have had thoughts in the silence\n      That never shall float into speech.\"\n\nA town of 13,000 population, ashore, is one thing--at sea, it is\nsomething else! First of all the question of clothing, most young men\nback home are fastidious--here all must wear the life preserver style\ntrimmed a la canteen, which means our canteen, filled with water ration,\nmust be our inseparable companion--very much attached to us, as it were.\n\nOn shore, juvenile America spends his evenings downtown; here, he must\nremain at home--indoors, if you please, not even deck promenades being\npermitted. Again, to the average young man, the disposition of cigarette\nbutts is of little concern--m'lady's best parlor centerpiece, polished\nfloor or cherished urn usually preferred; woe betide the luckless Buddie\nwho denies his poor dead fag decent burial in the ubiquitous spit kit!\nTo throw butts, gum wrappers, matches or anything but glances overboard,\nclew to the vulture eye of the lurking submarine, was a positive court\nmartial offense. It was beginning to be evident that Sherman was right!\n\nYet all went well; and that indomitable humor which ever characterized\nour boys, which rose superior to all hardship and danger, and smiled in\nthe very face of Death, made tolerable, if not happy, those seven\nthrilling days at sea. \"Some swell place\" would be Buddie's comment on\nthe tossing waves of mid-Atlantic; and usually having been well, and not\nused to see sickness, he was easily prone to seasickness!\n\n[Illustration: IN RUE DE BELGRADE--LULL BEFORE BATTLE.]\n\nOne day private Barry, 64th Infantry, came to me. \"Chaplain, I am in\ngreat trouble! Before leaving Camp Merritt my best girl and her\nmother called to see me off, came from away back home to say good-bye.\nNow I am not satisfied with the details of that parting; I am just crazy\nabout the girl, and what worries me is the thought that, in the\nexcitement of leaving, I may not have made it perfectly clear to her how\nmuch I really love her. Now, Chaplain, I want you to write her a letter,\nmake it good and strong, and tell her how much I love her. Will you do\nthat?\"\n\nWhat else was I to do? I was his Chaplain, his big brother, friend and\npal. His comrade in arms, climbing with him even then the road to\nCalvary's hill! \"Sure thing--leave it to me, old man--but say, tell me,\njust how did you act and what did you say to her in parting?\"\n\nHe told me. \"Well, that looks pretty convincing; I think she saw you\nloved her all right--however, I will write the letter provided you help\nme.\"\n\nWe sat down on a coil of rope and together wrote the letter,\ncollaborating in the most unique, most compelling, missive ever written\non board the Leviathan!\n\nHow he treasured that letter! How carefully he guarded it, how\nprayerfully, in due time he followed its journey from Ponteneuson\nBarracks, Brest, back to Chicago. Was it successful? Here's to you,\nBarry, old top, now happily married, in your snug little home in old\nChi--and my best regards to Mrs. Barry.\n\nOne day in mid-ocean, with a fresh gale blowing abeam, and the three\ntroopships rolling and throwing spray high in the air from a heavy\nwhite-capped sea, the cry rang out \"man overboard from the Northern\nPacific!\" A soldier had slipped on the watery deck; and, before his\nmates could reach him, was overboard.\n\nAlarm was at once sounded, lifebuoys thrown toward him, the vessels came\nabout and circled diligently around, but no sign was seen of him. His\nuntimely and tragic death deeply affected us all; and though the ocean\nwas his grave and the spume of the sea his shroud, his memory abides\nwith us in the sanctuary of our prayers.\n\nOn the morning of the sixth day, a flotilla of destroyers bore down on\nus. So apparently from nowhere did they come, we were tempted to believe\nthey rose from the depths of the sea. How thrilled we were to see those\nsix greyhound terrors of the submarine take position around us--one\nahead, one astern, and two on each beam.\n\nIt was now full speed ahead on a zigzag course. We were in the most\ndeadly submarine infested zone of the ocean. Only yesterday the\nSusquehanna had been torpedoed in these very waters, and, no doubt, the\nsame evil periscopes were watching us now from beyond yonder kopje of a\nwave! Our temples throbbed poundingly; our throats grew dry, our eyes\nstared straight ahead--the same psychic phenomena we were to note in\nourselves, even more accentuated, later in the trenches. What a prize we\nwould be--to sink the largest ship afloat, with the greatest human\ncargo, 13,000 souls, that ever put to sea!\n\nIt was, as it were, an old-time, nerve-racking ninth inning at the White\nSox grounds! A clean single will tie, a double will beat us. Uncle Sam's\nNavy is in the box; Von Tirpitz's best sticker is at the bat. Two\nstrikes have been called. What will the next be?\n\nA sudden hush grips the watching thousands. Here it comes--the batter\nswings with terrific force--\"Strike three, you're out!\" and proudly our\ngallant Armada sweeps into the welcoming and sheltering harbor of\nBrest!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nBREST--ANCEY-LE-FRANC\n\n\nVive la France! With all the emotion that must have thrilled the heart\nof Lafayette, sailing up the Chesapeake to Washington's assistance at\nYorktown, we gazed on the rugged coast of Brittany. Our convoy alone, if\nyou will, more than compensated, in point of _number of troops_ at\nleast, for the 20,000 who wore the fleur-de-lis at the surrender of\nCornwallis. Mere _number_ of troops, however, was not the question--it\nwas all we then needed. France would, no doubt, have sent us more in\n1783, even as we would have sent more to her in the world war, had there\nbeen the need.\n\nBrest was the only harbor along the western France coast with sufficient\ndepth of water to accommodate the Leviathan; and, inside her breakwater,\non Sunday, August 10, we dropped anchor.\n\nThis harbor and city, with a history rich in recorded and traditional\nlore, antedated the Christian era. The Phonecian, the Carthaginian, the\nRoman, and the Frank, had each, in turn, left upon its sheltering bay\nand rock hewn hills the impress of his generation.\n\nApart and aloof from the beaten paths that lead from London to Paris it\nheld, through the centuries, \"the even tenor of its way.\"\n\nHere had the painter ever found color and form for his canvas; the\nromanticist, theme and character for his story. In the deep-voiced\ncaverns of these towering cliffs lived the Pirates of Penzance. The\nsolitude of yonder St. Malo inspired Chateaubriand with his immortal\n\"Monks of the West\"; and Morlix, just east of Brest, was, in days of\npeace, the dwelling place of peerless Marshal Foch.\n\nBy nightfall all the troops had been ferried to the wharfs and formed by\ncompanies in the railroad yards along the water front.\n\nPromptly at five o'clock, with headquarters troop at the head of the\ncolumn, Colonel Taylor and all officers on foot, we began our march to\nPonteneuson Barracks. Each of us, on leaving the Leviathan, had been\nrationed with a sandwich. We had hoped to dejeuner on the wharf before\nbeginning the march, but such was not our good fortune--the single\nsandwich was all the food--or drink for that matter--we tasted until ten\no'clock the following morning.\n\nThe march of eight torturous, hill-climbing, miles, while exhausting in\nthe extreme, was not without interest. It brought us within seeing and\nspeaking distance of the inhabitants. A group of little boys and girls\ntrudged along at our side singing what they no doubt believed to be our\nMarseillaise, \"Cheer, cheer, the gang's all here.\" The shrill voices of\nthese petit garcons expressed our only bienvenue to France!\n\nTheir elders, in their quaint Breton Sunday costumes, sitting on\ndoorsteps or grouped along the roadsides, viewed us interestedly, but\nquietly and without demonstration. Although it was the highway used by\nthousands of American troops passing through Brest, we heard no word of\ncheer, nor saw a single banner of welcome in those eight weary miles of\nback torture under full packs.\n\nAt nine o'clock we arrived at Ponteneuson. Well might this place be\ncalled, at least at that time, the vestibule of hell! If there is any\nboy of the A. E. F. who has anything good to say--or the slightest\nhappy memory to recall--of Ponteneuson, I have yet to meet him.\n\nIt was officially called a \"Rest Camp\"--where we might recuperate from\nour long confinement on shipboard. But if lying hungry and cold on the\nfog-drenched rocks of Brittany, with a chill wind sweeping up from the\nneighboring ocean, freezing the very marrow of one's aching bones, be\nconsidered rest, it was a kind entirely new to us.\n\nLying near me on the chill ground that night was Major Winthrop\nWhittington of Cleveland, Ohio, one of the most efficient, kindest and\nwittiest of our officers, and who later served as our Chief of Staff.\nSomeone had just remarked that Napoleon used frequently to come to\nPonteneuson. \"That explains,\" quietly remarked the Major, \"the\nthree-hour sleep theory held by Napoleon--(sufficient for any man);\nthree hours is all any man could sleep in such a hell of a place.\"\n\nHow we survived that night and the following six days and nights can\nonly be ascribed to that merciful dispensation of God which has carried\nus through many a trial. Our habitation was now the open field, drenched\nin a dust storm that blew constantly. We sat on the roadside and ate our\nmeager fare, making joke and jest of our utter lack of comfort.\n\nImmediately adjacent to us was the guard house, a prison camp, pitched\nin the open field, and surrounded by barbwire fencing. The only shelter\nthese wretched boys had--they were all Americans--were holes they had\nburrowed in the ground and little shacks they had constructed from odd\npieces of boards they had found. Through the days and nights the chorus\nof their angry, cursing voices was borne to our ears on the howling\nwind.\n\nOne day we were hurried into formation and sent past the reviewing\nstand. President Poincare of France was paying us a call. His motor car,\nescorted by an outriding troop of French cavalry, and heralded by shrill\nbugle calls, came whirling into our midst on the wings of a dust cloud.\n\n[Illustration: TAPS AND FAREWELL VOLLEYS FOR OUR HEROIC DEAD.]\n\nAlighting in front of the improvised reviewing stand, he immediately\nbecame the center of an animated group; the khaki of our camp\nofficers mingling with the blue, red and gold of the French. No time\nwas lost by the little man in black suit and cravat in starting the\nreview. The long lines of our doughboys, their rifles, with fixed\nbayonets, flashing and dazzling in the rays of the setting sun, swept by\nlike some rushing, splashing Niagara torrent. The review was evidence,\nat least, as to our number, stamina and equipment.\n\nThe following morning, a full hour before the dawn, we were quietly\naroused, ordered to roll our blanket packs and get into line. Glorious\nnews! We were on the move, starting for our training area and thence\ninto the fighting lines! Within forty minutes we were on the march,\nleaving Ponteneuson, as we had entered it, under cover of the night.\n\nOur immediate destination was the railroad yards at Brest, where we\nwould find our trains. Those wretched days of exposure, lack of food and\nsleep greatly weakened many. Chaplain Kerr, who had entered the service\nwith me at Governor's Island, New York, died of pneumonia, and was\nburied at Brest. Although frequent halts for rest were made, many of\nthe troops fell out and were carried to the First Aid Stations.\n\nHow shall I describe the cars that carried our boys from the sea coast\ntowns to the fighting fronts of France? Each car, plainly marked \"Hommes\n20, Chevals 8,\" offered equal accommodations for 20 men or 8\nhorses--especially were they equipped for the comfort of horses. It was\nsans air brake and sans spring; and when the engineer made up his mind,\nwhich he often did, to stop that train, he did so in a manner the most\nalarming to aching limbs and weary eyes. \"Let's go,\" the soldiers' war\ncry, rang out along the creaking, swaying, grinding train, and we were\noff on our 400-mile journey to the training area assigned to our\nDivision somewhere in France.\n\nHow we enjoyed, at least, our eyesight on that journey! The appeal to\nthe eye was constant--the color and form of scenes unfamiliar offering\nviews of compelling attraction and delight. Each unadorned car window\nand door became the frame of pictures not a Millet nor a Rembrandt could\ndepict.\n\nThe villages, their sturdy houses of gray stone and red tile roofs;\ntheir streets, transformed from \"routes\" to \"rules,\" where country roads\ncame to town; their shopping squares stirred to enterprise by signs of\n\"Boulangerie,\" \"Boucherie,\" \"Cafe\" and \"Menier Chocolat.\" Towering over\nall, the never-failing church, its lofty, cross-surmounted tower, giving\nto the scene tone and character.\n\nRolling fields, aglow with harvest gold of wheat, oats and rye;\norchards, teeming with luscious fruit ready to be gathered; rivers,\nthreading their silvery way through meadow and wood; splendid roads,\nbinding the beauteous bouquet of landscape with ribbons of silky white.\n\nThe outstanding feature of that three-day journey was the apparent utter\nlack of enthusiasm on the part of a supposedly demonstrative people.\n\nWaiting at crossroads or railway stations, they would look at us in that\nsame quiet, observing manner we had noticed at Brest. We passed through\nMorlix, home city of Foch; Versailles, and Sennes; and at no place did\nwe hear so much as a single cheer. There were no welfare workers at any\npoint, and if \"Cafes\" were numerous, we always paid well for our wine,\nbread and \"cafe au lait.\"\n\nComing from our own beloved America, where welfare workers greeted and\nfeted us at every station, this apparent lack of hospitality more\nnoticeable was difficult to understand. Possibly their impoverished\ncondition forbade the refreshment part; but cheers and vives are\npossible, even to the poorest!\n\nTuesday morning, August 19th, found us paralleling the picturesque river\nYonne, which waters the vine-clad valleys of Burgundy. The sound of big\ngun firing had reached us in the early dawn, and we were all a-thrill\nat the thought of mighty things impending. Vaguely the words \"Toul,\"\n\"St. Mihiel,\" \"Verdun,\" and \"Metz,\" had filtered back from the flaming\nfront; and, like hounds tugging at the leash, we were eager for the fray.\n\nAt high noon we reached the quaint old town of Ancey-le-Franc,\nDepartment of Yonne. Here we left the train and drew up in formation\nalong the roads and back through the lanes and fields. On the platform\nof the \"gare\" our gallant Division Commander, Brigadier General Baarth,\nattended by his staff, who had come on ahead of us by way of Paris,\ngreeted us warmly and reviewed the troops. We were the first American\nsoldiers to enter this area, and the village folks of Ancey-le-Franc,\nShacenyelles, Fontenoy, and Nuites sur Yonne, welcomed us to their\nhumble homes, barns and fields where we were to be billeted, with simple\nand cordial hospitality.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nIN BILLETS--DEPARTURE FOR FRONT\n\n\nStepping from the train into the streets of Ancey-le-Franc was verily\nperforming a miracle--with a single stride we were out of the twentieth\ncentury and into the eighteenth! We were among our contemporary\nancestors, far on the road to yester century. Not a building under at\nleast one hundred years of age--not a street but trodden by the\nCrusaders of St. Louis--the church of St. Sebastian dated 1673; and the\nChateau, founded in 1275, by that hardy old Knight of Malta, Duke de\nClermont Tonnere.\n\nWith characteristic good humor, ingenuity and tact, officers and men\nadjusted themselves to their unusual surroundings, merging into the\nvarious billets allotted to them, along lines of least resistance. By\nnightfall Buddie owned the town! Meriting it by sheer force of good\nnature, gentlemanly deportment, and a willingness to follow the adage of\nthe ancient poet: \"Si fueris Romae Romano vivite more.\"\n\nMine was the rare good fortune of being assigned to No. 10 Rue de\nBelgrade. Here, through many generations, had stood the house of\nBarnicault. Michel Barnicault, present head of the family, welcomed me\nmost cordially. He felt it indeed an honor to have as his guest Monsieur\nle Chaplain, Americaine Soldat! In the evening he would sit in front of\nhis venerable home, smoking his pipe and looking with pride at my\nChaplain flag of blue and white that hung above the door.\n\nPetit garcon Andree, aged six years, had always considered his\nGrandfather Michel the greatest man in the world; then I came into his\nlife; and whether it was I, or the American bon bons I lavished on him,\nor the overseas chapeau I let him strut about in now and then, I\ncompletely won his little heart. Darling little Andree in far off\nAncey-le-Franc, now eight going on nine, I salute you!\n\nMonseigneur le Cure of the village church welcomed me cordially. Daily I\nsaid Mass on the altar of St. Anne.\n\nAs we might go into the front trenches now any day, the Chaplains'\nministerial work grew apace. \"Be ye always ready you know not the day\nnor the hour.\" Father Martin was with the 56th Infantry at Molsme;\nFather Trainor with the Machine Gunners at Ceneboy-le-Bas; and I, with\nall other Divisional Units, with Headquarters at Ancey-le-Franc. Three\npriests among 32,000 men, 48 per cent of whom were Catholic. The other\nChaplains were distributed: Chaplain Cohee, Christian, with the 34th\nInfantry. (Mr. Cohee won the Distinguished Service Medal for gallantry\nunder fire at Vieville-en-Haye.) Chaplain Hockman, Lutheran, 55th\nInfantry. Chaplain Webster, Episcopalian, 7th Engineers. Chaplain Rixey,\nMethodist, 64th Infantry. Chaplain Evans, Baptist, Sanitary Trains.\n\nAt this time we gave an old-fashioned Mission in the village church. A\nchoir was organized from the Headquarters Troop, and each evening we\nwould have Rosary, Sermon and Benediction. A special memorandum, signed\nby Colonel Degan, setting forth the purpose and advantages of the\nMission, was posted throughout the District. The villagers likewise\nattended and the church was always filled. At this time, casting all\nfear aside, I boldly plunged into my first public speaking in French! I\nfelt that grand-pere Barnicault and petit Andree would at least be on my\nside in case of a riot. Much to my delight the populace greeted my\nattempt approvingly and showered me with compliments.\n\nOn Sundays I would say Masses at six and eight for the troops, preaching\nin English. Assisting at the ten o'clock Missa, Cantata Parochialis was\nalways a source of devotion and unusual interest. Promptly at 9:30 the\ntower bells, in triple chime, would ring out, echoing near and far, o'er\nmeadow and hill. By path and trail and through the cobbled streets would\ncome the people--old men and women, white with the snows of many\nwinters; middle-aged women invariably clothed in the black of\nwidowhood--France had then been bleeding and dying three\nyears--fair-cheeked, dark-eyed modest maidens--type of Evangeline of\nGrand-Pre--handsome little boys and girls, the kind with which Raphael\nframes his Madonnas. Kneeling for a little prayer at the grave sides in\nthe church yard--pleasantly exchanging with neighbors the \"bon jour\" and\nthe \"bonheur\"--they make their way into the church, up the aisles\nchiseled by Time itself, to the pew generations of their name have\nworshiped in.\n\nMass is beginning. At the head of the procession, emerging from the\nSacristy, marches the Master of Ceremonies, a venerable man of\npatriarchal mien, clothed in quaint cassock of black velvet, richly\ntrimmed with silver braid, resonantly striking the stone pavement with\nofficial staff and responding in aged, yet pleasing voice to the\nGregorian Chant of Celebrant and Congregation. Handsome little boys--all\ngarcons are handsome--in acolytical splendor of purple and cardinal,\nwith the daintiest of \"calottes,\" come singing their way into your heart\nin a way to delight our own Father Finn of the Paulist choristers. The\nvillage cure--Monsignor of the Diocese of Sens--in those rich full tones\nthat centuries of congregational singing have given to France, gives\nvoice to the Ceremonial Beauty \"ever ancient yet ever new.\" Very little\nneed, there, for books; most young and old sing Introit, Credo, Preface\nand Agnus Dei from memory, artistically exact in pronunciation,\nexpression and tempo.\n\nIf there was distraction for our troops at all, it was perhaps at the\ncollection. Not that the giving of their centimes or francs was\ndistracting, rather was it the manner of Collection a la Francais. It is\ntaken up by the most handsome young ladies of the congregation--our\nAmerican Tag Days were perhaps suggested by it. Marching before the\nMademoiselles and striking sharply on the pavement with his staff,\nsolemnly comes the aged Master of Ceremonies. No prayers so absorbing\nnor slumber so profound, but the anvil clang of his staff will arouse. A\nhand embroidered silken bag is handed to you in the most charming\nmanner. What Buddie could resist such appeal?\n\nIt was during our days in this area I was appointed Division Burial\nOfficer--undertaker for the entire Division. The order, duly bulletined,\nat first shocked me--what qualifications had I for a work so unusual?\nHowever, I promptly accepted it for reasons two-fold: First, it is not\nthe part of a soldier to question the wisdom of orders, and, second,\nanything and everything done for Old Glory is an honor. Jealously I\nraided the archives of the Personnel Department at Headquarters, my\n\"towney\" Captain Brown of Grand Haven, Michigan, helping me, and studied\nall Orders and Bulletins bearing on the subject, \"how to identify,\nregister and bury the dead.\" The responsibility was indeed weighty and\nthe work vast--to organize, equip and drill burial details; to bury our\nown dead, all enemy dead and horses; to assemble personal effects and\nidentification tags found on the persons of the deceased; to bathe,\nclothe and prepare bodies for burial; to furnish coffins, gravediggers,\nfiring squads and buglers. Daily report of all burials was to be made to\nthe Graves' Registration Service at Chaumont. It can easily be realized\nhow important this work became as we grew nearer the fighting front. On\nbattlefields, drenched with deadly gas, under fire and amid conditions\nand scenes most revolting and appalling, the burial parties worked,\nusually in gas masks for protection against odors and fumes.\n\nPhysical exhaustion, occasioned by exposure at Brest, the fatiguing\njourney across France, and the forced march of many kilometers, under\nfull pack, from rail heads to billets, accounted for the numerous\npneumonia cases that now appeared. In the unsettled, formative condition\nof things, we were not prepared to fully cope with the situation. Our\nnearest United States Base Hospital was at Dijon, sixty kilometers\ndistant; and to this point it became necessary to send such of the\nseriously ill as could be safely transported. Many, however, were too\nweak to undertake such a journey; and, as no suitable buildings were\navailable, the situation became truly distressing. There was not a\nsingle Army corps nurse or welfare worker of any sort within miles of\nus, and the critical nature of it all can be more readily imagined than\ndescribed. Our doctors and corpsmen of the Sanitary Regiment did\neverything possible and rendered admirable service; but what could even\nthe best intentioned do without equipment? On September 5th, I took mess\nwith two of our best physicians, Captain O'Malley of Mercy Hospital,\nChicago, and Lieutenant Poole of South Carolina. One week later I buried\nthe Lieutenant at Longre, a victim of pneumonia, following an illness of\nbut four days.\n\nFour French Sisters of Charity now came most providentially to our\nassistance. The unjust and stupid Association Laws of France had,\nshortly before the war, forbidden them the right of teaching. Later they\nhad returned and converted the old building, their former school, into a\nhospital. With its four spacious classrooms and pretty garden in the\nrear, it easily lent itself to the purpose. Under the able direction of\nDoctor Thiery, who was at that time mayor of the village, and whose\nsoldier son had been killed at St. Quentin, emergency medical and\nsurgical cases received there a care that, no doubt, saved many lives.\nOur own Army doctors were at once incorporated in this improvised\nhospital's staff, with corpsmen assigned to duty in its wards.\n\nHow wonderfully inventive and skillful Love becomes under the\ninspiration of Religion! The humble Sisters who, in days of peace, had\ndedicated their virgin lives to Education, a spiritual Work of Mercy,\nnow, under the stress of war, directed those same self-sacrificing\nenergies to Nursing, a corporal Work of Mercy, sanctioned by Him who is\nthe world's first Good Samaritan. Though not able to utter a single\nEnglish word, their kindness spoke eloquently for them in those\nnumerous little ways a gentle woman has of assuaging pain and soothing\neven \"the dull cold ear of Death.\" The Mother Superior, by simply\nremoving two or three pieces of furniture, converted her office into the\nhospital morgue; and here, assisted by the corpsmen, I prepared the\nbodies of my dear boys for burial. How my heart ached to see them die!\nIn the loneliness and seclusion of those whitewashed classrooms, far\nremoved from any sight or association that spoke of Home; to see the\nlight of their lives burn out, and the flowers of Spring displaced by\nthe snows of Winter!\n\nTo me their deaths, amid the uninspiring surroundings of that wayside\nhospital, took on a grandeur and sublimity all surpassing.\n\nFar easier, indeed, would it have been for them to die on field of\nbattle, with cheer of comrades following their flight of soul. That ward\nwas a braver field! For there they died bereft of all that inspires, and\nwith no pomp or thrill of war to make glad their chivalrous souls.\n\nThe village carpenter was never so busy. Reinforcing his working staff,\nhe set speedily to work building coffins. These he made of plain pine\nboards, staining them to a dull brown, and furnishing with each a cross\nand marking stake. Thirty-two of these it was my sad duty to provide and\ndistribute during our stay in Burgundy.\n\nWe soon outgrew the old churchyard at Ancey-le-Franc; and the good Cure\nand Monsieur le Docteur Thiery of the local hospital, set aside for us\nground for another cemetery just outside the village. We enclosed this\nwith a white picket fence and felt confident, when we marched away, that\nthe graves of our brave boys there resting, would always be tenderly\ncared for by the devoted people.\n\n    \"On Fame's eternal camping ground\n      Their silent tents are spread,\n    And Glory guards with solemn round\n      The bivouac of the Dead.\"\n\nAt the place of honor, just inside that \"God's Acre,\" I buried Sergeant\nOmer Talbot of Kansas City, Kansas, one of the bravest and most beloved\nof Headquarters Troop, who received the last Sacraments, and died in my\narms.\n\n[Illustration: THE BATTLE SWEPT ROADSIDE WAS SANCTUARY AND CHOIR.]\n\nOur burials were always religiously attended by the villagers. A French\nveteran would go through the streets sounding his drum and giving early\nnotice of the burial of an American soldier. The people would gather at\nthe church, the farmer from the field, the artisan from the shop, all\ndressed as for Sunday. The cure, the mayor, the councilmen, the town\nmajor, all would be present. On foot, bearing flowers, they would follow\nthe military cortege to the cemetery. There, following the Benedictus,\nthe mayor would give an impassioned address, expressing the profound\nappreciation of France for the service and sacrifice of the gallant\nAmerican soldiers. His closing words, repeated and echoed through the\ncemetery by the multitude, would be, \"Vive l'Amerique! Vive Pershing!\nVive Wilson!\"\n\nAmong the most devoted attendants at our funerals were Monsieur and\nMadame Moidrey and their beautiful daughter Annette, a girl of sixteen\nyears. In rain and shine they came, always with flowers most beautiful\nto place upon coffin and grave.\n\nReturning one day from the cemetery, Monsieur respectfully addressed\nme--\"If it would please Monsieur le Chaplain to ever visit our home\n(they lived just inside the village in a quaint old manor house I had\noften admired), we would consider it an honor indeed to entertain\nMonsieur le Chaplain and his friends,\" then naively adding, as if by way\nof further inducement, \"we have the only piano in the village.\"\n\nNow Sergeant Eddie Quinlan, 55th Infantry, who came from South Carpenter\nStreet, Chicago, was one of my best pals. He was then attending the\nField Signal Battalion School at Shacereyelles, two kilometers away. I\nsent word to him, directing him to report at my billet the following\nevening accompanied by the ten handsomest doughboys, besides himself, in\nhis platoon. At the appointed hour and place, the Buddies were\nfaithfully on hand; and need I add, all were from Chicago? How proud I\nwas of them, stalwart huskies, well groomed, brown as berries, and with\nmuscles of iron.\n\n\"Fellows, if you have no other engagement for this evening, would you\ncare to accompany me to the Moidrey residence, honored guests of the\nfamily? They have a piano; and I might add, a most charming daughter of\nsixteen summers.\" Here they nearly mobbed me! \"Would they go?\" \"Other\nengagements!\" \"Say, Father, you are not kidding us, are you?\" etc., etc!\nBy way of information permit me to here observe that these boys had been\nsleeping in fields then for two weeks. They had not seen the inside of\nan honest-to-goodness home, nor sat at a dining-table with real\ntablecloth, napkins or plates, since they landed in France. Neither had\nthey heard a piano, nor been the guest of any lady, young or\nold--well--since they left Camp Merritt. Their over-flowing cup of joy,\nat this alluring prospect, can therefore easily be imagined.\n\nAs we no doubt would be invited to sing, we first rehearsed several\npopular songs, holding forth with a gusto that raised the roof, even of\nthe ancient and sturdy house of Barnicault. To the air of \"Old Kentucky\nHome,\" Quinlan tried out our latest, A Song of Home:\n\n    You may sing of Erin's Shannon flowing softly to the sea,\n      The Thames where it passes London town;\n    You may boast the bonnie Clyde where it mingles with the tide,\n      And the Seine with its romance of renown.\n\n    You may paint in blue the Danube or the far Italian Po,\n      But of all the streams enshrined in memory,\n    Is the good old Mississippi, that wherever I may go,\n      Is the dearest one in all the world to me.\n\n    CHORUS:\n\n    Then sing the song, my comrades,\n      O we'll sing this song today,\n    That wherever we may roam, we'll sing a song of home\n      For the dear old Mississippi far away.\n\n    You may boast of Irish Nora, or sweet Bessey of Dundee,\n      The charm of England's Geraldines so fair;\n    You may choose the maids of Belgium or Ma'm'selles of Picardy\n      All famed for grace and beauty everywhere.\n    But if you will but listen, and leave the choice to me\n      I'll point with pride to dear old U. S. A.\n    Where there's maidens fair to see, sweet and dear as Liberty\n      And never cloud o'ershadows beauty's day.\n\n    CHORUS:\n\n    Then sing this song, my comrades,\n      O we'll sing this song today,\n    That wherever we may roam, we'll sing a song of home\n      For the maidens fair back home in U. S. A.\n\nA trench mirror four inches by six hung on the wall of my billet. There\nwas a mad scramble for a last facial and tonsorial inspection; for each\nfellow boldly made his boast, \"Just watch me, Bo, make the hit of the\nevening with Ma chere Miss Frenchy.\"\n\nDown the village street in column of twos we made our way.\n\n    \"All gentle in peace and all valiant in war,\n    There never was Knight like the young Lochinvar.\"\n\nAs we went singing carefree, secretly my heart was sad. As a Staff\nOfficer I knew, although the boys did not, that this was to be their\nlast evening party; that on the morrow they were to leave for the front\nline trenches; that many weary days, weeks and months of stern, bitter,\ndeadly realities lay just before them; and I wanted them to at least\nenjoy this one last evening of home-spun, joyful valedictory.\n\nThe Moidrey residence stood back a little from the road, protected by a\ntall iron fence of artistic design. As we drew near, my Minstrel Boys\nprudently \"soft pedaled\" their singing, so as not to over-alarm our kind\nhost. Responsive to our sounding the huge brass, lion-headed knocker on\nthe massive gate, the house door opened. Monsieur, Madame and\nMademoiselle Annette came down the winding garden path to admit and\nwelcome us.\n\nIntroductions followed, formal, gracious and charming. Quite true it was\nthat our kindly hosts could not speak a word of English, nor the\nBuddies of French, at least of French fit to grace the occasion. There\nis a language, however, that is not of the tongue, but of the heart. It\nis expressed in the flash of a love-lit eye; it is felt in the pressure\nof a kindly hand. It is spoken and understood the world over and needs\nno interpreter. This language my boys spoke very fluently; and our\ncharming hosts did them the honor to understand.\n\nIn the parlor was the wonderful piano, brought all the way from Paris.\nObligingly, charmingly, Mademoiselle Annette responded to our profuse,\noverwhelming invitations to play first. Sweet and innocent she looked\nsitting there; her cheeks fair as the roses in her garden, her eyes\nmodestly aglow with star light, her raven hair in a single braid of\nample length, neatly adorned with a red ribbon and bewitchingly tossed\nover her shoulder. Never was a young lady better guarded at a piano;\nfive stalwart doughboys on either side, jealously turning the pages of a\nsheet of music that was upside down. Artistically she played and the\nloud applause that greeted her would have made envious our own Fanny\nBloomfield Zeisler.\n\nOur turn came next. The polite piano from Paris fairly groaned beneath\nthe burden of our song. It was not used to such boisterous treatment.\nBravely it struggled on \"The Long, Long Trail A-winding.\" It galloped\n\"Over There.\" It wailed bitterly \"I'm Sorry, Dear,\" and it did its\nbravest to \"Keep the Home Fires Burning.\"\n\nWhen, finally, the barrage of music lifted, we made our way to the line\nof attack at the spacious dining-table our hosts had meanwhile spread.\nHow good it seemed to sit at a regular table, with tablecloth, napkins\nand silverware! How delicious too the sweetbreads, the salad, the\nfromage; and crowning all, the exquisite service of sparkling wine,\nvintaged in the long ago in these famed Burgundian valleys.\n\n[Illustration: THE MEN BEHIND OUR MESS AT BOUILLONVILLE.]\n\nCall to Quarters sounded at 8:45 and \"Tattoo\" at 9:00. It was now time\nto go. Cordially each boy thanked our gracious hosts. \"And should I live\na thousand years I'll ne'er forget.\" Reverently, gallantly, devotedly,\neach said bon jour to darling Annette. To each she represented\nwomanhood--beautiful, modest, lovable. Each saw visualized in her, as it\nwere, his own mother, sister, sweetheart, back home. Would he ever see\nhis own loved ones again? God only knew. And when the last good-bye\nwas said, and the door slowly closed and we walked away into the night,\nthe bugle call of \"Taps\" plaintively sounding through the quiet streets\nfound sad and mystic echo in our souls.\n\nOur last day in Ancey-le-Franc dawned chill and rainy. I breakfasted in\nthe old Chateau with Senior Chaplain of the A. E. F., Bishop Brent,\nEpiscopal Bishop of Eastern New York Diocese, who had journeyed over\nfrom Chaumont to visit us. A thorough gentleman and efficient officer\nwas the good Bishop; and naught but the best and most cordial good will\nhas ever characterized our relations.\n\nIt was but a few days subsequent to his visit that I received from\nGeneral Pershing the special orders making me Senior Chaplain of the\nSeventh Division and brevet of Captaincy. For this honor I have ever\nbeen grateful to Bishop Brent and our gallant Division Commander General\nBaarth.\n\nAlthough our sojourn with the Burgundians had been brief, the conduct of\nofficers and men had won universal respect. Genuinely sad the villagers\nwere to see us fall in, that rainy afternoon, under marching orders. We\nhad just been equipped with gas masks; and for the first time wore our\nprized chapeaus, the steel helmets.\n\nSad was the house of Barnicault! Petit Andree followed me about, weeping\nconstantly. Madame prepared her best omelet and cafe-au-lait and\nMonsieur opened his most prized bottle of Burgundy. I left with them\nmany odds and ends the zealous merchants back home in the States had\nthoughtfully recommended, but which stern Army regulations decried for\nfront line use. Trunks were left behind; and all we needed we carried in\nour ever-faithful packs. With a last blessing to the dear old couple,\nkneeling sobbing at my feet, a last hug from Andree, whose fond little\narms I had to forcibly release from my neck, I put on my helmet,\nshouldered my pack and was gone!\n\nThe rain fell in torrents; and quickly I took position in the long,\nwaiting line. We marched at once, taking the road to Neuite-sur-Yonne;\nand far on our way the old church bells called sadly after us in their\nbenison of last farewell. We never returned to Ancey-le-Franc; but to\nits beloved inhabitants we still live, for,\n\n    \"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.\"\n\nWe reached our Rail Head, the main line to the regions of\nMeurthe-et-Moselle, at nine o'clock; and struck camp in the yards and\nfields for the night. As the night was chill and our camp sufficiently\nsecure from observation, fires were kindled by the various companies.\nGathered in their cheering circles of warmth and glow, the boys beguiled\nthe hours preceding Taps, with jest and song. They sang of love and war\nand God; and through all their melody, as a golden thread, could be\ntraced the thought of home and of a Great Tomorrow! Gradually, as glow\nof sunset paling in the west, the fires burned low; and out of dying\nembers rose shadowy forms that beckoned weary eyes to the land of\ndreams.\n\n    To each sleeping soldier boy\n    Magi dreams bring gifts of joy;\n    Sweet and pure as mother love\n    Brought by angels from above.\n\n    Dreams of home across the sea\n    And of scenes loved tenderly,\n    As he left them yesterday\n    When he turned and marched away.\n\n    Dreams of mother at the door\n    Standing as in days of yore,\n    Calling him to come from play\n    At the closing of the day.\n\n    Dreams of maiden, boyhood friend,\n    Down the road beyond the bend,\n    Where the trees made welcome shade\n    Trysting place for boy and maid.\n\n    Where he told her of his love\n    Pure and true as stars above,\n    And she answered with her eyes\n    Beautiful as Paradise.\n\n     *     *     *     *     *\n\n    Dream on, soldier boy of mine,\n    May sweet memory entwine\n    Love that thrills with hope that cheers,\n    Wakening day with yester years!\n    May sweet morrow's dawning beam\n    Hallow and make real thy dream.\n\nAt midnight as I lay wrapped in my blanket beside the fire's expiring\nembers, Colonel Degan came to me and said, \"I am leaving you, Chaplain.\nGood-bye and the best of luck.\" He was on his way to another sector; and\nalthough I have never seen him since, I still recall him as a splendid\nsoldier and a devoted friend.\n\nAt Units the following morning, I said Mass and gave the Sacraments to\nquite a number of the boys. Among these I recall Machine Gunner Brady of\nthe 34th Infantry, brother of my friend, Father Brady, of St. Agnes\nChurch, Chicago.\n\nMeanwhile the waiting trains had been boarded and promptly at noon we\nrolled away into the mysterious Northeast. How good it seemed to be once\nmore on the move! The utmost caution was now to be observed--no lights\non the train at night, not even a headlight on the engine. Softly the\nboys sang,\n\n    \"We don't know where we're going,\n    But we're on our way.\"\n\nIn monotone the steel rails seemed to plaintively reply,\n\n    \"Art is long and Time is fleeting,\n      And your hearts though stout and brave,\n    Still, like muffled drums, are beating\n      Funeral marches to the grave.\"\n\nOur afternoon hours were given something of a thrill in watching the\nevolutions of a half dozen planes, skirmish escort men of the air,\nflying high and wide covering our movements. We were now on the division\nof road operated by our own gallant 13th Engineers, of which my friend,\nSergeant McDowell of Blue Island, was Locomotive Inspector.\n\nNight fell; and the long troop trains like monstrous serpents creeping\non their prey crawled steadily, silently forward into the abysmally\nblack unknown. Slower and more uncertain they moved, feeling their way;\nand at midnight came to a final stop at the near approaches to No Man's\nLand. Quickly we detrained and took cover in a near-by forest; the empty\ncars trailed off rapidly to the south; and dawn found neither a car nor\na soldier in sight. All that day we remained hidden in the shadowy\nsolitudes of Bois l'Evque on the banks of the Moselle.\n\nBeautiful was this softly flowing river, mirroring azure skies and\nradiant in the colorful glow of early autumn. How hard to realize that\ndeath lurked in the quietude of its borders; that Man had chosen this\nbosom of shade, tuneful with the voice of sweetly calling birds, as a\nfitting shambles to slay his fellow men!\n\nIf day for the soldier was for rest, night was for the march; and a new\ndawn found us in the sheltering woods of Gonderville on the Toul-Nancy\nhighway.\n\nTurquoise, palest violet, tender green and gold, the country lay before\nus. Then, even as we watched from covert, our ears made acquaintance\nwith a new and ominous sound. From an infinite distance the morning\nbreeze from the north carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now\nregular as the muffled rolling of drums, now softly irregular with\nintervals of stillness. It was the dominating monotone of cannonading.\nNo need to tell the boys what it meant!\n\n\"Guess we're in time for the big show all right,\" Buddie quietly\nremarked; and from that moment an expression overspread his countenance\nand a note crept into his voice I had not noticed there before. It was\nnot one of nervousness, but of seriousness; a clearer vision and\napprehension of big manly things henceforth to be done.\n\n\"When I was a boy I lived as a boy; but when I became a man I put away\nthe things of boyhood and acted the part of a man.\"\n\n_Boys_ went _into_ the trenches, but _men_ came _out_ of them!\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: OUR DUGOUTS AFFORDED SHELTER AND HABITATION.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nPUVINELLE SECTOR--BOIS LE PRETRE--VIEVILLE EN HAYE\n\n\nGallant Pershing was even then maneuvering his masterly all-American\noffensive in the San Michel. Our Seventh Division, with the 28th on the\nleft and the 92d on the right, now reached the high full tide of martial\nresponsibility; merging from the reserve into the attack; and taking its\nplace with the Immortal Combat Divisions of proud Old Glory.\n\nThe front line sector, which that night we took over, extended in a\ngeneral westerly direction from north of Pont a Musson on the Moselle\nriver to Vigneulles--a distance of ten kilometers.\n\nApproximate positions found the 55th Infantry at Thiacourt, the 64th at\nVieville, the 37th at Fay-en-Haye, and the 56th at Vilcey-sur-Trey, with\nMachine Gun Battalions distributed equally among them. During September,\nDivision Headquarters was at Villers-en-Haye; moving forward in echelon\nto Noviant and Euvezin October 24th.\n\nAlthough Villers-en-Haye was mostly in ruins, the Sacristy of the\nvillage church was in good shape, and this I at once occupied. On the\npreceding Sunday, good Father Harmon of Chicago had said Mass in this\nchurch, as a note, fastened to its front door, announced.\n\nThoroughly tired, I spread my blanket on the floor and fell quickly to\nsleep. I dreamed I was tied to a railroad track with a train rushing\ntowards me. With a start I awoke, just as a siren voiced shell came\nscreaming across the fields, bursting at the foot of the hill on which\nthe church stood.\n\nThe gas alarm was at once sounded and every trooper sought refuge in the\ndugouts. It was then half-past eight. At four-minute intervals and with\nthe most deadly regularity these shells came at us for four\nnerve-racking hours.\n\nBoom! You could hear it leave the eight-inch howitzer six miles away,\nthen in a high tenor pitch, it rushed toward you with a crescendo of\nsound, moaning, wailing, screaming, hissing, bursting with frightful\nintensity apparently in the center of your brain. Falling here, there,\nand everywhere in the ruins and environs of the village, mustard gas,\nflying steel and mortar, levied cruel toll on six boys, whose mangled\nbodies I laid away the following afternoon at Griscourt under the hill.\nOne of these, I now recall, was Corporal Donald Bryan of the 7th\nEngineers, a most handsome and talented young man who, before the war,\nhad won fame in the field of movie drama.\n\n\"Where were you last night?\" inquired gallant Colonel Cummings of\nMissouri, our Machine Gun Regimental Commander.\n\n\"In the sacristy,\" I replied.\n\n\"The worst possible place for you!\" he exclaimed; \"you would find it far\nsafer in a dugout.\"\n\nI preferred the sacristy, however, for its convenience to the altar,\nwhere I could say daily Mass, and so won my point.\n\nChaplain and burial work had been meanwhile growing tremendously. Burial\ndetails to be organized, equipped and dispatched far and wide along the\nfront; conferences with Chaplains; forwarding to them of Departmental\nOrders; receiving their weekly reports, and compiling these in daily\nreports to the Graves Registration Service; with monthly reports to be\nprepared for Bishop Brent at Chaumont, Monsignor Connolly at Paris, and\nArchbishop Hayes at New York.\n\nAt this time welfare workers joined us and we had thirty Y. M. C. A.\nsecretaries under Rev. Mr. Todd; eight American Red Cross secretaries\nunder Mr. Kolinski of Chicago; six Salvation Army lady secretaries under\nAdjutant Mr. Brown, and ten Knights of Columbus secretaries under Mr.\nMcCarthy of Kansas City, who joined us at Bouillonville.\n\nAll these workers rendered most valuable and devoted service; especially\nat a time and place when we were far afield in ruined shell-swept areas,\nand completely cut off from every vestige of ordinary comforts. How good\na bar of chocolate, a stick of Black Jack, a \"dash\" of despised\ninglorious \"goldfish\" tasted to Buddie, lying cold, hungry, dirty and\n\"cootified\" in his dugout!\n\nA distinct contribution to modern civilization, and a form of national\nand international altruism making for the betterment, not only of him\nwho receives but as well of him who gives, was organized welfare work.\nThe need of such work always existed; and the organization of trained\nand equipped auxiliary forces intelligently to perform it must have ever\nbeen apparent. It remained for the World War, conceived, at least in the\nAmerican mind in unselfish motive, to create and give flesh and blood\nexpression to so Divine a vocation; and assign it honored rank among\nNational institutions eminently to be desired, and, without invidious\ncomparison, devotedly to be maintained.\n\nOne day, timing and dodging dropping shells, I came to ruined, bombarded\nEssey. A single piece of bread had been my only fare for many trying\nhours and I was hungry to the point of exhaustion.\n\nAbove the door of a dugout I saw the welcome sign \"Salvation Army,\" and,\nmaking my way to the door, I knocked. It was at once opened by two lady\nsecretaries.\n\nThe savory odor of fresh, crisp fried cakes greeted me, and in the\ncenter of the room beyond, I saw a table heaped high with the precious\nviands themselves! Truly it was Angel Food! Not the lily-white sort\nserved and known as such at home, but the golden ambrosial kind angels\ndream of--and surely were the Salvation Army ladies who saved me that\nday from starving, angels. Not only did they kindly point to the table\nof delight and generously say, \"Help yourself, Chaplain,\" but Adjutant\nBrown, husband of one of them, entering at that moment, cheerily\nremarked:\n\n\"Chaplain, won't you join us? we are just sitting down to dinner.\"\n\nHaving no other dinner engagement just then, I accepted! The table was\nplaced under a stairway, just room for the four of us. Outside, the air\nwas filled with the spume and shriek of bursting shells. The windows\nwere tightly barricaded, and a candle, placed in the mouth of a bottle,\ngave the only light.\n\n\"Chaplain, will you offer Grace?\"\n\nReverently all four bowed our heads in prayer; and may the good God who\nbrought us there together, join us some future day in his heavenly home\nabove!\n\nThe problem of transportation was most insistent and difficult. The\nDivision being far below its quota of automobiles and motorcycles,\nChaplains and burying details were compelled frequently to journey on\nfoot, with possible aid from some passing truck.\n\nUnder these conditions I found \"Jip\" truly \"bonne chance.\" \"Jip\" was the\nhorse assigned me by my good friend, Lieutenant Davis, of Headquarters\nTroop, and whom I named after my faithful dog \"Jip\" of Harvey. He was a\nnoble animal, utterly without fear; broken by chasseurs-a-cheval to gun\nfire. My only comrade on many a long, lone ride, we grew fond of each\nother to a degree only he can appreciate who has spent days and weeks of\nsolitude and danger with a devoted horse. All the pet names and phrases\n\"Jip\" of Harvey knew, I lavished on him, leaning forward to whisper in\nhis ear. Although it was not the familiar French he heard, it seemed to\nplease him, and obediently he bore me on, little heeding the danger of\nthe trail, so that he shared my sorrows and pleasures.\n\nOne beautiful day in mid-October, he carried me many miles through Bois\nde Puvinelle, deep in whose solitudes, at Jung Fontaine the 20th Machine\nGun Battalion was camped; passing on our way ruined Martincourt, then\nheavily shelled, to the borders of grim Bois-le-Pretre.\n\nBefore starting on this mission, which had for its object inspecting of\nfront line conditions and burial work, I had talked over the situation\nthoroughly with Colonel P. Lenoncle, French Army, who, during two years,\nhad fought over every foot of Bois-le-Pretre, and won there his Croix de\nGuerre.\n\n\"Monsieur le Chaplain,\" he said, \"this forest is a household word for\ndanger and death throughout all Germany. I know, in your goodness, you\nwill not fail to bury any of my brave poilu whose bodies you there may\nfind.\"\n\nGlorious was our canter down the dim leafy aisles of the Bois oak,\nmaple, ash, and pine flamed with the glorious coloring of autumn.\nCrimson ivy festooned each swaying limb, weaving canopies against a\nmottled sky of blue and white; morning-glories nodded greeting from the\nhedges, while forest floors were carpeted with the red of geranium,\nyellow of marigold and purple of aster.\n\n[Illustration: THIACOURT UNDER SHELL-FIRE.]\n\nThrough the winding tunnel of foliage \"Jip\" was keenly alert. He seemed,\nwith his good horse sense, to feel that he was carrying a very\nwell-meaning but inexperienced Chaplain, more interested perhaps in\nthings botanical and floral than military. When I, for example, showed\ninclination to dismount and inspect a beautiful saddle lying by the\nroadside, it was evidently a German officer's, \"Jip,\" with ears back,\nsnorted and galloped furiously past. A veteran sergeant afterwards\nquietly remarked:\n\n\"'Jip' likely saved you that time, Chaplain, from a 'planted' bomb, for\nwhich that saddle was the bait.\"\n\nEvening found us at the near approaches of Saint Marie farm. As the area\nfrom this point forward was drenched with gas, and therefore no place\nfor \"Jip,\" who stubbornly refused to wear his mask, I decided to leave\nhim and continue forward on foot. Making my way to a dugout, then\nCompany Headquarters of the gallant 19th Machine Gunners, I happened\nupon a young gunner named Costigan.\n\n\"Will you look after 'Jip' for me, Buddie?\"\n\n\"I will be glad to, Father,\" he replied. \"Your sister used to be my\nteacher in the Ogden school, Chicago!\"\n\nHow small the world was! To find that Bois-le-Pretre was just around the\ncorner from Chestnut and North State Street!\n\nGrim and terrible, however, was the work just ahead. Entering that\nforest was like going into some vast fatal Iroquois Theatre saturated\nwith death-dealing gas. It was even then being swept by a tornado of\nscreaming, bursting shells, scattering far and wide fumes of mustard and\nchlorine, a single inhalation of which meant unspeakable agony and\ndeath. But our brave boys were there with souls to be prepared, and poor\nmangled bodies were there, reverently to be buried!\n\nIt was supreme test for the gas mask! That frail piece of rubber alone\nstood between us and death. The slightest rent or leakage would be\nfatal, as injury to the suit of the deep sea diver. These masks had been\nissued in sizes 3, 4 and 5. Some fitted better than others; others bound\npainfully about the temples. We had been trained to adjust them quickly\nfrom \"alert\" to the face in seven seconds, and woe to him who breathed\nbefore the clasp was on his nose, the tube in his mouth, or the chin\npiece properly in place. Under ordinary conditions, they were supposed\nto filter the poisonous air for thirty-six hours. It was extraordinary\nconditions, however, rising either from faulty adjustment, rubber\nstrain, or mechanical injury that usually proved their undoing.\n\nOn that October day I had remained in the gas waves but four hours and\nfelt I had escaped without injury. Such, however, proved not my good\nfortune. My mask had evidently not functioned properly and that night of\ntorture to body, head and eyes was accounted for in the simple words of\nthe kind Doctor Lugar:\n\n\"Chaplain, you are gassed.\"\n\nA few days' nursing and care at the Field Hospital restored strength and\nvigor needed for a new and even more interesting encounter.\n\nOn the afternoon of Sunday, October 25th, I had held services at three\no'clock in a dugout at Vieville-en-Haye. Carefully hidden in a forest\nimmediately south of this village were then located three of our large\nguns. The boys had proudly named them, \"President's Answer,\" \"Theda\nBara\" and \"Miss McCarthy.\" They were throwing high explosive shells\nalong the Metz highway. The enemy was frantically replying with\neight-inch Howitzers from points some six kilometers north, dropping\nshells at two-minute intervals into Vieville-en-Haye and its environs.\n\nAs there was much gas along this front, I had left \"Jip\" at home and was\nusing a Harley-Davidson cycle side-car Lieutenant Trainor of\nHeadquarters had kindly loaned me--further giving me daring Corporal\nPlummer of Aurora, one of the most skillful of his chauffeurs.\n\nFollowing the services our next work was a trip to Vilcey-sur-Trey, some\nfour kilometers away, at the eastern approach of Death Valley. Emerging\nfrom the dugout our plans were quickly outlined. Taking advantage of the\nregular two-minute intervals between falling shells, we planned to first\nlet one come over, then make a quick dash up the front street and get\nout into the shelter of Death Valley before the next one fell.\n\nRev. Mr. Muggins, Y. M. C. A. secretary, a very estimable and highly\nrespected man, shook his head.\n\n\"Chaplain, you can hardly make it.\"\n\n\"How about it, Corporal?\" I said to Plummer.\n\n\"Sure, we can make it,\" he replied.\n\n\"Let's go,\" I said, and quickly slid into the side-car.\n\nWe let a shell come over, saw where it burst, then dashed up the street.\nSkillfully avoiding heaps of brick and mortar scattered along the way,\nquicker than it takes to tell, we traversed two blocks and reached a\npoint just opposite the ruined church. Here we rushed full into an ugly\ncrater, our machine fouled and our way was blocked!\n\nWe knew a German gun across those fields was even then trained on this\nspot and would pay its respects in about one minute. Plummer tried to\nkick and shake life into the machine; I did the praying. Just before lay\nruins of the old church. I thought of the countless times Holy Mass had\nbeen offered there, and humbly I asked God to spare me and my boy, to\nturn aside from us the stroke of death--but,\n\n\"Not my will but Thine be done.\"\n\n\"Boom!\" Across the fields came the sickening report! Ordering Plummer to\nthrow himself to the ground, I was in the act of alighting, and was\npartly free of the machine, when the shell burst, about one hundred feet\naway. My right arm seemed to burn; but I was alive, and flat on the\nground. Breathlessly we waited, like a boxer in his corner, until the\nnext shell came over. This struck about a block away. At once we sprang\nto our feet and rushed into the shelter of Death Valley. Plummer was\nunhurt; but I was slightly bleeding from right arm and left leg. They\nwere but scratches; and most humbly I thanked God for sparing us.\n\n\"Well, Chaplain, they winged you this time,\" said good Captain Cash,\nAbilene, Texas, Medical Corps, when I reported. My right forearm was\nbroken, but nothing serious enough to make me an ambulance case.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE GREATER LOVE\n\n\nI never recall those really worth while times without being reminded of\na certain Lieutenant whose name I do not feel at present free to reveal.\nThe attending circumstances were so deeply pathetic, and his confidence\nin me of a nature so sacred, I will but narrate the details without\ndivulging his identity.\n\nHandsome, generous, brave, highly competent in military art, he was as\nskillful in getting action from his giant gun as he was masterful in\nevoking music from his violin! If there was anything his platoon boys\nadmired more, even than himself, it was the music of his ever generous,\never delighting violin. Deep in some dugout we would gather around him.\nTenderly and fondly he would take the instrument from the battered box,\npatting it like a young mother her baby's cheek.\n\nBeginning with some light popular air in which all would vocally join,\nhe would soon glide like a spirit of melody to the unprofaned height of\nthe music masters. Bach was his favorite. And when, with the mute, to\nsoften the waves from unfriendly ears, he would interpret some symphony\nof the soul, we would forget our grim surroundings and dream we \"dwelt\nin marble halls.\"\n\nHe knew my passionate fondness for music and took delight in pleasing\nme. What pictures he could paint on the canvas of my fancy! Under the\nspell of his music I would drop anchor in the harbor of the fairest\ndream. Now, it would be a landscape the brush of his bow would paint--a\nmidsummer day with sheep gently grazing on some hillside: again, it\nwould be a forest, with treetops cowering before an on-rushing storm.\n\nOne evening he was playing with the mute on \"Humoresque.\" His big brown\neyes, that were not the least attractive feature of his handsome face,\nlooked steadily into mine across the bridge of his violin.\n\n\"What is the picture tonight, Chaplain?\"\n\n[Illustration: DOCTOR LUGAR AND AIDS WORKING IN A GAS ATTACK NEAR JOLNEY.]\n\n\"I see a coast,\" I replied; \"it is a fair summer day, with waves of all\nblue and silver, dancing in the breeze. A yacht is just off shore; the\nsail, a creamy bit of color; at the tiller a chap, handsome as\nyourself, and at his side a girl\"--here he stopped playing and looking\nintently at me exclaimed:\n\n\"Why, that's the very thing I was thinking of myself!\"\n\nLaying aside the violin he drew from his kit a bundle of letters tied\nwith ribbon. Delightedly, radiantly, he showed me _her_ picture--yes,\nher pictures, for surely he had twenty of them. Then he narrated \"the\nsweetest story ever told\"; how wonderful she was, how tenderly he loved\nher, how they had sacredly promised to marry on his return, and planned\nto seek their young fortunes in South America.\n\nThe days following were filled with big thrilling events. The ebb and\nflow of battle called into action all that was best and noblest in the\nboys, and my Lieutenant served his Battery and wrought deeds of valor to\na degree all excelling and inspiring. I knew the secret of it all, it\nwas the thought of her, his promised wife, and of the bliss awaiting a\ngallant soldier's return.\n\nIt was just one week later the letter came. Few received mail that day;\nhe was one who did. My attention was first called to him by the sound\nof a moan that seemed to come from a heart utterly broken. He stood\nleaning against a caisson staring at the letter, his face deathly white.\nInstinctively I realized it all. It was from her, and its message was as\nsome stroke of lightning from a cloudless sky. Mutely he came to me,\npressed the letter in my hand, and turned away.\n\nA glance through its lines told me the worst; that while she admired his\ncourage and unselfishness more than any man in the world, and always\nwould, still, as she did not, could never, love him as she felt a wife\nshould love her husband, would he now release her and give up their\nengagement!\n\nKnowing him as I did, noble, unselfish, and devotedly, tenderly loving\nher with all his soul, most deeply did I pity him. It was the supreme\nhour and crisis of his life. If there were ever a time when he needed\nher love to sustain him, when day and night he grappled with death and\nfought with all his soul, as only the patriot _can_ fight, it was now.\n\nIt was the beginning of the end. Sub-consciously I sensed impending\ntragedy, and was depressed beyond expression. Not indeed that he became\nmorose, ugly or unsoldierly. On the contrary, never was he more\nattentive to Battery duties or considerate toward his men. Bravely would\nhe laugh and jest and try to appear happy; but I knew it was all merely\nheroic endeavor, and that his heart was utterly broken. If he gave\nexpression to his loss at all it was through his violin. It was all in a\nminor strain, and its notes were of the soul of one\n\n    \"Who treads alone,\n      Some banquet hall deserted:\n    Whose lights are fled, and garlands dead,\n      All, all save he departed.\"\n\nIt was the afternoon of ten days later. In an orchard on a hillside his\nBattery had just come into position. By some alert enemy-observing plane\nthe movement had evidently been noted, for it was not seven minutes\nlater that a high explosive shell came screaming over the hill, directly\nhitting his gun, instantly killing gunner No. 1, and mortally wounding\nhimself.\n\nTen minutes later I reached his side. He was still conscious, had\nreceived First Aid, but was sinking rapidly. \"I am not afraid to die,\nChaplain. It's my turn I guess. There is a letter here in my blouse\npocket. I wrote it to her the other night. Read it, will you please, and\nif it is all right, post it for me when I am gone.\"\n\nBlinded with my tears I carefully took the letter from his pocket. It\nwas wet with his heart's blood. I do not now recall its every word, but\nin substance, it released her. \"My Duchess\" was the endearing title at\nthe top of the page. It declared his deep, abiding love for her: a love\nso unselfish and complete as not wanting to ever, either directly or\nindirectly, mar her happiness. In life and death her memory would\ncontinue to be the one supreme inspiration of his life. As she\nrequested, he had burned the letters, retaining but one, stained with a\nrose she had once given him.\n\n\"Oh my boy! I am proud of you,\" I cried, when I finished reading. \"If it\nis all right, Chaplain, please post it when I am gone.\"\n\nThe deathly pallor of his face warned me the end was near. Though not\ndirectly of my faith, he had often remarked his preference for my\nministrations; and with all my soul I helped him make Acts of Faith,\nHope, Charity, and perfect Contrition. Gently his eyes closed, his head\nfell forward on my breast, and his brave sweet spirit passed to its\nMaker.\n\nKneeling around, with tears seaming their ashen battle-stained faces,\nwere his boys. Tenderly they helped me carry his poor torn body to the\nshelter of a neighboring ravine. On the hillside we buried him, marking\nhis grave with the Sign of Him who shall remember the Brave, the Pure,\nthe Good.\n\nI posted the letter, as he requested, enclosing it all, as it was\nblood-stained, in another envelope. I have forgiven, as he would have me\ndo, the inconsiderate action of the girl who brought such sorrow to the\nsupreme hour of his sacrifice. Some day, when the wounds of cruel war\nare healed, I may forget. And yet, reviewing it all in the light of the\nsupernatural and the greater reward awaiting him beyond the stars, may\nwe not believe that an all-wise, ever-merciful Father permitted this\ncrowning sorrow of his young life that it might be but opportunity,\nhumbly and prayerfully endured, of a soul-cleansing nature, and add\nluster to his reward of the Greater Love through eternal years!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHIACOURT--AERIAL DARING\n\n\n\"Where are you saying Mass next Sunday Chaplain?\"\n\n\"In Thiacourt,\" I replied.\n\nJust the shadow of a doubt flitted across the handsome face of Colonel\nCummings, who nevertheless promptly responded, \"All right, I'll be\nthere.\"\n\nThat Mass _could_ safely be said in such a veritable inferno as\nThiacourt November 1st offered very reasonable room for doubt. Located\nbut a single kilometer from the front line trench, its ruins were\nshelled by day, and air bombed by night, with daring Fokers and Taubes\nfinding rare sport in spraying its main street with machine gun fire.\n\nThe gallant boys of the 55th Infantry, nine hundred of whom came from\nChicago, were then bravely holding that death-swept point; and I was\ndetermined to bring them the consolation and strength of Religion in\ntheir supreme need.\n\nDawn was breaking that Sunday morning when I rode through Bouillonville.\nLeading north from this village the road leaves the shelter of a\nfriendly hill and plunges boldly across the open plain. Our Batteries\nwere firing constantly from every available angle of the hills, and the\nenemy's spirited reply made very heavy the din of gun fire. In all\ndirections, on roadside, field and hill, geysers were rising, and\nyawning yellow craters forming from the impact of bursting shells.\n\nIt was seldom I urged \"Jip\" out of a canter. This morning, however,\nthings were different. The road through the open plain lay full in view\nand range of eagle-eyed enemy snipers.\n\nAcross the pommel of the saddle, in front, was fastened a bag of oats;\nand behind, my Mass kit. Tightly I strapped on my steel helmet, with gas\nmask tied at \"alert.\"\n\nLeaving the shelter of the hill I leaned forward and spoke to \"Jip.\"\n\"Allez! Allez! Mon petit cheval!\" Right bravely he responded. With ears\nback, and raven mane and tail streaming to the breeze, he fairly hurled\nhimself forward across the death-swept plain. His speed and courage\nstood between me and eternity.\n\nIt is not easy for even the best sniper to hit such a fast moving horse.\nAt a point two hundred yards to the right of us burst a huge shell. To\njust the slightest degree \"Jip\" trembled, but with never a break of his\neven flying stride. \"Thank God!\" was my heartfelt prayer as we reached\nthe ruined mill at Thiacourt.\n\nQuickly dismounting I led \"Jip\" deep into the rear of a building whose\nfront was shot away.\n\nO how I hugged and patted that brave little horse; and from the manner\nhe pawed the ground and rubbed his nose against my side I felt he fairly\nthrilled with the pride of his race with death. For your sake, my brave\nlittle \"Jip,\" I will never be unkind to a horse as long as I live.\n\nRewarding him with an extra ration of oats, and leaving him secure from\ngas, I proceeded forward on foot.\n\nShrapnel was bursting all about, and its sharp, sizzling echo, against\nwalls still standing, made maddening din.\n\nDodging from building to building up the deserted front street I reached\na point opposite the Hotel de Ville in time to see the front of a\nbuilding one hundred yards to the left blown completely out by a\nbursting shell. The church was but a heap of smoking ruins.\n\nIn the courtyard of a large building, that a few days before was\nheadquarters of the German staff, I was welcomed by boys of the 55th\nInfantry. It was a platoon in command of Lieutenant Coughlan of Mobile,\nAlabama.\n\nThis gallant young man, nephew of Capt. Coughlan who sailed with Dewey\ninto Manila Bay, was every inch a hero. Just the day before he had held\na front sector against terrible odds when the platoon on his right had\nfallen back under heavy gas attack with its commander mortally wounded.\nIn this encounter Coughlan was badly gassed himself, and could not speak\nabove a whisper. \"I know the Latin, and can serve your Mass all right,\nChaplain, if you can stand for my whispers.\"\n\nAn altar was improvised out of a richly carved sideboard standing in the\ncourtyard. After a goodly number had gone to Confession, a crowd of some\ntwo hundred assembled for the Mass. At this moment Colonel Cummings,\ntrue to his word that he would be on hand, strode into the yard.\n\nThe boys knelt around, wearing their steel helmets, and with masks at\n\"alert.\" My vestments consisted simply of a stole worn over my cassock.\nHelmet and mask lay easily within reach at one side. The firing,\nmeanwhile, was terrific--high explosive shells shrieking overhead and\nbursting on every side. Rifle and machine-gun bullets added their shrill\ntenor notes to the orchestral wail of gun fire.\n\nI had prepared a sermon, but, amid such din, I, for a moment, questioned\nthe possibility and even propriety of delivering it. I decided in the\naffirmative, and raised my voice in challenge to the wild clamor of\ndeath.\n\nAs I looked upon the battle-stained faces before me, I felt how pleasing\nit all must have been in the sight of Him who feared not Death of old,\nand who said on the hills of Galilee: \"Greater love than this no man\nhas, that he give up his life for his friends.\"\n\nMass over, the boys quickly disappeared into neighboring dugouts.\nColonel Cummings was greatly pleased with it all, remarking, \"As soon\nas you began Mass, Chaplain, the gun fire seemed to ease a bit, and a\ncomparative zone of quiet prevailed where we were gathered.\"\n\n\"I shall know after this, Colonel,\" I laughingly replied, \"what is\nbringing you to Mass--to get into a zone of quiet!\" Permit me to add\nhere, however that the good Colonel needed no urging to attend Mass. I\nnever met a better Christian overseas nor a more gallant loyal comrade\nthan Colonel Cummings.\n\nThe remaining hours of that day were spent in ministering to the living\nand burying the dead. Along that battle swept front the Chaplain was\nalways gladly welcomed and his divine Message reverently received. Death\nin its thousand ghastly forms, ever impending, ever threatening,\nimpressed with serious religious thought the consciousness of even the\nmost careless. In direct proportion to the coming and going of danger\nwas the ebb and flow of the tide spiritual. \"Haven't you noticed,\nChaplain, an improvement in my language of late? I sure have been trying\nto cut out swearing.\" Often would some officer or enlisted man--of any\nor no church membership--so remark, and who had hitherto been prone to\nsins of the tongue.\n\nOn such occasions two thoughts would come to me--the reflection of\nTertullian that \"The soul of man is by nature religious;\" and the\nadmonition of Ecclesiastes 7:40, \"Remember thy last end and thou shalt\nnever sin.\" Far into that All Saints night I heard Confessions, and was\nedified with the large number who approached Holy Communion All Souls\nmorning.\n\nIn burial work, we always made it a point, where it was at all possible,\nto bury the enemy dead as reverently as our own. We would gather their\npoor shell-torn bodies, often in advanced stages of decomposition, and\nplace them in graves on sheltered hillsides, safe from gun fire,\ncarefully assembling in Musette bags their belongings, which we would\nforward to the Prisoner of War Department. One day, while so assembling\nthe scattered remains of four dead Germans, evidently killed by the same\nshell, one of our boys of the 34th Infantry, Sam Volkel by name, who\nbefore the war lived in my old parish at Harvey, passed by. This good\nboy's parents had been born in Germany. When he saw the reverent care we\nwere giving those four of the enemy dead, he came up to me and with\ntears streaming down his smoke and dust-covered face exclaimed,\n\"Father, God bless you.\"\n\n\"De mortuis nil nisi bonum\" is a principle of conduct dating back to Him\nwho of old declared burial of the dead a corporal work of mercy. It is\nthe mark, neither of the Christian individual nor nation, to disrespect\na body nor desecrate its resting place. The fact that in life it was\ntenanted by the soul of an enemy is no justification for dishonoring it;\nfor He who is Infinite Truth and Justice declares \"Love thy enemy; do\ngood to those who hate you, and bless those who persecute you.\" This, of\ncourse, is not the way of the world; but _is_ the way of Him whose\nstandards of living must guide our lives, and whose will to reward or\npunish us shall prevail through Eternity.\n\nWe had now been many weeks at the extreme front on minimum ration of all\nthings bearing on bodily comfort or mental relaxation. Water was but a\nword, a memory, cherished dream of him who wrote \"The Old Oaken Bucket.\"\nIf we could but find enough of the chlorinated drug store kind to\nnourish our canteen, we were prepared to dispense with the common, or\nlaundry serving, variety.\n\nIn the eternal fitness of things, there came now into being an Army\ninstitution, officially known as the Delousing Station. It appears to\nhave been named in memory of a certain small wingless insect. There was\nan appeal to it that at once caught the popular fancy of the soldiers,\nalways itching for novelty, and it became the most frequented of\nwatering places. It was a thoroughly democratic affair, officers and\nenlisted men freely approving and patronizing it, under the undenying\nimpulse, no doubt, of a common human need. It little mattered that its\nlocation was usually the wreckage of some wind-swept barn; or that its\nfurniture consisted of a barrel of water jauntily poised on the rafters;\nthe spectacle of Buddie, bar of soap in hand, sporting and splashing in\nthe limpid stream of that miniature Niagara, offered wealth of theme for\nthe inspired artist, poet, and writer of commercial advertising.\n\nI greatly wonder that the hallowed memory of this loving institution has\nso far escaped the popular fancy as to be left \"unwept, unhonored and\nunsung.\" That it _was_ inspirational might be shown from the case of a\nboy of the 64th Infantry changing the words of the popular song, \"They\ngo wild, simply wild, over me,\" to \"They _run_ wild, simply wild, over\nme.\"\n\nHuts designed to offer any manner of mental relaxation, reading, music,\nand the like, were necessarily many miles to the rear. No sound but gun\nfire was ever to be heard. No matin bugle call of Reveille to rouse, nor\nplaintive note of Taps to \"mend the ravelled sleeve of care.\" No\nregimental band to \"soothe the savage breast,\" nor lead to the charge in\nthe way it is described in books of history.\n\nNo lights to show from dugout or trench, not even on motor cars or\ncycles dashing along treacherous roads and trails. If mess and water\ncarts could be kept in touch with advanced posts, the mail and welfare\nsupply trucks could be dispensed with.\n\nDays and weeks would pass without so much as sight of a letter,\nnewspaper, book, or word from the rear of any kind. Such times were like\nliving in the bottom of a well, glimpses of the sky overhead, but all\naround you, dark, foul, and deathly.\n\nAmid such surroundings our chief pleasure and relaxation was often the\nsky. Reclining in the soft yielding mud we could watch the canvas of the\nheavens, stretched from horizon to horizon, in panoramic splendor.\nWhether it was the hour of the \"powerful king of day rejoicing in the\neast,\" the mid-day brooding calm, or when \"Night folds her starry\ncurtains round,\" the ever-changing, ever-beautiful pictures of cloudland\nlulled to rest our fancies sweet as music which\n\n    \"Gentler on the spirit lies\n    Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.\"\n\nHow thrilled we were when cloudland became of a sudden peopled with\narmed men! When that azure blue became an ocean, with ships of the air\nscudding in and out of cloudy coves, around billowy headlands, \"zuming,\"\nspiraling, volplaning, maneuvering for position to hurl broadsides of\ndeath.\n\nIt was all, as it were, a tournament staged for our amusement. Herald of\nits beginning would be a splash of white against the blue above the\nGerman lines. Faintly, then with steadily increased volume in tone,\nwould come to our ears the unmistakable high tenor engine trum of a\nFoker plane.\n\n[Illustration: THE WOUNDED WERE CARRIED TO THE NEAREST SHELTER.]\n\nAll eyes would intently watch its approach. It was coming over to deal\ndeath or destruction of some sort, possibly to attack our anchored\nobserving balloon, just to the rear.\n\nSeconds as well as minutes count in such an adventure, and quicker than\nthe eye can count them, puffy balls of white appear above, below and all\naround on the on-rushing Foker; they are the shrapnel bursts of our\nvigilant anti-aircraft guns that have now opened briskly from every hill\nand forest.\n\nOn it comes!--and now black puffs appear in its path, the dynamite shells\nof our guns finding their range. Boom! boom! rat-ta-tat-boom-rat-ta-tat\nis the music that greets our ears and every hill is a tremble under the\nshock of thousands of rounds of fire.\n\nIn such an emergency our orders are clear. We must remain perfectly\nmotionless: we will not be seen unless we move about. We must not fire\nat him; he must know neither our location nor what arms we have.\n\nThe tons of steel being hurled into the air must meanwhile fall in\nsplinters to the earth. Here is where our steel helmets prove so\nserviceable, protecting the head not only from falling splinters, but\nfrom bullets of the machine gun the Foker flyer is now vigorously firing\nearthward.\n\nNow a new and welcome sound greets our eyes. Coming on the wings of the\nwind out of the south is the strong deep bass of Liberty Motor\nmusic--the all-American made--which, though arriving in quantity late in\nthe war, proved at once its superiority to all others. Our ground guns\nhave driven the Foker high into the air; which, evidently noting that\nthe on-coming ships are merely observing and not fighting planes, comes\nsteadily on!\n\nHow vividly I recall that stirring afternoon! We were on a hillside,\njust above Thiacourt, directing the work of a burial detail. As the\nFoker reached a point directly over us he dove full in our direction.\nThere was nothing for us to do, no shelter to take refuge in, just an\nunprotected slope of the hill.\n\nWhether it was the fact that we were a burial party and he wished to\nspare us--and this explanation I like to believe--or whether, by firing\non us, he might betray his presence, and thus defeat his main purpose,\nwhich was to destroy the balloon anchored in the neighboring valley, I\nwill never know; but _this_ I _do_ know--at a point directly above us,\nand where he could most easily have killed us with machine gun fire, he\nsuddenly changed his course.\n\nGliding down the valley, he raced full upon the observing balloon and\nhurled incendiary shells into it, setting it on fire; then, coming\nabout, he dashed away to the north, escaping over his own lines amid a\nshower of leaden hail! \"Ill blows the wind that profits no one\"--the\nposition of undertaker, we at first hesitated in accepting, had saved\nour life; burial boys were, after this, more reconciled than ever to\ntheir work!\n\nAir craft battles, although of frequent occurrence along our front, were\nalways watched with keen delight. Our fliers were chiefly of the 108th\nSquadron from the fields of Toul and Colombey-le-Belles.\n\nIt was in our area, on the banks of the Moselle, that the heroic and\ngallant Lufberry fell, fighting, to his death. He is buried in the\nlittle cemetery of Evacuation Hospital No. 1, near Toul.\n\nEddie Rickenbacker, Reed Landis, Tuper Weyman, Elmer Crowel, Bernard\nGranville, Douglas Campbell, these and others were the gallant Aces of\nour Army, flying and fighting daily over the front.\n\nOn September twenty-eighth Douglas Campbell fell in flames at Pannes. In\nthe cemetery of the old church there he is buried. It was with special\ninterest we cared for his grave, inasmuch as his home was in Kenilworth,\nnear our own Chicago.\n\nInfantry contact flying was necessarily hazardous. It meant flying at an\nelevation easily in reach of rifle fire.\n\nUsually at mess, the evening before, the flyer, chosen for this mission,\nwould be notified. His companions, too, would hear of the selection; and\noften indulged, in their own grim humorous way, of reminding him of the\nfact! The man next to him at the table would softly and weirdly hum a\nstrain from Chopin's Funeral March, setting its music to the solemn\nwords, \"Ten thousand dollars going home to the States!\"\n\nIt was this trait in Buddie's character, however, ability to make the\nbest of things, to see the smooth and not the seamy side of Death's\nmantle, that made him the most intelligent, cool, and resourceful of all\nfighting men. His buoyancy of disposition and resiliency of spirit gave\nhim a self-confidence and initiative that made him rise superior to all\nhardship, and, as it were, compelled circumstances to side with him.\n\nThe 10th Field Signal Battalion, commanded by the brilliant and\nbig-hearted Major Gustav Hirch of Columbus, Ohio, was a favorite\nrendezvous of mine. The nature of work of these Signal men appealed to\nme; and their nomadic habits co-ordinated happily with my duties,\nfrequently requiring me, along the changing front, \"to fold my tent with\nArabs and silently steal away.\"\n\nThey had direct charge of the Intelligence Maintenance of War work, and\nconstituted the axes of liaison between the various Units of the\nDivision.\n\nTheir skill in the transmission of messages was most remarkable. Masking\ntheir operations in the language of secret signs and ciphers, they made\nuse of the telephone, telegraph, radio, wig-wag, panel, carrier pigeon,\nblinker, and last, and perhaps most dependable of all, the living\nrunner. The duty of the latter consisted in carrying messages to or from\nexposed positions when no other means would do. Usually a volunteer from\nany branch, he was selected because of courage, agility and ability to\nget through somehow, no matter how great the opposing odds. I was\npresent in an Observation Post near Jolney talking to Colonel Lewis,\nwhen a runner came rushing across No Man's Land through a leaden hail,\nsaluted, handed a message to Captain Payne, and fell unconscious at his\nfeet. There were no greater heroes of the war.\n\nOperators and linesmen \"carried on\" under conditions demanding the\ngreatest courage--remaining to the last in exposed positions like the\nwireless heroes of a sinking ship. I have known lines to be shelled and\nblown to pieces a dozen times during the day, and just as often repaired\nby daring linesmen.\n\nFrequently sharing their mess and dugouts, I cultivated the friendship,\nnot only of their generous Commander, but of Captain Cash, of Abilene,\nTexas; Captain Jim Williams, of Troy, Alabama; and Lieutenant Phillips\nof Brooklyn, New York--three of the most beloved of soldiers. Lieutenant\nAndy O'Day, of Detroit, also with them, was heavily gassed at Jolney.\n\nAttached to the Battalion, too, was a brilliant young man, Lieutenant\nD'Orleans, French Army. He was from Brittany, had won the Croix de\nGuerre, and spoke English, if not fluently, at least interestingly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nREMBERCOURT\n\n\nOn Saturday night, November ninth, I had repaired to my dugout near\nBouillonville, planning to say two Masses at distant points the\nfollowing morning. I retired early to snatch a little rest.\n\nAt midnight, Lieutenant D'Orleans rushed into the dugout and roused me,\nhoarsely whispering,--\"Chaplain, a big movement is on!\"\n\nRolling from my blanket I hurried outside. The night was intensely dark;\nbut there, in the valley before me, I could make out a long column of\ntroops.\n\nFor some days there had been growing signs and vague hints of a big\nattack impending. Was this its beginning?\n\nReporting at once to the head of the column, I found Colonel Lewis and\nMajor Black. The troops were the 2nd Battalion of the 64th Infantry. The\nColonel, a trimly built little man, and every inch a fighter, was eating\na bar of chocolate. \"Here, Chaplain, have a bar of chocolate; I have\nan extra one. By the way we are going to attack at dawn.\"\n\n[Illustration: ST. JOAN OF ARC.]\n\nThe personification of coolness, how proud I was of him! He was ready;\nhe knew his troops were ready; he was about to lead them to the heights\nof grim Rembercourt, one of the most prized and fought for positions\nalong our front!\n\nThese brave boys of the Second Battalion, going, many of them, to their\ndeath, needed us. Good Chaplain LeMay of the Battalion would need\nassistance; moreover the 55th Infantry would be in that attack, and\nthey, at that time, had no Catholic Chaplain. Many needed Sacramental\nConfession; all needed God's blessing. At once, I decided to cancel the\ntwo Masses I had planned, and accompany them.\n\nIn column of squads the troops moved down the valley. As we were but\neight hundred marching against a strongly held hill, every approach to\nwhich fairly bristled with machine gun nests, success depended primarily\non the element of surprise. We were prepared to pay something for that\nhill, but if we could rush it, the cost would be minimum.\n\nThe alert enemy had thrust forward tentacles of listening posts deep\ninto our neighborhood, and, if a chance star shell revealed us, he would\nlay down a deadly barrage.\n\nWe were favored indeed by a blanket of chill fog, that hung over the\nvalley, but our going in the slimy, sticky clay was labored and slow.\n\nDawn found us in the shelter of a hill near the old mill north of\nJolney. This old stone building overhung the river, and stood at the\neastern end of the bridge. Later that day it was occupied by General\nWahl, commanding the 13th Brigade, and used as his Headquarters. At this\npoint the column was halted; and Colonel Lewis, Major Black, I, and two\nprivates walked forward about five hundred yards around the foot of the\nhill to reconnoitre. The railroad leading to Metz paralleled this\nvalley; and, but a few yards ahead, half a dozen box cars, hit by our\nshells, were burning.\n\nThe river at this point is about one hundred yards wide and at no place\nover five feet deep. It is spanned by a stone bridge sharply arched,\nbuilt for heavy strain.\n\nOur objective lay on the opposite shore, a hill, some three hundred feet\nhigh, covered with scrub oak and cedar. This hill, which commanded the\nvillage of Rembercourt and the entire valley, had been firmly held and\ndesperately defended by the enemy even against Pershing's September\nattack. Ours was now the coveted honor of wresting it from his grasp,\nonce and for all.\n\nTwo courses lay open to our crossing, one, to use the bridge, the other\nto wade the river. The Colonel discouraged the use of the bridge, as the\nfog was even then thinning out, and, if the column were discovered, in\nsilhouette, artillery would speedily destroy it. He therefore directed\nMajor Black to have his troops wade the river, keeping on the sheltered\nside of the bridge.\n\nHolding their guns clear of the water the men waded across in silence,\nkeeping single file. The first man to step into that icy water was the\ngallant little Colonel, his blue French gas mask at \"alert,\" his\n\"forty-five\" and precious bars of chocolate held safely above the water.\nI was directly behind him. A long column marching in single file through\na muddy stream soon cuts a deep channel; and the last two hundred men\nto cross made wet work of the wading.\n\nThat our thoughts were at least partially human at that time, I now\nrecall the following form of reasoning expressed by a Buddie near by. \"I\nam going to get pneumonia out of this wetting; but, most likely, I'll be\nkilled anyway in this hill attack, so I should worry!\"\n\nJust at the river edge, a boy suddenly dropped his rifle and began to\nalternately wildly laugh and cry. A sergeant quickly placed his hand\nover his mouth to silence him lest his calls might reveal our presence\nto the enemy. Gently leading him to one side he left him for the First\nAid detail. His poor mind had given out under the terrible strain; shell\nshock, it was called. No comment was made by the men marching past; they\npitied him, knowing it was not that he was a coward or a quitter, but\nsimply that he had gone insane under the deadly reality of it all. Why\nmore did not go mad in that Valley of Death only God can explain!\n\nEmerging on the far shore, we picked our heavy way across the stretch of\nswamp, that led toward the base of our objective. Although the enemy\nwas not aware of our presence in force, he was keeping up a desultory\nshelling of his hill base as a matter of ordinary precaution. Like the\nflare of June bugs along the roadside in summer, high explosive shells\nwould burst every few minutes, here, there, and in most unexpected\nplaces. Colonel Lewis ordered that the men be kept in as open formation\nas possible, so that fewer would be hit at a time, and falling shells be\nreduced to minimum zones of destruction.\n\nHere we had just assembled and were forming for the attack when the\nsheltering fog suddenly lifted. It was now eight o'clock. We had not yet\nbeen discovered. The men were ordered to lie in their tracks and await\norders.\n\nFrom the spiritual point of view this delay was opportune; as it offered\nopportunity of passing down the line, to hear confessions and extend to\nall the boys divine aid.\n\nSurely that halt was a God-send! The prayer of many a mother, far\noverseas, had moved the Good Master to give her soldier boy this last\nchance to pause for a prayer on the threshold of death!\n\nThis was pre-eminently the Chaplain's hour! Above all others were his\nevery ministration and word and glance prized and respected.\n\nThere were no infidels, no religious scoffers, among those soldiers\nseriously awaiting the zero hour. In the rear areas and rest billets,\nthe profane and irreligious word might often have been heard; but face\nto face with Death, Judgment, Heaven or Hell, the skeptic was silenced.\nBoys who might have been hitherto negligent in approaching the\nSacraments were now the first to call to me, \"Father, I want to go to\nConfession.\"\n\nIn a time so uncertain, momentarily awaiting orders \"Over the Top,\" to\nhear each one individually was physically impossible. For just this\nemergency, the far-seeing, merciful Church of the All Merciful God has\nprovided a means.\n\nIt is the General Absolution, so beautifully administered by Chaplain\nMcDonald of the Leviathan, and which our Faculties provided. When a\nperson in such emergency could not actually confess, he made an act of\nPerfect Contrition, being sorry for his sins because by them he had\noffended the Good God, and with the intention of going to Confession as\nsoon as he could. While confession was always desirable, sorrow was\never, indispensable.\n\nIn our case the priest was morally and physically present and he gave\nSacramental Absolution to all, using the plural, \"Ego vos absolvo a\npeccatis vestris.\"\n\nWhether on the battlefield or in hospital wards filled with men dying of\ndisease or wounds, the priest has a divine message to deliver and a\nsacramental duty to perform from which no manner or danger of death can\ndeter him. \"Is any man sick amongst you,\" says St. James in the 24th\nChapter of his Epistle (Douay or King James version) \"let him call in\nthe priests of the Church, and they shall anoint him with oil in the\nName of the Lord.\" It was in the fulfillment of this Divinely imposed\nduty that 1600 priests of America voluntarily turned aside from their\nparochial work, and, reconsecrating their hearts to the Greater Love,\nentered the National service as Chaplains during the war.\n\nSeriously the boys studied the hill. On its rugged side was about to be\nstaged a tragedy in which every soldier knew he was to take part. The\ntraining of months past was but rehearsal. The leaving home, the oath of\nmilitary service, the weary grind of march, and weapon drill, the rigid\ndiscipline, all these were but evolving phases, making for the formation\nof the seasoned soldier. And now they had reached the high altar of\nNational service on which they were prepared to sacrifice their young\nlives.\n\n\"Morituri salutemus!\" Look closely into the faces of those heroic boys:\napproach with reverence the sanctuary of their thoughts.\n\nIn long, regular lines they lie, immediately at the base of the hill.\nMost are still and motionless, helmeted, and with bayoneted rifles, like\nfigures some Bartholdi or Rodin might have chiseled from bronze. Some,\nwith free hand, are molding from the yellow, slimy clay, quaint little\nimages, suggested, possibly, by thought of the little tin soldiers of\nboyhood days. Some, lying prone, are dreamily observing the blue sky\nshowing here and there through billowy clouds. Some have made of their\nhelmet a pillow and appear to sleep. Some with jest and story are\nradiating a subdued merriment. Some, with eyes staring straight ahead,\nseem as in a trance.\n\nIn that tragic hour I looked with their eyes and saw with the vision of\ntheir soul. The picture we all in common saw was painted on the\ncanvas of memory.\n\n[Illustration: WHERE ST. JOAN OF ARC MADE HER FIRST COMMUNION.]\n\nIt represented any American town; preferably one bowered with maple and\nelm, and cast in a setting of emerald landscape. Just back from the\nwinding road, a cottage, trellised with moss roses and forget-me-nots.\nFramed in the doorway, a sweet-faced mother, silver threads amid her\ngold of hair, is looking across distant fields. A path leads over the\nhill, and it would seem she watched and waited for someone!\n\nLast night she knelt beside a vacant chair, and, in the lonely vigil of\nher tears, prayed that God would bless and spare her boy. In the window\nhangs a service flag. Tomorrow, My God! there shall a message come from\noverseas changing its silver into gold!\n\n    Who is it can smile with heart breaking the while\n      When the soldier bids loved ones \"Farewell\"?\n    Whose heart is it grieves, when the patriot leaves,\n      With an anguish that no tongue can tell?\n    It's only the mother! For man knows no other\n      Whose soul feels the weight of such woe;\n    Who can smile and look brave and for lonely hours save\n      The torrent of tears that must flow.\n\n    Whose heart is it knows that wherever he goes\n      He'll be true to his country and flag?\n    That he'll fight the good fight and die, serving the Right\n      With never a boast or a brag?\n    It's the mother whose breast as a babe he caressed\n      And who watched o'er his childhood with joy.\n    Though the years may have flown, and to manhood he's grown,\n      Yet to mother he's always--\"My boy\"!\n\n    Who is it can yearn for the soldier's return,\n      When the trumpet of war calls no more:\n    When victorious he sees his proud flag kiss the breeze\n      Of his own, his beloved, native shore?\n    It's the mother whose face like a halo of grace\n      Hovered near him to cheer him afar.\n    Angels envy her joy as she welcomes her boy\n      Triumphant returned from the war!\n\n    Who is it shall kneel at the graveside and feel\n      The full woe of a soldier boy, dead!\n    Who shall measure such loss, who shall carry the cross,\n      And yet live, when his spirit is fled?\n    It's the mother who'll wait at Death's golden gate,\n      Where sorrow and parting shall cease!\n    And she evermore with her boy as of yore,\n      Shall be crowned in the Kingdom of Peace!\n\nOne of the brave company commanders in this Battalion was Captain Hall.\nComing to me he said, \"Chaplain, if I get 'bumped' in this attack, I\nwant you to do me a favor.\" He then gave me a written message to a\ncertain person in the Division who owed him $300.00. \"Get after him,\nwill you, Chaplain, and see that the money reaches my folks.\" \"I will be\nglad to, Captain,\" I replied. Then, as one good turn deserved another, I\nwrote out and handed him a little note, which, if he, and not I, came\nthrough alive, was to be forwarded to my Chicago home. The Captain was a\ngraduate of West Point, and had seen hard service both on the western\nplains and in the Cuban war. His hair was gray, and he wore a long gray\nmustache of which he was proud, and which he was in the habit, when\nespecially thoughtful, of stroking. My hair also was gray, especially\nsince our last gas attack in Bois-le-Pretre.\n\nA Captain from Philadelphia lying in the mud not far from us, noticing\nour two gray heads close together, mischievously and in a stage whisper\nremarked, \"Old men for counsel, but young men for action!\" What Captain\nHall, blazing with sudden wrath, thereupon said to him, I think it just\nas well not to here record! At the time, however, it seemed that he sort\nof expressed my own feelings on the subject!\n\nGallant Captain Hall came through alive; but I can see him even now in\nthe very thick of the fighting that followed a few minutes later.\nStanding out on the hillside in full view he fought with his steel blue\n\"45\" a duel to the death with a German officer who rashly attacked him.\nFor a moment I held my breath, as they deliberately exchanged shot for\nshot. Then I saw the German fall heavily; and Hall, his right hand\ntwirling his gun, and his left fondly stroking his mustache, coolly\nsurveyed the line looking for another shot.\n\nIt was two in the afternoon before the fog began to thicken. The zero\nhour was at hand!\n\nAlthough we had marched many weary miles, had lain motionless in the mud\nfor five hours, and had meanwhile tasted neither food nor drink, we did\nnot mind it. One ignores bodily needs under heavy mental stress. I\ncarried a little meat and bread in my pocket, which, that noon, I shared\nwith good Father LeMay.\n\nAt two-thirty, when the sheltering fog was thickest, quietly the word\nwas passed down the line \"Get ready.\" At that moment I was near the\nwestern end of the column near a stone quarry, strongly defended by the\nenemy with machine guns and automatic rifles.\n\nPromptly the boys made ready, slipping off packs, many even their\nblouses. It was to be a bayonet rush up that hill, and the idea was to\nfeel as cold and shoulder free as possible. The pain of mustard gas is\nnot so intense if one's body is cool and dry. Officers as well as men\nwere lightly clothed; their only weapons, automatics. I substituted a\nsweater for my blouse. All felt the tense strain, and throats grew dry\nand temples throbbed.\n\nAt that moment was given a final General Absolution and Blessing.\n\nSharply, along the crouching line like a flash of fire, boomed the\ncommand to advance--\"Guns and bayonets now, boys, and give them hell!\"\nInstantly leaping forward, the men hurled themselves up the hill.\nHelmeted, masked, their bayonets flashing, like the crested foam of some\ngiant wave they swept forward.\n\nWe had not advanced fifty feet when over the hillside there burst a hail\nstorm of lead. The enemy hurled into our faces every manner of\ndestruction; bullets and steel fragments screamed through the air,\n\"thudding\" into every foot of ground!\n\nThe first boy to fall was Riorden of New Jersey, who pitched forward,\nterribly torn, shortly to my right. Onward and upward swept the line. As\nI paused a moment beside Riorden to absolve him, Walsh of Syracuse, New\nYork, running some thirty feet in advance, waved his arm for me to\nhurry. \"Holy Joe\" was the name given the Chaplain. I never knew its\norigin, but it was the title most generally used and always with the\nutmost respect.\n\nEven then could be heard the horrible crash of steel on steel, hand to\nhand bayonet contact, screams of terror and pain, when the blade\ndripping blood was withdrawn from its human scabbard. The advance soon\nreached the hilltop and the gray-clad Germans resisted desperately. The\nmost terrible, horrible, and indescribable of all sights and sounds were\nnow before me. Wild-eyed, panting, fiercely visaged boys in American\nkhaki and German gray, feinting, parrying, and madly lunging with\nglittering bayonets--the crash and shrill metallic stroke of steel on\nsteel, and Oh! the grunt and scream of agony when the blade sank to its\nhilt in a blood-spurting human breast! Each boy, in that moment of\ndeadly shock, was fighting for his own life--it was destroy first or be\ndestroyed, and the first to get in a fatal blow survived. No alien\nsoldier lives however, who can withstand that most terrible and supreme\nof all fighters--the American Doughboy! Hands were being raised and\ncries of \"Kamerad\" heard from every side. The grim heights of\nRembercourt were ours; but, my God! see the price we have paid for that\neight minutes of struggle.\n\nBoys are down all over the hillside, dead and dying. Tossing, moaning,\nbegging for help, their cries of agony pierce the heart. From the\nmilitary point of view, indeed, it was called a splendid, clean-cut\npiece of work. Rembercourt and its approaches in our hands at last, with\nhundreds of prisoners and spoils of war--all at a loss to us of but nine\nkilled and fifty-two wounded.\n\n[Illustration: IN THE CHURCH AT DOMREMY.]\n\nAh! but who shall measure the cost of those nine dead boys to mothers\nand beloved ones at home! See their lifeless forms lying there amid the\nwreckage of the hillside. A few minutes ago they knew the thrill of\nvigorous young manhood; they knew that death might claim them in that\ncharge; bravely they went over the top, hoping for the best.\n\nFrom one to another I hurried with service for all. The dying claimed\nfirst care; the dead had to wait; and the chill shadows of night had\ncrept to the hill crest before all the wounded were removed and the last\npoor body buried.\n\nA terrific cannonade had meanwhile been in progress. Our batteries had\nopened along the entire front. Tons upon tons of steel were passing on\nwings of thunder not three hundred feet above our heads. Little heed the\nboys gave it, so occupied were they with duties near at hand.\n\nFinally, numbed and over-powered to the point of utter exhaustion, I\nsought an abandoned shack at the foot of the hill. Without removing so\nmuch as a single garment, still wet from wading the river, with no taste\nfor food or drink, I threw myself on the floor and fell at once asleep.\n\nIt was dawn of the following morning, Monday, November 11, when I awoke.\nIf the cannonading of the evening before was terrible, that morning's\nbombardment was infinitely more so. It was the first time I had heard a\nfull powered \"Drum Head\" barrage--where so many batteries and guns are\nengaged that the sound of firing and subsequent explosion is continuous\nand unified in volume. The hills and valleys shook under the rocking\nrecoiling guns as from an earthquake.\n\nGoing among the men, I found even the most seasoned of them grimly\nsilent. Their faces, set, as in plaster cast along cadaverous lines,\ndeeply furrowed and caked with dust, perspiration, and powder smoke,\nmade hideous appearance. Never have I seen such wan, frightful\nexpression in human eye. As grim automatons they handled their guns, and\nmoved silently about. Possibly they were too wearied to talk; for to\nspeak, so as to be heard, meant calling at the top of one's voice.\n\nNot far away I met Colonel Cummings. Briefly I narrated the happenings\nof the day before at our west end of the line. Most warmly he\ncongratulated us and then, in confidence, informed me \"Foch has agreed\nto an Armistice!\"\n\nHe had just come from Headquarters, which was sending out orders to line\nand battery commanders to cease firing, that very morning at eleven\no'clock.\n\nSilently we gripped hands; but the hearts of both of us thrilled with\n\"Te Deum.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nARMISTICE DAY--GORZ\n\n\nMeanwhile our entire front was advancing, following the barrage waves.\nNo more desperate struggle than ours could have been found at any point.\nWriting of that day, the official A. E. F. newspaper, \"Stars and\nStripes,\" under date of November 15th, declared:\n\n    \"Attack Before Vigneulles\n\n    \"Probably the hardest fighting being done by any Americans in\n    the final hour was that which engaged the troops of the 28th,\n    92nd, 81st, and 7th Divisions with the Second American Army,\n    who launched a fire-eating attack above Vigneulles just at dawn\n    on the 11th. It was no mild thing, that last flare of the\n    battle, and the order to cease firing did not reach the men in\n    the front line until the last moment, when runners sped with it\n    from fox hole to fox hole.\"\n\nI hurried along the line deeply pondering the startling report of the\ngood Colonel. We had been hearing various rumors that the enemy was\nfrantically suing for peace; all these we had set down as but\npropaganda. If the end were in sight, why this terrific eleventh hour\nbarrage?\n\nThe only reason I could imagine was, that its very frightfulness might\nso deeply impress the resisting troops themselves as to utterly destroy\ntheir morale. Once the soldiers themselves realized the weakness of the\ntottering dynasty behind them, and the overwhelming force of the army in\nfront of them, total failure of their cause must be apparent.\n\nSupreme was my confidence in Foch and Pershing, and I felt that the\ncourse they were pursuing would prove, from the military point of view,\nthe best.\n\nAt five minutes to eleven I walked a little apart, up the trail, and\nbegan saying my Rosary Beads. They were always companion and comfort to\nmy trying hours. Fervently I implored her, who is \"Mightier than an army\nin battle array,\" to intercede for us to her Divine Son. That, it were\npleasing and good in _His_ holy sight, this hour of eleven would mark\nthe end.\n\nSo occupied was my mind I had not noticed the falling off in firing.\nBattery after battery was silencing! Gun after gun growing still.\n\n\"Cease firing!\" The command sped down the line; and it seemed these two\nwords leaped into the blue vaulted sky above and were echoed in Heaven!\n\nThe utter silence that of a sudden came down upon that front was\nterrifying. More awful in its gripping impressiveness than the most\nterrific cannonading. You seemed, in that tense moment, to have lost\nyour footing on some storm-swept hill, and fallen headlong into a deep\nvalley. There was no cheering. The boys simply looked at each other and\nwaited; waited like the boxer who, having delivered a fatal blow, stands\nintently watching his fallen opponent, until the referee has tolled off\nthe final count, and raised his arm in token of victory.\n\nThen came the reaction. Lusty cheers rose from all sides, helmets were\ntossed into the air, rifles were stacked, and impromptu cake walks and\nfox trots staged with grotesque abandon.\n\nNo one ventured into No Man's Land, that was strictly forbidden; but all\nover the rear approaches jubilation reigned supreme.\n\nGroups quickly formed, excitedly discussing it all, \"What's the big\nidea?\" \"Has Jerry quit for good?\" \"How do you get that way?\" Some burst\ninto song: \"I Don't Want to Go Home.\"\n\nSuddenly a glorious sound came floating up the rear ravine; it was the\nRegimental band of the 7th Engineers, playing Sousa's \"Stars and Stripes\nForever!\"\n\nOh, how it thrilled and touched our very depth of soul! Its melody burst\nupon our unaccustomed ears with something, at least, of the joy the\nshepherds felt, when Angels brought them \"Good tidings\" at Bethlehem!\n\nOut of all this trance of joy, however, stern Duty soon called us. Many\na silent body, our own and the enemy's, lay unburied along the front. On\nrequisition at Headquarters, two companies from a Pioneer Infantry\nRegiment were assigned to us, co-ordinating with our regular Burial\nDetails. Near and far we combed hills and plains for bodies, penetrating\ntrenches, dugouts, and ruins. Six days of untiring effort, brought\nreward of warmly commending words from our Division Commander.\n\nAt Mass the following Sunday in the old ruined Church of St. Sebastian\nat Euvezin, the subject was recalled of those days of old when the\nGalilean Sea was tempest tossed. Then in the boat rose the Master who\nsaid to the storm, \"Peace! Be still! And there came a great calm.\" Even\nso, had that same Divine Power now spoken along our torn battle front;\nand \"May the Peace and Calm that now has come reign on forever!\"\n\nThat afternoon an artillery Regimental band gave a concert. Illustrative\nof the mental breadth and generous nature marking the real American boy,\nin its repertoire was to be observed Strouse's \"Blue Danube Waltz!\"\n\nIt was during one of these eventful days word reached us from across No\nMan's Land that old men, women and children in the town of Gorz, across\nthe German border, were entirely without food, and dying of starvation.\n\nOur forces were marking time in the positions the close of hostilities\nfound them occupying, and, as the time for moving forward with the Army\nof Occupation was indefinite, we decided to go forward at once with food\nsupplies for the starving inhabitants.\n\nThis aid work was to be entirely informal and on our own initiative, no\nmilitary provision having been made for such emergency. With little\ndifficulty five tons of army rations were secured, and, accompanied by\ngood Major Hirch, I set out.\n\nOur journey took us through miles of devastated country. Tons upon tons\nof war material, abandoned by the retiring German troops, littered roads\nand fields. Clothing, helmets, small arms of all description, whole\nbatteries of Howitzers still in position, dense black fumes from burning\nammunition dumps, acres of barbed wire fields and hillsides shell-torn,\nbodies still unburied--all this was the spectacle of war havoc greeting\nthe eye on every side.\n\nIn the chill of that bleak November evening we crossed the German\nfrontier and entered Gorz. Aged and feeble men and women looked sadly at\nus from their doors. Children, whose pinched faces clearly showed the\nravages of hunger, timidly followed our supply trucks up the deserted\nstreet.\n\n[Illustration: \"GREATER LOVE THAN THIS NO MAN HAS.\"]\n\nWe were the first American soldiers they had ever seen. Drawing up in\nfront of the old market place, Major Hirch explained our mission,\nspeaking to the people in German.\n\nWhen the poor starved creatures realized we were bringing them food,\ntheir joy knew no bounds; the children shouted with very joy and swarmed\nup into the trucks. We found ourselves crying, but supremely happy in\nthe realization that we were doing the Master's work.\n\nThe inhabitants fluently spoke French as well as German; and when the\nchildren saw the Chaplain's cross and found I was a priest, their\nreverence and affection was most pronounced.\n\nThe food, indeed, was but the coarse Army fare, \"bully\" beef, hard tack,\nand condensed milk; but, withal, it was relished most keenly. We felt\ngratified in the humble part we had played in saving the lives of those\nunfortunate non-combatants, and organizing our first Divisional Relief\nExpedition into Germany.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nDOMREMY--HOME\n\n\n\"Major Whittington, I have not had a furlough since we landed in\nFrance.\"\n\n\"I guess that's so, Chaplain; which city would you prefer visiting,\nParis or Metz?\"\n\n\"Domremy--.\"\n\n\"Domremy!\" he exclaimed, \"I never heard of the place. However, you may\ngo.\" Then, with forced seriousness, added, \"I believe you are needed in\nDomremy on Official Business.\"\n\nIt was December eleventh. We had long been anxious to visit the\nbirthplace of Joan of Arc. The story of her heroic brilliant life had\never interested and inspired us; and now, to actually be in the hills of\nher native Lorraine, to make a pilgrimage to her shrine, became our\nsupreme ambition.\n\nI could indeed have visited Domremy before, but purposely had I waited\nfor this date. On December thirteenth, President Wilson, coming to the\nPeace Conference, was to land in France. I wanted to say Mass, that\nvery morning, at the shrine of the Maid for the welfare of the\nPresident.\n\nA one hundred and fifty mile trip from Thiacourt to Domremy, south of\nVerdun on the Meuse, especially in an open motorcycle car and through a\nblinding storm of hail and rain, is not particularly pleasant.\n\nWhen we recalled, however, the arduous journey she, a girl, of eighteen\nyears, had once made on horseback from Domremy to Chinon, three hundred\nmiles, through snow-covered roads, we determined that nothing short of a\nFiring Squad should stop us.\n\nA cold I had contracted at Rembercourt had settled in my back. Lumbago\nhad painfully doubled me into an inverted \"L,\" a figure not happily\nadapted to a cycle car.\n\nLaboriously adjusting myself to the machine I plainly told the Maid, \"I\nwish you clearly to appreciate, Saintly Joan, that I am making this\njourney for you. Of old, you were supremely helpful to the ruler of\n_your_ country. I want you to do as much for the President of _mine_. I\nam going to say Mass on your home altar for him, and I want you to help\nme. If God spares me, and I return to America, I promise to proclaim\nyour glory and encourage all I can, young and old, in the practice of\nyour devotion.\"\n\nEarly dawn found us on our way. The steel helmet pulled low offers\nsplendid protection to one's eyes. Traversing the old battlefields of\nSt. Michel, we passed ruined Even and Essey and took the highroad\nleading south. The shell-torn steeple of Flirey church still leaned over\nthe road; and the grewsome Limey Gondrecourt front, its deserted dugouts\nresembling grinning skulls, elicited a sigh and a prayer for its dead\nlegions.\n\nThrough Noviant and Men-le-Tour we sped, and at noon were beyond Toul\nand racing through the historic valley of the Moselle.\n\nAt Bullney, our speeding car was curiously observed by thousands of\nGerman prisoners peering through the barbed wire enclosure of their\nroadside camp.\n\nColumbes-les-Belles, with its huge hangars, grimly stood in silhouette\nagainst a crimson burst of sunset.\n\nAt Neufchateau we reached the river Meuse with whose glory the names of\nheroic inconquerable Petain and Verdun shall be forever shared.\n\nWe were now in the picturesque \"valley of colors,\" whose winding trails\nwere trodden by the soldiers of Julius Caesar when \"Omnis Gallia divisa\nest in partes tres\" was written.\n\nWith pulse beat quickened by thought of our hallowed pilgrimage nearing\nits end, we rushed like a specter down the road, through winding vistas\nof giant cottonwood and poplar; rounding a hill we came in full view of\nDomremy, and, with a final burst of speed, rushed splashing, and all\na-thrilled with emotion, into its single street.\n\nDrawing up in front of the church, that of St. Remi, Apostle of the\nFranks, we were at once surrounded and curiously observed by a group of\nchildren. \"Are these children now to see a soldier, still crippled with\nlumbago, or one the intercession of Joan has made whole?\" This was the\nquestion I soliloquized, as I started to excavate myself from the\nmud-littered car!\n\nMy chauffeur eyed me askance; and the look of pleasure with which he\nnoted my evident recovery, told me he was as proud as I. The Saintly\nMaid had wrought her cure completely and with generous finality.\n\nAt once we entered the Church. Five hundred years before Jacques and\nIsabelle d'Arc had crossed that very threshold, carrying the precious\nbabe Joan to be baptized. The glowing ray of the sanctuary light\nwelcomed us, and, perhaps, turned to jewels the tears of joy and\nreverence coursing our cheeks.\n\nThe rough hobble nails of our shoes rang alarmingly on the stone\npavement as we made our way up the hallowed aisle. On our knees before\nthe altar we literally cried our prayers.\n\nLooking toward the lowly Tabernacle we felt that Jesus, the gentle\nMaster there present, was pleased with us. He seemed to look approvingly\nupon us and to say, \"My soldiers, rest here your weary head upon My\nHeart.\"\n\nAt the very railing where we knelt, Joan had made her First Communion.\nJust at our left on the Epistle side was the ancient font where she had\nbeen cleansed from original sin, made a Christian, a child of God, and\nheir to the Kingdom of Heaven. In the twilight, too, we could see the\nfaded plaster statue of St. Catherine Martyr, for whom she had special\ndevotion. We felt, in that holy hour, that Joan, high in heaven, was\npleased even with us; for we, too, had fought and bled for the same holy\ncause, the cause of Truth and Justice in the world, for which she had\nwith the Greater Love offered the sacrifice of her life. How often, in\nthat hallowed long ago, had the sun of early morning or the twilight\nglow of eventide found Joan here at prayer. In this sanctuaried Garden\nof the Lord grew the fairest Flower of Chivalry. Here did she receive\nthe Bread of Life, the Wine that maketh Virgins; here, by frequent\nconfession, was her soul kept fair and pure as the lilies of Paradise.\n\nDarkness had fallen over the village when we left the Church. A call at\nthe Rectory informed us that Monsieur le Cure was absent, and would not\nreturn till a late hour. At the end of the street we found a dear old\ncouple, living alone, who agreed to shelter us for the night. With what\nskill good Madame made ready that evening meal! Sitting in the square of\nlight cast by the glowing fireplace, and with our shadows, to the tempo\nof crackling fagots, in rhythmic gyrations on the ancient walls, my\ndriver and I watched her prepare it.\n\nFirst there was the pommes de terre to be peeled, washed and sliced to\nthe exact size of centuries old French fry. Monsieur was permitted to\nassist her in this, and wielded the keen bladed knife with precision.\nThen there was the salad and the seasoning of it to just that degree of\nthe \"delicieux\" the palate revels in. With the art, as it were, of a\nmagician, she drew from a huge cupboard the most inviting piece of beef\nand proudly flourished it before our devouring eyes. Here was the\nmakings of a \"filet de boeuf\" fit for Epicurius himself. In the center\nof the table was next placed the great round loaf of bread, neither\nwheat nor oats nor rye, but a happy combination of all and delightfully\ntoothsome. Crowning all, the liquid amber of cafe-au-lait, which Madame,\ntiming our needs to a nicety, poured at just the right moment.\n\nDuring the meal, we diligently inquired if any lineal descendants of the\nd'Arc family were to be found in Domremy. No, not one! No person of the\nname lived in the village; although most every girl and woman there bore\nthe name of Joan!\n\nAfter the meal, and when all had retired, I made my way out into the\nmoon-lit night. Domremy was sleeping, nor did it give thought of \"the\nstranger within its gates.\" Back to the Church, and to the home of Joan,\nstill standing beside it, I made my way. I revelled in the historical\nensemble of it all; and my desire was to become so imbued with its very\natmosphere, as to verily breathe it all my remaining life. In fancy I\nreviewed the story of her life like pages of a book, and its thrilling\ndeeds and transcending achievements were made real before me.\n\nThis very street was the Alpha of her public life; the market place of\nRouen its Omega! Riding forth in the bitter cold of that February\nmorning, 1429, with but meager escort and along three hundred miles of\nbrigand-infested roads and trails, she traversed France to the court of\nChinon. Convincing Charles VII of her divine vocation; throwing herself\ninto the war; rallying the people to her standard; wounded in battle yet\nnever wavering; animating veteran soldiers; bearing the brunt of the\nattack and shielding with her stainless bosom the heart of France.\n\nHer recompense? Abandoned by her king and by her countrymen, by the\ncruel path of flame she returns to God!\n\nThe several hours following Mass, we passed in the home where she was\nborn, and on the hillside where she toiled as humble shepherdess.\nReverently, and in very awe of its beauty, we visited the magnificent\nBasilica the people of France have raised to her memory. The structure\nis but partially finished; and I urged the good Fathers there in charge\nto visit America some day and give its people opportunity to contribute\nto so worthy a cause.\n\nReturning to the front we found the \"War Cross\" which had arrived during\nour absence. Colonel Lenoncle wrote as follows:\n\n    \"A Monsieur l'Aumonier McCarthy.\n\n    En appreciation de la belle action de Charite\n      qu'el est venie accomplir pour notre chere\n      terre de France.\n\n    P. Lenoncle, Col. Chas.\n    in Compagne.\"\n\nThe above referred to services in Bois-le-Pretre.\n\n\"Tempora mutantur et nos ubique in illis.\" It is only the things that\nGod has made that change not. The moon, bathing in silvery sheen the\nvillage street, had made radiant, in that long ago, the face of Joan at\nprayer. The Meuse, softly flowing by, still voiced the echo of her\ndreams, and bore her spirit to the tideless sea.\n\nNature had not changed; neither had the Author of Nature whose creatures\nare all men and whose ways are wise and just. For He whose \"Mills grind\nslowly yet grind exceedingly small\" is likewise He whose Master hand has\nwritten in this our own day, the illuminated Manuscript of her solemn\nCanonization.\n\nThe golden fingers of next morning's sun were scattering incense of\nlight over Joan's Altar as I began Mass. The lips of Old Glory kissed\nthe Gospel side, while the tri-color of France was draped on the\nEpistle. A nun of the village answered the responses. Reverently I\nbesought the Author of All that is Right and Mighty upon the earth to\nbless our President; to be light to his path, wisdom to his mind, and\nright hand to his endeavor. That rulers of earth might base their\ndeliberations on the rock of the Divine; mindful, that \"unless the Lord\nbuild the house in vain does he labor who would build it.\"\n\nOn December fifteenth I wrote as follows:\n\n    Headquarters Seventh Division, American Expeditionary\n    Forces, France\n\n    Hon. Woodrow Wilson, President, American Embassy, Paris.\n\n    My dear Mr. President:\n\n    May I be permitted the honor of informing you that on Saturday\n    morning, December fourteenth, I said Mass on the Altar of\n    Jeanne d'Arc in her old church at Domremy, praying and\n    believing that God would bless and direct you, as of old He did\n    the Maid, as His chosen representative of Justice and enduring\n    Peace.\n\n        Most respectfully and devotedly yours,\n                          GEORGE T. MCCARTHY,\n        Senior Chaplain, Seventh Division,\n                          A. P. O. 793.\n\nOn December twenty-fifth I received the following:\n\n    Rev. George T. McCarthy, Senior Chaplain, Seventh Division,\n    A. P. O. 793.\n\n    My dear Chaplain McCarthy:\n\n    The President directs me to acknowledge receipt of your letter\n    of December fifteenth and to thank you for it. It is indeed\n    gratifying for him to know that you are thinking of him and\n    praying for him especially in these critical times.\n\n        Very cordially yours,\n                 GILBERT CLOSE,\n        Confidential Secretary to the President.\n\nChristmas Day was memorable. A fall of snow gave festive atmosphere to\nour outpost homes. \"Jip\" carried me from Euvezin, where I said Mass for\nHeadquarters troop, to Grey Hound, where I repeated the Sacrifice for\nthe Signal Battalion. With the coming of the holiday the boys had been\nrehearsing an old-fashioned minstrel show, with boxing and wrestling\nmatches as side attractions. A long rambling shack near Bouillonville\nhad been secured for the entertainment, and its battered walls adorned\nwith holly and cedar branches. The hearts of all were sad and pensive\nthat Christmas Day, far overseas, and the entertainment, lasting through\nfive hilarious hours, did wonders in the way of reviving depressed\nspirits.\n\nDecember twenty-ninth marked the \"ne plus ultra\" of my active service\noverseas! In an old shack on the hills, swept with rain and swarming\nwith well meaning but annoying rats, I came down with the flu with a\ntemperature of 103 degrees. Doctor Lugar, who had nursed me through the\ngas attack, shook his head and ordered me sent to Evacuation Hospital\nNo. 1. Here I was delighted to meet my old friend Father Morris O'Shea\nof Buffalo, there stationed as Chaplain. A few days later I was sent to\nBase Hospital \"51\" at Toul. The Medical Staff ordered me from Toul to\nAmerica, and on February first I arrived at St. Nazaire on Biscay Bay.\nMy supreme joy here was in meeting my niece, Miss Honor Barry, who had\nserved as an Army Corps nurse in Base Hospital 101, located at this\nseaport, during nine arduous months.\n\nOn February ninth I sailed on the Manchuria, arriving in New York on\nFebruary twenty-second. Reporting at General Hospital 28, Fort Sheridan,\nIll., was thence ordered to the Army Hospital at Asheville, North\nCarolina. Six weeks in the ozoned hills of the Southland restored\nperfect health; and on May first reported for active duty at Fort\nSheridan.\n\nWith the memory of sweet Domremy still before us, we shall bring the\nhumble record of service Over There to its close.\n\nIn this period of valedictory may we be permitted a concluding\nreflection, projected in clear outline on the background of those\nthrilling days now forever over. That reflection, in silhouette, is\nthis--the great crises of life--whether decisive of weal or of woe, are,\nto the soul of normal man, God impelling! In direct ratio as danger and\ndeath impended in the gloomy wastes of No Man's Land, all soldiers grew\nreligious and turned instinctively to God. In the zero hour the profane\ngrew silent and the curse died unuttered on his lip. All, all,\n_realized_ God! The trench became His sanctuary, the flaming front His\nPresence Light, the glow on the faces of dying comrades visualized the\nGospel of His Greater Love.\n\nWe needed God Over There, we need Him equally as much Over Here! Peace\nhas its trials, its dangers, its lurking foes, its pitfalls, its hills\nof Pride to be conquered, its valleys of Despond to be overcome. The\nRembercourt of Life lies before us. We survived _that_ attack--who shall\nsurvive Death's _final_ hill crest!","title":"The Greater Love","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":27381}