B. J. Murdoch

“ Into these large, quiet wards, far away from the roar of the heavy guns, the crackle of machine-guns and rifles, the wounded lads came, carried by train and ambulance.
Many who will read these lines have seen the troop-trains, with their hundreds of khaki-clad lads leaning out from car windows, cheering, singing, and waving, as they were carried swiftly by on their way to seaport or training-camp. Perhaps they have watched long companies of soldier boys march up dusty roads, while flags waved and bands played and people cheered, to the lines of cars waiting for them. ”

“ Often on leaving one hut only to enter another, I have paused to look longingly out to the estuary of the Canche, where the sun would be sinking slowly, and breathe the strong, aromatic air coming from the sea and the marshes that grew from the river mud; then in again to great wards of poor broken lads and the antiseptic odors of the hospital.
Although the spirits of the lads, on the whole, were bright and merry, and those who nursed them brought sunshine to their work, still one would scarcely think of entering any one ward with the intention of being entertained. ”

“ For some time before we fell in I heard from all quarters strange, unearthly noises, and in every direction I turned I saw, at quite a distance from each other, kilted figures walking up and down bearing their wide-branched bag-pipes, each one emitting the weirdest wails imaginable; they were the pipers of the Sixteenth pipe band tuning up. However, when we started off the sound was quite different, for the pipes and kettle-drums make merry marching music. I know of no other music that can make tired men march so briskly and with such a swing as that of the pipes. ”

“ The modern idea of saving labor seemed never to have come to them. Sometimes when not very busy I would take a walk through the long white roads, leading into a white-housed red-roofed village, the Norman tower of the little church piercing the tree-tops; then out again through more green unfenced fields to another little village two, or three, or sometimes four miles away.
Often while on these walks, I used to think of the rugged strength of these sturdy French peasants who went so steadily and quietly about their work. ”

“ I was finding some difficulty in arranging hours for Masses, and towards three o’clock I dismounted from my bicycle, sat by the roadside and wiped my forehead. Everything was intensely quiet; a Sabbath-day stillness was over all the land. It seemed more like a beautiful dream than a reality. For months I had been in the gruesome atmosphere of war, gazing on broken villages, torn roads and ruined farmlands, walking always in danger and “in the shadow of death” through a country utterly desolate, and foully marred by the ingenuity of men. ”

“ Shortly after daylight I was moving along the Canal looking for the Second Field Ambulance, with which I was to follow, when I saw coming up through a shower of shell explosions the young officer who had come to see me at Monchy Breton. He was looking for the Sixteenth Battalion. He was no longer downhearted. The light of battle was in his clear blue eye. He shook hands with me and smiled a bright, fearless smile as the shells dropped about us. He told me he had been sent up to the battalion, which was sadly in need of officers. As he spoke, all about us were dead men and horses. ”

“ The men went hungry all day. The last trip had been one of over-indulgence. This was one of abstinence.
We had no breakfast and no dinner, yet the men seemed quite content, and joked pleasantly over the fact that they were hungry. At one country station where we were side-tracked the bugler jumped out on the platform and blew the call: “Come to the cook-house door, boys!” But as there was no cook-house door to go to, and no “Mulligan battery”—the name given to the field-kitchen, with its steaming odors of Irish stew—they greeted the call of the smiling bugler with derisive laughter. ”

“ In an open field a number of men from the transport sections were preparing breakfast, their horses drawn up on the side of the road, busy with their nose-bags, and the odor of frying bacon was wafted on the morning air. We did not breakfast, as we had no rations with us. Two general service wagons with rations for the whole battalion were to join us farther on.
Once, on leaving a quaint little village grouped about a small, perhaps century-old stone church, we caught a glimpse of a wide stretch of green countryside. ”

“ I had never before marched with any unit which seemed to draw such universal attention as did the Sixteenth Canadian Scottish Battalion, and I think it was owing chiefly to the strange music of the pipes and the uncommon uniform of the kilted laddies. For as we entered village after village, doors and windows began to open, and old and young and middle-aged French peasants quickly filled them, smiling their admiration as the pipers played and the soldiers marched. ”

“ Perhaps they march all through the night, carrying their equipment and their heavy packs on their backs, and as the dawn comes, they notice at every cross-road a great cross, and nailed to the cross the figure of the Crucified—white, blood-streaked, the thorn-crowned head bent in the agony of suffering, the face livid with pain and misery. And many a lad under his weight looks up. ”

“ He sat with perfect ease in the saddle, and looked quietly over the French transport section as he went. There seemed to be some indefinable atmosphere about the man that made one think of great, illimitable spaces, of unrestricted freedom of movement. A few seconds previous I had been thinking of the romance of old France, but I had not been prepared for this inset. A breath, strong and clear, of my homeland came to me, and I felt proud of my countryman.
I used to say Mass every morning in the little church of the village, the pastor of which was a very delicate looking young French curé. ”

“ But one had to be a soldier of the line to realize what good news it really was. One must be actually in the trenches when the word comes to comprehend fully what those words “back to rest” mean.
“We’re going back to rest, chummy,” somebody says, and the word is relayed quickly down the front line trench. And tired-faced lads, many of them with faint, dark rings around their eyes, smile broadly as they stand half-crouching in the muddy trench. Onward the glad tidings go, whispered or uttered in low voices: “Out to rest, Bo; the relief’s coming in tonight at half-past ten. ”

“ Easter in Rome, in one of the most beautiful chapels in the world, the Pope in the richest vestments, assisted by many priests, giving Holy Communion. Then, a small, dark hut, with not even a window in it, and no covering over the clay floor, the priest in a wrinkled khaki uniform and heavy trench boots, his only vestment a small white stole worn over his tunic—yet, in each case Jesus had come to the young officer! ”

“ I [141] was rather anxious to be down in the communication trenches; the countryside appeared very level and always we were drawing nearer the German front line. My companion, a veteran of the Boer War, did not seem to feel the slightest timidity. He had not spoken now for a few minutes and the silence was oppressive. As far as I could see, the whole countryside was criss-crossed with trenches; hardly a living person could be seen, yet in the twinkling of an eye the great gridiron before me could be alive with thousands of men now burrowing in the earth like foxes. ”

“ Of all the lads of different nationalities who visited the little chapel in the evening and who came so often to Holy Communion in the early morning, I think I liked the best the New Zealanders. They were nearly all tall, lithe men, dark-haired, with long, narrow faces, and eyes that had a strange intensity of [66] expression: perhaps one might call them piercing. They were quiet-voiced men and spoke with rather an English accent. They were the gentlest, finest men it was my good fortune to meet in the army. They were excellent Catholics, many of them daily communicants. ”

“ Every morning for a week or two I was in the little church where I had said Mass on Christmas Day, and every evening while I was there men came to confession. Then one morning the young soldier who had been so attentive to my wants, and whose name I had learned was George, came into the burlap room in a state of evident excitement and said: “We’re going back to rest, sir.” ”

“ While leading his men out of the Ronville caves he had been mortally wounded, passing away a few hours afterwards. Of the dead, only Captain Waud and the young soldier from the Thirteenth whom I had anointed in the cave, were Catholics.
And often as I passed through the court before the main building of the convent and paused to look at the sweet forget-me-nots fringing the lawn around the base of the statue of the Sacred Heart, I recalled the two who, among others, had remembered their Creator, and I felt now they were not forgotten: “Turn to Me and I will turn to thee,” had said the Lord. ”

“ That afternoon, accompanied by Father Sheehan, I went up to Arras to visit my brigade, for most of the soldiers were billeted in the city. Arras was being heavily shelled by the enemy. Long before we reached the suburbs we could see the sudden spurts of black smoke rising in many places from large buildings; and as we drew nearer we could hear the dull, quick-echoing crash as shell after shell shrieked its way into the great chalk buildings and exploded. Our own field artillery was busy on the outskirts of the town, returning the German fire. ”

“ Finally, as we approached the trenches, Verey lights hissed a trail of light through the sky and as they broke to descend we stood very still. Every little while orders came for us to fall on our faces, and we lay motionless on the ground listening to that strange, sweeping sound of machine-gun bullets as they tore their way through the air just above us. ”

“ Perhaps for the first time in years some men began to do a little serious thinking. Under ordinary circumstances, when the voice of conscience speaks, one has a thousand ways of deafening the ears. In the trenches there was no means of silencing the still, small voice. All things conspired to make one think seriously of death and the fragility of human life. ”

“ I then remembered the bag of sugar I had seen in the medical officer’s hut. If I had only brought it, I could have given it to the Fifteenth Battalion! I did not mind the lack of sugar in the tea. And I was not bothered that most of the smoke from the improvised fire-place was floating out over the cellar instead of rising through the chimney. But I began to feel my spirits revive with the kindly talk of the officers. They seemed pleased that I had dropped in on them. The Fifteenth was the one battalion of the brigade that had no chaplain. ”

“ The dugout was shaking from the concussion of the shells bursting on the ground above us. I had been sleeping fully dressed and with my trench coat on; for although it was July it was very cold underground. My bed was a berth of meshed wire stretched between rough scantling—nothing else, not even a blanket; my pillow was my haversack. When I awoke I was trembling violently, I was not sure whether through cold or fear. ”

“ It really was not necessary [79] for me to procure the number of their beds, once these men knew that it was the priest who was coming down the aisle, for I could have found them by the eager, smiling faces that watched me as I came. They always got in the first word; before I quite reached their beds I would hear their truly Irish greeting, “God bless you, Father,” and then as I would shake hands, they would ask me eagerly how I was—I had come to see how they were. They always wanted a medal—they pronounced it more like “middle”—and it was a little one that they wanted. ”

“ It was a wonderful sight that met the eye as George and I left Boves that evening and turned our steps towards the battle-ground. The artillery had assembled, and on all sides were great guns in cuttings of embankments or hidden in woods, or camouflaged in the open. At times the roads were blocked with the heavy lines of traffic, but as we drew nearer the line the movement was not so great; yet coming through fields and woods were the huge, clanking tanks. There must have been at least one hundred of them careening along up hill and down dale. ”

“ I saw tears in the eyes of big, strong men, I saw them bowing their heads as they reached for their khaki handkerchiefs. It was one of the strangest and sweetest experiences I had in the war.
After Mass, when I had got just beyond the village, I dismounted, sat on the side of the road and began to eat the luncheon I had brought—some sandwiches of cheese and jam and a water-bottle full of cocoa. Rye was growing all about me, and it was yet dark green in color. ”

“ Ambulances took them to the Red Cross trains and stretcher-bearers carried them gently to berths in the cars, and then they began their long journey to the base hospital—the big quiet hospital far away from the roar of the guns. From time to time medical officers passed down the aisle of the car, and sometimes a Red Cross nurse, clad in light grey uniform, gave medicine to the wounded lads or examined a dressing. ”

“ They continue their march till the morning sunlight begins to brighten all the land and the roar of the guns has become but a faint distant rumble, then, perhaps, they sit on the roadside, or along the edge of a field, the grass of which looks so fresh and green after the rolling, shell-torn No Man’s Land they have been looking over for days, where never a blade of grass could be seen ”