The Greater Love Part 5

In monotone the steel rails seemed to plaintively reply,

"Art is long and Time is fleeting, And your hearts though stout and brave, Still, like m.u.f.fled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave."

Our afternoon hours were given something of a thrill in watching the evolutions of a half dozen planes, skirmish escort men of the air, flying high and wide covering our movements. We were now on the division of road operated by our own gallant 13th Engineers, of which my friend, Sergeant McDowell of Blue Island, was Locomotive Inspector.

Night fell; and the long troop trains like monstrous serpents creeping on their prey crawled steadily, silently forward into the abysmally black unknown. Slower and more uncertain they moved, feeling their way; and at midnight came to a final stop at the near approaches to No Man's Land. Quickly we detrained and took cover in a near-by forest; the empty cars trailed off rapidly to the south; and dawn found neither a car nor a soldier in sight. All that day we remained hidden in the shadowy solitudes of Bois l'Evque on the banks of the Moselle.

Beautiful was this softly flowing river, mirroring azure skies and radiant in the colorful glow of early autumn. How hard to realize that death lurked in the quietude of its borders; that Man had chosen this bosom of shade, tuneful with the voice of sweetly calling birds, as a fitting shambles to slay his fellow men!

If day for the soldier was for rest, night was for the march; and a new dawn found us in the sheltering woods of Gonderville on the Toul-Nancy highway.

Turquoise, palest violet, tender green and gold, the country lay before us. Then, even as we watched from covert, our ears made acquaintance with a new and ominous sound. From an infinite distance the morning breeze from the north carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now regular as the m.u.f.fled rolling of drums, now softly irregular with intervals of stillness. It was the dominating monotone of cannonading.

No need to tell the boys what it meant!

"Guess we're in time for the big show all right," Buddie quietly remarked; and from that moment an expression overspread his countenance and a note crept into his voice I had not noticed there before. It was not one of nervousness, but of seriousness; a clearer vision and apprehension of big manly things henceforth to be done.

"When I was a boy I lived as a boy; but when I became a man I put away the things of boyhood and acted the part of a man."

_Boys_ went _into_ the trenches, but _men_ came _out_ of them!

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR DUGOUTS AFFORDED SHELTER AND HABITATION.]

CHAPTER VI

PUVINELLE SECTOR--BOIS LE PRETRE--VIEVILLE EN HAYE

Gallant Pers.h.i.+ng was even then maneuvering his masterly all-American offensive in the San Michel. Our Seventh Division, with the 28th on the left and the 92d on the right, now reached the high full tide of martial responsibility; merging from the reserve into the attack; and taking its place with the Immortal Combat Divisions of proud Old Glory.

The front line sector, which that night we took over, extended in a general westerly direction from north of Pont a Musson on the Moselle river to Vigneulles--a distance of ten kilometers.

Approximate positions found the 55th Infantry at Thiacourt, the 64th at Vieville, the 37th at Fay-en-Haye, and the 56th at Vilcey-sur-Trey, with Machine Gun Battalions distributed equally among them. During September, Division Headquarters was at Villers-en-Haye; moving forward in echelon to Noviant and Euvezin October 24th.

Although Villers-en-Haye was mostly in ruins, the Sacristy of the village church was in good shape, and this I at once occupied. On the preceding Sunday, good Father Harmon of Chicago had said Ma.s.s in this church, as a note, fastened to its front door, announced.

Thoroughly tired, I spread my blanket on the floor and fell quickly to sleep. I dreamed I was tied to a railroad track with a train rus.h.i.+ng towards me. With a start I awoke, just as a siren voiced sh.e.l.l came screaming across the fields, bursting at the foot of the hill on which the church stood.

The gas alarm was at once sounded and every trooper sought refuge in the dugouts. It was then half-past eight. At four-minute intervals and with the most deadly regularity these sh.e.l.ls came at us for four nerve-racking hours.

Boom! You could hear it leave the eight-inch howitzer six miles away, then in a high tenor pitch, it rushed toward you with a crescendo of sound, moaning, wailing, screaming, hissing, bursting with frightful intensity apparently in the center of your brain. Falling here, there, and everywhere in the ruins and environs of the village, mustard gas, flying steel and mortar, levied cruel toll on six boys, whose mangled bodies I laid away the following afternoon at Griscourt under the hill.

One of these, I now recall, was Corporal Donald Bryan of the 7th Engineers, a most handsome and talented young man who, before the war, had won fame in the field of movie drama.

"Where were you last night?" inquired gallant Colonel c.u.mmings of Missouri, our Machine Gun Regimental Commander.

"In the sacristy," I replied.

"The worst possible place for you!" he exclaimed; "you would find it far safer in a dugout."

I preferred the sacristy, however, for its convenience to the altar, where I could say daily Ma.s.s, and so won my point.

Chaplain and burial work had been meanwhile growing tremendously. Burial details to be organized, equipped and dispatched far and wide along the front; conferences with Chaplains; forwarding to them of Departmental Orders; receiving their weekly reports, and compiling these in daily reports to the Graves Registration Service; with monthly reports to be prepared for Bishop Brent at Chaumont, Monsignor Connolly at Paris, and Archbishop Hayes at New York.

At this time welfare workers joined us and we had thirty Y. M. C. A.

secretaries under Rev. Mr. Todd; eight American Red Cross secretaries under Mr. Kolinski of Chicago; six Salvation Army lady secretaries under Adjutant Mr. Brown, and ten Knights of Columbus secretaries under Mr.

McCarthy of Kansas City, who joined us at Bouillonville.

All these workers rendered most valuable and devoted service; especially at a time and place when we were far afield in ruined sh.e.l.l-swept areas, and completely cut off from every vestige of ordinary comforts. How good a bar of chocolate, a stick of Black Jack, a "dash" of despised inglorious "goldfish" tasted to Buddie, lying cold, hungry, dirty and "cootified" in his dugout!

A distinct contribution to modern civilization, and a form of national and international altruism making for the betterment, not only of him who receives but as well of him who gives, was organized welfare work.

The need of such work always existed; and the organization of trained and equipped auxiliary forces intelligently to perform it must have ever been apparent. It remained for the World War, conceived, at least in the American mind in unselfish motive, to create and give flesh and blood expression to so Divine a vocation; and a.s.sign it honored rank among National inst.i.tutions eminently to be desired, and, without invidious comparison, devotedly to be maintained.

One day, timing and dodging dropping sh.e.l.ls, I came to ruined, bombarded Essey. A single piece of bread had been my only fare for many trying hours and I was hungry to the point of exhaustion.

Above the door of a dugout I saw the welcome sign "Salvation Army," and, making my way to the door, I knocked. It was at once opened by two lady secretaries.

The savory odor of fresh, crisp fried cakes greeted me, and in the center of the room beyond, I saw a table heaped high with the precious viands themselves! Truly it was Angel Food! Not the lily-white sort served and known as such at home, but the golden ambrosial kind angels dream of--and surely were the Salvation Army ladies who saved me that day from starving, angels. Not only did they kindly point to the table of delight and generously say, "Help yourself, Chaplain," but Adjutant Brown, husband of one of them, entering at that moment, cheerily remarked:

"Chaplain, won't you join us? we are just sitting down to dinner."

Having no other dinner engagement just then, I accepted! The table was placed under a stairway, just room for the four of us. Outside, the air was filled with the spume and shriek of bursting sh.e.l.ls. The windows were tightly barricaded, and a candle, placed in the mouth of a bottle, gave the only light.

"Chaplain, will you offer Grace?"

Reverently all four bowed our heads in prayer; and may the good G.o.d who brought us there together, join us some future day in his heavenly home above!

The problem of transportation was most insistent and difficult. The Division being far below its quota of automobiles and motorcycles, Chaplains and burying details were compelled frequently to journey on foot, with possible aid from some pa.s.sing truck.

Under these conditions I found "Jip" truly "bonne chance." "Jip" was the horse a.s.signed me by my good friend, Lieutenant Davis, of Headquarters Troop, and whom I named after my faithful dog "Jip" of Harvey. He was a n.o.ble animal, utterly without fear; broken by cha.s.seurs-a-cheval to gun fire. My only comrade on many a long, lone ride, we grew fond of each other to a degree only he can appreciate who has spent days and weeks of solitude and danger with a devoted horse. All the pet names and phrases "Jip" of Harvey knew, I lavished on him, leaning forward to whisper in his ear. Although it was not the familiar French he heard, it seemed to please him, and obediently he bore me on, little heeding the danger of the trail, so that he shared my sorrows and pleasures.

One beautiful day in mid-October, he carried me many miles through Bois de Puvinelle, deep in whose solitudes, at Jung Fontaine the 20th Machine Gun Battalion was camped; pa.s.sing on our way ruined Martincourt, then heavily sh.e.l.led, to the borders of grim Bois-le-Pretre.

Before starting on this mission, which had for its object inspecting of front line conditions and burial work, I had talked over the situation thoroughly with Colonel P. Lenoncle, French Army, who, during two years, had fought over every foot of Bois-le-Pretre, and won there his Croix de Guerre.

"Monsieur le Chaplain," he said, "this forest is a household word for danger and death throughout all Germany. I know, in your goodness, you will not fail to bury any of my brave poilu whose bodies you there may find."

Glorious was our canter down the dim leafy aisles of the Bois oak, maple, ash, and pine flamed with the glorious coloring of autumn.

Crimson ivy festooned each swaying limb, weaving canopies against a mottled sky of blue and white; morning-glories nodded greeting from the hedges, while forest floors were carpeted with the red of geranium, yellow of marigold and purple of aster.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIACOURT UNDER Sh.e.l.l-FIRE.]

Through the winding tunnel of foliage "Jip" was keenly alert. He seemed, with his good horse sense, to feel that he was carrying a very well-meaning but inexperienced Chaplain, more interested perhaps in things botanical and floral than military. When I, for example, showed inclination to dismount and inspect a beautiful saddle lying by the roadside, it was evidently a German officer's, "Jip," with ears back, snorted and galloped furiously past. A veteran sergeant afterwards quietly remarked:

"'Jip' likely saved you that time, Chaplain, from a 'planted' bomb, for which that saddle was the bait."