The Irish on the Somme Part 5

Many were, naturally, in a serious mood. They felt too near to death for the chaff of the billets or trenches to be seemly. They thought of home, of dear ones, of life in the workshops and offices of Newcastle and Sunderland, and the gay companions of favourite sports and amus.e.m.e.nts, and, more poignant still, some recalled the last sight of the cabin in Donegal, before turning down the lane to the valley and the distant station, on their way to try their fortune in England.

Thus there was some restlessness and anxiety, but the company officers in closest touch with the men agree that the general mood was eagerness to get into grips with the enemy, and relish for the adventure, without any great concern as to its results to themselves individually. When the command was given, "up and over," the Brigade, in fact, was like a huge electric battery fresh from a generating station, for its immense driving force and not less for the lively agitation of its varied emotions. Up and over the battalions went, and moved forward in successive waves, the men in single file abreast, the lines about fifty yards apart. For about two hundred yards or so nothing of moment happened. Then they came under heavy fire. Sh.e.l.ls burst about them, shrapnel fell from above, bullets from rifle and machine-gun tore through the air, or caused hundreds of little spurts of earth to leap and dance about their feet. One of the men told me that the shrieking and hissing of these deadly missiles reminded him of banshees and serpents, a confused and grotesque a.s.sociation appropriate to a battlefield as to a nightmare.

It must not be supposed that everything was carried with a rush and a shout, at point of the bayonet. An impetuous advance is what the men would have liked best. It would be most in tune with the ardour of their feelings, and less a strain on their nerves. But there were many reasons why that was impossible. The country, in its natural formation, was upward sloping, and all dips and swells. It was broken up into enormous sh.e.l.l-holes and mine-craters, seamed with zigzag lines of white chalky rubble marking the German trenches, and strewn with the wire of demolished entanglements, fallen trees and the wreckage of houses. The men were heavily equipped in what is called fighting order. They carried haversacks, water-bottles, gas-helmets, bandoliers filled with cartridges, as well as rifles and bayonets.

Some were additionally burdened with bombs and hand grenades. Behind them came the working parties with entrenching tools, such as picks and shovels. Accordingly, the physical labour of the advance alone was tremendous. It would have been stiff and toilsome work for the strongest and most active, even if there had been no storm of shot and sh.e.l.l to face besides. There was, furthermore, the danger in a too hasty progress of plunging headlong into the curtain of high explosives which the artillery, firing from miles behind, hung along the front of the infantry, lifting it and moving it forward as the lines were seen to advance.

Nevertheless the men went on steadily, undaunted by the fire and tumult; and the shuddering earth; undaunted even by the spectacle of the dead and dying of the battalions which preceded them in the attack; shaken only by one horror--a horror unspeakable--that of seeing fond comrades of their own falling bereft of life, as in a flash, by a bullet through the brain or heart; or, worse still, just as suddenly disappearing into b.l.o.o.d.y fragments amid the roar and smoke of a bursting sh.e.l.l. Now and then men stopped awhile, trembling at the sight and aghast; and, under the sway of impulses that were irresistible, put their right hands over their faces as a protection to their eyes--an appeal, expressed in action rather than in words, that they might be mercifully spared their sight--or else made a sweeping gesture of the arm, as if to brush aside the bullets which buzzed about them like venomous insects.

The pace, therefore, was necessarily slow. It was rather a succession of short rushes, a few yards at a time, with intervening pauses behind such shelter as was available in order to recover breath. The right soldierly quality is not to be over rash, but to adapt oneself to the nature of the fighting and its scene; the circ.u.mstances of the moment, the ever-varying requirements of the action. Such an advance, whatever precautions be taken, entails great sacrifices. Every life that is lost should be made to go as far as possible in the gaining of the victory. Foolhardy movements, due to unreflecting bravery, were accordingly discouraged. Advantage was to be taken of any cover afforded by the natural features of the country or the state into which it had been transformed by the pounding of high explosives. The influence of the officers, so cool and alert were they, so suggestive of capability in direction, was most rea.s.suring and stimulating to the men. On the other hand, the officers were relieved by the intelligence, the amenable character of the men and their fine discipline, from the worry and annoyance which company commanders have so often to endure in the course of an action by the casual doings, and the lack of initiative on the part of those under their charge.

Simple, biddable, gallant and faithful unto death, it was the wish of the Tyneside Irish that, if they were to fall, their bodies might be found, not in the line of the advance, but at the German positions to the north-west of Contalmaison, out of both of which they had helped to drive the enemy.

But now the lines or waves of men which had left the trenches in extended formation were broken up into separate little bodies, all independently engaged in various grim tasks. They had mounted La Boiselle hill, and moved down into the valley which still intervened between them and Bailiff's Wood and Contalmaison. Thus they were in the very centre of the labyrinth of the enemy's system of defences. An air of intolerable mystery and sinister hidden danger hung over it.

Was it not possible that those brutes, those dirty fighters, the inventors of poisonous gas, liquid fire and flame jets, who had established themselves in the very vitals of the place, might not have other devilish inventions prepared for the wholesale ma.s.sacre of their adversaries? The thought arose in the minds of many, and caused a vague sense of apprehension. The Germans, however, had no further h.e.l.lish surprises. Even so, the place was baneful and noxious enough.

The Germans had suffered terrible losses and were morally shaken by the artillery bombardment--gigantic, devastating, thunderous--which preceded the British advance. It is the fact, nevertheless, that most of the survivors had enough courage and tenacity left doggedly to contest every inch of the way. They lay concealed in all sorts of cunning traps and contrivances, apart from their demolished trenches.

Machinery on the side of the British--in the form of big guns--had done its part. The time had come for the play of human qualities, the pluck, the endurance and the stout arm of the British infantry man.

Snipers had to be dislodged from their burrows; hidden machine-gun posts had likewise to be found out and silenced. So the men of the Tyneside Irish were rus.h.i.+ng about in small parties, shooting, bayoneting, clubbing, bombing; and the triumphant yells which arose here and there proclaimed the discovery of yet another lair of the foe.

Many a stirring story of personal adventure could be told. Sergeant Knapp of Sunderland, who won his stripes in the advance, gives this account of his experiences--

"I had just taken the machine-gun off my mate to give him a rest when 'Fritz' opened fire on us from the left with a machine-gun, which played havoc with the Irish. Then I heard my mate shout, 'Bill, I've been hit,' and when I looked round I saw I was by myself; he, poor chap, had fallen like the rest. Now I had to do the best I could, so I picked up a bag of ammunition for the gun and started across 'No Man's Land.' Once I had to drop into a sh.e.l.l-hole to take cover from machine-gun fire.

"After a short rest I pushed on again and got into the German second line. By this time I was exhausted, for I was carrying a machine-gun and 300 rounds of ammunition, besides a rifle and 120 rounds in my pouches, equipment, haversack and waterproof cape, so I had a fair load. I stopped there for a few minutes picking off stray Boches that were kicking about. Then along came a chap, whom I asked to give me a help with the gun, which he did. We had scarcely gone ten yards when a sh.e.l.l burst on top of us. I stood still, I don't think I could have moved had I wanted to. Then I looked around for my chum, but alas! man and gun were missing. Where he went to I don't know, for I have not seen him or my precious weapon since."

Who that has talked with many wounded soldiers has not found that often they are unable to give any coherent account of their own actions and feelings during a battle. In some cases it is due to an unwillingness to revive haunting memories, a wish to banish out of mind for ever the morbid, terrible and grotesque, the ugly aspects in which many experiences in battle present themselves, surpa.s.sing the nightmares of any opium eater. In other cases there is an obvious distaste for posing. All one gallant Irish Tynesider would say to me was, "Sure I only went on because I had to. Didn't the officers tell us before we left the trenches that there was to be no going back?" He brushed aside everything he had done that terrible day which got him the Distinguished Conduct Medal, with the jocose a.s.sumption that he was but the most unheroic of mortals, that he went to a place where he would not have gone if he had had any choice in the matter. The incommunicativeness of the soldier is also due to the fact that he cannot recall his sensations. During an engagement his mind is in a whirl. He has no disposition to note his thoughts and feelings in the midst of the fighting. In fact, few men can a.n.a.lyse the processes of their emotions in such a situation, either at the time or afterwards.

As a rule, an overmastering pa.s.sion possesses the soldier to stab, hack and annihilate the foe who want to take that life which he so greatly desires to preserve. All else is confused and blurred--a vague sense of desperate happenings shrouded in fire and smoke, out of which there emerges, now and then, with sharp distinctness, some specially horrible incident, such as the shattering of a comrade into bits.

But I have met with cases still more strange, where the mind was a blank during the advance through the showering bullets and shrapnel and the exploding sh.e.l.ls. Even the simplest process of the brain--memory, or self-consciousness--was dormant. The soldiers in this mental condition appear to have been like the somnambulist who does things mechanically as he walks in his sleep, and when aroused has an impression of having pa.s.sed through some unusual experience, but what he cannot tell, so vague and formless is it all. Suddenly all the senses of these hypnotised soldiers became wide awake and alert. This happened when they caught sight of figures in skirted grey tunics and flat grey caps with narrow red bands, emerging from cavernous depths into the light of day, or unexpectedly came upon them crouching in holes or behind mounds of earth away from the trenches.

Germans! Face to face with the Bosche at last! The effect was like that of a sudden and peremptory blast of a bugle in a deep stillness.

Each Irish Tynesider braced up his nerves for b.l.o.o.d.y deeds. "My life, or theirs," was the thought that sprang to his mind. Thus it was a scene of appalling violence. It resounded with the clash of bayonets; the crackle of musketry; the explosion of bombs; the rattle of machine-guns; and in that confusion of hideous mechanical noises were also heard the shriek of human anguish and the cry of victory.

It was in a wood not far off Contalmaison that the fighting was most desperate and sanguinary of all. The place was full of Germans. The paths and glades were blocked or barricaded with fallen trees. Beneath the splintered and blackened trunks that were still standing, the undergrowth, freed from the attentions of the woodman in the two years of the war, was dense and tangled. Right through the wood were trenches with barbed wire obstructions. At its upper end were peculiarly strong outposts, which poured machine-gun fire through the trees and bushes. It was commanded by batteries on two sides--from Contalmaison on the right and Oviliers on the left. The attackers had to penetrate this dreadful wood, scrambling, tearing, jumping, creeping in the sultry and stifling heat of the day. There were ferocious personal encounters. The form of fighting was one of the most terrible to which this most hideous of wars has given rise.

Probably there has been nothing like it since early man fought those horrid and extinct mammoth animals, the skeletons of which are now to be seen in museums, what time they were alive and savage and ruthless in their haunts in the primeval forest.

The battle was marked by ever-varying vicissitudes of advance and repulse. "The German Guardsmen fought like tigers to hold it," is a phrase in one letter of an Irish Tynesider. Our own official despatches relating to the Somme battle also show that this part of the German front--Oviliers, La Boiselle, Bailiff's Wood, Contalmaison, Mametz Wood--was held by battalions of the Guards, composed of the flower of the youth of Prussia, and standing highest in the mightiest army in the world. These were not the kind of men to put up their hands and cry "Kamerad, mercy!" at the sight even of that pitiless and unnerving thing--a bayonet at the end of a rifle in the hands of a brawny Irishman, with the fury of battle flaming in his eyes. They held on tenaciously, and gave blow for blow. A long bombardment, night and day, by modern heavy guns, is a frightful ordeal. Its objects are, first, to kill wholesale; and, next, to paralyse the survivors with the fear of death, so that they could but offer only a feeble resistance to the advancing troops. Shaken and despairing men were, therefore, encountered--filthy, unshaven, vile-looking, and so mentally dazed as to act and talk like idiots. But they were not all like that. So well-designed and powerful were their subterranean defences that large numbers were unaffected by the visitations of the high explosives, and through it preserved their courage and their rage. Conspicuous among these were the Prussian Guards. They made furious efforts to stop the advancing lines of the Tyneside Irish, and that they were overpowered is a splendid testimony to the martial qualities of our men. Think of it! Two years ago, or so, these young lads of various industrial callings--farm hands, railway porters, clerks, drapers' a.s.sistants, policemen, carters, messenger boys, miners--would have regarded as preposterous the idea that at any time of what seemed to them to be their predestined humdrum existence, or in any period even of a conceivably mad and topsy-turvy world, they would not only be soldiers but would encounter the Germans on the fields of France; and--most incredible phantasy of all--defeat the renowned Prussian Guards--men whose hearts from their earliest years throbbed high at the thought that they were to be soldiers; men highly disciplined and trained, belonging to the proudest regiments in the German Army, and always ready and eager for the call of battle.

Bailiff's Wood and Contalmaison appear to have been the furthest points reached on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. If they did not then fall, the superb action of the Tyneside Irish made breaches in these strongholds which, when widened and deepened by subsequent a.s.saults, led to their complete capture on July 10. As Captain Downey, an officer of the Tyneside Irish says: "Our men paved the way for various other British regiments who swept through some days later." A few companies of one of these battalions which got into Contalmaison on July 7, and were driven out, brought back some Tyneside Irish and Scottish that were imprisoned in a German dug-out in the village. They also found outside the village the bodies of several Tyneside Irish, gallant fellows who died in the attempt to push on to the point they had orders to reach.

The effectiveness of the attack by the Brigade on July 1 depended a good deal upon the progress made by troops of other Divisions who were co-operating on both sides. "On our left flank the parallel Division was held up; on our right the Division moved slowly," says an officer of the Irish Brigade. The difficulties of the advance would probably have held up indefinitely any other troops in the world. But there is never any danger of the momentum of an attack by Irish troops being weakened through excessive caution against what is called "over running." Indeed, it is a fault of their courage that they are sometimes p.r.o.ne to act with too much precipitation, and, in fact, on this occasion it was not so much that the Divisions to the right and left were behind time as that the Irish Brigade were somewhat ahead of it. The result, however, was that the Irish Tynesiders were exposed on their right to a deadly enfilading fire that swept across from Oviliers, which was not yet in British possession. Nevertheless, they did not stop. "No matter who cannot get on, we must." That was the order of the officers in command, and so dauntless was the response to it that by one o'clock the men got to a point in front of Contalmaison. Here what remained of the Brigade held on for some days and nights, until the reserves came to their relief on July 4.

The casualties among all ranks were heavy. The officers, sharing every hards.h.i.+p and being foremost in every danger, suffered most grievously.

"Our Brigadier, our colonels, our company commanders, were badly wounded. Every officer, with the exception of two subalterns, was. .h.i.t.

Some were hit in no less than three places. Yet they carried on. Those too weak to walk crawled until they eventually gave up through loss of blood. The losses among the N.C.O.s were just as large." This is the testimony of Captain Downey. Lieut.-Colonel L. Meredith Howard of the Tyneside Irish was severely wounded, and died two days afterwards.

Among the officers of the Brigade who fell in action was Second-Lieutenant Gerald FitzGerald. A brother officer says, "He died shouting to his men: 'Come on.'" His father was Lord Mayor of Newcastle the year in which the Brigade was raised. Other officers killed were Captain Kenneth Mackenzie of Kinsale, co. Cork, whose father was formerly an Irish Land Commissioner; Lieutenant Louis Francis Byrne of Newcastle, who was serving his articles as a solicitor when war broke out; and Lieutenant J.R.C. Burlureaux, a journalist.

The disappearance of so many of the officers was enough to have dispirited and confused any body of men. Would it be possible for them to extricate themselves from the fearful labyrinth in which they were involved? Would there be any of them left for the final dash at their objective? The non-commissioned officers rose splendidly to the emergency. One battalion had not far advanced when all the officers were shot down. Quartermaster-Sergeant Joseph Coleman took command and continued onward. Soon he found himself with only three men left.

Everything seemed lost in his part of that scene of tumult and death but for his coolness and gallantry. He went back, gathered up the remnants of other scattered companies, and led a willing and eager band to the capture of the position put down to the battalion in the scheme of operations. For this Coleman got the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and had it pinned on his breast by General Munro, the Brigadier.

When the Brigade was relieved, their return to the haven behind the lines was attended with almost as much danger as their advance to the h.e.l.l beyond the ridge had been. As the men ascended the slope of La Boiselle, down which they had charged a few days before, the German machine-guns were still rattling from the opposite hill, and snipers were picking off the stragglers. The hideousness of the field of action had also increased. The devastated ground, with its sh.e.l.l-holes, its great gaping craters and its trenches, was now strewn with the unsavoury litter of the wake of battle--discarded rifles, helmets, packs, burst and unburst sh.e.l.ls; boots, rags, meat-tins, bottles and newspapers. Such of the wounded as could walk at all limped along on the arms of comrades. Every one was inconceivably dirty. Down their blackened faces were white furrows made by their sweat. Thus they came back, the Irish Tynesiders, with b.l.o.o.d.y but unbowed heads. "I saw our battalions file out from their bivouac under cover of night, and, though each man knew of the deadly work before him, the ready jest and witty retort were as abundant as ever," writes Lieutenant F. Treanor, Quartermaster of one of the battalions of the Tyneside Irish, and a native of Monaghan. "In the dressing-stations afterwards I saw many of them, and there were still the same heroic fort.i.tude and the exchange of comments, many grimly humorous, as that of one poor fellow who remarked, when asked if he had any souvenirs.

'Be danged, 'twas no place for picking up jewellery.'"

The Brigade received the highest praises from the Commander of the Army Corps and the Commander of the Division, as well as from their own General. The corps commander wrote: "The gallantry, steadiness and resource of the Brigade were such as to uphold the very highest and best traditions of the British Army." Major-General Ingouville-Williams, who commanded the Division, wrote to the Tyneside committee--

"It is with the greatest pride and deepest regret that I wish to inform you that the Division which included the Tyneside Irish covered itself with glory on July 1, but its losses were very heavy. Every one testifies to the magnificent work they did that day, and it is the admiration of all. I, their commander, will never forget their splendid advance through the German curtain of fire. It was simply wonderful, and they behaved like veterans. Tyneside can well be proud of them; and although they will sorrow for all my brave and faithful comrades, it is some consolation to know they died not in vain, and that their attack was of the greatest service to the Army on that day."

Writing to his wife on July 3, 1916, Major-General Ingouville-Williams said: "My Division did glorious deeds. Never have I seen men go through such a h.e.l.l of a barrage of artillery. They advanced as on parade and never flinched. I cannot speak too highly of them. The Division earned a great record, but, alas! at a great cost." On July 20 he also wrote to his wife: "Never shall I cease singing the praises of my old Division, and I never shall have the same grand men to deal with again." A few days later Major-General Ingouville-Williams died for his country.

Seventy-three officers and men of the Tyneside Irish received decorations. Four Distinguished Service Orders and twenty Military Crosses went to the officers, eight Distinguished Conduct Medals and forty Military Medals were received by the men, and a sergeant was awarded the high Russian decoration of the Order of St. George. Among the officers who received the Military Cross was Lieutenant T.M.

Scanlan, whose father, Mr. John E. Scanlan, Newcastle-on-Tyne, took a prominent part in the raising of the Brigade. Lieutenant Scanlan states that only eight men were left out of his platoon after July 1, and six of them were awarded honours. All honour to the Brigade! Those who helped to raise the battalions--Mr. Peter Bradley and Mr. N.

Grattan Doyle, the chairmen of the committee; Mr. Gerald Stoney and Mr. John Mulcahy, the joint secretaries--have reason to be proud of the magnificent quality of the men who responded to their call. Let it stand as the last word of the story of their achievement that they overthrew and trampled down the proud Prussian Guards, and relaxed the grip which Germany had held for two years on a part of France.

CHAPTER VII

THE WEARING OF RELIGIOUS EMBLEMS AT THE FRONT

SPREAD OF THE EXAMPLE SET BY IRISH SOLDIERS

"Nearly every man out here is wearing some sort of Catholic medallion or a rosary that has been given him, and he would rather part with his day's rations or his last cigarette than part with his sacred talisman."--Extract from a letter written from the Front by a non-Catholic private in the Hussars.

The wearing of religious emblems by soldiers of the British Army is much talked of by doctors and nurses in military hospitals in France and at home. When wounded soldiers are undressed--be they non-Catholic or Catholic--the discovery is frequently made of medals or scapulars worn around their necks, or sacred badges st.i.tched inside their tunics. It is a psychological phenomenon of much interest for the light it throws upon human nature in the ordeal of war. It shows, too, how war is a time when supernatural signs and wonders are multiplied.

Testimony to the value of these religious favours as safeguards against danger and stimulants to endurance and heroism was given in a most dramatic manner by Corporal Holmes, V.C., of the King's Own Yorks.h.i.+re Light Infantry, who also holds the highest French decoration, the Medaille Militaire. He visited the Catholic schools at Leeds. All the girls and boys were a.s.sembled to see him. One of the nuns told the children how Corporal Holmes won his honours during the retreat from Mons. He carried a disabled comrade out of danger, struggling on with his helpless human burden for three miles under heavy fire. Then taking the place of the driver, who was wounded, he brought a big gun, with terror-stricken horses, out of action, through lines of German infantry and barbed wire entanglements. At the crossing of the Aisne a machine-gun was left behind, as the bridge over which it was hoped to carry it was sh.e.l.led by the enemy. Corporal Holmes plunged into the river with it, some distance below the bridge, and, amid shot and sh.e.l.l, brought it safely to the other bank. When the nun had finished recounting his deeds, Corporal Holmes unexpectedly turned back his tunic, and saying, "This is what saved me," pointed to his rosary and medal of the Blessed Virgin.

There is the equally frank and positive declaration made by Lance-Corporal Cuddy of the Liverpool Irish (the King's Liverpool Regiment), who was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for gallantry in saving life after the great battle of Festubert. He was in the trenches with his regiment. Cries for help came from some wounded British soldiers lying about fifteen yards from the German trenches. The appeal smote the pitying heart of Cuddy. He climbed the parapet of his trench, and, crawling forward on his stomach, discovered two disabled men of the Scottish Rifles. One of them had a broken thigh. Cuddy coolly bound up the limb, under incessant fire from the German trenches, and crawled back to his trench, dragging the man with him. Then, setting out to bring in the second man, he was followed by Corporal Dodd of the same battalion, who volunteered to a.s.sist him. On the way a bullet struck Dodd on the shoulder and pa.s.sed out through his leg. Cuddy bandaged him and carried him safely back.

Once more he crawled over the fire-swept ground between the trenches to the second Scottish rifleman. This time he took an oil-sheet with him. He wrapped it round the wounded man and brought him in also. All this was the work of hours. Not for a moment did this brave and simple soul flinch or pause in his humane endeavours. He seemed to be indifferent, or absolutely a.s.sured, as to his own fate. And he had the amazing good luck of going through the ordeal scathless, save for a slight wound in the leg. As is the way with soldiers, the comrades of Cuddy joked with him on his success in dodging the bullets of the b.l.o.o.d.y German snipers. "They were powerless to hit me. I carry the Pope's prayer about me, and I put my faith in that," he answered, in accordance with his simple theology. This prayer of Pope Benedict XV is one "to obtain from the mercy of Almighty G.o.d the blessings of Peace."

Both soldiers were convinced, as Catholics, that, being under the special protection of the Heavenly Powers whose symbols they wore, they were safe and invincible until their good work was done. Psalm civ. speaks of G.o.d, "who maketh the sweeping winds his angels, and a flaming sword His ministers." Why should He not work also through the agency of the religious emblems of His angels and saints? With this belief strong within them, Holmes and Cuddy leaped at the chance of bringing comfort to comrades in anguish, and help to those sorely pressed by the enemy.

There is another aspect of this question of the psychology of war. It is a boast of the age that we have freed ourselves from what is called the deadening influence of superst.i.tion. Nevertheless, since the outbreak of the war there has been an extraordinary revival of the secular belief in omens, witchcraft, incantations and all that they imply--the direct influence of supernatural powers, of some sort or other, on the fortunes of individuals in certain events. One amiable form of it is the enormously increased demand for those jewellers'

trinkets called charms and amulets, consisting of figures or symbols in stone and metal which are popularly supposed to possess powers of bringing good fortune or averting evil, and which formerly lovers used to present to each other, and wear attached to bracelets and chains, to ensure mutual constancy, prosperity and happiness. Even the eighteenth-century veneration of a child's caul--the membrane occasionally found round the head of an infant at birth--as a sure preservative against drowning is again rife among those who go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps. The menace of the German submarine has revivified the ancient desire of seafaring folk to possess a caul, which was laid dormant by the sense of security bred by years of freedom from piracy, and the article has gone up greatly in price in shops that sell sailors' requirements at the chief ports. Fortune-tellers, crystal-gazers, and other twentieth-century witches and dealers in incantations, who pretend to be able to look into the future and provide safeguards against misfortune, are being consulted by mothers, wives and sweethearts, anxiously seeking for some safe guidance for their nearest and dearest through the perils of the war.

So far as the Army is concerned, the belief that certain things bring good luck or misfortune has always been widely held by the rank and file. Formerly there were two talismans which were regarded as especially efficacious in warding off evil, and particularly death and disablement in battle. These were, in the infantry, a b.u.t.ton off the tunic of a man, and, in the cavalry, the tooth of a horse, in cases where the man and the horse had come scathless through a campaign. A good many years ago the old words "charm," "talisman," "amulet,"

dropped out of use in the Army. The French slang word "mascot," which originated with gamblers and is applied to any person, animal or thing which is supposed to be lucky, came into fas.h.i.+on; and some animal or bird--monkey, parrot, or goat, or even the domestic dog or cat--was appointed "the mascot of the regiment." But since the outbreak of the war the Army has returned to its old faith in the old talisman. A special charm designed for soldiers, called "Touchwood," and described as "the wonderful Eastern charm," has had an enormous sale. It was suggested by the custom, when hopes are expressed, of touching wood, so as to placate the fates and avert disappointment, a custom which is supposed to have arisen from the ancient Catholic veneration of the true Cross.

"Touchwood" is a tiny imp, mainly head, made of oak, surmounted by a khaki service cap, and with odd, sparkling eyes, as if always on the alert to see and avert danger. The legs, either in silver or gold, are crossed, and the arms, of the same metal, are lifted to touch the head. The designer, Mr. H. Brandon, states that he has sold 1,250,000 of this charm since the war broke out. Not long ago there was a curious scene in Regent's Park. This was the presentation of "Touchwood" to each of the 1200 officers and men of a battalion of the City of London Regiments (known as "The Cast-Irons") by Mdlle.

Delysia, a French music-hall dancer, before they went off for the Front. Never has there been such a public exhibition--uncontrolled and unashamed--of the belief in charms. Mr. Brandon has received numerous letters from soldiers on active service, ascribing their escape from perilous situations to the wearing of the charm. One letter, which has five signatures, says--

"We have been out here for five months fighting in the trenches, and have not had a scratch. We put our great good fortune down to your lucky charm, which we treasure highly."

Thus we see that mankind has not outgrown old superst.i.tions, as so many of us thought, but, on the contrary, is still ready to fly to them for comfort and protection in danger. The truth is that the human mind remains at bottom essentially the same amid all the changes made by time in the superficial crust of things. Man is still the heir of all the ages. Some taint of "the old Popish idolatries" survives in the blood of most of us, no matter how Protestant and rationalistic we may suppose ourselves to be. And now that the foundations of civilisation are disrupted, and humanity is involved in the coils of the most awful calamity that has ever befallen it, is it to be wondered at that hands should be piteously stretched out on all sides, and in all sorts of ways--unorthodox as well as orthodox--groping in the dark for protective touch with the unseen Powers who rule our destinies.

It is in these circ.u.mstances that non-Catholic soldiers of the new Armies are turning from materialistic charms to holy emblems. It may be thought that this new cult is but a manifestation, in a slightly different form, of the same primal superst.i.tious instinct of mankind as inspired the old, but as it has a religious origin and sanction and is really touched by spiritual emotion, it seems to me to be far removed from the other in spirit and intention. Non-Catholic soldiers appear to have been led into the new practice by the example of Catholic soldiers. These religious objects, commemorative of the Blessed Virgin and other saints, have always been carried about their persons by Irish Catholic soldiers, to some extent, as well as by Catholics generally in civil life. The custom is now almost universal among Catholic officers and men at the Front. It resembles, in a way, the still more popular practice of carrying photographs of mother, wife and child. Will it be denied that the soldier, as he looks upon the likenesses of those who cherish him, and hold him ever in their thoughts, does not derive hope and consolation from his consciousness of their watchful and prayerful love?

There are several little breastplates thus worn by Catholics to s.h.i.+eld them from spiritual evil and bodily calamity. The chaplet of beads, known as the rosary, is well known. The brown scapular of St. Mary of Mount Carmel is made of small pieces of cloth connected by long strings, and is worn over the shoulders in imitation of the brown habit of the Carmelite friars. Then there are the Medal of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, a reproduction of the wonderful picture discovered by the Redemptorist Order in Rome; and the Miraculous Medal of Our Lady, revealed by the Immaculate Virgin to Catherine Laboure, Sister of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, in Paris. Another is the "Agnus Dei" ("Lamb of G.o.d"), a small disc of wax, impressed with the figure of a lamb supporting a cross, and blessed by the Pope, which is the most ancient of the sacramentals, or holy objects worn, used or preserved by Catholics for devotional purposes. But what is now perhaps the most esteemed of all is the Badge of the Sacred Heart. On an oval piece of red cloth is printed a picture of Jesus, standing before a cross, with His bleeding heart, encircled by thorns and flames, exposed on His breast. The badge is emblematical of the sufferings of Jesus for the love of and redemption of mankind. It is the cognisance of a world-wide league, known as the Apostles.h.i.+p of Prayer, conducted by the Society of Jesus, and having, it is said, a members.h.i.+p of 25,000,000 of all nations. The promotion of these special devotions in the Catholic Church has been a.s.signed to different Orders: such as the rosary to the Dominicans; the scapular to the Carmelites; the Way of the Cross to the Franciscans. So the spread of the devotion of the Sacred Heart is the work of the Jesuits.

The headquarters of the Apostles.h.i.+p of Prayer in this country is the house of the Jesuits in Dublin, who publish as its organ a little monthly magazine called _The Messenger_. There has been so enormous a demand for the badge since the war broke out that the Jesuits have circulated a statement emphasising that it is not to be regarded as "a charm or talisman to preserve the wearer from bullets and shrapnel."

To wear it in this spirit would, they say, be "mere superst.i.tion."

"What it stands for and signifies is something far n.o.bler and greater," they also say. "It is, in a sense, the exterior livery or uniform of the soldiers and clients of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, King of heaven and earth, just as the brown scapular is the livery of the servants and soldiers of Mary, heaven's glorious Queen. As such it procures for those who wear it in the proper spirit the grace and protection of G.o.d; and the scapulars the special protection of Mary, much more than the livery or uniform of a country procures for those who fight under its flag the help and protection of the nation to which they belong."