The Greater Love Part 3

Apart and aloof from the beaten paths that lead from London to Paris it held, through the centuries, "the even tenor of its way."

Here had the painter ever found color and form for his canvas; the romanticist, theme and character for his story. In the deep-voiced caverns of these towering cliffs lived the Pirates of Penzance. The solitude of yonder St. Malo inspired Chateaubriand with his immortal "Monks of the West"; and Morlix, just east of Brest, was, in days of peace, the dwelling place of peerless Marshal Foch.

By nightfall all the troops had been ferried to the wharfs and formed by companies in the railroad yards along the water front.

Promptly at five o'clock, with headquarters troop at the head of the column, Colonel Taylor and all officers on foot, we began our march to Ponteneuson Barracks. Each of us, on leaving the Leviathan, had been rationed with a sandwich. We had hoped to dejeuner on the wharf before beginning the march, but such was not our good fortune--the single sandwich was all the food--or drink for that matter--we tasted until ten o'clock the following morning.

The march of eight torturous, hill-climbing, miles, while exhausting in the extreme, was not without interest. It brought us within seeing and speaking distance of the inhabitants. A group of little boys and girls trudged along at our side singing what they no doubt believed to be our Ma.r.s.eillaise, "Cheer, cheer, the gang's all here." The shrill voices of these pet.i.t garcons expressed our only bienvenue to France!

Their elders, in their quaint Breton Sunday costumes, sitting on doorsteps or grouped along the roadsides, viewed us interestedly, but quietly and without demonstration. Although it was the highway used by thousands of American troops pa.s.sing through Brest, we heard no word of cheer, nor saw a single banner of welcome in those eight weary miles of back torture under full packs.

At nine o'clock we arrived at Ponteneuson. Well might this place be called, at least at that time, the vestibule of h.e.l.l! If there is any boy of the A. E. F. who has anything good to say--or the slightest happy memory to recall--of Ponteneuson, I have yet to meet him.

It was officially called a "Rest Camp"--where we might recuperate from our long confinement on shipboard. But if lying hungry and cold on the fog-drenched rocks of Brittany, with a chill wind sweeping up from the neighboring ocean, freezing the very marrow of one's aching bones, be considered rest, it was a kind entirely new to us.

Lying near me on the chill ground that night was Major Winthrop Whittington of Cleveland, Ohio, one of the most efficient, kindest and wittiest of our officers, and who later served as our Chief of Staff.

Someone had just remarked that Napoleon used frequently to come to Ponteneuson. "That explains," quietly remarked the Major, "the three-hour sleep theory held by Napoleon--(sufficient for any man); three hours is all any man could sleep in such a h.e.l.l of a place."

How we survived that night and the following six days and nights can only be ascribed to that merciful dispensation of G.o.d which has carried us through many a trial. Our habitation was now the open field, drenched in a dust storm that blew constantly. We sat on the roadside and ate our meager fare, making joke and jest of our utter lack of comfort.

Immediately adjacent to us was the guard house, a prison camp, pitched in the open field, and surrounded by barbwire fencing. The only shelter these wretched boys had--they were all Americans--were holes they had burrowed in the ground and little shacks they had constructed from odd pieces of boards they had found. Through the days and nights the chorus of their angry, cursing voices was borne to our ears on the howling wind.

One day we were hurried into formation and sent past the reviewing stand. President Poincare of France was paying us a call. His motor car, escorted by an outriding troop of French cavalry, and heralded by shrill bugle calls, came whirling into our midst on the wings of a dust cloud.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TAPS AND FAREWELL VOLLEYS FOR OUR HEROIC DEAD.]

Alighting in front of the improvised reviewing stand, he immediately became the center of an animated group; the khaki of our camp officers mingling with the blue, red and gold of the French. No time was lost by the little man in black suit and cravat in starting the review. The long lines of our doughboys, their rifles, with fixed bayonets, flashing and dazzling in the rays of the setting sun, swept by like some rushing, splashing Niagara torrent. The review was evidence, at least, as to our number, stamina and equipment.

The following morning, a full hour before the dawn, we were quietly aroused, ordered to roll our blanket packs and get into line. Glorious news! We were on the move, starting for our training area and thence into the fighting lines! Within forty minutes we were on the march, leaving Ponteneuson, as we had entered it, under cover of the night.

Our immediate destination was the railroad yards at Brest, where we would find our trains. Those wretched days of exposure, lack of food and sleep greatly weakened many. Chaplain Kerr, who had entered the service with me at Governor's Island, New York, died of pneumonia, and was buried at Brest. Although frequent halts for rest were made, many of the troops fell out and were carried to the First Aid Stations.

How shall I describe the cars that carried our boys from the sea coast towns to the fighting fronts of France? Each car, plainly marked "Hommes 20, Chevals 8," offered equal accommodations for 20 men or 8 horses--especially were they equipped for the comfort of horses. It was sans air brake and sans spring; and when the engineer made up his mind, which he often did, to stop that train, he did so in a manner the most alarming to aching limbs and weary eyes. "Let's go," the soldiers' war cry, rang out along the creaking, swaying, grinding train, and we were off on our 400-mile journey to the training area a.s.signed to our Division somewhere in France.

How we enjoyed, at least, our eyesight on that journey! The appeal to the eye was constant--the color and form of scenes unfamiliar offering views of compelling attraction and delight. Each unadorned car window and door became the frame of pictures not a Millet nor a Rembrandt could depict.

The villages, their st.u.r.dy houses of gray stone and red tile roofs; their streets, transformed from "routes" to "rules," where country roads came to town; their shopping squares stirred to enterprise by signs of "Boulangerie," "Boucherie," "Cafe" and "Menier Chocolat." Towering over all, the never-failing church, its lofty, cross-surmounted tower, giving to the scene tone and character.

Rolling fields, aglow with harvest gold of wheat, oats and rye; orchards, teeming with luscious fruit ready to be gathered; rivers, threading their silvery way through meadow and wood; splendid roads, binding the beauteous bouquet of landscape with ribbons of silky white.

The outstanding feature of that three-day journey was the apparent utter lack of enthusiasm on the part of a supposedly demonstrative people.

Waiting at crossroads or railway stations, they would look at us in that same quiet, observing manner we had noticed at Brest. We pa.s.sed through Morlix, home city of Foch; Versailles, and Sennes; and at no place did we hear so much as a single cheer. There were no welfare workers at any point, and if "Cafes" were numerous, we always paid well for our wine, bread and "cafe au lait."

Coming from our own beloved America, where welfare workers greeted and feted us at every station, this apparent lack of hospitality more noticeable was difficult to understand. Possibly their impoverished condition forbade the refreshment part; but cheers and vives are possible, even to the poorest!

Tuesday morning, August 19th, found us paralleling the picturesque river Yonne, which waters the vine-clad valleys of Burgundy. The sound of big gun firing had reached us in the early dawn, and we were all a-thrill at the thought of mighty things impending. Vaguely the words "Toul,"

"St. Mihiel," "Verdun," and "Metz," had filtered back from the flaming front; and, like hounds tugging at the leash, we were eager for the fray.

At high noon we reached the quaint old town of Ancey-le-Franc, Department of Yonne. Here we left the train and drew up in formation along the roads and back through the lanes and fields. On the platform of the "gare" our gallant Division Commander, Brigadier General Baarth, attended by his staff, who had come on ahead of us by way of Paris, greeted us warmly and reviewed the troops. We were the first American soldiers to enter this area, and the village folks of Ancey-le-Franc, Shacenyelles, Fontenoy, and Nuites sur Yonne, welcomed us to their humble homes, barns and fields where we were to be billeted, with simple and cordial hospitality.

CHAPTER V

IN BILLETS--DEPARTURE FOR FRONT

Stepping from the train into the streets of Ancey-le-Franc was verily performing a miracle--with a single stride we were out of the twentieth century and into the eighteenth! We were among our contemporary ancestors, far on the road to yester century. Not a building under at least one hundred years of age--not a street but trodden by the Crusaders of St. Louis--the church of St. Sebastian dated 1673; and the Chateau, founded in 1275, by that hardy old Knight of Malta, Duke de Clermont Tonnere.

With characteristic good humor, ingenuity and tact, officers and men adjusted themselves to their unusual surroundings, merging into the various billets allotted to them, along lines of least resistance. By nightfall Buddie owned the town! Meriting it by sheer force of good nature, gentlemanly deportment, and a willingness to follow the adage of the ancient poet: "Si fueris Romae Romano vivite more."

Mine was the rare good fortune of being a.s.signed to No. 10 Rue de Belgrade. Here, through many generations, had stood the house of Barnicault. Michel Barnicault, present head of the family, welcomed me most cordially. He felt it indeed an honor to have as his guest Monsieur le Chaplain, Americaine Soldat! In the evening he would sit in front of his venerable home, smoking his pipe and looking with pride at my Chaplain flag of blue and white that hung above the door.

Pet.i.t garcon Andree, aged six years, had always considered his Grandfather Michel the greatest man in the world; then I came into his life; and whether it was I, or the American bon bons I lavished on him, or the overseas chapeau I let him strut about in now and then, I completely won his little heart. Darling little Andree in far off Ancey-le-Franc, now eight going on nine, I salute you!

Monseigneur le Cure of the village church welcomed me cordially. Daily I said Ma.s.s on the altar of St. Anne.

As we might go into the front trenches now any day, the Chaplains'

ministerial work grew apace. "Be ye always ready you know not the day nor the hour." Father Martin was with the 56th Infantry at Molsme; Father Trainor with the Machine Gunners at Ceneboy-le-Bas; and I, with all other Divisional Units, with Headquarters at Ancey-le-Franc. Three priests among 32,000 men, 48 per cent of whom were Catholic. The other Chaplains were distributed: Chaplain Cohee, Christian, with the 34th Infantry. (Mr. Cohee won the Distinguished Service Medal for gallantry under fire at Vieville-en-Haye.) Chaplain Hockman, Lutheran, 55th Infantry. Chaplain Webster, Episcopalian, 7th Engineers. Chaplain Rixey, Methodist, 64th Infantry. Chaplain Evans, Baptist, Sanitary Trains.

At this time we gave an old-fashioned Mission in the village church. A choir was organized from the Headquarters Troop, and each evening we would have Rosary, Sermon and Benediction. A special memorandum, signed by Colonel Degan, setting forth the purpose and advantages of the Mission, was posted throughout the District. The villagers likewise attended and the church was always filled. At this time, casting all fear aside, I boldly plunged into my first public speaking in French! I felt that grand-pere Barnicault and pet.i.t Andree would at least be on my side in case of a riot. Much to my delight the populace greeted my attempt approvingly and showered me with compliments.

On Sundays I would say Ma.s.ses at six and eight for the troops, preaching in English. a.s.sisting at the ten o'clock Missa, Cantata Parochialis was always a source of devotion and unusual interest. Promptly at 9:30 the tower bells, in triple chime, would ring out, echoing near and far, o'er meadow and hill. By path and trail and through the cobbled streets would come the people--old men and women, white with the snows of many winters; middle-aged women invariably clothed in the black of widowhood--France had then been bleeding and dying three years--fair-cheeked, dark-eyed modest maidens--type of Evangeline of Grand-Pre--handsome little boys and girls, the kind with which Raphael frames his Madonnas. Kneeling for a little prayer at the grave sides in the church yard--pleasantly exchanging with neighbors the "bon jour" and the "bonheur"--they make their way into the church, up the aisles chiseled by Time itself, to the pew generations of their name have worshiped in.

Ma.s.s is beginning. At the head of the procession, emerging from the Sacristy, marches the Master of Ceremonies, a venerable man of patriarchal mien, clothed in quaint ca.s.sock of black velvet, richly trimmed with silver braid, resonantly striking the stone pavement with official staff and responding in aged, yet pleasing voice to the Gregorian Chant of Celebrant and Congregation. Handsome little boys--all garcons are handsome--in acolytical splendor of purple and cardinal, with the daintiest of "calottes," come singing their way into your heart in a way to delight our own Father Finn of the Paulist choristers. The village cure--Monsignor of the Diocese of Sens--in those rich full tones that centuries of congregational singing have given to France, gives voice to the Ceremonial Beauty "ever ancient yet ever new." Very little need, there, for books; most young and old sing Introit, Credo, Preface and Agnus Dei from memory, artistically exact in p.r.o.nunciation, expression and tempo.

If there was distraction for our troops at all, it was perhaps at the collection. Not that the giving of their centimes or francs was distracting, rather was it the manner of Collection a la Francais. It is taken up by the most handsome young ladies of the congregation--our American Tag Days were perhaps suggested by it. Marching before the Mademoiselles and striking sharply on the pavement with his staff, solemnly comes the aged Master of Ceremonies. No prayers so absorbing nor slumber so profound, but the anvil clang of his staff will arouse. A hand embroidered silken bag is handed to you in the most charming manner. What Buddie could resist such appeal?

It was during our days in this area I was appointed Division Burial Officer--undertaker for the entire Division. The order, duly bulletined, at first shocked me--what qualifications had I for a work so unusual?

However, I promptly accepted it for reasons two-fold: First, it is not the part of a soldier to question the wisdom of orders, and, second, anything and everything done for Old Glory is an honor. Jealously I raided the archives of the Personnel Department at Headquarters, my "towney" Captain Brown of Grand Haven, Michigan, helping me, and studied all Orders and Bulletins bearing on the subject, "how to identify, register and bury the dead." The responsibility was indeed weighty and the work vast--to organize, equip and drill burial details; to bury our own dead, all enemy dead and horses; to a.s.semble personal effects and identification tags found on the persons of the deceased; to bathe, clothe and prepare bodies for burial; to furnish coffins, gravediggers, firing squads and buglers. Daily report of all burials was to be made to the Graves' Registration Service at Chaumont. It can easily be realized how important this work became as we grew nearer the fighting front. On battlefields, drenched with deadly gas, under fire and amid conditions and scenes most revolting and appalling, the burial parties worked, usually in gas masks for protection against odors and fumes.

Physical exhaustion, occasioned by exposure at Brest, the fatiguing journey across France, and the forced march of many kilometers, under full pack, from rail heads to billets, accounted for the numerous pneumonia cases that now appeared. In the unsettled, formative condition of things, we were not prepared to fully cope with the situation. Our nearest United States Base Hospital was at Dijon, sixty kilometers distant; and to this point it became necessary to send such of the seriously ill as could be safely transported. Many, however, were too weak to undertake such a journey; and, as no suitable buildings were available, the situation became truly distressing. There was not a single Army corps nurse or welfare worker of any sort within miles of us, and the critical nature of it all can be more readily imagined than described. Our doctors and corpsmen of the Sanitary Regiment did everything possible and rendered admirable service; but what could even the best intentioned do without equipment? On September 5th, I took mess with two of our best physicians, Captain O'Malley of Mercy Hospital, Chicago, and Lieutenant Poole of South Carolina. One week later I buried the Lieutenant at Longre, a victim of pneumonia, following an illness of but four days.

Four French Sisters of Charity now came most providentially to our a.s.sistance. The unjust and stupid a.s.sociation Laws of France had, shortly before the war, forbidden them the right of teaching. Later they had returned and converted the old building, their former school, into a hospital. With its four s.p.a.cious cla.s.srooms and pretty garden in the rear, it easily lent itself to the purpose. Under the able direction of Doctor Thiery, who was at that time mayor of the village, and whose soldier son had been killed at St. Quentin, emergency medical and surgical cases received there a care that, no doubt, saved many lives.

Our own Army doctors were at once incorporated in this improvised hospital's staff, with corpsmen a.s.signed to duty in its wards.

How wonderfully inventive and skillful Love becomes under the inspiration of Religion! The humble Sisters who, in days of peace, had dedicated their virgin lives to Education, a spiritual Work of Mercy, now, under the stress of war, directed those same self-sacrificing energies to Nursing, a corporal Work of Mercy, sanctioned by Him who is the world's first Good Samaritan. Though not able to utter a single English word, their kindness spoke eloquently for them in those numerous little ways a gentle woman has of a.s.suaging pain and soothing even "the dull cold ear of Death." The Mother Superior, by simply removing two or three pieces of furniture, converted her office into the hospital morgue; and here, a.s.sisted by the corpsmen, I prepared the bodies of my dear boys for burial. How my heart ached to see them die!

In the loneliness and seclusion of those whitewashed cla.s.srooms, far removed from any sight or a.s.sociation that spoke of Home; to see the light of their lives burn out, and the flowers of Spring displaced by the snows of Winter!

To me their deaths, amid the uninspiring surroundings of that wayside hospital, took on a grandeur and sublimity all surpa.s.sing.

Far easier, indeed, would it have been for them to die on field of battle, with cheer of comrades following their flight of soul. That ward was a braver field! For there they died bereft of all that inspires, and with no pomp or thrill of war to make glad their chivalrous souls.

The village carpenter was never so busy. Reinforcing his working staff, he set speedily to work building coffins. These he made of plain pine boards, staining them to a dull brown, and furnishing with each a cross and marking stake. Thirty-two of these it was my sad duty to provide and distribute during our stay in Burgundy.

We soon outgrew the old churchyard at Ancey-le-Franc; and the good Cure and Monsieur le Docteur Thiery of the local hospital, set aside for us ground for another cemetery just outside the village. We enclosed this with a white picket fence and felt confident, when we marched away, that the graves of our brave boys there resting, would always be tenderly cared for by the devoted people.