The Greater Love Part 9

It is the General Absolution, so beautifully administered by Chaplain McDonald of the Leviathan, and which our Faculties provided. When a person in such emergency could not actually confess, he made an act of Perfect Contrition, being sorry for his sins because by them he had offended the Good G.o.d, and with the intention of going to Confession as soon as he could. While confession was always desirable, sorrow was ever, indispensable.

In our case the priest was morally and physically present and he gave Sacramental Absolution to all, using the plural, "Ego vos absolvo a peccatis vestris."

Whether on the battlefield or in hospital wards filled with men dying of disease or wounds, the priest has a divine message to deliver and a sacramental duty to perform from which no manner or danger of death can deter him. "Is any man sick amongst you," says St. James in the 24th Chapter of his Epistle (Douay or King James version) "let him call in the priests of the Church, and they shall anoint him with oil in the Name of the Lord." It was in the fulfillment of this Divinely imposed duty that 1600 priests of America voluntarily turned aside from their parochial work, and, reconsecrating their hearts to the Greater Love, entered the National service as Chaplains during the war.

Seriously the boys studied the hill. On its rugged side was about to be staged a tragedy in which every soldier knew he was to take part. The training of months past was but rehearsal. The leaving home, the oath of military service, the weary grind of march, and weapon drill, the rigid discipline, all these were but evolving phases, making for the formation of the seasoned soldier. And now they had reached the high altar of National service on which they were prepared to sacrifice their young lives.

"Morituri salutemus!" Look closely into the faces of those heroic boys: approach with reverence the sanctuary of their thoughts.

In long, regular lines they lie, immediately at the base of the hill.

Most are still and motionless, helmeted, and with bayoneted rifles, like figures some Bartholdi or Rodin might have chiseled from bronze. Some, with free hand, are molding from the yellow, slimy clay, quaint little images, suggested, possibly, by thought of the little tin soldiers of boyhood days. Some, lying p.r.o.ne, are dreamily observing the blue sky showing here and there through billowy clouds. Some have made of their helmet a pillow and appear to sleep. Some with jest and story are radiating a subdued merriment. Some, with eyes staring straight ahead, seem as in a trance.

In that tragic hour I looked with their eyes and saw with the vision of their soul. The picture we all in common saw was painted on the canvas of memory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHERE ST. JOAN OF ARC MADE HER FIRST COMMUNION.]

It represented any American town; preferably one bowered with maple and elm, and cast in a setting of emerald landscape. Just back from the winding road, a cottage, trellised with moss roses and forget-me-nots.

Framed in the doorway, a sweet-faced mother, silver threads amid her gold of hair, is looking across distant fields. A path leads over the hill, and it would seem she watched and waited for someone!

Last night she knelt beside a vacant chair, and, in the lonely vigil of her tears, prayed that G.o.d would bless and spare her boy. In the window hangs a service flag. Tomorrow, My G.o.d! there shall a message come from overseas changing its silver into gold!

Who is it can smile with heart breaking the while When the soldier bids loved ones "Farewell"?

Whose heart is it grieves, when the patriot leaves, With an anguish that no tongue can tell?

It's only the mother! For man knows no other Whose soul feels the weight of such woe; Who can smile and look brave and for lonely hours save The torrent of tears that must flow.

Whose heart is it knows that wherever he goes He'll be true to his country and flag?

That he'll fight the good fight and die, serving the Right With never a boast or a brag?

It's the mother whose breast as a babe he caressed And who watched o'er his childhood with joy.

Though the years may have flown, and to manhood he's grown, Yet to mother he's always--"My boy"!

Who is it can yearn for the soldier's return, When the trumpet of war calls no more: When victorious he sees his proud flag kiss the breeze Of his own, his beloved, native sh.o.r.e?

It's the mother whose face like a halo of grace Hovered near him to cheer him afar.

Angels envy her joy as she welcomes her boy Triumphant returned from the war!

Who is it shall kneel at the graveside and feel The full woe of a soldier boy, dead!

Who shall measure such loss, who shall carry the cross, And yet live, when his spirit is fled?

It's the mother who'll wait at Death's golden gate, Where sorrow and parting shall cease!

And she evermore with her boy as of yore, Shall be crowned in the Kingdom of Peace!

One of the brave company commanders in this Battalion was Captain Hall.

Coming to me he said, "Chaplain, if I get 'b.u.mped' in this attack, I want you to do me a favor." He then gave me a written message to a certain person in the Division who owed him $300.00. "Get after him, will you, Chaplain, and see that the money reaches my folks." "I will be glad to, Captain," I replied. Then, as one good turn deserved another, I wrote out and handed him a little note, which, if he, and not I, came through alive, was to be forwarded to my Chicago home. The Captain was a graduate of West Point, and had seen hard service both on the western plains and in the Cuban war. His hair was gray, and he wore a long gray mustache of which he was proud, and which he was in the habit, when especially thoughtful, of stroking. My hair also was gray, especially since our last gas attack in Bois-le-Pretre.

A Captain from Philadelphia lying in the mud not far from us, noticing our two gray heads close together, mischievously and in a stage whisper remarked, "Old men for counsel, but young men for action!" What Captain Hall, blazing with sudden wrath, thereupon said to him, I think it just as well not to here record! At the time, however, it seemed that he sort of expressed my own feelings on the subject!

Gallant Captain Hall came through alive; but I can see him even now in the very thick of the fighting that followed a few minutes later.

Standing out on the hillside in full view he fought with his steel blue "45" a duel to the death with a German officer who rashly attacked him.

For a moment I held my breath, as they deliberately exchanged shot for shot. Then I saw the German fall heavily; and Hall, his right hand twirling his gun, and his left fondly stroking his mustache, coolly surveyed the line looking for another shot.

It was two in the afternoon before the fog began to thicken. The zero hour was at hand!

Although we had marched many weary miles, had lain motionless in the mud for five hours, and had meanwhile tasted neither food nor drink, we did not mind it. One ignores bodily needs under heavy mental stress. I carried a little meat and bread in my pocket, which, that noon, I shared with good Father LeMay.

At two-thirty, when the sheltering fog was thickest, quietly the word was pa.s.sed down the line "Get ready." At that moment I was near the western end of the column near a stone quarry, strongly defended by the enemy with machine guns and automatic rifles.

Promptly the boys made ready, slipping off packs, many even their blouses. It was to be a bayonet rush up that hill, and the idea was to feel as cold and shoulder free as possible. The pain of mustard gas is not so intense if one's body is cool and dry. Officers as well as men were lightly clothed; their only weapons, automatics. I subst.i.tuted a sweater for my blouse. All felt the tense strain, and throats grew dry and temples throbbed.

At that moment was given a final General Absolution and Blessing.

Sharply, along the crouching line like a flash of fire, boomed the command to advance--"Guns and bayonets now, boys, and give them h.e.l.l!"

Instantly leaping forward, the men hurled themselves up the hill.

Helmeted, masked, their bayonets flashing, like the crested foam of some giant wave they swept forward.

We had not advanced fifty feet when over the hillside there burst a hail storm of lead. The enemy hurled into our faces every manner of destruction; bullets and steel fragments screamed through the air, "thudding" into every foot of ground!

The first boy to fall was Riorden of New Jersey, who pitched forward, terribly torn, shortly to my right. Onward and upward swept the line. As I paused a moment beside Riorden to absolve him, Walsh of Syracuse, New York, running some thirty feet in advance, waved his arm for me to hurry. "Holy Joe" was the name given the Chaplain. I never knew its origin, but it was the t.i.tle most generally used and always with the utmost respect.

Even then could be heard the horrible crash of steel on steel, hand to hand bayonet contact, screams of terror and pain, when the blade dripping blood was withdrawn from its human scabbard. The advance soon reached the hilltop and the gray-clad Germans resisted desperately. The most terrible, horrible, and indescribable of all sights and sounds were now before me. Wild-eyed, panting, fiercely visaged boys in American khaki and German gray, feinting, parrying, and madly lunging with glittering bayonets--the crash and shrill metallic stroke of steel on steel, and Oh! the grunt and scream of agony when the blade sank to its hilt in a blood-spurting human breast! Each boy, in that moment of deadly shock, was fighting for his own life--it was destroy first or be destroyed, and the first to get in a fatal blow survived. No alien soldier lives however, who can withstand that most terrible and supreme of all fighters--the American Doughboy! Hands were being raised and cries of "Kamerad" heard from every side. The grim heights of Rembercourt were ours; but, my G.o.d! see the price we have paid for that eight minutes of struggle.

Boys are down all over the hillside, dead and dying. Tossing, moaning, begging for help, their cries of agony pierce the heart. From the military point of view, indeed, it was called a splendid, clean-cut piece of work. Rembercourt and its approaches in our hands at last, with hundreds of prisoners and spoils of war--all at a loss to us of but nine killed and fifty-two wounded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE CHURCH AT DOMREMY.]

Ah! but who shall measure the cost of those nine dead boys to mothers and beloved ones at home! See their lifeless forms lying there amid the wreckage of the hillside. A few minutes ago they knew the thrill of vigorous young manhood; they knew that death might claim them in that charge; bravely they went over the top, hoping for the best.

From one to another I hurried with service for all. The dying claimed first care; the dead had to wait; and the chill shadows of night had crept to the hill crest before all the wounded were removed and the last poor body buried.

A terrific cannonade had meanwhile been in progress. Our batteries had opened along the entire front. Tons upon tons of steel were pa.s.sing on wings of thunder not three hundred feet above our heads. Little heed the boys gave it, so occupied were they with duties near at hand.

Finally, numbed and over-powered to the point of utter exhaustion, I sought an abandoned shack at the foot of the hill. Without removing so much as a single garment, still wet from wading the river, with no taste for food or drink, I threw myself on the floor and fell at once asleep.

It was dawn of the following morning, Monday, November 11, when I awoke.

If the cannonading of the evening before was terrible, that morning's bombardment was infinitely more so. It was the first time I had heard a full powered "Drum Head" barrage--where so many batteries and guns are engaged that the sound of firing and subsequent explosion is continuous and unified in volume. The hills and valleys shook under the rocking recoiling guns as from an earthquake.

Going among the men, I found even the most seasoned of them grimly silent. Their faces, set, as in plaster cast along cadaverous lines, deeply furrowed and caked with dust, perspiration, and powder smoke, made hideous appearance. Never have I seen such wan, frightful expression in human eye. As grim automatons they handled their guns, and moved silently about. Possibly they were too wearied to talk; for to speak, so as to be heard, meant calling at the top of one's voice.

Not far away I met Colonel c.u.mmings. Briefly I narrated the happenings of the day before at our west end of the line. Most warmly he congratulated us and then, in confidence, informed me "Foch has agreed to an Armistice!"

He had just come from Headquarters, which was sending out orders to line and battery commanders to cease firing, that very morning at eleven o'clock.

Silently we gripped hands; but the hearts of both of us thrilled with "Te Deum."

CHAPTER X

ARMISTICE DAY--GORZ