The Irish on the Somme Part 6

What is the att.i.tude of the Irish Catholic soldier towards this religious movement as a means of preservation and grace in the trials and perils of war? I have read many letters from Irish Catholics on service in France, Flanders and the East in which the matter is referred to, and have discussed it with some of those who have been invalided home. All this testimony establishes beyond question that the mystical sense of the Irish nature, which has been developed to a high degree by the two tremendous influences of race and religion, leads the Irish Catholic soldier profoundly to believe that there is a supernatural interference often with the chances and fortunes of the battlefield in answer to prayers. Michael O'Leary, V.C., a splendid type of the Irish soldier in body and mind, gave a brief but pointed statement of his views on the matter. "A sh.e.l.l has grazed my cheek and blown a comrade by my side to pieces," he said, "though there was no reason, so far as I could see, but the act of G.o.d, why the sh.e.l.l should not have knocked my head off and grazed my comrade's cheek."

The average Irish soldier probably knows nothing of the materialistic theory that Nature is a closed system; that the laws of the universe are fixed and immutable; that no wearing of holy objects, and no amount of praying even, will ever disturb their uniform mechanical working; and that the sole reason why any soldier on the battlefield escapes being hit by a bullet or piece of explosive sh.e.l.l is that he was not directly in its line of flight. Such a doctrine would be regarded, at least by the simple and instinctive natures in the Irish ranks, as the limit of blasphemy. Their belief in the reality and power of G.o.d is most profound. G.o.d is to them still the lord and master of all the forces of Nature; and the turning aside of a bullet or piece of explosive sh.e.l.l would be but the slightest manifestation of His almighty omnipotence. Mystery surrounds the Irish Catholic soldier at all times. His realisation of the unseen is very vivid. The saints and angels are his companions, not the less real and potent because they are not visible to his eyes. But it is on the field of battle that he is most closely enveloped by these spiritual presences.

He is convinced that he has but to call upon them, and that, if he be in a state of grace, they will come to his aid as the ministers of G.o.d. So he prays that G.o.d may protect and save him, and he wears next his heart the emblems of G.o.d's angels and saints. Thus he feels invincible against the powers of darkness in both the spiritual and material worlds. For these devotions have also the effect of putting him in train to receive submissively whatever fate G.o.d may will him.

He knows that G.o.d can safeguard him in the fight if He chooses; and he believes that if G.o.d does not choose so to do it is because in His wisdom He does not deem it right. "Blessed be the holy will of G.o.d!"

The old, familiar Irish e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n springs to his lips, that variant of Job's unshakable trust in the Almighty: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Thus it is that the sight of his comrades lying around him, dead and wounded, who prayed like him and, like him, carried rosary beads or wore the badge of the Sacred Heart, has no effect in shaking his belief in his devotions and his holy emblems. So when the hour of direst peril is at hand he is found not unnerved and incapable of standing the awful test. There is an ancient Gaelic proverb which says: "What is there that seems worse to a man than his death? and yet he does not know but it may be the height of his good luck." Even if death should come, what is it but the shadowy gate which opens into life everlasting and blissful?

There are on record numerous cases of protection and deliverance ascribed by non-Catholics as well as Catholics to the wearing of religious emblems. The Sisters of Mercy, Dungarvon, Waterford, tell the story of the marvellous escape from death of Private Thomas Kelly, Royal Munster Fusiliers, at the first landing on the Gallipoli peninsula on April 25, 1915. Kelly had emerged with his comrades from the _River Clyde_--the steamer which had brought his regiment to the landing-place, Beach V--and was in the water wading towards the sh.o.r.e when this happened to him--

"A bullet struck him, pa.s.sing through his left hand, which at the moment was placed over his heart. The bullet hit and shattered a shield badge of the Sacred Heart, which was sewn inside his tunic, then glanced aside and pa.s.sed over his chest, tearing the skin. The mark of its pa.s.sage across the chest can still be plainly seen. The bullet then pa.s.sed through the pocket of his tunic at the right-hand side, completely destroying his pay-book. When wounded he fell into the water, where he lay for about two hours under a perfect hurricane of bullets and shrapnel. In all that time, while his companions were falling on every side, he received only one slight flesh wound. He is now in Ireland, loudly proclaiming, to all whom he comes in contact with, his profound grat.i.tude to the Sacred Heart. He is quite recovered from his wounds, and expects soon to be sent to the Front. His trust in the Sacred Heart is unbounded, and he is fully convinced that the Sacred Heart will even work miracles for him, if they are necessary, to bring him safely home again."

Private Edward Sheeran, Royal Irish Rifles, relating his experiences in France, says--

"We were waiting in reserve, and were sh.e.l.led heavily before the advance. Four of us were lying low in the traverse of a trench.

Every time I heard a sh.e.l.l approaching I said, 'O Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!' Just as I was reciting this e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n a sh.e.l.l burst in our midst. For a minute I was dazed, and when I surveyed the damage, imagine my surprise to find the man next to me blown to pieces, parts of him over me.

Another never moved again to my knowledge, while the remaining one had his arms shattered. As regards myself, my pack was blown off my back, but all the injury I received was a very slight wound in the left shoulder. Thanks to the mercy of the Sacred Heart I was able to rejoin my battalion two days afterwards."

"A very grateful sister," writing to the _Irish Messenger_, in thanksgiving for "a great favour obtained through Our Blessed Lady of Perpetual Succour," states--

"My brother was ordered out to the war and was in the fighting line from the first. I sent him a miraculous medal of Our Blessed Lady and promised publication if he came back safe. He has been in twelve battles and got nine wounds, none dangerous, only on his hands and one leg badly broken. He was being carried off the field by his comrades and the sh.e.l.ls were falling so fast that they had to leave him and fly for their lives. He lay there three hours, bleeding and faint, until he was picked up again, and, thanks to Our Blessed Lady's protection, he is now safe in a London hospital and making a speedy recovery."

The brother of an Irish Catholic nurse in a British military hospital in France writes to the _Irish Messenger_--

"I was speaking lately to my sister, the nurse to whom you sent the parcel of badges, beads, etc. She says if every parcel of badges did as much good as hers has done and is doing, you will have a big reward in eternity. The poor Irish and English Catholic lads in their torments find the greatest comfort in their beads and badges, and put more trust in the Sacred Heart than in surgeons and nurses. One poor man said: 'I know I am dying, but, nurse, write to my poor wife and tell her that my beads and a sip of Holy Water was my consolation. Tell her I put my trust in the Sacred Heart and die confident. Send her this old badge which I wore all through the war.'"

In Ireland there are tens of thousands of Catholic mothers, wives and sisters, ever praying for the safe return of their men from the Front, or else that they be given the grace of a happy death, and there is nothing that tends more to prevent them brooding when the day, the hour, the moment may come with a dread announcement from the War Office, than the consoling thought that these dear ones are faithful in all the dangers and emergencies of their life to the practices of their religion. That is why Private Michael O'Reilly, of the Connaught Rangers in France, writes to his mother: "I have the Sacred Heart badge on my coat and three medals, a pair of rosary beads and father's Agnus Dei around my neck, so you see I am well guarded, and you have nothing at all to fear so far as I am concerned." Even for the mother, death loses its sting when she gets news of her son which leaves her in no doubt as to his soul's eternal welfare. Here is a characteristic specimen of many letters from bereaved but comforted mothers which have been printed in _The Messenger_--

"DEAR REV. FATHER,--I beg to appeal to you for my dear good son who was killed in action on the 25th of March, and who died a most holy death. I have heard from Father Gleeson that he died with his rosary beads round his neck and reciting his rosary. He got a gunshot wound in the head and lived several hours after receiving the wound. I know perfectly well that it was owing to his having St. Joseph's Cord about him that he got such a happy death, and had the happiness of receiving his Easter duty on Sunday the 21st. He also had the Sacred Heart Badge, a crucifix, and his Blue and Brown Scapulars on him, so that I am content about the way he died. He is buried in Bethune cemetery. I am a subscriber to _The Messenger_, and my son was in the Apostleship of Prayer and used to get the leaflets in his young days at the school he was going to, taught by the Christian Brothers. He was twenty-one years and seven months the day of his sad death. He belonged to the Royal Munster Fusiliers."

Some people, no doubt, will smile indulgently or mockingly--according to their natures--at what appears to them to be curious instances of human credulity. Others will cry out in angry protest against "Popish trumperies"; "idolatrous practices"; "fetishism." No religion can be truly understood from the outside. It must be lived in, within, to be apprehended. But surely those who are not altogether cursed with imperfect sympathies--those, at least, who take pleasure in the happy state of others, will shout aloud in joy to know that there is something left--no matter what--to sustain and console in this most terrible time of youth's agony and motherhood's lacerated heart.

It must not be supposed that the religious practices of the Irish Catholic troops are confined to the wearing of scapulars, medals and Agnus Deis. There are among them, of course, many who attribute all kinds of phenomena to natural rather than to miraculous causes. By them, also, beads, medals and scapulars are venerated, and proudly displayed over their tunics--often, too, rosary beads are to be seen twisted round rifle barrels--as outward symbols of the spirit of their religion, as aids to worship, as bringing more vividly before them the G.o.d they adore and the saints whose aid they invoke. But their faith gives, in addition, to the Catholic troops the Ma.s.s, which is celebrated by the Army chaplains up at the Front in wrecked houses or on the open, desolate fields, and attended by many hundreds of men in silent and intent worship, the sacraments of Confession and Communion, and makes possible that solemn spectacle of the priest administering the General Absolution, or forgiveness of sin, to a whole battalion, standing before him with bared and bowed heads, before going into action. All these religious scenes have greatly impressed non-Catholic soldiers. They wonder at the consolation and inspiration which Catholic comrades derive from their services and their symbols. They feel the loneliness and the dread of things. They are impressed by the number of wayside shrines, with Crucifixes and Madonnas, which have survived the ravages of war. In their hearts they crave for spiritual companionship and help which the guns thundering behind them cannot give any more than the guns thundering in front; and they, too, put out their hands to grasp the supernatural presences, unseen but so acutely felt in the shadowy arena of war. If there was scoffing at a praying soldier in barracks, there is respect for him in the trenches.

Non-Catholics join in the prayers that are said by Catholics. "Plenty of sh.e.l.ls were fired at our trenches, but, thank G.o.d, no harm was done," writes an Irish soldier. "When the sh.e.l.ls came near us we used to pray. Prayers are like a double parapet to them, I think. Yesterday we were reciting the Litany of the Sacred Heart while the sh.e.l.ls were annoying us. I was reading the beautiful praises and t.i.tles of the Litany, and both my Protestant and Catholic mates were answering me with great fervour. I was just saying 'Heart of Jesus, delight of all the Saints, succour us,' when one sh.e.l.l hit our trench and never burst, and, furthermore, no sh.e.l.l came near us after that, for our opponents directed their attention elsewhere for the rest of the day."

He adds that every night in the trenches the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin was recited; and the responses were given by non-Catholics as well as by Catholics.

In like manner, non-Catholic soldiers are being weaned from the use of pagan charms and talismans, and are taking instead to the Catholic subst.i.tutes which have been blessed by the priest making over them the sign of the cross. Father Plater stated at a meeting of the Westminster Catholic Federation that, travelling in the south of England, he met in the train some soldiers of the Ulster Division, all Orangemen, and instead of consigning the holy father to other realms, as they probably would have done in other times and other circ.u.mstances, they actually asked him to bless their miraculous medals. There is an ever-increasing desire among them for medals, rosaries, and for holy pictures, such as the little prints of saints and angels which Catholics carry in their prayer-books. At the convents in London where the Badge of the Sacred Heart is to be had, Protestant soldiers are constantly calling to get it, and they tell stories which they had heard of wonderful escapes by those who wore it. One nun told me they cannot keep the supply abreast of the demand.

For instance, she said that on the day I saw her a private of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers got fifty badges for distribution in the regiment.

Religious emblems have a warmth and intimacy about them which secular charms lack. They are regarded as representing real spiritual beings, saints and angels. Secular charms, on the other hand, are devoid of a.s.sociation with any potentate or power known or believed to exist in the other world, and seem still to possess something of the mingled simplicity and grossness of the first dawning of superst.i.tion on the mind of the savage. The curiosity and interest of the non-Catholic soldier in these religious symbols being thus excited, the moment he handles one and examines its design, he feels a pleasant sensation of help and comfort, and a consequent increase in his vitality. He highly treasures his holy talisman. Should he pa.s.s unscathed through the constant yet capricious menace of an engagement, he ascribes his luck to supernatural protection. As the English troops were pa.s.sing through Hornu, near Mons, a young Belgian lady took a rosary from her neck and gave it to Private Eves of the West Riding Regiment, telling him to wear it as a protection against the bullets of the Germans. Eves, a non-Catholic Northumbrian, wore the rosary during the battle of Mons.

"The air was thick with sh.e.l.ls and machine-gun bullets," he says, "and how I escaped I don't know. A sh.e.l.l burst close to me. A piece of it struck my ammunition band and bent five cartridges out of shape; but I escaped with only a bruise on the chest. I always say this rosary had something to do with it."

Many stories of the like might be told. A driver of the Royal Field Artillery says: "I think I owe all my luck to a mascot which I carry in my knapsack. It is a beautiful crucifix, given me by a Frenchwoman for helping her out of danger. It is silver, enamel and marble, and she made me take it." Private David Bulmer of the Royal Engineers, an Ulster Presbyterian, returned home on furlough to his parents at Killeshandra, wearing a rosary. He declared it was the beads that saved his life on the battlefield, as he was the only man left in his company. Sapper Clifford Perry has written to a Cardiff friend: "Rosaries are very popular here. I think I can safely say that four out of every ten men one meets wear them around their necks. Strange to say, they are not all Catholics. Those who are not Catholics do not wear them as curios or ornaments either, as upon cases of inquiry they attach some religious value to them even though they cannot explain what it is. Still, no one could convince them to part with them."

Often the emblems and badges worn by non-Catholic soldiers are gifts from Catholic wives and children concerned for their spiritual and temporal well-being. "An Irish mother who trusts in the Sacred Heart"

writes from Kensington in acknowledgment of the "wonderful escape" of her husband. "He had only gone out from a stable when a German sh.e.l.l knocked the roof in, killing his two horses, and also killing one man and wounding five others. My husband, who is a Protestant, is wearing a Sacred Heart Badge and the Cross belonging to my rosary. He has been saved during many battles from the most awful dangers, having been fighting regularly since September 1914." Father Peal, S.J., of the Connaught Rangers serving in France, relating some of his experiences as a chaplain after a battle, says: "It was very solemn, creeping in and out among the wounded, finding who were Catholics. Some could not speak, others just able to whisper. One poor man lay on his face, with a hole in his back. He was actually breathing through this hole. I felt round his neck for his identification disc and found he had a medal and Agnus Dei. I naturally thought he was a Catholic, but he whispered to me, 'Missus and the children did that.' We repeated an act of contrition, and I gave him conditional absolution." So it has come to pa.s.s that rosaries, which were formerly a monopoly of the religious repositories in French towns and villages, may now be seen displayed in every shop window, so great is the demand for them, and that "The League of the Standard of the Cross"--an Anglican society--has, up to the end of 1916, sent out over 10,000 crucifixes to Protestant soldiers.

The wearing of Catholic emblems by the rank and file is encouraged by many officers who understand human nature, and make allowance for what some of them, no doubt, would call its inherent weaknesses. The practice has been proved to have on conduct a profound influence for good. It seems to incite and fortify the soldiers' courage. Man's will and resolution often prove to be weak and fickle things, especially on the field of battle, where they are put to the sternest and most searching of tests. Fear of death, which, after all, is but a manifestation of the primal instinct of self-preservation, often militates against the efficiency of the soldier. It disorganises his understanding; it paralyses his power to carry out orders. The elimination of fear, or its control, is therefore part of the training of the soldier. How fortunate, then, is the soldier who can find such tranquillity in battle that he has pa.s.sed beyond the fear of death.

Psychologists tell us, such is the influence of the body upon the mind, that whether a man shall act the hero or the coward in an emergency depends largely on his physical condition at the time. The body of the soldier must, as far as possible, be made subordinate to his mind. Religious sensibility and emotion, in whatever form it may manifest itself, tends to the exaltation of the mental mood; and as good officers know they cannot afford to neglect any means which promises to steady their men, calm them and give them confidence in action or under fire, they have enlisted this tremendous force on their side by favouring and promoting the Catholic custom of wearing holy objects.

A nun writing from a convent in South London says: "The colonel at ---- sent twenty-two medals to Father X---- to be blessed. The Father took the medals to the barracks himself, where the colonel informed him that he wanted them for Protestant officers who were going to France." The girls of the Notre Dame Convent School, Glasgow, sent a parcel of 1200 medals to a Scottish regiment. They received a letter of thanks from one of the officers, in which he says: "You will be glad to know that most, if not all the men, Protestants though they be, have put your medals on the cord to which their ident.i.ty discs are tied, so that Our Lady may help them."

Thus is the wearing of scapulars and medals in the Army welcomed as an aid to our arms, a reinforcement of our military power. In it may be found the secret of much of the dash and gallantry of the Irish troops. Up to the end of 1916, 221 Victoria Crosses have been awarded for great deeds done in the war. As many as twenty-four have been won by Catholics, of whom eighteen are Irish, a share out of all proportion to their numbers, but not--may I say?--to their valour. In order to appreciate adequately the significance of these figures it is necessary to remember the nature of the deed for which the Victoria Cross is given. It must be exceptionally daring, involving the greatest risk to life. It must be of special military value, or must lead to the saving of comrades otherwise hopelessly doomed. Above all, it must be done not under orders but as a spontaneous act on the soldier's own motion. It is largely due to their religion and the emblems of their religion, and their views of fate and destiny, that Irish Catholic soldiers are so pre-eminently distinguished in the record of the highest and most n.o.ble acts of valour and self-sacrifice in war. There is the significant saying of Sergeant Dwyer, V.C., an Irishman and a Catholic, at a recruiting meeting in Trafalgar Square.

"I don't know what the young men are afraid of," said he. "If your name is not on a bullet or a bit of shrapnel it won't reach you, any more than a letter that isn't addressed to you." He, poor fellow, got a bullet addressed to him on the Somme. "'Twas the will of G.o.d," was the lesson taught him by his creed.

CHAPTER VIII

THE IRISH SOLDIER'S HUMOUR AND SERIOUSNESS

STORIES FROM THE FRONT, FUNNY AND OTHERWISE

The memorable words of an Irish member, speaking in the House of Commons during the South African War, on the gallantry of the Irish regiments, come to my mind. "This war has shown," said he, "that as brave a heart beats under the tunic of a Dublin Fusilier as under the kilt of a Gordon Highlander."

The saying may be curiously astray as to the anatomy of the Scotch, but the truth of it in regard to Irish courage has been emphasised by the victories and disasters alike of the great world war. On all the fields of conflict east and west the Irish soldiers have earned the highest repute for valour. "They are magnificent fighters," says Lieutenant Denis Oliver Barnett, an English officer of a battalion of the Leinster Regiment, in letters which he wrote home to his own people. A public school boy, with a high reputation for scholarship, he became a soldier at the outbreak of war instead of going to Oxford.

Courageous and high-minded himself--as his death on the parapet of the trenches, directing and heartening his men in bombing the enemy, testifies--his gay and sympathetic letters show that he was a good judge of character. He also says of his men, "They are cheerier than the English Tommies, and will stand anything." Cheeriness in this awful war is indeed a most precious possession. It enhances the fighting capacity of the men. Where it does not exist spontaneously the officers take measures to cultivate it. As far as possible they try to remove all depressing influences, and make things bright and cheerful. I have got many such glimpses of the Irish soldier at the Front, and their total effect is the impersonation or bodying forth of an individual who provides his own gaiety, and has some over to give to others--whimsical, wayward, with a childlike petulance and simplicity; and yet very fierce withal.

I met at a London military hospital an Irish Catholic chaplain and an Irish officer of the Army Medical Corps back from French Flanders.

They told Irish stories, to the great enjoyment and comfort of the wounded soldiers in the ward. "Be careful to boil that water before drinking it," said the doctor to men of an Irish battalion whom he found drawing supplies from a ca.n.a.l near Ypres. "Why so, sir?" asked one of the men. "Because it's full of microbes and boiling will kill them," answered the doctor. "And where's the good, sir?" said the soldier. "I'd as soon swallow a menagerie as a graveyard any day."

Another example of a quick-witted Hibernian reply was given by the chaplain. He came upon a man of the transport service of his battalion belabouring a donkey which was slowly dragging a heavy load. "Why do you beat the poor animal so much?" remonstrated the priest; and he recalled a legend popular in Ireland by saying, "Don't you know from the cross on the a.s.s's back that it was on an a.s.s Our Lord went into Jerusalem?" "But, Father," said the soldier, "if Our Lord had this lazy ould a.s.s He wouldn't be there yet." One of the inmates of the ward kept the laughter going by giving an example of Irish traditional blundering humour from the trenches--a humour due to an excited and over-active mind. "Don't let the Germans know we're short of powder and shot," cried an Irish sergeant to his men, awaiting the bringing up of ammunition; "keep on firing away like blazes."

Some of the flowers of speech that have blossomed from the Irish regiments at the Front are also worth culling. Speaking of the Catholic chaplain of his battalion, a soldier said, "He'd lead us to heaven; an' we'd follow him to h.e.l.l." As a loaf of bread stuck on a bayonet was pa.s.sed on to him in the trenches another exclaimed, "Here comes the staff of life on the point of death." The irregularity of the food supply in the trenches was thus described: "It's either a feast or a famine. Sometimes you drink out of the overflowing cup of fulness, and other times you ate off the empty plate." "What have you there?" asked a nurse of an Irish private of the Army Medical Corps, at a base hospital, as he was rummaging among the contents of a packing-case. Taking out a wooden leg, he answered: "A stump speech agin the war."

Good-humour at the Front is by no means an exclusively Irish possession. Happily the soldiers of all the nationalities within the United Kingdom are so light-hearted as to find even in the most dismal situation cause for raillery, pleasantry and laughter, and to derive from their mirth a more enduring patience of discomfort and trouble.

The Irish form of humour, however, differs entirely from the English, Scottish or Welsh variety not only in quality but in the type of mind and character it expresses. In most things that the Irish soldier says or does there is something racially individual. Perhaps its chief peculiarity, apart from its quaintness, is that usually there is an absence of any conscious aim or end behind it. The English soldier, and the c.o.c.kney especially, is a wag and a jester. He is very p.r.o.ne to satire and irony, deliberate and purposeful. Even his "grousing"--a word, by the way, unheard in the Irish regiments, unless it is somewhat incomprehensibly used by an English non-commissioned officer--is a form of caustic wit. Irish humour has neither subtlety nor seriousness. It is just the light and spontaneous whim, caprice or fancy of the moment. It is humour in the original sense of the word, that is the expression of character, habit and disposition.

The Munstermen have contributed to the vocabulary at the Front the expressive phrase, "Gone west," for death; the bourne whence no traveller returns. In Kerry and Cork the word "west" or "wesht," as it is locally p.r.o.nounced, expresses not only the mysterious and unknown, but is used colloquially for "behind," "at the back," or "out of the way." So it is also at the Front. A lost article is gone west as well as a dead comrade. "When I tould the Colonel," said an Irish orderly, "that the bottle of brandy was gone wesht, he was that mad that I thought he would have me ate." As food and drink are sent west, perhaps the Colonel had his suspicions. The saying, "Put it wesht, Larry, an' come along on with you," may be heard in French estaminets as well as in Kerry public-houses.

At parade a subaltern noticed that one of his men had anything but a clean shave on the left side of his jaw. "'Twas too far wesht for me to get at, sir," was the excuse. "Well," said the dentist to a Munster Fusilier, "where's this bad tooth that's troubling you?" "'Tis here, sir," said the soldier, "in the wesht of me jaw." Another Irish soldier told his Quartermaster that he was in a very unpleasant predicament for want of a new pair of trousers. "The one I've on me is all broken wesht," said he. It is fairly obvious what part of the trousers the west of it was.

It would seem from the stories I have heard that odd escapes from death are an unfailing source of playfulness and laughter. A sh.e.l.l exploded in a trench held by an Irish battalion. One man was hurled quite twelve feet in the air, and, turning two somersaults in his descent, alighted on his back, and but little hurt, just outside the trench. He quickly picked himself up and rejoined his astonished comrades. "He came down with that force," said an invalided Irish soldier who told me of the incident, "that it was the greatest wonder in the world he didn't knock a groan out of the ground." No groan came from the man himself. "That was a toss and a half, and no mistake," he remarked cheerily when he got back to the trench; and in answer to an inquiry whether he was much hurt he said, "I only feel a bit moidhered in me head." More comical still in its unexpectedness was the reply of another Irishman who met with a different misadventure from the same cause. A German 17-in. sh.e.l.l exploded on the parapet of a trench, and this Irishman was buried in the ruins. However, he was dug out alive, and his rescuers jokingly asked him what all the trouble was about.

"Just those blessed snipers again," he spluttered through his mouth full of mud, "and may the divil fly away with the one that fired that bullet."

It is readily acknowledged at the Front that the Irish soldiers have a rich gift of natural humour. But, what is more--as some of my stories may show--they are never so exceedingly comic as when they do not intend to be comic at all. Is it not better to be funny without knowing it than to suffer the rather common lot of attempting to be funny and fail? It arises from an odd and unexpected way of putting things. How infinitely better it is than to be of so humdrum a quality as to be incapable of being comical even unconsciously in saying or in deed! Yet in this essentially Irish form of fun there is often a snare for the unwary. How can you tell that these laughable things are said and done by Irish soldiers without any perception of humour or absurdity? If you could look behind the face of that apparently simple-minded Irish soldier you might find that in reality he was "pulling your leg"--or "humbugging," as he would say himself--in a way that you would regard as most uncalled for and aggravating.

For instance, an Irish sentry in a camp in France was asked by a colonel of the Army Service Corps whether he had seen any of his officers about that morning. "Indeed, and I did, sir," was the reply.

"'Twas only a while ago that two of the gintlemen came out of the office down there below, and pa.s.sed by this way." "And how did you know they were Army Service officers?" "Aisy enough, sir. Didn't I see their swords stuck behind their ears?" And in which category must be placed the equally amusing retort of another Irish sentry to his officer--the navely simple, or the slyly jocular? The sentry looked so shy and inexperienced that the officer put to him the question, "What are you here for?" and got the stereotyped answer, "To look out for anything unusual." "What would you call unusual?" asked the officer. "I don't know exactly, sir, until I saw it," was the reply.

The officer became sarcastically facetious. "What would you do if you saw five battleships steaming across the field?" he said. "Take the pledge, sir," was the sentry's answer.

These officers are, by all accounts, but two of many who have got unlooked-for but diverting answers from Irish soldiers. A sergeant who was sent out with a party to make observations felt into an ambuscade and returned with only a couple of men. "Tell me what happened," said the commanding officer, when the sergeant came to make his report; "were you surprised?" "Surprised isn't the word for it, sir,"

exclaimed the sergeant. "It was flabbergasted entirely I was when, creeping round the end of a thick hedge, we came plump into the divil of a lot of Germans lying on their stomachs." Then, seeing the officer smiling, as if in doubt, as he thought, he hastened thus to emphasise his wonder and astonishment at this sudden encounter. "I declare to you, sir, it nearly jumped the heart up out of me throat with the start it gave me." Of a like kind for ingenuousness was the report made by another Irish non-com. who found himself all alone in a trench, with only a barrier of sandbags between him and the Germans.

"I had nayther men, machine-gun or grenade," he wrote, expressing not only his temporal but his spiritual condition, for he added, "nothing, save the help of the Mother of G.o.d."

In Ireland domestic servants are noted for their forward manners and liberty of speech with the family, and the same trait is rather general in the relations between different social grades. An ill.u.s.tration of what it leads to in the Army was afforded at a camp concert attended by a large a.s.sembly of officers and men of a certain Division, into which, at a solemn moment, an unsophisticated Irish soldier made a wild incursion. Lord Kitchener had been there that day and had inspected the Division, and the General in command announced from the platform how greatly pleased the Secretary for War was with the soldierly fitness of the men. "I told Lord Kitchener," continued the General, speaking in grave and impressive tones, "that the Division would see the thing through to the bitter end." In the midst of a loud burst of cheering an Irish private rushed forward, and sweeping aside the attempt of a subaltern to stop him, jumped on to the platform, and seizing the aged General by the hand, exclaimed, "Glory to you, me vinerable friend! The ould Division will stick to it to the last, and it's you that's the gran' man to lade us to victory and everlasting fame." The General, greatly embarra.s.sed, could only say, "Yes, yes, to be sure, my good fellow; yes, yes"; and the staff turned aside to hide their grins at this comic encounter between incongruities.

The Colonel of an Irish battalion, after a hara.s.sing day in the trenches, got a pleasant surprise in the shape of a roast fowl served for dinner by his orderly. After he had eaten it and found it tender he recalled that complaints were rather rife among the inhabitants about the plundering of hen-roosts, and his conscience smote him. "I hope you got that fowl honestly," he said. "Don't you be troubling your head about that, sir," replied the orderly, in a fine burst of evasion and equivocation. "Faith, 'twas quite ready for the killing, so it was, and that's the main thing." Then, as if to improve the occasion by a homily, he added, in a tone of religious fervour, "Ah, sure, if we wor all as ready to die as that hin, sir, we needn't mind a bit when the bullet came." The Colonel was almost "fit to die" with quiet laughter.

It may well be that sometimes the English officers of Irish battalions are puzzled by the nature of their men--its impulsiveness, its glow, its wild imagery and over-br.i.m.m.i.n.g expression. It is easy to believe, too, that the changeful moods of the men, childlike and petulant, now jovial, now fierce, and occasionally unaccountable, may be a sore annoyance to officers who are very formal and precise in matters of discipline. I have heard from an Irish Colonel of an Irish battalion that the English commander of the Brigade of which the battalion was a unit came to him one day in a rage and asked him where his d.a.m.ned fools had been picked up. It appears the Brigadier-General, going the rounds alone, came suddenly upon one of the sentries of the battalion at a remote post. The sentry happened to be a wild slip of an Irish boy, not long joined and quite fresh from Mayo, and, taken by surprise, he challenged the Brigadier-General by calling out, "In the name of G.o.d, who the divil are you?" The Colonel told me his reply to the Brigadier-General was this: "Certainly, the challenge and the salute were not quite proper. But you can imagine what kind of a reception that simple but fearless lad would give to a German; and, after all, is not that the main thing just now?" Yes, the capacity of fighting well should, in war time, cover a mult.i.tude of imperfections in a soldier.