With our Fighting Men Part 3

"Well," said the lady, "I suppose you killed your man?"

"Well, naw," quietly responded the soldier. "You see it was like this.

He lay on the field pretty near me with an awfu' bad wound an'

bleedin' away somethin' terrible. I was losin' a lot of blood too fra'

my leg, but I managed to crawl up to him, an' bound him up as well as I could, an' he did the same for me. Nawthin' o' coorse was said between us. I knew no German an' the ither man not a word o' English, so when he'd dun, not seein' hoo else tae thank him, I just smiled, an' by way o' token handed him my Glengarry, an' he smiled back an'

giv' me his helmet."

Thus Thomas Atkins has shown how to fight his enemy and to love him too.

This, then, in brief outline, is the story of Christian work at the Home Base during the early stages of the war.

Chaplains or acting chaplains everywhere, Scripture readers, Y.M.C.A.

workers, voluntary workers, all sorts and conditions of workers.

Bright, cheery services every evening. Loving appeals for decision for Christ--appeals which have been responded to by thousands of our lads.

Centres for thought and rest and recreation everywhere. The need has been great, and the need has been supplied by people moved to self-sacrifice as never before.

Few families but have had some members in either Navy or Army, and as parents have said good-bye to their sons they have known that a hearty Christian welcome awaited them where they went, and that they might safely leave them to the kindly ministry of willing hearts and hands.

The motto of everyone, high and low, has been _Ich dien_--I serve.

CHAPTER II

EARLY DAYS AT THE FRONT

If Minister Shoots Minister!--A Brighter Side--A Beautiful Story--Pastors and Members in the Firing Line--A German Pastor--The Retreat through Belgium--The Work of Heroes--A Rear-guard Action--Seeking the Wounded--Refugees Stupid with Terror--Behind the Rear-guard--A Narrow Escape--A Night to be Remembered--The Man who Saved the British Army--G.o.d has been with Me--The British Soldier will Joke--Why Not?--Awful Experiences--A Monotony of Horror--Picking up Wounded Stragglers--Lines of Broken Men--Still Retreating--A Wonderful Triumph of Will--Thirsty Heroes--The Ambulance Found--The End of the Retreat--Mentioned in Despatches--No Parade Services.

Viewed from a Christian standpoint, the most distressing things about this war are: (1) That _Christian_ nations are engaged in a life and death struggle. It is a lamentable confession, an awful fact. Two thousand years of Christian teaching have absolutely failed to keep Christian nations at peace.

And yet are these nations Christian? Has not Germany by its adoption of a false philosophy forfeited the t.i.tle of Christian? So far as its military cla.s.s is concerned I fear we must say "Yes," but so far as hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants are concerned we rejoice to believe we can still answer "No." They are fighting because they _must_, and because they do not understand. And we are fighting in another sense because we _must_. Like Luther, "We can no other." May G.o.d forgive us if we are wrong! We believe--with all our hearts we believe--our cause is just.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HELPING THE HELPLESS.

Royal Navy Division helping Belgian soldiers and refugees during the retreat from Antwerp.

_Drawn by Ernest Prater from sketches made by one who was there._]

And out of this first distressing thing there emerges another. (2) Christian _ministers_ are opposed to each other in the ranks, not because they _want_, but because they _must_. The law of conscription in Germany and in France applies to them as to others.

Surely these might have been left out of the call, or at any rate might have been left free to respond or not as their conscience dictated, as was the case in England. The consequence is that hundreds if not thousands of churches are left without their spiritual leaders, and everywhere the flock is dest.i.tute of the shepherd's care.

I said "a distressing thing," but is it not a tragedy? And if they should meet--these Christian ministers--across the trenches or in the line of battle, and minister shoot minister, or perforce meet him in a bayonet charge!

But there is a brighter side even to this dark picture. There are twenty thousand priests, "religious," and seminarists serving in the French Army. Among them are three bishops. Monsignor Ruch, coadjutor of Nancy, is one; he is employed as a stretcher-bearer. Another, Monsignor Perros, is a sub-lieutenant; and the third, Monsignor Mourey, is simply Private Mourey in the ranks. It is quite an ordinary thing for confessions to be heard by soldier priests in the trenches, and for absolution to be given before the charge. Protestant ministers, too, fighting in the ranks never forget they _are_ ministers, and their ministry may be even more effective than that of the chaplains, for are they not comrades too? Thus the armies are leavened by Christian men, whose supreme business must be the Kingdom of G.o.d.

A beautiful story comes to us from the early days of the war. In the hall of a great railway terminus in Paris, a number of wounded were laid out on straw waiting to be taken to a hospital. Several of them had evidently not long to live. One especially was very restless, and a nurse moved to his side, and began to do what she could for him.

"I badly want a priest," moaned the dying man.

The nurse looked round upon the company of wounded.

"Is there a priest here?" she asked. A voice in little more than a whisper replied:

"Yes, Sister, I am a priest. Take me to him."

There he lay at the point of death, wounded and wounded sorely. It was a strange sight--his dirty ragged uniform not yet removed, the stains of war and of awful travel from the front upon his face, and he a priest!

"Take me to him," he repeated.

She said: "You are not fit to be moved, I dare not do it." And then insistently he whispered:

"Sister, you are of the faith. You know what it means to the dying lad. I must go."

He tried to rise from the straw on which he lay, and seeing his determination the nurse had him moved to the dying soldier's side. A few whispered words of confession, and the priest motioned to the Sister.

"I cannot raise my arm. Help me to make the sign," he said.

The Sister lifted his arm and together they made the sign of the cross. And then, exhausted, the soldier priest fell back. His comrade felt for his hand, clasped it in his dying grasp, and together priest and penitent pa.s.sed away.

Thus heroically are many French priests doing a double work, at once fighting for their country and for their faith.

It is the same with French Protestant ministers. All of military age have had to go. The President of the French Wesleyan Conference, the Rev. Emile Ullern, is fighting as a private soldier in the French Army, and many another. Two-fifths of the pastors of the Reformed Church of France are also in the ranks. Already three of them, plus a missionary and a most promising theological student, one of the Monod's, have fallen on the battle-field. Our French churches are without pastors, and the work of many years is seemingly being ruined.

But their members are at the front too, and it is a joy if, now and then, they meet and are able to comfort one another in the firing line.

It is the same in Germany. Already we hear of one German Methodist minister who has fallen at the front--Rev. Friedrich Rosch, Ph.D. He graduated brilliantly in philosophy and languages at Strasburg University. He then offered for missionary work and rendered excellent service among the Mohammedans of Northern Africa. He had a good knowledge of Arabic and had learned two other African languages. Now a British or French bullet, or shrapnel sh.e.l.l, has cut short his career.

This is the grim tragedy of this awful war--Christian fighting Christian, Christian minister fighting Christian minister.

Our business, however, is with the _British_ army and with Christian work therein. Our task is a difficult one, for the veil of secrecy which enveloped the early days of the war has hardly as yet been lifted. Only here and there has that veil been raised just a little, but wherever we are privileged to gaze we are filled with admiration.

The work of our chaplains and doctors and nurses has been heroic, and the no less n.o.ble work of Christian soldiers fills us with thanksgiving.

The war began with retreat. That apparently invincible German army strode ruthlessly through Belgium, leaving fire and rapine and death in its track. It found a garden, and it left a wilderness; prosperity, and it left starvation. It will be remembered for all time for barbarities that disgraced war. Belgian mothers will tell their children, and the story will be pa.s.sed down the ages, of broken hearts and ruined lives, and a tortured devastated land.

And then, the devoted little army of Belgium thrown upon one side, the clash of war began in France. Our British Expeditionary Force had been rushed across the Channel with General Sir John French in command.

With marvellous efficiency it had crossed without a single casualty, convoyed by British and French men-of-war. With the forces went the chaplains of the different denominations, their numbers to be steadily augmented throughout the war.

But the French were not ready, and our force was all too small for the task allotted to it. To our eternal credit, we also were not ready.

Our Army did the work of heroes, but the huge German Army steadily marched on, and there was nothing to be done but retire. When the full story of the retreat from Mons comes to be written, what grim reading it will make!

Of course, in those desperate days all that the chaplains could do was to look after the wounded and bury the dead. Organised services were out of the question. A few men gathered here or there at the close of a terrible march, a prayer or two, a message of cheer or consolation, and then a brief sleep, and the inevitable weary march again, the rear-guard fighting all the way. But all day long there were opportunities of individual service and these were used to the full.

From the publications of the Salvation Army we get a vivid picture of those days. Being an international inst.i.tution it had, and still has, its agents in every part of the fighting area. Germans, Russians, French, Belgians, and British are all the same to it--they are men who need salvation. It has been as vigorous in its work among Germans as among any others, and its trophies won upon German battle-fields will be bright jewels in our Redeemer's crown.

Brigadier Mary Murray, who rendered signal service during the South African war, and who wears the South African medal, was in Brussels when the Germans entered the city. She gives us a vivid picture of her experiences in connexion with the German occupation. I quote from the _War Cry_ of September 12, 1914:

"At last I am able to write. Twelve days of silence, no post, no papers, nothing but such news as the Germans cared to put up, and all the time a sound of heavy firing.