When we gathered up the cards after Mass they numbered almost two hundred. They were typed on the panel of silk, and the panel of silk, with the names, still rests in the little altar. All through the war they have been remembered. Many of those names appear elsewhere on small white crosses “where poppies grow,” so that now they are no longer mentioned in the memento of the living; but there is another part of the Mass when they are remembered—with “those who have gone before us, signed with the sign of faith, and who rest in the sleep of peace.”
Chapter X
Movement Orders
We did not stay very long in our new camping ground. For a few days the men seemed quite content. Everything was new to them; but soon they began to wonder how long it would be before we would leave. The nights often were very cold in the tents, for it was now late in October. We began to feel sure that orders for departing must come soon as no preparations were being made for going into winter quarters. On Sunday I had announced confessions for the following Wednesday. On the day set, four priests came to help me, but just as the men were being formed up to go to the church, word came that we were to leave that evening for overseas. The men were dismissed and soon there was a scene of general disorder; but on all sides were happy faces. All seemed glad to go. They had been looking forward to it for so long a time.
I was obliged to tell the priests who had come so far that there would be no confessions. I kept the hosts that the Sisters in a nearby town had made for me, as I hoped to hear the men’s confessions on the boat on the way across the ocean.
All night long we stood around, waiting for the train to come to take us, but there had been some delay, and so it was not till early in the morning that we left. Our journey was not a very long one, but we were obliged to wait at many different stations till trains passed us. As the movement order had called for a night trip, no dining-car or buffet had been attached. The men went hungry all day. The last trip had been one of over-indulgence. This was one of abstinence.
We had no breakfast and no dinner, yet the men seemed quite content, and joked pleasantly over the fact that they were hungry. At one country station where we were side-tracked the bugler jumped out on the platform and blew the call: “Come to the cook-house door, boys!” But as there was no cook-house door to go to, and no “Mulligan battery”—the name given to the field-kitchen, with its steaming odors of Irish stew—they greeted the call of the smiling bugler with derisive laughter.
At four o’clock we were all aboard the S. S. Corsican, and at five we pulled out from the dock, the band on the upper deck playing “Auld Lang Syne.” Many relatives of the lads, who had arrived in the little seaport town, waved their good-byes from the dock as the boat swung clear from its moorings and steamed slowly down the bay. The boys swarmed up the rope ladders and cheered; many little tugs far down on the water darted about, shrieking shrilly their farewells. We were off to the war!
Chapter XI
The High Seas
The doctor and I had been alloted a stateroom together, but I was subsequently given one down below, where I said Mass the first morning and heard confessions every evening. The chief steward was a Catholic and he was very kind. I had permission to say Mass in the second-class saloon, which was the largest on the boat, and nearly all the men came to Holy Communion. Our first Sunday out I said Mass for the lads below. As I proceeded with the Mass the seas became very rough, so that the book fell off the altar three times; the chalice, however, never moved. Many became sick, and the Red Cross section was busy. On the first day out we donned our cumbersome life-belts, which we wore all the way across the Atlantic. I took mine off only while saying Mass. They hung on the berths at night. During the day the men walked up and down the upper deck; sometimes there were drills, etc. We saw no vessels. Every day we plunged forward through rough seas, and in the afternoons, as I sat in my little stateroom hearing confessions, I could hear the dull pounding of the waves on the sides of the vessel.
I was very pleased with the example the Catholic officers gave the men. Every one of them came to confession and Communion on the way over. One, the old quartermaster, who was confined to his cabin with a severe attack of la grippe, could not come to Mass with the others, so I gave him Communion in his cabin towards the last of the voyage. The second morning afterwards, however, as I walked back and forth making my thanksgiving, I stopped quickly and peered out over the sea. I could see very faintly, across the water, a long, serried line of hills that looked greyish-blue in the early morning—the hills of Ireland! I ran quickly to tell the quartermaster, who had been born in Ireland and had still a true Irishman’s great love for his native land. He was not there. I was surprised, as the doctor had told me that he had given orders that he was not to leave his cabin till after we reached port. As I went out on deck again I noticed, up forward, leaning over the gunwale and looking towards Ireland, a great muffled figure. He wore one khaki great coat, and another, thrown loosely about his shoulders, gave him a hunched appearance. It was the quartermaster!