Three of the stretcher-bearers went down, two of them mortally wounded. I ran quickly to them and began to anoint one of them. The other bearers ran to points of safety and I was alone on the field. Those were the most terrible minutes of my life. I knew the enemy could see me and was firing at me for shells were crashing all about me. Terrified, I crouched flat on my stomach until I finished anointing the lad, who passed away before I had done my work. Then I rolled over and lay still, as if I were dead; a little later, I crawled from shell hole to shell hole, off the field.
When the roll was called that night seventy-one men out of six hundred answered. We had lost many prisoners.
I could not find my battalion to march out with them. I had not eaten any food all day and it was now six o’clock. I had gone through the most terrible day of my life, and I was utterly dispirited. I had never before felt so strangely. Of course, we had had many engagements during the past week, and constantly I had been looking on men mangled and broken and torn; and, besides I had eaten scarcely anything. I seemed to be moving in a world that was all upset; somehow, suddenly, everything had gone wrong with the allies! I bumped along till finally I came to the dugout that had been occupied by the medical officer of the Fourteenth. He had gone, but he had left behind a white bag, resembling in size and shape an ordinary pillow-slip, half filled with sugar. I thought of taking it along with me, but I left it. As I moved on dazedly, suddenly I remembered I had seen the Fifteenth back in reserve. I had come through them in the morning on my way up to the Fourteenth. I would go to them and ask for something to eat. How I missed George! George would have had a breakfast for me in the morning, and would have found me in the evening.
Headquarters of the Fifteenth were in a cellar, and a kind-hearted kilted laddie guided me to the door. I was greeted very kindly, and in a little while the waiter placed on the table some white bread and margarine and a plate of cold beef.
“I’m sorry,” said Major Girvin, O. C., of the Fifteenth Battalion, “that we have no sugar, Padre.”
I then remembered the bag of sugar I had seen in the medical officer’s hut. If I had only brought it, I could have given it to the Fifteenth Battalion! I did not mind the lack of sugar in the tea. And I was not bothered that most of the smoke from the improvised fire-place was floating out over the cellar instead of rising through the chimney. But I began to feel my spirits revive with the kindly talk of the officers. They seemed pleased that I had dropped in on them. The Fifteenth was the one battalion of the brigade that had no chaplain. They used to say jokingly that they were so good that they did not need a chaplain.
I related my experiences of the day to the officers. They were sympathetic, for they had had many similar ones.
I stayed with them for an hour or two till the Twenty-sixth Battalion came to relieve them. The officer who took over from us was an old friend, and one of the very best Catholics of the old One Hundred and Thirty-Second Battalion. I was delighted to see Captain Barry and we talked for a long time in the cellar.
Chapter XCIII
In Reserve
During the night we marched back to Inchy. Very early in the morning I found the transport of the Fourteenth and, later in the day, the remnants of the battalion. They were in reserve, some miles from the firing line, yet in a very hard-shelled area; to make matters worse, we were in an ammunition dump, one of the largest I had ever seen. It was a very poor place to bring men to rest after battle!