“What is the difference between a ‘strafe’ and a ‘bombardment?’” I asked him.
“Well,” he said, “a bombardment is usually all thought out beforehand and a lot of preparations are made for it and it usually lasts a long time. A ‘strafe’ is just a firing that might start up any time, and it generally lasts only a few minutes. Sometimes a green hand in the line brings off a ‘strafe’ that might last half an hour with the loss of many lives and the cost of thousands of dollars. The first night in the line every minute or two some fellow thinks he sees some one coming across ‘No Man’s Land’ and sometimes he ‘gets the wind up’ pretty bad and fires. Then old Fritz thinks some one is coming towards him and he fires back; then two or three of our fellows answer, and immediately old Fritz comes back stronger. Then the whole line opens up and the machine-guns begin to rat-tat-tat, and an S. O. S. flare goes up for the artillery, and presently the earth is rocking under a ‘strafe’ and everybody except one wonders who started it all.”
As the lad then began to gather up the empty dishes, I made apologies for having eaten so much; always my breakfast had been just a little bread and jam. His only comment was, “Sorry, sir, I didn’t have a couple of eggs for you.”
Long after he went out I kept thinking of the horrors of war; what catastrophes might transpire through the changing of the wind or through “getting the wind up.”
After I had returned home from the war I was giving a series of lectures in a little town. In one of them I happened to mention the terrible tragedy of the turpinide gas. Many among my audience found it hard to believe that there had been so many victims. The following day the priest with whom I was staying asked me many questions about the Valley of the Dead. A day or two later, as we were sitting in his office, one of his parishioners came in on some business. I was about to leave the room when the priest motioned me to stay.
When the man had finished his business, he looked at me and said: “So you have been to the war, Father?”
I said I had been there.
“Well,” continued the man, who had come a long distance, “I met a lad who was through it all, and he told me he found the gas worse than anything. He said he was in a place, one time, where thousands and thousands had been froze stiff by a strange kind of gas. He said that there was a church there, filled with people sitting in the pews, and the windows were all up, and this gas came right in through the windows and froze all the people in the pews. They’re all there yet, and if you pay a quarter you can see them.”
The man was most serious. I did not dare look at the priest till he had gone. For a moment the priest shook with laughter, then he said to me: “Father, send for that returned man and make him your assistant. He can tell the story much better than you.”
“Well,” I said, “considering that it was France, they might have made the admission fee one franc instead of a quarter.”