“Well,” I returned, “I had announced confessions before supper, and if the men missed the opportunity of going by attending a concert it was not my fault. However,” I continued, “I have just announced confessions for tomorrow at all the battalion orderly rooms, excepting the Thirteenth. I am on my way there now.”
The young officer seemed very pleased, and promised to have all the Catholic soldiers of his company in New Plymouth cave the following morning at ten o’clock. “God bless you!” I said to him. “If all my Catholic officers were as eager to come to confession, and bring their men, as you are, my work would be made very much easier.”
Chapter LIX
The Banquet Hall
The following morning after breakfast Father Sheehan and I went down on our bicycles to the parish church. Then each of us, wearing a white stole over our uniform, went to the little tabernacle and after genuflecting silently, took from it one small military ciborium full of consecrated Hosts. Then silently we left the church bearing our precious burden.
When we entered Arras, which was now known as the “City of the Dead,” we found, as usual, empty streets and the contour of many sections of the city fast disappearing under the unceasing bombardment of German guns.
We left our bicycles in care of the guard on the bridge near the entrance to the Ronville caves and walked through the quadrangle, which contained many more shell-holes than it did on our previous visit. For this reason our passage was made very quickly. The long main tunnel was much better lighted, however, lighted candles being attached at intervals on either wall. We turned to our right and entered a subsidiary tunnel, above the entrance of which was a sign-board bearing the names of three or four different caves, New Plymouth was one to which the tunnel led.
New Plymouth was wide and low, and although one of the smaller caves, could very easily accommodate comfortably five or six hundred men. At one end farthest from the entrance was what proved to be an excellent altar table. The chalk had been quarried in such a manner that what appeared to be a large chalk altar remained. Father Sheehan and I looked at each other in some surprise; then placed our Sacred Burden on the altar, covered the two ciboriums with a small white cloth we had brought, and lighted two candles which we placed on either side—we had brought our pockets filled with small pieces of candles from the church. We then sat down on our steel helmets, placed on piles of chalk, for already we could hear the sound of many voices coming along the corridor. Presently a large crowd of men from the Fifteenth and Sixteenth entered the dimly-lighted cave, removed their caps, genuflected before the altar and then knelt in little groups on the hard chalk floor, silent in prayer—for the Lord was in His holy temple!
Quickly the men came to confession, and every ten or fifteen minutes either Father Sheehan or I stood up, went to the altar while some soldier said the “Confiteor;” then as the little white cloth was passed from one soldier to another they received with deep reverence their Lord. As each little semi-circle of men received Holy Communion, they moved back into the more darkened portion of the cave where they knelt to make their thanksgiving.
We had been dispensing “the mysteries of God” for nearly an hour when a large number from the Thirteenth came in and knelt down near me. Just before them knelt their young captain. He had done as he had said; all his Catholic lads were with him. For a long time they knelt there on the hard chalk floor, and as now and again my eyes fell on the earnest faces of the lads as they prayed reverently, my thoughts would go back to the early ages of the church when the first Christians adored God in the Catacombs of Rome.
In a little while I gave the young officer and his lads Holy Communion. At the time there seemed to me to be some earnestness about the young captain—as if this communion were a great and holy preparation for some event that I knew nothing of. While he knelt back in the gloom, silently returning thanks to God, I could not help associating him with the knights of old. Then when he had finished his thanksgiving, strengthened by the coming of the Lord, he left the cave at the head of his men, ready, like a true knight, for whatever was to come.