The second in command of the Fourteenth, Major Price, welcomed me cordially to the battalion. The colonel was then absent. Major Price, though a very kind man with a most gentle disposition, held one of the finest records in the army, rising from a private in the ranks to be colonel of the battalion.
The officers of the Fourteenth were a fine lot of men, yet they never filled the place in my affections that the officers of the Sixteenth had won.
Chapter XC
Telegraph Hill
The following Sunday I said Mass on Telegraph Hill. It was a very high elevation and on all sides we could see, far below, the great green valley. I counted as many as six light railway trains steaming their way from different points towards the front. I think we were then about seven or eight miles from the Canal du Nord, where the next big battle was to take place. Some of the men came early and I stood talking to them till all the soldiers, excepting the Thirteenth Battalion, had come up. Thinking that there must be some mistake in orders and that they had failed to receive notice of church service, I began to say Mass. I had a large crowd of lads and they were formed up very near the altar; some stood almost touching the altar in order to keep the wind from extinguishing my candles. Nearly all my men had received the Sacraments while in rest, so I gave a general absolution today, then all went to Holy Communion.
Just as I had given the last men Holy Communion the Thirteenth came up, their pipe band playing merrily. There was nothing left for me to do but say another Mass for them. It was very gratifying to notice, as I turned to make an announcement before beginning the second Mass, that many of the men who had received Holy Communion at the first Mass still remained kneeling on the ground as they made their thanksgiving.
During the second Mass a number of German airplanes tried to fly near us, but from down in the valley our anti-aircraft guns barked and shells shrieked upwards, bursting near the ’planes. All the men of the Thirteenth, after a general absolution, went to Holy Communion.
I came down from Telegraph Hill that morning feeling that my men were now ready, spiritually, for battle.
Chapter XCI
Canal Du Nord
On the night of September 26th we moved up to the trenches just before the Canal du Nord. It was a rainy night and quite dark. We marched a long time, for our guides had lost their way. Finally, as we approached the trenches, Verey lights hissed a trail of light through the sky and as they broke to descend we stood very still. Every little while orders came for us to fall on our faces, and we lay motionless on the ground listening to that strange, sweeping sound of machine-gun bullets as they tore their way through the air just above us.
Before we entered the trenches we had supposed all the Germans to be on the opposite bank of Canal du Nord. But we were not in the trenches very long till we learned that there were machine-gun outposts on our own side. Indeed, not forty-eight yards from where we stood was a machine-gun nest. Every time a flash-light would show, or some one would speak above a whisper, there would be a rat-tat-tat from almost beside us, and then a pattering of machine-gun bullets. I listened to the grim preparations that were being made to surround the nest just as soon as our barrage would open up.