At first two of our battalions were placed in mountain villages to the west, but after a week or so we had everybody accommodated in Remagen. I settled down with my gallant followers, Halligan and McLaughlin, in the house of the Bürgermeister, which faced on the river just north of the parish Church. My German is a very sad affair, but he speaks French and his wife English. They have three nice children, the oldest about twelve. I keep my relations with the parents as official as is possible, when one is dealing with gentlefolks, but if I am expected to avoid fraternizing with the youngsters, they will have to lock me up or shoot me. I had a conference with the Parish Priest, a sturdy personality who has his flock in good control, at my house the other day and we were talking four languages at once—German, French, English and Latin. But I worked out my plans for a Christmas celebration.
Christmas Mass on the Rhine! In 1916, our midnight mass was under the open sky along the Rio Grande; in 1917, in the old medieval church at Grand in the Vosges; and now, thank Heaven, in this year of grace, 1918, we celebrated it peacefully and triumphantly in the country with which we had been at war. Attendance was of course voluntary, but I think the whole regiment marched to the service with the band preceding them playing “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Adeste Fideles.” We took full possession of the Church, though many of the townsfolk came in, and when at the end, our men sang the hymn of Thanksgiving, “Holy God, we praise Thy name” the Germans swelled our chorus in their own language “Grosser Gott wir loben Dich.” I preached on the theme “Can the war be ascribed to a failure on the part of Christianity?” I have been often irritated by ideas on this subject coming from leaders of thought who have given little place or opportunity to Christianity in their lives or projects. As Chesterton says: “Christianity has not been tried out and found wanting; Christianity has been tried—a little—and found difficult.” Father Hanley sang the Mass, the Guard of Honor with the Colors being from Company K, with Captain Hurley in charge.
For the Company dinners I was able to supply ample funds through the never-ceasing generosity of our Board of Trustees in New York City, and funds also placed at my disposal which were sent by Mrs. Barend Van Gerbig through the Veteran Corps of the 69th New York. But in their purchase of food, the wily mess sergeants found that soap was a better medium of exchange than money.
During January and February the men were kept busy during the day in field training, infantry drill, range practice and athletics. Particular attention was paid to smartness of appearance and punctiliousness in soldierly bearing and courtesy. The weather was mild though often rainy. Coal was not too hard to procure and the billets were kept fairly comfortable. The regiment being all in one town there was a fine soldier atmosphere in the place. The townspeople are a kindly decent sort, but our fellows have enough society in themselves and there is little fraternization, and none that is a source of any danger—there is more chance of our making them American in ideas than of their making us German.
The Welfare Societies are on the job with good accommodations. In the “Y” we have still Jewett and the ever faithful Pritchard and two or three devoted ladies, one of whom is Miss Dearing, a sister of Harry Dearing who was killed in the Argonne. Jim O’Hara of the K. of C. got the Parish Priest to give up his Jugendheim, a new building with large hall, bowling alleys, all the German Verein sort of thing. There is no lack of places to go or ways to spend an evening. Lieutenant Fechheimer took charge of athletics and we had brigade contests, and also with the Canadians, who were just to the left of the Ohios.
The 3rd Battalion has lost the service of Mr. Kelly of the “Y.” When I first knew Mr. Kelly of the “Y” he was Corporal Kelly of Company I, 69th Regiment, at McAllen, Texas, and was sometimes known, Irish fashion, as “Kelly the Lepper,” as he was a famous runner. His eyes were not as good as his legs, so he was turned down for reenlistment. Being determined to have a part in the war he got the “Y” to send him over as an athletic instructor and finally worked his way up to our regiment and was attached to the 3rd Battalion which includes his own company. The assignment was more to the advantage of the 3rd Battalion than of the Y. M. C. A. for Kelly gave away gratis everything he could wheedle, bully, or steal from the “Y” depot officials. When we reached the Rhine, things were too quiet for Kelly and he started off to visit his native town in Ireland. If I ever hear that somebody has gotten stores from the police barracks to equip the Sein Feiners, I shall know that Kelly the Lepper is on the job.
My own life is an altogether pleasant one. I have for my office a well furnished parlor on the ground floor of the Bürgermeister’s house where I spend my mornings with Bill Halligan, mainly at the task of writing letters to soldiers who want to get back and to folks at home who ask news of their dear ones, living or dead. In the afternoons I float lazily around amongst the companies, just chatting and gossiping, and getting in a good deal of my work in my own way, sort of incidentally and on the side; or I drop in at headquarters and bother Captain Dick Allen and Jansen and Ed Farrell of the Personnel Department for correct data for my diary, or Ted Ranscht and Clarke for maps. Or I look in on the juvenile pro-consuls Springer and Allen to smile at the air of easy mastery with which they boss the German civilians into observing American Military Commands. My nights I spend at the building of the “Y” or K. of C. amongst the men, or at home, receiving numerous guests with a world of topics to discuss. It is an agreeable kind of existence, with no urgent duties except correspondence, and with the satisfaction of performing a not unimportant service without any feeling of labor, but merely by kindly and friendly intercourse. My orderly, “Little Mac,” is having the time of his life. If I only had a car for him to drive me around in, as Tom Gowdy did in Texas, he would never want to go home to the Bronx.
Father Hanley was made director of amusements and was kept busy providing entertainment five nights a week from our own and other Divisions for the two large halls conducted by the Y. M. C. A. and the K. of C., a task which he accomplished as he does everything—to complete satisfaction.
One thing that astonished everybody in this New York regiment was the number of illiterates amongst replacements from the Southern States. We had two hundred men who could not sign their names to the pay-roll. A strong movement was started throughout the American Expeditionary Forces after the Armistice to teach such men to read and write, and the simplest problems in arithmetic, as well as to give a better knowledge of English to foreign born soldiers. In our regiment this task was confided to Chaplain Holmes, who went at it with his usual devotion to duty and attention to details, so that Chaplain Nash who was Divisional School Officer told me that the educational work in the 165th was by far the best in the Division.
I had many examples of the need of schooling for certain of the men. Many of our recent replacements had been kept going from place to place and had not received pay in months. Whenever I heard of such cases I advanced them money from our Trustee’s Fund. One evening three of our old-timers came to my billet to borrow some money to have a little party, but I had to tell them that my stock of francs was cleaned out. Just then a fine big simple fellow from the Tennessee mountains came in to return the money I had loaned him. “How much do you owe me?” I asked. “Thirty-seven francs.” “All right, hand it over to these fellows here.” “Well, I reckon I’d rather pay you.” After a certain amount of joking about it, it dawned upon my slow intelligence that the poor fellow was embarrassed by not being able to count money, so I took him into another room and tried to teach him how much change he should have out of a fifty franc note.