It was my business to give them a religious celebration that they would remember for many a year and that they would write about enthusiastically to the folks at home, who would be worrying about the lonesome existence of their boys in France. The French military authorities and the Bishop of the diocese had united in prohibiting Midnight Masses on account of the lights. But General Lenihan, the Mayor, and the Curé decided that we were too far from the front to worry about that, and it was arranged tout de suite. I knew that confessions and communions would be literally by the thousands, so with the aid of Joyce Kilmer and Frank Driscoll, ex-Jesuit-novice, I got up a scheme for confessions of simple sins in English and French, and set my French confrères to work; the Curé, a priest-sergeant in charge of a wood cutting detail, a brancardier, and another priest who was an officer of the artillery—all on the qui vive about the task. Christmas Eve found us all busy until midnight. I asked one of the men how he liked the idea of going to confession to a priest who cannot speak English. “Fine, Father,” he said with a grin, “All he could do was give me a penance, but you’d have given me hell.” Luckily the church was vastly larger than the present needs of the town, for everybody, soldiers and civilians, came. General Lenihan and Colonel Hine and the Brigade and the Regimental Staffs occupied seats in the sanctuary which was also crowded with soldiers. The local choir sang the Mass and I preached. Our lads sang the old hymns, “The Snow Lay on the Ground,” “The Little Town of Bethlehem,” and all, French and Americans, joined in the ancient and hallowed strains of the Adeste Fideles until the vaults resounded with Venite Adoremus Dominum. It took four priests a long time to give Communion to the throng of pious soldiers and I went to bed at 2:00 A. M. happy with the thought that, exiles though we are, we celebrated the old feast in high and holy fashion.
Christmas afternoon we had general services in the big market shed. The band played the old Christmas airs and everybody joined in, until the square was ringing with our pious songs.
Everybody had a big Christmas dinner. The Quartermaster had sent the substantial basis for it and for extra trimmings the Captains bought up everything the country afforded. They had ample funds to do it, thanks to our Board of Trustees, who had supplied us lavishly with funds. The boxes sent through the Women’s Auxiliary have not yet reached us. It is just as well, for we depart tomorrow on a four-day hike over snowy roads and the less we have to carry the better.
LONGEAU
January 1st, 1918
I cannot tell just what hard fates this New Year may have in store for us, but I am sure that no matter how trying they may be they will not make us forget the closing days of 1917. We left our villages in the Vosges the morning after Christmas Day. From the outset it was evident that we were going to be up against a hard task. It snowed on Christmas, and the roads we were to take were mean country roads over the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. New mules were sent to us on Christmas Eve. They were not shod for winter weather, and many of them were absolutely unbroken to harness, the harness provided moreover being French and ill-fitting. To get it on the mules big Jim Hillery had to throw them first on the stable floor.
It was everybody’s hike, and everybody’s purgatory; but to my mind it was in a special way the epic of the supply company and the detachments left to help them. Nobody ever makes any comment when supplies are on hand on time. In modern city life we get into the way of taking this for granted, as if food were heaven-sent like manna, and we give little thought to the planning and labor it has taken to provide us. On a hike the Infantry will get through—there is never any doubt of that. They may be foot-sore, hungry, broken-backed, frozen, half dead, but they will get through. The problem is to get the mules through; and it is an impossible one very often without human intelligence and human labor. On this hike the marching men carried no reserve rations, an inexcusable oversight. No village could feed them even if there was money to pay for the food; and the men could not eat till the Company wagons arrived with the rations and field ranges.
The situation for Captain Mangan’s braves looked desperate from the start. A mile out of town the wagons were all across the road, as the lead teams were not trained to answer the reins. The battle was on. Captain Mangan with Lieutenant Kinney, a Past Grand Master when it comes to wagon trains, organized their forces. They had experienced helpers—Sergeant Ferdinando, a former circus man, Sergeant Bob Goss and Regimental Supply Sergeant Joe Flannery, who will be looking for new wars to go to when he is four score and ten. It would be impossible to relate in detail the struggles of the next four days; but that train got through from day to day only by the fighting spirit of soldiers who seldom have to fire a rifle. Again and again they came to hills where every wagon was stalled. The best teams had to be unhitched and attached to each wagon separately until the hill was won. Over and over the toil-worn men would have to cover the same ground till the work was done, and in tough places they had to spend their failing strength tugging on a rope or pushing a wheel. Wagoners sat on their boxes with hands and feet freezing and never uttered a complaint. The wagons were full of food but no man asked for a mite of it—they were willing to wait till the companies ahead would get their share.
The old time men who had learned their business on the Border were naturally the best. Harry Horgan, ex-cowboy, could get anything out of mules that mules could do. Jim Regan, old 1898 man, had his four new mules christened and pulling in answer to their names before a greenhorn could gather up the reins. Larkin and young Heffernan and Barney Lowe and Tim Coffee were always first out and first in, but always found time to come back and take the lines for some novice to get his wagon through a hard place. Al Richford, Ed Menrose, Gene Mortenson, Willie Fagan, Arthur Nulty, Wagoner Joe Seagriff and good old Pat Prendergast did heroic work. “Father” James McMahon made me prouder of my own title. Slender Jimmy Benson got every ounce of power out of his team without ever forgetting he belonged to the Holy Name Society. Sergeant Lacey, Maynooth man and company clerk, proved himself a good man in every Irish sense of the word. Hillery and Tumulty, horseshoers; Charles Henning of the commissary, and Joe Healy, cook, made themselves mule-skinners once more, and worked with energies that never flagged.
Lieutenant Henry Bootz came along at the rear of the Infantry column to pick up stragglers. The tiredest and most dispirited got new strength from his strong heart. “I think I’m going to die,” said one broken lad of eighteen. “You can’t die without my permission,” laughed the big Lieutenant. “And I don’t intend to give it. I’ll take your pack, but you’ll have to hike.” And hike he did for seven miles farther that day, and all the way for two days more. The first day Bootz threatened to tie stragglers to the wagons. The remaining days he took all that could move without an ambulance and tied the wagons to them. And they had to pull.