We have given up hope of getting our dead out of Rocroi—it would be a task for the Engineers, and it would probably mean the loss of many more lives to accomplish it. Joyce Kilmer’s fine instincts have given us a juster view of the propriety of letting them rest where they fell. So I went out today to read the services of the dead and bless their tomb. Company L is in that position now, and they too have been subjected to a fierce attack in which Lieutenant Booth was wounded. He and Lieutenant Baker and Corporal Lawrence Spencer are in for a Croix de Guerre for courage in action. Today there was a lot of sniping going on, so Sergeant John Donoghue and Sergeant Bill Sheahan wanted to go out to the position with me. They are two of the finest lads that Ireland has given us, full of faith and loyalty, and they had it in mind, I know, to stand each side of me and shield me from harm with their bodies. Val Roesel, Bert Landzert and Martin Coneys also insisted that they would make good acolytes for me. But I selected the littlest one in the crowd, Johnny McSherry; and little Jack trotted along the trench in front of me with his head erect while I had to bend my long back to keep my head out of harm’s way. We came on Larry Spencer in an outpost position contemplating his tin hat with a smile of satisfaction. It had a deep dent in it where a bullet had hit it and then deflected—a fine souvenir.
We finished our services at the grave and returned. I lingered a while with Spencer, a youth of remarkable elevation of character—it is a good thing for a Chaplain to have somebody to look up to. Back in the woods I met two new Lieutenants, Bernard Shanley and Edward Sheffler. Shanley is from the Old Sod. Sheffler is a Chicagoan of Polish descent, a most likable youth. I gave them a good start on their careers as warriors by hearing their confessions.
That reminded me that I had some neglected parishioners in Company I, so I went over their set of trenches. Around the P. C. it looks like pictures of the houses of wattles and clay that represent the architecture of Early Britain. Met Harry Adikes and Ed Battersby and found them easy victims when I talked confession. Where do the Irish get such names? Ask Wilton Wharton what his ancestors were and he will say “Irish”; so will Bob Cousens and Bill Cuffe, Eddie Willett, Jim Peel or Jim Vail. Charlie Cooper is half way to being Irish now, and he will be all Irish if he gets a girl I know. I know how Charlie Garret is Irish,—for he comes from my neighborhood, and if it were the custom to adopt the mother’s name in a family he would be Charles Ryan. The same custom would let anybody know without his telling it, as he does with his chest out, that George Van Pelt is Irish too. I saw one swarthy fellow with MIKE KELLEY in black letters on his gas mask, but on asking him I found that he was Irish only by abbreviation, as he was christened Michael Keleshian. Tommy O’Brien made himself my guide and acolyte for my holy errand; and he first took me on a tour amongst the supply sergeants and cooks for he wanted us both well looked after. So when we had gotten Eddie Joyce, Pat Rogan, Michael O’Brien, Tom Loftus and Joe Callahan in proper Christian condition for war or hospitality, we sallied forth around the trenches.
Religion in the trenches has no aid from pealing organ or stained glass windows, but it is a real and vital thing at that. The ancestors of most of us kept their religious life burning brightly as they stole to the proscribed Mass in a secluded glen, or told their beads by a turf fire; and I find that religion thrives today in a trench with the diapason of bursting shells for an organ. I had a word or two for every man and they were glad to get it; and the consolations of the old faith for those that were looking for it. It makes a man feel better about the world and God, and the kind of people he has put into it to know in conditions like these such men as Bill Beyer, Fordham College Man; Pat Carroll, Chauffeur; Tom Brennan, Patrick Collins, whom I am just beginning to know and to like; Bill Dynan, whom I have known and liked for a long time; manly Pat Hackett and athletic Pat Flynn, solid non-coms like Ford, Hennessey, McDermott, Murphy, Denis Hogan, Michael Jordan, Hugh McFadden, not to mention the old Roman 1st Sergeant Patrick McMinaman. It was the vogue at one time to say with an air of contempt that religion is a woman’s affair. I would like to have such people come up here—if they dared: and say the same thing to the soldiers of this Company or of this Regiment—if they dared.
The last outpost was an interesting one. It did not exist when I was in these parts with the 2nd Battalion, as our friends on the other side had not yet built it for us. But recently they have sent over one of their G. I. cans (that, dear reader, means galvanized iron can, which are as big as a barrel, and which tells the story of what a minenwerfer torpedo shell looks like when it is coming toward you) and the G. I. Can made a hole like the excavation of a small cottage. In it I found four or five of Company I snugly settled down and very content at being that much closer to the enemy. Here I met for the first time Ed. Shanahan, a fine big fellow who ought to make good with us, and Charlie Stone, whose mother was the last to say good-bye to me as we left Camp Mills. Mess came up while we were there and we did justice to it sitting on clumps of soft earth which had been rolled into round snowballs by the explosion—and chatting about New York.
ST. PATRICK’S DAY IN THE TRENCHES
Sunday, March 17th 1918
What a day this would have been for us if we were back in New York! Up the Avenue to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the morning, and the big organ booming out the old Irish airs and the venerable old Cardinal uttering words of blessing and encouragement. And in the afternoon out on parade with the Irish Societies with the band playing Garry Owen and Let Erin Remember and O’Donnell Aboo, as we pass through the cheering crowds. And how they would shout in this year of Grace 1918 if we could be suddenly transported to New York’s Avenue of triumph. But I am glad we are not there. For more than seventy years the old Regiment has marched up the Avenue in Church parade on St. Patrick’s Day. But never, thank God, when the country was at war. Other New Yorkers may see the Spring sweeping through the Carolinas or stealing timidly up the cliffs of the Hudson or along the dented shores of Long Island; but there is only one place in the world where the old Irish Regiment has any right to celebrate it, and that is on the battle line.
The 3rd Battalion is in the trenches, so I went up yesterday and spent the night with Major Moynahan, who gave me a true Irish welcome. He and Leslie have made good Irishmen out of Lieutenants Rerat and Jackson and we had a pleasant party.
We had not a Cathedral for our St. Patrick’s day Mass but Lieutenant Austin Lawrence had Jim McCormack and George Daly of the Medicos pick out a spot for me among the trees to conceal my bright vestments from observation and the men who were free slipped up the boyaus from the nearby trenches for the services.