Father Duffy's story

by Francis Patrick Duffy

Jim Cassidy, Frankie Maguire and Jimmy Kelly found some German flour which they brought into the Headquarters Kitchen. They are a guileless looking trio and I cannot say to this day how deep a part they played in this affair. They gave the flour to Joe De Nair. Now Joseph Patrick De Nair has knocked around this world for more years than he will acknowledge to anybody—long enough at any rate, to have learned how to turn his hand to anything; and he announced his intention of making pancakes for all hands, especially me. Everybody was set to work under Joe’s direction. Fred Miller and Anderson salvaged some molasses. Al Ettinger was hustled off on his motorcycle to Pannes to use my name with Lieutenant Scheffler for some oleo, of which we were short. Pat Sharkey rustled wood; Frank Clason built a fire and John Brickley flattened and polished a tin for Joe’s cooking. Bill Hanley and Humphrey were appointed assistant chefs. There was a group around me consisting of Proctor, Holt, Katz and Proudfoot, and Joe came over: “All you ginks have got to work. There are no guests around here except Father Duffy.” I told him they had been reading an article in the “Daily Mail” on the Irish question and were asking me about it. That saved them, for Ireland counted more with Joe than even the success of his pancakes.

The bustling preliminaries were finally completed and Joe proceeded to make his batter. He poured it on the tin and waited, turning-spoon in hand until, like St. Lawrence, it should be done on one side. Then with the air of an artist, he turned his first pancake with a flourish. It landed on the pan with a bang like a shell striking an elephant hut. “What the——,” muttered Joe, as he picked up the results of his labor. “Well I’ll be——!” “What’s the matter Joe?” I asked, conscious that something was going wrong and that my presence deprived him of the normal outlet for his feelings. “What’s the matter. Where’s those dummed kids?” “Well, what is the matter?” “What’s the matter. What’s the matter? The stuff they gave me for flour is plaster of Paris. That’s what’s the matter. Where the—— Oh for Heaven’s sake, Father, go inside until I can let myself spill.”

BOIS DE MONTFAUCON

October 10th.

On September 27th, we relieved the 84th Brigade in the line, taking over the positions of the Iowas in subsector Marimbois, Major Anderson’s battalion being in the forward position. It was the usual business of patrolling until September 30th, when our Division was relieved in the Sector by the 89th, and withdrew to the Bois de la Belle Ozière, a little south of where we were before. Next morning, October 1st, we marched about 10 kilometers to our embussing point, where we found a tremendously large fleet of camions driven by the little Chinks whom our fellows now call the undertakers, because they associate them with deaths and burials.

Here I met an old friend, George Boothby of the New York World, who had finally succeeded in getting over to the war by entering the publicity department of the Y. M. C. A. The uniform with the red triangle somehow caused a smile when seen on George, but he was the first to grin.

We got started at four o’clock in the afternoon and spent the whole of a freezing night on the journey, most of it lying along the Voie Sacrée or Sacred Way, over which the supplies and reinforcements had been sent which saved Verdun. Our destination was Mondrecourt where we remained until October 4th, when we marched by daylight to Jubécourt. On October 5th we moved north again, an interminable march, with all the infantry in the Division going up on one mean road, to the woods of Montfaucon.

I had it easy myself because Colonel Mitchell with his usual fine way of doing a courtesy, asked me as a favor to get the automobile and some personal baggage through, as he was going mounted. So Brown and Dayton and myself got there by better roads ahead of the rest and found ourselves at the headquarters of the 32nd Division, where Colonel Callan and Father Dunnigan gave me a hospitable welcome. When I heard “32nd Division,” my first thought was “Now I can see McCoy again,” as he had been made General of the 63rd Brigade, but it was two days before I descried his familiar figure crowned with the French casque, a parting gift from the Comte de Chambrun when he left Chaumont. It was a memorable meeting, but all too short, for he had his brigade in line to look after.

The woods of Montfaucon, which lie in the area of the great battles for Verdun, fills exactly a civilian’s idea of what No Man’s Land should look like. In its day it was a fine forest of thick-girthed trees, but they had been battered by long cannonading until not one of them was as nature had fashioned it. Big branches had been torn off and heavy trees knocked to the ground. The shell holes lay close together like pock marks on a badly pitted face. It was almost impossible to find a level spot to pitch a small pup tent. Owing to recent rains and the long occupation of the woods by troops, both our own and the enemy’s, the place was in a bad state of sanitation. The roads, too, were bad and difficult for all kinds of traffic, particularly motor traffic. There were very few dugouts, all of them small and most of them dirty and wet. Division headquarters established itself in trucks as being better than any existing accommodations. General Lenihan kindly took me in and gave me a share in the dugout occupied by himself and Lieutenant Grose. Together we made a happy week of it in spite of bad conditions.

While here we received word that the Germans had asked for an armistice. The older and wiser heads amongst us felt quite certain that they would not get what they had asked for until they were reduced to a more humble spirit; but we were worried about the effect it might have on the morale of the troops, because it would be particularly hard for soldiers to face another big battle if they had made up their minds that the fighting was over. So Colonels Mitchell and Donovan asked me to go amongst the men, sound them out, and set them right if necessary. It was an easy commission. One of the first men I spoke to was Vincent Mulholland, one of my parish recruits and now 1st Sergeant of Company B. In answer to my first question he replied “Of course I would like to see the war over, but not while the old regiment is back here in army corps reserve. I want to see this war end with the 69th right out in the front line, going strong.” Not everybody was as emphatic as that, but I was able to make a very assured report that the old timers at least would go into a battle with the same spirit they had at Champagne or the Ourcq or St. Mihiel.