On such occasions two thoughts would come to me—the reflection of Tertullian that "The soul of man is by nature religious;" and the admonition of Ecclesiastes 7:40, "Remember thy last end and thou shalt never sin." Far into that All Saints night I heard Confessions, and was edified with the large number who approached Holy Communion All Souls morning.
In burial work, we always made it a point, where it was at all possible, to bury the enemy dead as reverently as our own. We would gather their poor shell-torn bodies, often in advanced stages of decomposition, and place them in graves on sheltered hillsides, safe from gun fire, carefully assembling in Musette bags their belongings, which we would forward to the Prisoner of War Department. One day, while so assembling the scattered remains of four dead Germans, evidently killed by the same shell, one of our boys of the 34th Infantry, Sam Volkel by name, who before the war lived in my old parish at Harvey, passed by. This good boy's parents had been born in Germany. When he saw the reverent care we were giving those four of the enemy dead, he came up to me and with tears streaming down his smoke and dust-covered face exclaimed, "Father, God bless you."
"De mortuis nil nisi bonum" is a principle of conduct dating back to Him who of old declared burial of the dead a corporal work of mercy. It is the mark, neither of the Christian individual nor nation, to disrespect a body nor desecrate its resting place. The fact that in life it was tenanted by the soul of an enemy is no justification for dishonoring it; for He who is Infinite Truth and Justice declares "Love thy enemy; do good to those who hate you, and bless those who persecute you." This, of course, is not the way of the world; but is the way of Him whose standards of living must guide our lives, and whose will to reward or punish us shall prevail through Eternity.
We had now been many weeks at the extreme front on minimum ration of all things bearing on bodily comfort or mental relaxation. Water was but a word, a memory, cherished dream of him who wrote "The Old Oaken Bucket." If we could but find enough of the chlorinated drug store kind to nourish our canteen, we were prepared to dispense with the common, or laundry serving, variety.
In the eternal fitness of things, there came now into being an Army institution, officially known as the Delousing Station. It appears to have been named in memory of a certain small wingless insect. There was an appeal to it that at once caught the popular fancy of the soldiers, always itching for novelty, and it became the most frequented of watering places. It was a thoroughly democratic affair, officers and enlisted men freely approving and patronizing it, under the undenying impulse, no doubt, of a common human need. It little mattered that its location was usually the wreckage of some wind-swept barn; or that its furniture consisted of a barrel of water jauntily poised on the rafters; the spectacle of Buddie, bar of soap in hand, sporting and splashing in the limpid stream of that miniature Niagara, offered wealth of theme for the inspired artist, poet, and writer of commercial advertising.
I greatly wonder that the hallowed memory of this loving institution has so far escaped the popular fancy as to be left "unwept, unhonored and unsung." That it was inspirational might be shown from the case of a boy of the 64th Infantry changing the words of the popular song, "They go wild, simply wild, over me," to "They run wild, simply wild, over me."
Huts designed to offer any manner of mental relaxation, reading, music, and the like, were necessarily many miles to the rear. No sound but gun fire was ever to be heard. No matin bugle call of Reveille to rouse, nor plaintive note of Taps to "mend the ravelled sleeve of care." No regimental band to "soothe the savage breast," nor lead to the charge in the way it is described in books of history.
No lights to show from dugout or trench, not even on motor cars or cycles dashing along treacherous roads and trails. If mess and water carts could be kept in touch with advanced posts, the mail and welfare supply trucks could be dispensed with.
Days and weeks would pass without so much as sight of a letter, newspaper, book, or word from the rear of any kind. Such times were like living in the bottom of a well, glimpses of the sky overhead, but all around you, dark, foul, and deathly.