“The Dubs, sir. ’Tis hard luck; I kem back wounded from Suvla Bay and they sent me out to the battalion here; and I’d not been with them a week before I got landed again. Now ’tis a German prison ahead—and by all one hears they’re not rest-camps.”
“No,” said Jim. He tried to move, but failed, sinking back with a stifled groan. “I wish I knew if I was damaged much. Are there any doctors here?”
“There was two, a while back. They fixed us up somehow, and we haven’t seen a hair of them since. The guards throw rations—of a sort—at us twice a day. ’Tis badly off we’d be, if it weren’t for the priest.”
“Is he French?”
“He is—and a saint, if there ever was one. There he comes now.” Callaghan crossed himself reverently.
A hush had come over the church. The cure, in his vestments, had entered, going slowly to the altar.
Jim struggled up on his elbow. There was perfect silence in the church; men who had been talking ceased suddenly, men who moaned in their pain bit back their cries. So they lay while the little priest celebrated Mass, as he had done every morning since the Germans swept over his village: at first alone, and, since the first few days to a silent congregation of helpless men. They were of all creeds and some of no creed at all: but they prayed after him as men learn to pray when they are at grips with things too big for them. He blessed them, at the end, with uplifted hand; and dim eyes followed him as he went slowly from the church.
He was back among them, presently, in the rusty black cassock. The guards had brought in the men’s breakfast—great cans of soup and loaves of hard, dark bread. They put them down near the door, tramping out with complete disregard of the helpless prisoners. The priest would see to them, aided by the few prisoners who could move about, wounded though they were. In any case the guard had no order to feed prisoners; they were not nurse-maids, they said.
“Ah, my son! You are awake!”
Jim smiled up at the cure.