After lunch, Barry went to look up his chief, the assistant director of chaplain service, while Paula took charge of the V. A. D., saying:
“Run away, Barry, and see your Brass Hat. I'll show Miss Vincent how a quartermaster's department of a real hospital should be run.”
His hour with the A. D. C. S. was a most stimulating experience for Barry. He found himself at once in touch with not an official thinking in terms of military regulations and etiquette, but a soldier and a man. For the A. D. C. S. was both. Through all the terrible days at Ypres, where the Canadians, in that welter of gas and fire and blood, had won their imperishable fame as fighting men, he had been with them, sharing their dangers and ministering to their wants with his brother officers of the fighting line. Physically an unimpressive figure, small and slight, yet he seemed charged with concentrated energy waiting release.
As Barry listened to his words coming forth in snappy, jerking phrases, he was fascinated by the bulldog jaw and piercing eyes of the little man. In brief, comprehensive, vigorous sentences, he set forth his ideals for the chaplain service in the Canadian army.
“Three things,” he said, “I tell my men, should mark the Canadian chaplain service. The first, Unity—unity among themselves, unity with the other departments of the army. Two words describe our chaplains—Christian and Canadians. I am an Anglican myself, but on this side of the channel there are no Anglican, no Presbyterian, no Methodist chaplains, only Christian and Canadian chaplains. I have had to fight for this with high officials both in the army and in the church. I have won out, and while I'm here this will be maintained. The second thing is Spirituality. The Chaplain must be a Christian man, living in touch with the Divine—alive toward God. Third, Humanity. He must be 'touched with the feeling of our infirmity,' sharing the experiences of the men, getting to know their feelings, their fears, their loneliness, their misery, their anxieties, and God knows they have their anxieties for themselves and for their folks at home.”
As Barry listened, he heard again his father's voice. “They need you. They are afraid. They are lonely. They need God.”
“And remember,” said the A. D. C. S., as he rose to close the interview, “that I am at your back. If you have any difficulty, let me know. If you are wrong, I promise to tell you. If you are right, I'll back you up. Now, let us go and look over the hospital. There are some of our fellows there. If you feel like saying anything in the convalescent ward, all right, but don't let it worry you.”
As they went through the wards, Barry could not but notice how the faces of the patients brightened as his chief approached, and how their eyes followed him after he had passed.
They moved slowly through those long corridors, sanctified by the sufferings and griefs and hidden tears of homesick and homelonging men, to many of whom it seemed that the best of life was past.
When they had gone the length of the convalescent ward, the A. D. C. S. turned and, after getting permission of the medical superintendent, briefly introduced Barry to the wounded men, as “a man from the wild and woolly Canadian west, on his way up the line, and therefore competent to tell us about the war, and especially when it will end.”