“What about it?” exclaimed the chaplain. “You watch me!”
He ran to the Y. M. C. A. tent, enlisted the secretary's aid and in twenty minutes they together had transported to the chaplain service tent coffee and cocoa urns, and with an organised band of assistants were supplying the wounded with warming and comforting nourishment. Never had those splendid services more quickly and effectively justified their place in the army.
With the wounded came rumours, more or less fantastic, of disaster. Something terrible had befallen the whole Canadian line. It was difficult to get at the truth. As with all rumours, they contradicted each other and left the mind in a chaos of perplexity. The battalion had run into wire, where the machine guns had found it, the battalion was practically wiped out, it had found cover in a trench and was still holding on, the O. C. was wounded, the O. C. was killed, and with him every company commander.
Again and again, Barry sent men to the signals to learn the truth, but it was found impossible to get a message through. That an overwhelming disaster had befallen his battalion was abundantly evident from the numbers of wounded. With his heart growing numb with pain he struggled with his work. Gradually, he was forced to accept as true that a large proportion of the battalion were casualties, that the O. C. was wounded, possibly dying, that many of the officers had fallen and that the remainder were still holding a precarious position, and fighting for their lives.
“I shall not be moved,” he had read to them last night. The promise was being fulfilled in the men of his battalion. They could die at the wire or in the trench, but they could not be moved. While mechanically carrying on his work, his mind was with the fighting, dying remnant of his comrades. The O. C. of the C. C. S. passing on his rounds found Barry carrying on with tears blinding his eyes so that he could hardly see the figures he was entering in his record.
“Your men are having a hell of a time, I hear,” said the O. C. “I say, boy,” he added, glancing at Barry's haggard face, “let up for a while.”
“I'm all right, sir,” said Barry, through his teeth. “Excuse me, really I'm all right. It is a bit difficult to carry on when you know that your friends are being cut to pieces, but I'm all right, sir.”
“All right, my boy,” said the O. C., “we're up against it to-day. I'll come for you in a few minutes, and we'll have a bit to eat.”
Barry shook his head. He was too sick to eat, but the O. C. knew better than he just what he wanted. In a few minutes he returned with an assistant who took Barry's place.
“Come along, boy,” said the O. C. cheerfully. “We have got to feed the living that we may care for the wounded and dying.”