CHAPTER XXIII
AT NO. 2 CANADIAN INFANTRY BASE DEPOT
At the No. 2 Canadian Infantry Base Depot I had the most wonderful opportunity of the war to study the Catholics of the allied armies—Irish, Scotch, Welsh, English, New Zealand, Australian and Portuguese. For here were depot camps for all these troops. Often there would be as many as one hundred thousand men training at one time, but after every engagement drafts would be called for up the line. Then they would be given their full equipment from the large ordnance stores at Etaples, and in the evening they would come to confession and Communion. There were two large Catholic recreation huts, with a chapel in each. On Sundays folding doors were opened and the whole hut became a chapel; hundreds of soldiers came to assist at the different Masses that were said in each hut.
In the evening great numbers came to confession, and always crowds assisted at the early week-day morning Mass. Every evening priests would be on duty in the little chapels hearing confessions and, if soldiers had been called urgently and were leaving for the front, giving Communion.
It was my lot for the most part to hear confessions in the Catholic hut to which came not only my own Canadian lads, but the Irish of the famous Sixteenth Division: Connaughts, Leinsters, Munsters, Irish Guards, etc. It was wonderfully edifying to sit evening after evening and hear the confessions of these Irish lads. They would usually begin by saying, “God bless you, Father!” They came in extraordinarily large numbers every night and always stayed a long while to pray. The faith seemed to be part of their very being. Though they did not parade it, these lads seemed scarcely to breathe without showing in some way the love for their faith. When they met the Catholic chaplain in the street, they did not give him the salute they were supposed to give him, in common with all other officers. They always took off their hats. They were the only soldiers who ever did this. I asked an Irish Catholic officer about it one evening. “Why, Father,” he said, “they think the military salute not good enough for a priest. It does all very well, they think, for a general or a field marshal or the King of England, but it’s not enough for a priest. They must take their hats off, although they break a military rule by so doing.” “God bless them,” I said warmly.
The Queen of England visited the hospitals and military depots of Etaples while I was there. Happening to be near the Irish depot when she was about to pass, I stood among the great crowds of soldiers that lined each side of the road. In about three minutes the Queen would come along. Suddenly I heard the high, effeminate voice of an English officer of superior rank calling out: “Tell that man to put on his coat. See here, you!”
Looking in the direction towards which the colonel called, I saw an Irish soldier, minus his tunic, go galloping in his heavy military boots through a path that widened accommodatingly for him and closed behind him, so that progress was almost impossible for the aristocratic colonel, who perhaps wished to identify the man.
I remember one evening after I had finished confessions in Oratory Hut and had come back to the tent in my own lines, finding a young Scotch officer sitting at the little deal table waiting for me. After talking for awhile, he told me that for some time he had been wishing to become a Catholic, and that if I could spare the time he would begin instructions whenever I wished.
We began that night, and a few weeks later I baptized him in the chapel of Oratory Hut. An Englishman—I think his name was Edmund Hanley—stood sponsor. During the ceremony the chaplain of the Portuguese soldiers came in and knelt reverently. When all was over and we had offered congratulations, the Portuguese priest shook hands with the neophyte; then he came over to me and gave me both his hands warmly. Although he could not speak my language, nor I his, still we were brother priests, and I was sure he knew the joy I felt over this new sheep coming into the fold of Christ.