CHAPTER XXXIX
A STRAFE AND A QUARTET
My room was a partitioned off portion at the end of the cellar in which was headquarters: there was no fire in it and the month was December. Through cracks in the portion of the building that was above ground, blew the cold, wintry wind.
That night at dinner in “the mess,” which was in the portion of the cellar adjoining my billet, I met a number of the officers—though the majority were still in the line—and they were among the finest men I had ever met. The commanding officer, Colonel Peck, one of the best-loved men on the Western Front, was a huge man with a black drooping mustache which gave him a rather fierce appearance, but there was a look of real kindness in his eyes. He possessed the Distinguished Service Order Medal, and later he won the highest decoration of the British army, the Victoria Cross. At that time, although we did not know it till later, he had been elected a member of the Canadian parliament.
When I returned to my billet I found a lighted candle sticking to the bottom of an upturned condensed milk tin; some one had been showing me an act of kindness. I had no sooner entered than there was a knock on the door. A young soldier opened it and came in. He said he had come to open my bed-roll and prepare my bed. I looked at the berth, which was a piece of scantling about seven feet long running the width of the room, to which was attached two thicknesses of burlap about a yard wide that were fixed to the wall. I wondered how I was going to sleep, for I was shivering then. Suddenly the young soldier ceased tugging at the straps, listened quietly for a second or two, then not looking at me, but keeping his eye fixed on the bed-roll, he said slowly and solemnly, as if addressing some imaginary person in the bed-roll: “All is quiet on the Western Front.”
He neither smiled nor looked at me, but continued his work.
For months I had read those words in the daily papers of England; but now there was something so comical in the lad’s manner of saying them that I could not help laughing as he went on with his unpacking.
But it was not for long that “all was quiet on the Western Front.” Suddenly I heard a far-distant rumble which had the rhythmic roll of snare-drums, yet the sound was much stronger and it was increasing quickly in intensity and volume. Soon it was a great thundering roar with a minor rattle. The earth seemed to be trembling.
I looked at the soldier. “A bombardment?” I questioned.
“No, sir,” he said quietly, “that’s just a strafe over on the LaBassée front. Those are our guns. Fritzy’ll open up after they stop. You should go outside and see it, sir.”
I stepped out, almost falling into a trench that was just outside my door. Away to the northeast for about a mile flitted short, sharp yellow flashes of light. Although the rumbling of the guns was so loud, I judged them to be five or six miles distant. Everything was quiet about where I stood. It was a moonlight night and along the white road, as far as I could see, was a line of broken trees, with here and there the irregular walls of a ruined village.
Presently there was a lull, then complete silence; in the clear moonlight, the devastated countryside gave one a weird impression. Then “old Fritzy opened up,” and although the rumble of his guns was not so distinct, I judged that he was giving us about as much as we had given him. I wondered how much harm would be done, and whether many of our lads would be killed. Then slowly the firing ceased and presently again “all was quiet on the Western Front.”
I was just about to reënter my quarters when I received another surprise. From a hut just a few yards away came sounds of singing. I listened: it was a low, sweet song that I had never heard before—a quartet, and the harmony seemed perfect. I had never before heard such sweet singing. An officer came out of the mess and stood near me, listening in silence. Then he said: “That’s pretty good, Padre.” I agreed with him, but I confessed I had never heard the song before.
“Why, Padre,” he said, “the name of that song is ‘Sweet Genevieve’. Strange you never heard it! Wherever men are congregated one will hear that song. It’s an old song, Padre. Strange you never heard it!”
So I had heard two sounds that I had never before heard: one was the sound of a “strafe” on the Western Front; the other was the singing of “Sweet Genevieve.”