The following week the Thirteenth and Fourteenth moved up to the front line from reserve and we went to Mazingarbe, only about four miles distant from Fosse-dix. Here, again, I was billeted with a curé; a comparatively young man, who was very distant in manner, though most kind in helping me with my work and seeing that I had everything I needed. His church had been hit several times and part of the sacristy had been blown off; the parish was being shelled periodically. Mazingarbe was the name of the town, but as there were two churches in it, within a mile of each other, the parish in which I was billeted was namely Bully-les-Mines.
Here I met for the first time, Father Madden, O. M. I.; chaplain to the Second Brigade, and Father Lockary, chaplain to the First Brigade. They gave me very good advice concerning the performance of my duties, for both had been at the front for many months. Father Madden had been there longer than Father Lockary, and he wore the little purple and white ribbon of the Military Cross. I found my work very easy the following Sunday.
On Monday morning, fully equipped with “steel lid,” trench boots, pack on my back, I started for the trenches, where I remained till the end of the week. We had a little trouble getting up to headquarters, for Fritz was shelling them when we arrived; but we managed to make it between shells. Headquarters was in the basement of what was once a hospital at St. Pierre.
The first night in the line I slept in a cellar which had been roofed over. On going from headquarters to this cellar I was accompanied by an orderly; suddenly I heard a report like a pistol-shot, and then a hissing, as of an extra large sky-rocket tearing its way up through the air. My companion caught me by the arm and told me not to move. Then the hissing object turned, burst into a brilliant light and began to descend very slowly, lighting up the battle front for almost a mile. Then the light went out and we went onward. “A Verey light,” said the Corporal. “‘Old Fritz’ must be getting ‘windy’. He’s been shooting off a lot of Verey lights on this front. Always stand perfectly still, Padre, when you see or hear a Verey light.”
I had a companion in the cellar, the medical officer of the Thirteenth, Captain Cochrane, who was a Catholic and an American. All the wounded from the line were to pass through his hands. We did not have very many wounded.
My first visit to the Front Line trench was made the second day of my visit. I went with the orderly officer for the day, Lieutenant J. McIvor, M. C., who was the only Catholic officer in the Sixteenth. The chalk trenches were so similar, and so high, that I could not tell when I was in the Front Line. Mr. McIvor had been looking at me for awhile, then he whispered: “We’re in the Front Line now, Father. Old Fritz is just across the way.” It seemed strange: above us shells, going and coming, passed, making sometimes a soft, sweeping sound: at others, a shrill, whining noise. Everything was intensely quiet in the trenches. We were so near the German line that the occupants could be heard coughing, although I did not have the unique experience of hearing them cough.
I stood up on the fire-step and peeped out over No Man’s Land. Not a blade of grass could be seen, nothing but the grey earth, that had been churned and riddled and tossed about by every missile of war. A little to my left a long green spar like a flag-staff stood up in “No Man’s Land;” a little beyond this, and behind Fritz’s line, was a partly demolished town.
I saw all this in a second or two, then I felt a hand on my shoulder and a whisper came to my ear: “Not too long, Father.”
I stepped down from the fire-step.
As we went back towards battalion headquarters, I asked the officer the name of the town I had seen.
“Lens,” he said.