The following morning after breakfast Father Sheehan and I went down on our bicycles to the parish church. Then each of us, wearing a white stole over our uniform, went to the little tabernacle and after genuflecting silently, took from it one small military ciborium full of consecrated Hosts. Then silently we left the church bearing our precious burden.
When we entered Arras, which was now known as the “City of the Dead,” we found, as usual, empty streets and the contour of many sections of the city fast disappearing under the unceasing bombardment of German guns.
We left our bicycles in care of the guard on the bridge near the entrance to the Ronville caves and walked through the quadrangle, which contained many more shell-holes than it did on our previous visit. For this reason our passage was made very quickly. The long main tunnel was much better lighted, however, lighted candles being attached at intervals on either wall. We turned to our right and entered a subsidiary tunnel, above the entrance of which was a sign-board bearing the names of three or four different caves, New Plymouth was one to which the tunnel led.
New Plymouth was wide and low, and although one of the smaller caves, could very easily accommodate comfortably five or six hundred men. At one end farthest from the entrance was what proved to be an excellent altar table. The chalk had been quarried in such a manner that what appeared to be a large chalk altar remained. Father Sheehan and I looked at each other in some surprise; then placed our Sacred Burden on the altar, covered the two ciboriums with a small white cloth we had brought, and lighted two candles which we placed on either side—we had brought our pockets filled with small pieces of candles from the church. We then sat down on our steel helmets, placed on piles of chalk, for already we could hear the sound of many voices coming along the corridor. Presently a large crowd of men from the Fifteenth and Sixteenth entered the dimly-lighted cave, removed their caps, genuflected before the altar and then knelt in little groups on the hard chalk floor, silent in prayer—for the Lord was in His holy temple!
Quickly the men came to confession, and every ten or fifteen minutes either Father Sheehan or I stood up, went to the altar while some soldier said the “Confiteor;” then as the little white cloth was passed from one soldier to another they received with deep reverence their Lord. As each little semi-circle of men received Holy Communion, they moved back into the more darkened portion of the cave where they knelt to make their thanksgiving.
We had been dispensing “the mysteries of God” for nearly an hour when a large number from the Thirteenth came in and knelt down near me. Just before them knelt their young captain. He had done as he had said; all his Catholic lads were with him. For a long time they knelt there on the hard chalk floor, and as now and again my eyes fell on the earnest faces of the lads as they prayed reverently, my thoughts would go back to the early ages of the church when the first Christians adored God in the Catacombs of Rome.
In a little while I gave the young officer and his lads Holy Communion. At the time there seemed to me to be some earnestness about the young captain—as if this communion were a great and holy preparation for some event that I knew nothing of. While he knelt back in the gloom, silently returning thanks to God, I could not help associating him with the knights of old. Then when he had finished his thanksgiving, strengthened by the coming of the Lord, he left the cave at the head of his men, ready, like a true knight, for whatever was to come.
All day we worked in the Banquet Hall; all day long, with the exception of one or two short intervals, came the banqueters. At about half-past twelve a soldier came quickly into the cave calling loudly, “R. C. chaplain!” I stood up and went in the direction from which the voice had come.
“Quick, sir!” said the soldier. “The M. O. of the Fourteenth says one of your men is hit and for you to come quick.” Without delay I followed my guide down the tunnel till we came to the medical aid post of the Fourteenth. There, lying on a table with the doctor of the Fourteenth Battalion working over him was one of the Catholic lads of the Thirteenth bleeding in many places from a number of wounds. He had stepped out from the cave for a minute and had been caught in the enemy fire. “Is it long since you’ve been to confession, lad?” I said. He looked at me through clear eyes, though he was in great pain. “Just about an hour ago, Father,” he said. The doctor whispered in my ear, “He’s going, Padre,” so I put on my stole and prepared the lad for death. I always carried the Holy Oils in my pocket. Just as I finished anointing the dying soldier one of his friends was admitted for a last word.
“What will I tell your people at home?” asked the friend, who was a Protestant.
“Tell them—” he labored a little for breath—“tell them,” he repeated, “I had the priest!”
Shortly afterwards he was taken by ambulance to the Field Ambulance at Agnez-lez-Duisans, and the following morning he died.
I returned to New Plymouth cave and there I found Father Sheehan very busy, for the Fourteenth Battalion was now coming. We heard them quickly, however, as it was but a few days since they had come to confession at Chateau de la Haie.
That evening, after the last man had left, Father Sheehan came over to me. “Father,” he said, “wasn’t it a great day’s work?”
I could scarcely speak for the great joy I felt. There had been such consolation throughout the whole day! Great things had been done for our Divine Lord, who had waited all day long in the dimly-lighted cave, giving His deep, sweet peace to the souls of these lads of “good will.” Centuries before He had come to another cave, when “glad tidings” had been announced to the shepherds.
“Yes, Father,” I said, “it was one of the happiest days of my life.”
Then, simultaneously, we thought of the things of earth. It was time to go back to Agnez-lez-Duisans, for, with the exception of one slice of bread and margarine between us, we had eaten nothing since early morning. It was now evening.
The following morning while at breakfast a letter from headquarters was given to me by the waiter. I opened it quickly: It read, “Capt. the Rev. R. M. Crochetiere was killed in action April 2nd, near Bailleulmont.” This place was just a little to the south of Arras. Not a year before he had sung the great open-air Mass at Witley Camp when the Catholic soldiers had been consecrated to the Sacred Heart. Just yesterday he had gone home to the Sacred Heart to receive the reward of his stewardship. I sat back from the breakfast table and wondered who would be next. Then I went down to the convent.
Almost every morning I went down to the convent, for there was a lovely garden there where I could walk up and down under the trees and read my Breviary. Often as I passed through the court before the main building, on my way to the garden, I paused before a beautiful statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The base of the statue was surrounded by a wide circle of green lawn, bordering which was a fringe of forget-me-nots, planted very likely by the good Sisters as a symbol of their devotion to the Sacred Heart. Every morning the children whom the Sisters taught before they went away came to the convent and asked a young woman—a kind of lay-Sister who came daily to do some work about the building—when the Sisters were coming back. “Very soon, perhaps—tomorrow, perhaps.” And the little ones would stay through the morning and play till they were tired; then they would sit on the low benches and sing in their sweet childish voices the beautiful hymns that the Sisters had taught them.
The presence of the sky-blue, yellow-centered forget-me-nots always brought to my mind the love of the Sisters for the Sacred Heart; the sound of the children’s voices in the morning always brought to my mind the love of the children for the Sisters.
Just beyond the convent, on the other side of the Scarpe River, which here was only about six feet wide, was a group of Nissen huts that had up to a few weeks before been used as a Casualty Clearing Station, but at the beginning of the German advance the patients and staff had been removed. Now it was being used by a Field Ambulance for dressing wounds or some emergency operation of casualties from the Arras front. Father Whiteside, an English chaplain, was on duty here, though usually he called me when any of my Canadian lads came in. Across the road from the Field Ambulance was a large military cemetery where regiments of weary soldiers rested softly, each under the shadow of a little white cross.
It was the following Sunday afternoon that I had my first burials in this cemetery. At two o’clock a procession of soldiers, mostly kilted laddies from the Thirteenth, came slowly up the long aisle of the cemetery: in the lead, following the pipe band that played the “Flowers of the Forest,” walked nine groups of six men, each carrying shoulder high, one of their late comrades who had answered bravely the last call. One was an officer, the young knight who had passed his vigil in New Plymouth cave. While leading his men out of the Ronville caves he had been mortally wounded, passing away a few hours afterwards. Of the dead, only Captain Waud and the young soldier from the Thirteenth whom I had anointed in the cave, were Catholics.
And often as I passed through the court before the main building of the convent and paused to look at the sweet forget-me-nots fringing the lawn around the base of the statue of the Sacred Heart, I recalled the two who, among others, had remembered their Creator, and I felt now they were not forgotten: “Turn to Me and I will turn to thee,” had said the Lord.