I had expected to stay at Ecoivres for Sunday, and I had arranged with the curé for the soldiers’ Mass, but on Saturday orders came for us to move to Ecurie Wood. It was not very far away, about three miles. My billet here was a corrugated iron hut, barricaded without on all sides with sand-bags piled about three feet high and two wide. There was no floor other than the natural earth. The seat of a general service wagon, that very likely had succumbed to Fritz’s shelling, had been converted into a very serviceable chair; on a high bedding of mud and rocks was placed horizontally an empty five-gallon gasoline tin, from which pointed heavenwards, through the low roof, some homemade stove pipe. There was no door on this improvised stove. When I entered the hut a fire of charcoal and small pieces of wood glowed in the opening of the tin, which the chair faced. There was no church near us, but there was a large moving-picture hut just about two hundred yards away where Mass was said on Sundays; and only fifty yards from this was a small square tent, with the words “Catholic Chapel” painted in black on it, where a priest was on duty every evening to hear confessions. As there was no church near where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved, I now began to carry Our Lord with me. On Monday I consecrated about two hundred particles in my small military ciborium, and always, day and night, in the pocket of my tunic was the little ciborium where Jesus dwelt. And in the evenings I used to go down to the chapel-tent, place the ciborium on a corporal spread out on the rough board table and, saying a short prayer, sit on an empty box to hear the confessions of the men who came. We were in a very exposed territory and shells were continuously dropping into our area. Sometimes the shells would come so near us that I would sit on my box, or kneel before the Blessed Sacrament, trembling, expecting each moment to be my last.
A great number of men were assembling in the Ecurie Wood area, and I began to meet many old friends. Some of the lads who had come overseas with me were in battalions quartered nearby; and just over the hill, in the military cemetery of Roclincourt, Lt. Lawlor, one of my Catholic officers and a very gallant soldier, slept softly under his white cross.
The work at Ecurie Wood was very consoling: wonderful things happened in that little white chapel-tent. One night a great giant of a man stepped in, and without any introduction said, simply: “Father, I want to be christened.” I could not help laughing, for in my mind always associated with the word “christen” were thoughts of tiny, white-clad helpless babies being carried to the baptismal font. But the big giant did not laugh. It was a very serious matter for him.
I asked him to which religion he belonged. He said he belonged to none, but that his people had been Presbyterians. I commenced instructions and in a short time I had the great pleasure of baptizing him in the little tent.
Sometimes men would come back to the sacraments after years of absence, and it was wonderful to watch the effects of Divine Grace in their souls. Often they would come back to the tent to have a chat and to speak of some fellow with whom they were trying to share their own great happiness. Frequently a returned prodigal would say to me: “Now, Father, I have a lad outside who hasn’t been to his duties for many years. I got him to come down tonight. I’m just telling you this, Father, for he’s got the ‘wind up’ pretty bad, but I know you’ll take him easy, Father.” Then perhaps a big, slow moving, puzzled figure would step into the tent, looking around mystified, not knowing what to do next. Then I would beckon him to come and kneel down, and then—I would “take him easy.”
One night, when I was sitting on my box, a large one placed near me, against which the men might kneel when telling their little story, a man came rushing in and knelt so suddenly that he knocked over the larger box, and then fell on it as it reached the ground.
I stood up quickly, taking off my purple stole as I did so, and as the poor fellow got slowly up I said: “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
He looked at me in a dazed sort of way, and then over his shoulder towards the open flap of the tent. “I’m willing to go, Father,” he said.
“I think you’re a little too eager to go,” I said. “There’s no need, you know, to knock over that box. I put that there for men to kneel against.”
“Well,” he replied, “I’m willing to go, but I want a little time to get ready. It’s a long time since I was here before, and I need a little time to overhaul my mind.”
I could not help laughing, though I felt there was something wrong somewhere. “Well,” I said, “what made you come in if you were not prepared?”
Again he looked over his shoulder, and as he did the truth began to dawn upon me. “Father,” he said, “I was pushed in.”
“Kneel down,” I said, “and take all the time you need, and when you are ready just call me. I am going outside for a while.”
I went out and in a few minutes three figures came noiselessly over to where I was standing. “Is he going to go, Father?” one of them asked. “He is,” I replied, “but he needs a little time to prepare. Why did you send—I should say push—him in before he was ready to go?”
They then told me that it was fifteen years since the man had been to confession, and that he had been bragging about not having been there for that length of time. One of the number had told him three days before to prepare and on account of this they had thought him ready to go.
I think, on the whole, these lay apostles did excellent work; still, now and then, there was an example of perhaps too great zeal. Father Miles Tompkins relates a story which perhaps showed a little overzeal. He was walking with Father McGillvary one day up and down before a little church of a village where troops were quartered when he noticed three khaki-clad figures coming towards them. His first thought was that some poor fellow had imbibed too freely of “vin blink”—the soldiers’ name for the white wine—and that two charitable comrades were escorting him to his billet. When, however, the soldiers drew nearer, he saw that the man was not intoxicated, though somewhat indignant at being hustled so unceremoniously by two comrades who did not bear the insignia of military police. When they were within speaking distance Father Tompkins asked one of the escort what was the matter. “Father,” they said, as they looked at their struggling victim, “this fellow wants to go to confession.”
“Well,” said Father Tompkins, “he does not look very much as if he wanted to go!”