The work at Ecurie Wood was most consoling, but the shelling was incessant and we were having many funerals in the military cemetery down the hill at Roclincourt. The Fourteenth Battalion suffered most. Early one morning a shell burst in the headquarters hut, wounding the colonel, killing the second in command and the adjutant, and disabling other officers and privates. The whole camp was under observation and Fritz was doing deadly work.
One Sunday morning, as I prepared for the Holy Sacrifice, I seemed to feel much better than I had felt for some time; and as I preached, the words came quickly and without any great effort. I wondered why I should feel so well. But after Mass, as I walked back to my hut after having seen so many of those wonderful lads receive Holy Communion, I raised my hand to my forehead; it was very warm and the day was cool—in fact, a fine mist of rain was falling. I now began to feel slightly dizzy and more inclined to rest on my camp bed than to drink my cup of tea.
George came in, looked at me once, placed the cup of tea beside me on the seat, looked at me again, and then told me I didn’t look very well. I told him I did not feel very well. Both agreed that I would be better in bed, so I went.
The corporal of the stretcher-bearers came in, shook his little thermometer, looked at it, shook it again, then told me to open my mouth. He placed it under my tongue. Then, while I looked at the ceiling of the hut, he waited.
“One hundred and two,” said the corporal.
“Is that high?” I asked, for I could not remember ever having my temperature taken before.
“High enough,” he said. Then he told me I had a malady that was becoming very prevalent in the army. He did not know what to call it. Later, it was called the “flu.”
I remained in bed for nearly a week, and it was one of the finest weeks I spent in the army; so many officers and men came into the little hut to see me. I was just beginning to understand the charity of the army.
Just as I was getting about again the Fifty-first Division of Scotch Highlanders came into our area. This was the division that had met almost every advance of the enemy, so that even the Germans themselves could not but admire them. A sergeant in one of the battalions of the division possessed a paper for which he had refused six pounds: for the paper had been dropped into their lines from a German airplane, and this is what was written on it: “Good old Fifty-first still sticking it! Cheerio!”