I awoke the next morning to the sweet sounds of singing birds; to the glorious view of fresh green fields and peaceful lanes. I rode about three miles on my bicycle to a hamlet called Bailleul-aux-Cornailles where I said Mass at nine o’clock for the Thirteenth Battalion, which was quartered here, and a great number of the French civilian population. The curé of the parish was a soldier in the French army and was on duty in a large military hospital at St. Paul, about fifteen miles away. I made arrangements to be at the parish church certain evenings in the week for confessions. After this Mass I rode four miles further to Ostreville, where I said Mass for the Fourteenth, which was quartered here. The men were all there when I arrived. I found them sitting in the cemetery under century-old trees or along the low stone fence. I preached the same sermon that I had preached for the Thirteenth and it made a remarkable impression upon them. First I spoke to them briefly of the awful scenes we had been witnessing for some time; then I dwelt on the wonderful beauty and peace all around us. God had made the whole world beautiful; we had seen how foully men had marred it. But God’s masterpiece of beauty was our own soul, and each one of us knew just how much we had marred that beauty. Then I told those lads that perhaps there were some amongst us who had stained greatly their immortal souls, who had done things for which certain of their friends might despise them, might turn them down. But God, in His infinite love, would not turn them down. God was ready to receive them, to blot out all their iniquities, to cleanse them, to make their souls beautiful again. As I continued, I saw a wonderful sight. I saw tears in the eyes of big, strong men, I saw them bowing their heads as they reached for their khaki handkerchiefs. It was one of the strangest and sweetest experiences I had in the war.
After Mass, when I had got just beyond the village, I dismounted, sat on the side of the road and began to eat the luncheon I had brought—some sandwiches of cheese and jam and a water-bottle full of cocoa. Rye was growing all about me, and it was yet dark green in color. After I had finished my luncheon, I stood up to measure it, and found that it was almost as tall as I. It must have been at least five feet in height. Two or three weeks later I walked along a path through a field of rye which was so high that I could see only the stalks on either side of me and the heads just above me.
On Monday I learned that we were out for a long rest. Our program included drilling in the mornings and games in the afternoon. From the nature of the drilling it was clear to all of us that we were training for an attack on Fritz. Part of the morning the men followed the tanks that clanked their ungainly way through beautiful fields of rye and wheat. We did not know till August why they were so ruthlessly destroyed.
One evening while I was sitting in the very small room which was my billet, a stout, red-faced soldier in a rather soiled uniform came in to see me. He saluted and I waited for him to state his business.
“Father,” he said, “I should like to become a Catholic.”
“Going to be married?” I questioned.
An amused smile stole quietly over his face as he replied: “No, Father. I am already married and have five children.”
Then it was my turn to smile. I had judged him to be about twenty-two or twenty-three, but now I noticed that his hair was turning grey about the temples. I asked him to sit down, which he did, after removing his military cap. Then I saw that he was quite bald.
We commenced instructions, and as the days went by I found him very quick to understand the different things I explained. Now and then he would ask such intelligent questions that I would start involuntarily. At last I asked him what he did in civil life.
“I am a solicitor, Father,” he said quietly. I was very much surprised. It had never occurred to me that the soldier sitting before me in his greasy uniform was a lawyer. On June 7th, in the little church of Monchy Breton, I baptized him and received him into the church.