CHAPTER LXVII
NOTRE DAME D’ARDENNES
The soldiers greatly enjoyed the rest in this lovely district. It was very pleasant to bicycle through the country lanes to quaint churches where Catholic lads waited in the evening to go to confession.
When I heard confessions for the Thirteenth at Bailleul-aux-Cornailles, I often stopped in the presbytery for tea. The mother and father of the curé lived there. Perhaps I should not say tea, for it was always milk and bread and honey that the kind old people gave me. They had their own apiary in the beautiful garden. The priest’s old father was very interesting and I enjoyed greatly the stories he told me while he sipped his wine and I drank my milk from the large white cup. He had lived in Arras before the war and was eager to hear what I had to tell him of my experiences there. I recall how anxiously he inquired about the church of Notre Dame d’Ardennes, whether it had been struck. I did not know all the churches of Arras by name, but I was very sorry to say that I thought nearly every one had been struck by the Germans. I could recall but one, which I had passed frequently on my way to the railway station (Gare du Nord), that had not been struck. I went on to describe it—a large red-brick building.
“That’s it! That’s it!” he cried. “It’s the Church of Notre Dame d’Ardennes.” The old man’s eyes brightened as he spoke.
“Well,” I said, “if that is the Church of Notre Dame d’Ardennes, you need not worry, for it is still standing intact.”
The old lady, who sat near me, her hand near enough to the jug of milk to replenish my cup almost as fast as I made room in it for more milk, exchanged looks with her husband, and although neither spoke for a while, there was such significance in their glances that I felt eager to hear the history of Notre Dame d’Ardennes. I did not have to wait long, for presently the old man began to speak. As I listened, I held the palm of my hand spread wide over the top of my cup, for there was still plenty of milk left, and the kind old mother of the priest was beaming with hospitality; but I felt I could not drink all the milk in the jug!
During the fourth century—to be exact, in the year 371—there had been a severe famine in Arras. The people, being very pious, had recourse to prayer and in answer to their supplications manna fell from heaven. “The sacred Manna,” as it was called, was gathered by the people and for a long time some of it was kept and venerated by the people of Notre Dame d’Ardennes. Then there was “the holy candle,” kept in the Church of Notre Dame d’Ardennes. During a severe epidemic in the year 1105 this wax candle had been sent from heaven to Bishop Lambert. After it had burned for some time, the plague stopped.
I had seen many strange things on the Western Front, so that I wondered not that Notre Dame d’Ardennes was unscathed.
During those beautiful June days from after Mass till three o’clock, p. m., I had not much to do. I usually read books or wrote a little, while I sat under the tall trees in the open field behind the house where I was billeted. One afternoon while I was reading under the trees a young officer in the tartan of the Sixteenth came up to see me. He was a fine looking young fellow and had but lately returned to the battalion after a long absence. He was very downhearted and, although not a Catholic, had come to have a talk with me. (Non-Catholics often came to have a talk with me.) He was a captain and had come back expecting to hold his old position in the battalion. But, at times, promotion is rapid in the army and he found that men who were his subordinates when he went away were now of equal or superior rank. His position was now held by one who had come through many conflicts. There was no work for him to do. He felt a stranger among these new officers. He was returning to the officers’ reserve.
I listened quietly till he had told me all his troubles. Sometimes it is a relief to have some one listen when one’s heart is weighed down, but I am afraid I did not say very much that could help him. Had I possessed the gift of foresight, I could have told this anxious young officer that before three months the officers’ ranks would be so thinned that orders would come to him to report for duty immediately at the front. But I did not know then that about the end of September I was to meet him again, coming up a shell-swept road in a terribly devastated countryside, with the eager smile of a boy on his fine young face.
Just beyond where I was billeted stood a large wooden structure that was being used by the Y. M. C. A. as a moving-picture theatre. In the army the name given to these places of amusement was “cinema.” During the day the concert party of the Sixteenth was practicing a play, entitled “A Little Bit of Shamrock,” one of the chief characters of which was a priest. George had spoken to me of the play, for he had seen one or two practices. Now, I had seen a play staged by this very cast some time before in which was portrayed a minister, a most effeminate character, whose chief mission, it seemed, was to display a very great ignorance of life in general. The amusement for the audience was furnished by him as often as he was shocked or scandalized. The actor who had taken the part of the minister was now to take the part of the priest.
I went to the director of the company, who was an officer from the Second Division, and told him quietly that I had seen the play his company had put on before, and that I had not admired his clergyman, though I thought the actor had done excellent work. I hoped the character of the priest in the forthcoming play would not be like that.
The director looked at me, and I liked the bright smile that spread over his pleasant face. “Don’t worry, Padre,” he said. “I think you will like Father O’Flynn. I have a lot of friends who are priests. I like them. I always like to talk to priests of your church, Padre. They are—they are—oh,—so human, Padre.” And then he smiled a guileless smile, so that I understood that by ‘human’ the young officer had meant something complimentary.
Many days were to pass before I should see the play.