CHAPTER LXXIII
BACK TO THE BATTALION
The men were never told on coming back from leave where they might find their battalion; and when the troops were on the move often a soldier was put to very great inconvenience trying to reach his unit. I, however, was in great good luck, for just at the base of Mount St. Eloi, while the train stopped, I noticed some of the soldiers of the Sixteenth standing near by. I called one of them and asked the whereabouts of the battalion.
“Just over here in Ecoivres, sir,” he said. I stepped out of the train and in twenty minutes was sitting in the transport mess talking of my leave.
I had found my friends in England somewhat downhearted, which was but natural considering the great losses the British army had sustained during the recent German advances. On all sides one heard only gloomy forebodings as to future attacks. But back again among the gruesome scenes of devastation and ruin, I was struck more than ever by the buoyancy and light-heartedness of the troops. Here were no gloomy forebodings, but on all sides were friendly faces and the air was merry with sounds of whistling, singing, bugle calls, practicing bands, and good-natured banter. Of one thing I felt sure—old “Major Gloom” did not belong to the Third Canadian Brigade!
After I had talked awhile with the quartermaster and transport officer, my mail was brought in. It was very large, the accumulation of two weeks. It was a long while before I had finished reading all the letters. The transport officer had gone outside, but the quartermaster was in the room adjoining the mess, from which came now and then little explosions of partly suppressed laughter. And whilst I read my letters I wondered what was the cause of the mirth. In a little while the quartermaster came out of the room and stopped in passing to ask me if I had ever read “Seventeen” by Booth Tarkington. Indeed, I had, and I wondered no longer why sounds of laughter had drifted out to me.
Among my letters were a few edged in black. One of these, heavily crossed by a blue pencil, was registered, and when I opened it a ten-dollar bill dropped to the table. I had been accustomed to receiving many letters edged in black, answers to those I had written to next of kin at home, telling them of the death of dear ones, and how they had been prepared to meet God. It was not often, however, that they came registered. But as I read the letter I forgot altogether that a ten-dollar bill had dropped from it and was now lying on the table.
The letter was from the wife of Captain Waud, the young officer who had fallen at the head of his men—he who had knelt so reverently with them to receive Holy Communion that day in New Plymouth Cave. It was not only a beautiful letter, with a deep note of Catholic faith sounding throughout it, but it told me something of the young officer that I had not known. He had not always been a Catholic. I learned from the letter that he had been wounded previously. “You know, he did not have to go back to France,” wrote Mrs. Waud, “but duty called, so I let him go with as brave a heart as I could, and brought my little son home. I had prayed so that my husband would be spared to me, but indeed God knows best and He is helping me now. Everything of that last day is comforting and very beautiful. And although the heartache and longing will not leave, I feel that I have a great deal to be thankful for. I am enclosing a little offering for whatever lies near your heart. It is little and I wish it were more. I thank you for all you have done for my husband, and indeed I will pray for your lads. Trusting that you will remember me, and that God will give me the grace to do my duty as worthily as my husband did his, I am, gratefully yours, Ruth Waud.”
For a long time I sat there thinking of the letter I held in my hand, and then of other letters that had come to me from time to time. And I thought how many women there must be over the world bearing great sorrows, but the eyes of the world were not focused on these! They were on the battalions that had marched away to the war while flags fluttered and bands played and people cheered. They watched the papers for accounts of great deeds of arms. But whenever I read such letters my thoughts would go back to the roads over which the soldiers had marched so bravely away, and I would see figures leaning over gates, white handkerchiefs held to eyes that had strained down the white dusty road over which their soldier sons or husbands had marched away. They would go back into silent rooms where so many little things would remind them of their men. Then, as the days would pass, to many would come words to chill the heart and make homes desolate: “Killed in Action.” Whenever I wrote to these poor mothers or wives, I would see a great lonely hill, on which stood a cross whereon was nailed a scourged, thorn-crowned Figure whose eyes rested with great pity on one who stood below—the Mater Dolorosa. It was on her feast, the Feast of the Seven Dolors, that the bishop had decided I should go to the war, and perhaps it was she who helped me to write the letters of sympathy that brought comfort to so many sorrowful hearts. With the ten-dollar bill I bought comforts for the men.