It was half-past three Sunday morning when I awoke. I dressed quickly, went down to the little church and said Mass. When I left the church the road was filled with soldiers moving in different directions, carrying mess tins of steaming porridge, across the top of which was placed some bread and butter with a strip of fried bacon; in the other hand was the cover of the mess tin filled with hot tea. They were all joking and in excellent spirits; yet before the following Sunday—
We entrained between eight and nine o’clock and all day long there was great speculation as to our destination. Some thought that the division was returning to the Ypres salient; others guessed that we were on our way up to the North Sea coast. Later in the day it was rumored that we were going to Etaples, where there was to be more drilling. For awhile it seemed that we were returning to the area about Etaples. But towards evening we knew the truth; we were coming into the area on the Somme.
It was late in the evening when we detrained, and to this day I do not know the name of the place. We took supper and then began to march. We crossed the Somme River and then in the darkness went through what seemed to be a very pretty country, one more wooded than I had yet seen in France. And as we went on and on under ancient wide-spreading trees, I began to wish it had been daylight, for surely it must have been some famous forest of France.
There had either been some confusion of orders or else our guides did not know the way, for we spent the whole night marching over dark roads, through quiet villages and dense forests. One little scene stands out in my memory quite vividly. We had been marching for a long time when the order came ringing through the darkness: “Fall out!” The men fell out and immediately began to sit around on the damp earth; a fine mist of rain had been falling for some time. Permission was given to smoke, and presently hundreds of tiny red circles glowed in the darkness of the forest.
“Where are we now?” some one asked. Of course he was bombarded with replies, but none of them proved correct; indeed, many went very wide of the mark as they meant to do, for they were names of Canadian towns or countries.
Presently I noticed the white circle of light from a flash-lamp move over a field map spread out on the ground, and in the relative silence that had now ensued I listened intently, as the low murmur of the voices of the officers regarding the map came to my ears. They mentioned the name of some place but I did not catch it; then one officer spoke louder, so that I heard quite distinctly: “It’s Picardy we are now in, Picardy.”
He stopped speaking, and from the opposite side of the glade came the sound of a murmured conversation. It ceased, and in the silence a wonderful clear voice began to sing softly, yet not so low but that all could hear, the song “Roses are Blooming in Picardy.” I had never heard the song before. It seemed fitting for that young soldier to be singing there in the damp forest while his companions listened and joined in the chorus. I suppose for many of those brave young lads who sang the words had a special significance.
We kept marching slowly, and resting; five o’clock showed on our wrist watches. Then we came to our halting-place.
It was a strange little village to which we came. Perhaps I should not say that it was “strange,” for it was built like all other farming villages of France, but the people were strange: they had never seen Canadian soldiers before, and only rarely since the beginning of the war had they seen the soldiers of their own country. All the people turned out to see us as if a circus had come to town. The soldiers were treated with very much more consideration than they had been accustomed to, and the prices in the village stores were extremely low.
I slept a few hours and then took my bicycle and went out to try to find the Fifteenth Battalion. I could get no information from the orderly room. Everything was being done with the utmost secrecy; we might move at any time. But George, ever-faithful George, told me he had seen the Fifteenth transport officer going to a little village said to be only three miles distant. I started, but found progress very difficult once I had left the village. The gentle mist of rain that had been falling through the night had increased towards morning and caused the wet, oily clay to adhere to the tires of my bicycle; sometimes the wheels skidded, and sometimes I was obliged to dismount and remove the clay that clung so tenaciously to the fork above the front wheel. Once I saw a number of the Thirteenth going towards a village on my right. After I had passed them I became worried. I was not sure of finding the Fifteenth but I felt that I could reach the billets of the Thirteenth by following the lads I had just seen. I continued a little farther on my way, still thinking of the Thirteenth. I dismounted, turned, and began to ride in the direction the Thirteenth soldiers had gone. I had not gone far, however, when I began to think that after all the Fifteenth had much greater need of my services than the Thirteenth; for all I knew then, we might be in the line that very night. I stopped again in the road and stood by my bicycle. Never in my life had I felt such indecision, but it was serious work I had to do—perhaps by tomorrow many of the lads would be killed. And here was I standing in the road almost in a panic—doing nothing!
I now began to pray to the Little Flower. I had never prayed to her before; the Blessed Virgin had always looked after all my wants. I remounted and presently I was going down a long hill very swiftly, finding great difficulty in managing my wheel. Just when I was half-way down I met a runner of the Sixteenth. He had passed me before I could stop, so I turned my head a little to call to him. The next thing I knew I had shot completely over my machine and was on my hands and knees on the road, a severe pain in one of my knees. The runner turned quickly, a look of concern in his eyes; but I had twisted my face into a smile and his face brightened.
He pointed out a clump of trees on the opposite hill and told me I would find the Fifteenth there. I did, and gave some of them Communion.