Chapter LXXXIIIBoves Again
The first Sunday on the Amiens front we had no church parade. But the second Sunday we managed to have one for the lads out of the trenches. We had Mass on a wooded hill that had been heavily shelled during the week by the Germans, though they left us quiet on Sunday.
There was a huge crippled tank on the hill, and workmen were busy repairing it. I found a rough table placed against the tank, and on the table a portable altar already set up for Mass; grouped aboutthis were some men from other brigades and a few of my own men, with a draft that had come for the Thirteenth. Father MacDonnell had just finished Mass. He and Father Fallon heard confessions, and the workmen repaired the tank, while I offered up the Holy Sacrifice for the men.
The following Friday evening, after a long, weary march, we came back into Boves. It was a different looking city from the one we had entered almost three weeks before. On the outskirts, high on a hill, dozens of great marquee tents rose in the darkening twilight, and from a large flag-staff waved, on a white background, the red cross: it was one of our Canadian clearing stations that had moved up. We came around a turn in the road and there, standing in a group, were the nurses, orderlies, and many patients from the tents on the hill. They cheered and cheered as the lads marched by and the nurses fluttered their white handkerchiefs, while the band played a merry march. Down the street of the city the merry pipers piped our way, while house after house opened its doors wide and the good French people who had returned, whole families of them, came out and cheered us as we passed up the street. I had a fine billet in the class-room of a school just next door to the church; yet it seemed somewhat stuffy and closed in after having lived for almost three weeks in an apple orchard.
The following morning, after I came in from Mass, I noticed the cook standing on the outer sill of the window, looking closely at the grape-vines which grew up the sides of the building; many bunches of whitegrapes grew among the thick green leaves. A few minutes later, as I sat down to breakfast, George walked in with a great cluster, almost as large as a pineapple, on a dish and placed them near my plate.
All day long I was hoping to have the opportunity of having my men to confession before leaving Boves, for it was being rumored about the city that we were on our way back to the Arras front where we were to take part in other big battles. I could not learn from headquarters at what time we were to leave, but I surmised it would be early Sunday morning. I was praying the Blessed Virgin to let me have the men, but at seven o’clock p. m. it seemed certain that we were to move early in the morning.
At eight o’clock the quartermaster came to me, saying: “The move’s off, Padre. We don’t leave here till tomorrow evening.”
I called George, and soon he and I were out organizing a church parade of all the troops in the city. I called at the C. C. S. on the hill, thinking there might be a chaplain there who could help me with confessions. I learned that there was a Catholic chaplain attached to the unit, but that at present he was absent on leave.
I heard confessions for about an hour before Mass, but as the time for Mass drew near it became evident that I would not be able to hear one-quarter of the great throng of khaki-clad lads that filled the church; all the pews were filled and many were standing. When the hour for Mass had come, even the large sanctuarywas filled with soldiers, some of them wearing the blue uniform of France.
I was just about to leave the confessional to say Mass when I heard some one knocking on the door. I looked up quickly: there stood Father MacDonnell in his Scotch uniform. I was so overjoyed that I stepped out quickly and cried: “The Blessed Virgin sent you here!”
He looked at me with his shrewd, kind eyes, and there was not the shadow of a smile in them as he said: “Never mind, now, who sent me here. What can I do for you?”
I asked him which he preferred, to say Mass or to hear confessions. He said he had already said Mass and had taken his breakfast. So I asked him if he would kindly hear confessions.
I walked up the aisle towards the altar, past row and row of those great-hearted Catholic lads, and as I went I thanked the Blessed Virgin for what she had done. But it was a little too early: she had not yet finished answering my prayers, for just as I entered the sanctuary I noticed one of the French soldiers sitting on a bench reading his Breviary. I touched him on the shoulder and asked him if he were a priest.
He was.
Then I asked him if he would hear the French confessions, for more than half the men of the Fourteenth Battalion were French. He closed his Breviary, after he had marked the place with a colored ribbon. Then he bowed and said he would.
About two years after the Armistice had been signed I was travelling in New Brunswick when a young man came down the car to shake hands with me. He had been one of the officers of the Fourteenth Battalion assisting at Mass in the church at Boves that Sunday. After we had talked a little while, he remarked: “Father, I have often thought of that Sunday at Boves. It seemed to me a beautiful thing to see officers of high rank going over and kneeling down at the feet of one clad in the uniform of a French private of the ranks to have their sins absolved.”
Just before Mass I announced that during the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice Father MacDonnell would hear confessions in English while the French Father would hear the French confessions, and that after Mass, if there were still some who had not gone to confession, the two priests would continue to hear and I would help them. I added that confessions would be heard and communion given again that afternoon.
I said my Mass slowly and preached about twenty minutes. During my sermon I saw something that gratified me very much. Among the officers of one of the battalions was one whom I had never seen at the sacraments. I had approached him some time before, and had met the greatest rebuff I had ever received from a Catholic: he told me quite gruffly that he had no time for that kind of thing. His words had actually struck me dumb for a few seconds, so that I walked away from him without saying anything further. But as I preached that Sunday at Boves, looking out over that sea of reverent faces, I saw the officer stand upand walk reverently to the confessional, and when I gave Holy Communion I saw him at the rails.
As I write these words there stands on the little table before me a tiny plaster statue of the Immaculate Conception. Since I began writing this story it has been always present on the table. It was given to me by a soldier of the Fourteenth Battalion just after the Battle of Amiens. Cut into the base of the statue is the one word “Boves,” and the dents made by the letters are filled with the red clay of France. I will keep this statue always, for it brings back memories of a town where great things were done for God among my Canadian soldiers, and of her who brought these things about.
That evening, as I entered the class-room that was my billet, two figures looked up quickly: one was George, who had a right to be there; the other was one of the assistants in the veterinary section. There was a very strong odor of iodoform in the room. On a bench between the two soldiers was my wash-basin filled with some solution, and the little dog, who had broken his paw, was having it washed in the solution.
I said nothing. I was not even cross, for I knew how difficult it was to procure a vessel in which to wash dogs’ broken paws.