Part 10

One day, when I went into a mess-room in which letters were being censored, an officer said to me, "Read this, Padre, there's a reference to you, and a candid expression of a man's attitude towards religion."

I took the letter and it read: "Our chaplain isn't far out when he says, in his book, that though we may speak lightly of the church we don't think or speak lightly of Christ. However careless we may be when we are out of the trenches, when we are in we all pray. There is nothing else we can do."

I have been eighteen months with a fighting regiment on the Front, and I have never spoken to any officer who did not regard it as a mathematical certainty that, unless he happened to fall sick or be transferred--neither of which he expected--he would be either killed or wounded. And I agreed with him without saying it. He does not even hope to escape wounds. They are inevitable if he stays long enough; for one battle follows another and his time comes. He only hopes to escape death and the more ghastly wounds. He hopes the wound when it comes will be a "cushy one." The men take the same view. The period before going into the trenches, or into battle, is to them like the Garden of Gethsemane was to Christ; they are "exceeding sorrowful" and in their presence I have often felt as one who stood "as it were, a stone's throw" from them. They are going out with the expectation of meeting death.

On the 1st of July, 1916, twenty officers in our regiment went over the top. Nineteen were killed or wounded and the one who returned to the regiment was suffering from shell-shock and had to be sent home. Although our losses are much lower now, the officers and men experience the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane rather than the pleasure of a picnic in Epping Forest. This explains, too, their gayety. It is the happiness of men who know that they are doing their bit for the world's good, and playing the man, not the cad. The rise of happiness into gayety is the natural reaction from the sorrow and alarm which have been clouding their hearts. In peace time they will never know either the intensity of joy or sorrow they know now. A man never feels so truly humorous as when he is sad. Humor is a kind of inverted sadness. The most exquisite sadness produces the most exquisite humor as the deepest wells give the sweetest, purest and coldest water.

Tears and laughter are never far from one another, The heart overflows on one side, and then on the other.

Our soldiers' minds are not filled with thoughts of Germans, but with thoughts of the friends they have left behind them. Nor do they often think of killing Germans. They neither think so much of the Germans nor so bitterly of them as do the people at home. The Germans have not the same prominence in the picture. Deeds relieve their emotions in regard to the Germans and leave their hearts open for the things and folk they love.

It is commonly supposed (and this idea is fostered by some war correspondents), that when our men go over the top they are possessed with a mad lust to kill Germans. The ultimate aim of a general planning a battle is to kill Germans no doubt, for that is the only way to achieve victory; and if the Germans do not want to be killed they know what to do. Let them surrender or retire. The private agrees with the general in the necessity for killing Germans, but that is not what he is thinking of when he goes over the top; nor is it what we should be thinking of in his place. He is thinking of the Germans killing him. Life is sweet at nineteen or one-and-twenty. It pleads to be spared a little longer. A lad does not want to die; and as he goes over the parapet he is thinking less of taking German lives than of losing his own. He knows that German heads will not fit English shoulders, and that, however many enemy lives he may take, none of them will restore his own if he loses it, as he is quite likely to do. He is going out to be mutilated or to die. That is his standpoint whatever may be the general's or the war-correspondent's. He goes for his country's sake and the right. It is his duty, and there is an end of it.

Most of the killing in modern war is done by the artillery and machine-guns. Comparatively few men have seen the face of an enemy they know themselves to have killed. A regiment goes out to be shot at, rather than to shoot. Unless this simple fact be grasped, the mentality of the soldier cannot be understood. The lust for killing Germans would never take a man out of his dug-out; but the love of his country and the resolve to do his duty will take him out and lead him over the top. It is what he volunteered for, but it goes hard when the time comes for all that.

The unburied men I saw had, but a short while ago, no idea of becoming soldiers. They were the light of a home and the stay of a business. With that they were content. But the challenge came; and they went out to defend the right against the wrong--the true against the false. They toiled up a new Calvary "with the cross that turns not back," and now they lie buried in a strange land. They have lost all for themselves, but they have gained all for us and for those who will come after us. Yet although they saved others, themselves they could not save.

*XVIII*

*THE HOSPITAL TRAIN*

We were carried from our regiments to the hospital in ambulance cars. I, and several others, had trench fever. Some were suffering from gas poisoning. One lovely boy--for he was nothing more--was near to death with "mustard" gas. The doctor at the Dressing Station had opened a vein and bled him of a pint of blood. It was the only hope of saving him. But as the car bumped over the rough roads and the gas in his lungs grew more suffocating he almost despaired of reaching the hospital alive. Others were wounded; and one had appendicitis. After a period in hospital, during which we were honored with a visit by General Byng, it was decided that we should go to the Base. We lay down on stretchers, and orderlies carried us to the waiting cars. At the station we were lifted into the hospital train. The racks had been taken down and stretchers put in their places. These were reserved for the "lying cases." The "sitting cases" occupied the seats--one to each corner. It was afternoon and as soon as the train began to move tea was served. The train sped on and, about sun-set, a most excellent dinner was provided by the orderlies on board.

It was the time of the new moon. "Keep the window open," said one, "it is unlucky to see the new moon through glass, and we need all the good luck we can get," and he avoided looking through the glass until he had seen the moon through the open window. We chatted, read our magazines, or slept--just as we felt inclined. The night wore on and at about two o'clock we reached Rouen. Cars rushed us to one of the Red Cross hospitals. A doctor slipped out of bed, examined our cards, decided in which wards we should be put, and orderlies led or carried us thither. A nurse showed each of us to his room. We were got to bed and another nurse brought some tea. Next morning we were examined and put down for removal across the Channel.

The nurses are radiant as sunshine, and diffuse a spirit of merriment throughout the hospital. It was a pure joy to be under their care. At three o'clock the following morning, without previous warning, a nurse came and awakened us. We had half an hour to dress. Another nurse then came round with a dainty breakfast. We were then put into cars and taken to the hospital train. It left as dawn was breaking, and we were on our way to "Blighty." We had a comfortable journey and reached Havre about nine. Orderlies carried us on board ship and we were taken to our cots. Breakfast was served immediately. We felt a huge content; and hoped to be across by night. But the ship remained by the quay all day. In the evening it moved out of the harbor and lay near its mouth. Towards midnight it slipped its anchor and headed for home.

All had received life-belts and a card directing us which boat to make for, should the ship be torpedoed. Mine was "Boat 5, Starboard." My neighbor on the right had been on a torpedoed boat once and had no desire to be on another. The lights of the ship were obscured or put out, and we silently stole over the waters towards the much desired haven. There was no sound but the steady thump of the engines, and we were soon asleep. Shortly after dawn we awoke to find ourselves in Southampton Water. A water-plane drew near, settled like a gull on the water, and then plowed its way through the waves with the speed of a motor-boat.

About nine o'clock we were carried off the boat to the station. Women workers supplied us with telegraph forms, confectionery and cigarettes; orderlies brought us tea. We were then taken to the train. It was even more comfortable than the hospital trains in France; and we had women nurses. On each side of the train, for its full length, were comfortable beds and we were able to sit up or recline at our pleasure. Lunch was served on board, and of a character to tempt the most ailing man. No shortage of food is allowed to obtain on the hospital train. It has the first claim on the food supply and it has the first claim to the railroad. It stops at no station except for its own convenience. Even the King's train stops to let the hospital train pass.

We were under the care of a nurse who had reached middle life. She had been on a torpedoed hospital ship! on one that struck a mine without bursting it; and on another that collided with a destroyer in the dark. She was greatly disappointed at the decision which had removed nurses from the hospital ships because of the danger from submarines. She fully appreciated the chivalry of the men who would not let their women be drowned; but it had robbed the women of a chance of proving their devotion, and she could not see why the men should do all the dying. The women were ready to meet death with the men and as their mates and equals. Their place was with the wounded whatever might befall, and they were ready.

Hospital trains have run daily for three years now, and human nature can get used to anything. We thought, therefore, that the people would have become used to the hospital train. But greater surprise never gladdened a man's heart than the one which awaited us as we steamed out of Southampton. All the women and children by the side of the railway were at their windows or in their gardens, waving their hands to us. And all the way to Manchester the waving of welcoming hands never ceased. At every station the porters doffed their caps to the hospital train as it sped past. There was not a station large or small that did not greet us with a group of proud smiling faces. Our eyes were glued to the windows all the way. For one day in our lives, at least, we were kings, and our procession through "England's green and pleasant land" was a royal one. We passed through quiet country districts but at every wall or fence there were happy faces. We wondered where they all came from, and how they knew of our coming. There were tiny children sitting on all the railway fences waving hands to us. One little girl of four or five was sitting on the fence by a country station and waving her little hand. We had not seen English children for months and Pope Gregory spoke the truth ages ago when he said that they are "not Angles but Angels." The sight of them after so long an absence was as refreshing to the spirit as the sight of violets and primroses after a long and bitter winter.

At Birmingham the train made its only stop. Men and women of the St. John Ambulance Association boarded the train and supplied us with tea; and, as the train moved out, stood at attention on the platform. At Manchester we received a warm welcome that told us we were in Lancashire. Men and women helped us to the waiting cars and handed cups of tea to us. It was raining of course--being Manchester--but as we passed near a railway arch a waiting crowd rushed out into the rain and startled us with a cry of welcome which was also a cry of pain. Most of the men in the cars were Lancashire lads and in the welcome given them there were tears as well as smiles. Lancashire has a great heart as well as a long head. It suffers with those who suffer and the cry of the heart was heard in the welcome of its voice. There was a welcome too, at the door of the hospital and at the door of each ward. Water was brought to our bedside, and then a tray bearing a well-cooked dinner.

We had reached home.

*XIX*

*AFTER WINTER, SPRING*

A man's heart must be dead within him if, under the summer sun, he can look on the desolated ground of the Western battle-front without feeling emotions of joy and hope. In the winter-time the clumps of blasted trees looked like groups of forsaken cripples. Their broken branches stood out against the gray sky in utter nakedness, as if appealing to heaven against the inhumanity of man. In a way, it was more depressing to pass a ruined wood than a destroyed village. Some of the trees had all their limbs shattered; others, thicker than a man's body, were cut clean through the middle; others, again, were torn clean up by the roots and lay sprawling on the ground. It seemed impossible that spring could ever again clothe them in her garments of gladdening green. We imagined the trees would appear amid the sunshine of the summer black, gaunt and irreconcilable; pointing their mangled stumps towards those who had done them such irreparable wrong and, as the wind whistled through them, calling on all decent men to rise up and avenge them of their enemies.

But, suddenly, we found that the reconciling spring was back in the woods exercising all her oldtime witchery. Each broken limb was covered with fresh foliage and each scarred stump put out sprouts of green. The broken but blossoming woods grew into a picture of Hope, infinitely more sublime and touching than the one to which Watts gave the name. It was a picture drawn and colored by the finger of God, and it made the fairest of man's handiwork look weak and incomplete. Uprooted trees lay on the ground in full blossom, and shell-lopped branches again took on the form of beauty. The transformation was wonderful to behold.

And it all happened in a week. When our men went into the trenches the trees were black, bare and bruised, but when they came out of the front line into the support-trenches the wood behind them was a tender green and had grown curved and symmetrical. It seemed as if the fairies of our childhood had returned to the earth and were dwelling in the wood. Although two long-range naval guns lay hidden behind it, which, with deep imprecations opened their terrible mouths to hurl fiery thunderbolts at the enemy, the fairies seemed unafraid and daily continued to weave for the trees beautiful garments of leaf and blossom. I have seen nothing that brought such gladness to both officers and men. A new spirit seemed abroad. We were in a new atmosphere and a new world. The war seemed already won, and the work of renewal and reconstruction begun.

And now the summer had done for the ground what the spring did for the trees. One Sunday, I was to hold a service on ground that was, in the springtime, No Man's Land. Having ample time I left the dusty road and walked across the broken fields through which our front-line trenches had run. There were innumerable shell holes and I had to pick my way with care through the long grass and lingering barbed wire. I had been over the ground on the day following the advance. Then it was a sea of mud, with vast breakwaters of rusty barbed wire. Now, however, Nature's healing hand was at work. Slowly but surely the trenches were falling in, and the shell-holes filling up. The lips of the craters and trenches were red as a maiden's--red with the poppies which come to them. Here and there were large patches of gold and white where unseen hands had sown the mud with dog-daisies. There were other patches all ablaze with the red fire of the poppies, and as the slender plants swayed in the wind, the fire leaped up or died down.

When the war broke out I was in "Poppyland" near Cromer, in East Anglia. There I first heard the tramp of armed men on the way to France, and there first caught the strain of "Tipperary"--the farewell song of the First Seven Divisions--a strain I can never hear now without having to stifle back my tears. As I passed by these patches of blood-red poppies I thought of those old and stirring days at Cromer when we watched a regiment of the original Expeditionary Force singing "Tipperary" as it marched swingingly through the narrow streets. The declaration of war was hourly expected and the pier and some of the Sunday-school rooms were given to the soldiers for billets. By morning every soldier had vanished and we could only guess where, but a remark made by one of them to another lingers still. They were standing apart, and watching the fuss the people were making over the regiment.

"Yes," he said to his comrade, "they think a great deal of the soldiers in time of war, but they don't think much of us in days of peace."

The remark was so true that it cut like a knife and the wound rankles yet. I have often wondered what became of the lad that went out to France to the horrors of war, with such memories of our attitude towards him in the times of peace. I hope he lived long enough to see our repentance. His memory haunted me among the poppies of Beaurains. In the English Poppyland there was nothing to compare with the red-coated army of poppies now occupying our old front line. In these trenches our gallant men had for nearly three years fought and bled, and it seemed as if every drop of blood poured out by them had turned into a glorious and triumphant poppy.

The spring and summer have taught me afresh that there is in our lives a Power that is not ourselves. It is imminent in us and in all things, yet transcends all. "Change and decay in all around we see," and still there is One who changes not; He "_from_ everlasting _to_ everlasting is God." He is the fountain of eternal life that no drought can touch. He heals the broken tree and the broken heart. He clothes the desolate fields of war with the golden corn of peace, and in the trenches that war has scored across the souls of men, he plants the rich poppies of memory. He drives away the icy oppression of winter with the breath or spring, and in His mercy assuages "the grief that saps the mind for those that here we see no more."

He who turns rain-mists into rainbows and brings out of mud scarlet poppies and white-petaled daisies without a speck of dirt upon them, is at work in human life. Out of mud He has formed the poppy and out of the dust the body of man. Who then can set Him limits when He works in the finer material of man's soul? Eye hath not seen nor heart conceived the beauty that will come forth when His workmanship is complete. "If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith" who were made for immortality? His ways are past finding out, but they are good. He puts out the sun but brings forth millions of stars in its stead. At His call they come flocking forth as doves to their windows. He blinds Milton but brings into his soul a flood of light such as never shone on sea or land, and in its rays he sees Paradise, lost and regained. He shuts Bunyan in a noisome prison, and closes against him the door to his beloved Bedford, but He opens to him a magic window that looks on heaven, and the years pass swiftly as he watches the progress of the pilgrims towards the Celestial City. In the mud that has been stained and even saturated with the life-blood of our soldiers, He has made poppies to spring to loveliness. It is a parable He is speaking to us, that the heart of man may feel and believe that which it is beyond the power of the mind to grasp, or the tongue to explain.

The wounds of France are deep and deadly but they are not self-inflicted and they will heal. She will blossom again with a glory greater and purer than all her former glories. She is even now finding her soul, and revealing a moral beauty and endurance such as few, even of her dearest friends, could have foreseen or foretold. For ashes, God has given her beauty, and it is worth all her suffering. Not Voltaire, but Joan of Arc is her pride to-day. When I was in Rouen I saw the fresh flowers which the people daily place on the spot where she died. France knows where her strength lies. Over Napoleon she has built a magnificent tomb of marble, but in it, she has not placed a single flower. As I walked through it, some time ago, I felt depressed. It made me shiver. It is magnificent, but dead. One of Joan of Arc's living flowers would be worth the whole pile. It is the most tremendous sermon ever preached on the vanity of military glory and the emptiness of genius when uninspired by moral and spiritual worth. France knows. She gives Joan of Arc a flower, but Napoleon a stone. France was never so great as now, and never of such supreme importance to the world. We could not do without her. On her coins she represents herself as a Sower that goes forth sowing. It is a noble ideal, and truly, where she scatters her seeds of thought the fair flowers of liberty, equality and fraternity spring up as poppies spring, where the blood of our soldiers has watered her fields. France is the fair Sower among the nations, and it will be our eternal glory that when she was suddenly and murderously attacked in her fields by her brutal and envious neighbor--who shamelessly stamps a bird of prey on his coins for _his_ symbol, and a skull and cross-bones on his soldiers' headgear as the expression of his ambition--England came to her rescue, and not in vain. The German sword has gone deeply into the heart of France, but it will leave not a festering wound but a well of water at which mankind will drink and be refreshed. Wound the earth, and there springs forth water; wound France and there springs forth inspiration. Trample France in the mud, and she comes forth pure again, passionate and free as a poppy blown by the summer wind.

_Printed in the United States of America_

* * * * * * * *

_*By CHAPLAIN THOMAS TIPLADY*_

_*FIFTH EDITION*_

*The Cross at the Front*

Fragments from the Trenches.

12mo. Cloth. _Net $1.00_.

"'Vivid' is too dim a word to express the living pictures which this chaplain has seen in France. Some of the chapters are among the finest pieces of pathos we have read anywhere. Read the book and you will be a better man for all your tasks."--_Chicago Standard_.

*The Soul of the Soldier*

Echoes from the Western Front.

12mo. Cloth. _Net $1.25_.

An astonishing story Chaplain Tiplady here has to tell--one in which the very foundations of existence seem temporarily uprooted, and the world turned upside-down. Yet never, in the telling, does he lose the unswerving faith and cheering optimism which formed the prevailing note of THE CROSS AT THE FRONT, nor for a moment relaxes his belief that the cause of justice, truth and righteousness is that for which the Allied armies are now fighting.