Part 4

The approach of Christmas meant the arrival of many presents to Father Doyle, presents that, needless to say, soon found their way to the Dublins.

“L. and W’s gift of ‘smokes,’” he writes, “was a godsend (for the men, not for himself—Father Doyle was a non-smoker all his life). The parcel arrived in the midst of pelting rain that had been going on all day. I put on my big boots and coat and trotted—or I should rather say, waded—up to the front line and gave each man a handful. You would not believe how it bucked them up or how welcome that smoke was to the brave fellows, as they stood there in the mud and water, soaked through and through, hungry and sleepless.”

“The rough lads look at their hardships and say, ‘Sure, Father, it’s little enough to bear for our sins.’ Almighty God would be an odd God if He did not forgive and forget whatever they may have done with such a spirit as this.”

“Just now,” he writes to his sister, “I got from a convent a present of a lovely cake in a large box. It was well packed up, but I could feel its softness and see in imagination the sugar and almond paste on top. This child had visions of a glorious tea in his dugout, lasting from six till nine, during which large slices of cake would receive a military burial. The string was cut, the paper unrolled, and lo!—there appeared a large piece of fat bacon—no cake! The Germans have sent over asking to know the meaning of the fearful howls they heard in our lines all the morning.”

His sister-in-law sent him a plum pudding.

“As I write,” he says on 13 December, “a huge plum pudding, sent by the thoughtful J., has just walked in at the door. A hundred thousand welcomes! The Lord grant that I do not get killed till after Christmas at least. It would be a fearful disaster to leave that treasure behind to be devoured by the holy nuns.”

A week later, he conveys the sad news that “a villain of a rat worked his way into the middle of the pudding and built himself a home there. There was not so much of the plum pudding left after that, but the remainder was all the sweeter.”

Father Doyle had the good luck of spending Christmas in billets. He got permission from General Hickie to have Midnight Mass for his men in the Convent. The chapel was a fine large one, as in pre-war times, over three hundred boarders and orphans were resident in the Convent. By opening folding-doors, the refectory was added to the chapel and thus doubled the available room.

An hour before Mass, every inch of space was filled, even inside the altar-rails and in the corridor, while numbers had to remain in the open. Word had in fact gone round about the Mass, and men from other battalions came to hear it, some having walked several miles from another village. Before the Mass, there was strenuous Confession-work.

“We were kept hard at work hearing Confessions all the evening till nine o’clock,” writes Father Doyle, “the sort of Confessions you would like, the real serious business, no nonsense and no trimmings. As I was leaving the village church, a big soldier stopped me to ask, like our ‘Gardiner Street friend,’ if the Fathers would be *sittin’ *anymore that night. He was soon polished off, poor chap, and then insisted on escorting me home. He was one of my old boys, and having had a couple of glasses of beer—‘It wouldn’t scratch the back of your throat, Father, that French stuff’— was in the mood to be complimentary. ‘We miss you sorely, Father, in the battalion,’ he said, ‘we do be always talking about you.’ Then in a tone of great confidence, ‘Look, Father, there isn’t a man who wouldn’t give the whole world, if he had it, for your little toe! That’s the truth.’”

“The poor fellow meant well, but ‘the stuff that would not scratch his throat’ certainly helped his imagination and eloquence. I reached the Convent a bit tired, intending to have a rest before Mass, but found a string of the boys awaiting my arrival, determined that they at least would not be left out in the cold. I was kept hard at it hearing Confessions till the stroke of twelve and seldom had a more fruitful or consoling couple of hours” work, the love of the little Babe of Bethlehem softening hearts that all the terrors of war had failed to touch.”

The Mass itself was a great success and brought consolation and spiritual peace to many a war-weary exile.

Father Doyle commented, “I sang the Mass, the girls’ choir doing the needful. One of the Tommies, from Dolphin’s Barn, sang the *Adeste *beautifully, with just a touch of the sweet Dublin accent to remind us of ‘home, sweet home,’ with the whole congregation joining in the chorus. It was a curious contrast: the chapel packed with men and officers, almost strangely quiet and reverent (the nuns were particularly struck by this), praying and singing most devoutly, while the big tears ran down many a rough cheek. Outside the cannon boomed and the machine guns spat out a hail of lead: Peace and good will—Hatred and bloodshed!”

“It was a Midnight Mass none of us will ever forget. A good 500 men came to Holy Communion, so I was more than rewarded for my work.”

On Christmas Day, all was quiet up at the front line. The Germans hung white flags all along their barbed wire and did not fire a shot all day, nor did the English. For at least one day, homage was paid to the Prince of Peace.

The very day after Christmas, slaughter recommenced with renewed energy. Two little incidents that Father Doyle records as having occurred on 26 December are here given in his own words.

“On Saint Stephen’s Day the men were engaged in a football match. The Germans saw them, sent over a lovely shot at long range, which carried away the goalpost—the referee gave a ‘foul’—and burst in the middle of the men, killed three, and wounded seven. The wounded were bandaged up and hurried off to hospital, the dead carried away for burial, the ball was kicked off once more, and the game went on as if nothing had happened. The Germans must have admired the cool pluck of the players for they did not fire any more. This is just one little incident of the war, showing how little is thought of human life out here. It sounds callous, but there is no room for sentiment in warfare, and I suppose it is better so.”

The other incident is more personal.

“I was riding my bicycle past a wagon when the machine slipped, throwing me between the front and back wheels of the limber. Fortunately, the horses were going very slowly and I was able, how I cannot tell, to roll out before the wheel went over my legs. I have no luck, you see, else I should be home now with a couple of broken legs, not to speak of a crushed head. The only commiseration I received was the remark of some passing officers that ‘the Christmas champagne must have been very strong.’”

On 1 January, he writes, “Whatever may be said of the birth and life of the old year, it certainly died in a glorious burst of noise. All last evening, with intervals for refreshment, our gunners were hard at it. ‘Worrying’ the enemy they call it, not caring of course whether or not they worry the men of peace who would dearly love sleep. Then, when midnight struck, we had a tremendous cannonade to usher in the new year. Fritz was strangely quiet, not retaliating—drinking our health, probably, in the depths of his safe dugout, except the unfortunate sentries, who had to face the music in the opposite trenches and kept sending up Verey lights or star-shells to make sure we were not coming over to raid him. It was a fine display of artillery work, but we shall pay for it, of that I am certain. (‘We” being the poor infantry holding the trench, and not the good gunners.”

Early in January, Father Doyle was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery at the Somme. He disliked this distinction, but was glad inasmuch as it gave pleasure to his father, to whom he thus wrote on 4 January.

“I am sorry these rewards are given to chaplains, for surely he would be a poor specimen of the Lord’s anointed who would do his work for such a thing. Seeing they are going, I must say I am really glad because I know it will give pleasure to an ‘old soldier’ at home, who ought long ago to have had all the medals and distinctions ever conferred.”

From a few of his letters dispatched about this time we can fill in some details and conditions of his life during the winter of 1916-17. The cold was intense. Father Doyle’s references thereto are suggestive and eloquent:

“Jan. 27th Cold!”

“Jan. 28th Colder!!”

“Jan. 29th More Colder!!!”

“Jan. 30th !!!!!!”

Once he apologizes for not writing, saying he could not hold a pencil in his fingers.

“Before I have finished dressing in the mornings, not a very long process,” he says, “the water in which I had washed is frozen again. One has to be very careful, too, of one’s feet, keeping them well rubbed with whale oil, otherwise you would soon find yourself unable to walk, with half a dozen frozen toes. A dugout is not the warmest of spots at present, but even if I felt inclined to growl, I should be ashamed to do so, seeing what the poor men are suffering in the trenches.”

As a matter of fact, for over a fortnight, the temperature was many degrees below zero. During this time, it took five or six hour’s hard labor to dig a grave.

“I think the limit was reached,” writes Fr, Doyle, “when the wine froze in the chalice at Mass and a lamp had to be procured to melt it before going on with the Consecration. I am thinking it will take fifty lamps to thaw out the poor chaplain!”

The diet was hardly less trying than the weather. He lived chiefly on bread, bully-beef, and tea. This last concoction was rather sickening.

“Don’t ask me where the water comes from,” he says, “for I certainly am not anxious to learn. The men hold that, if you boil water, you need not bother about its source, or how many dead beasties it has washed on its journey. I have had tea of the most wonderful shades of brown and black. Yet, barring the taste at times, I am not a whit the worse for this mysterious beverage.”

“My poor orderly,” he remarked earlier (on 31 July 1916), “has nearly emptied the well (of course leaving the six dead Germans behind) in his efforts to make enough tea.”

The bully-beef was bad enough, but the dietary-specialists’ substitute was worse.

“Pork-and-Beans,” he writes on 16 January 1917, “is quite a standing joke at the front, though not a pleasant one. A committee of food experts, having discovered that lentil beans contain one and a half times more nourishment and flesh-forming properties than a corresponding weight of meat, promptly decided that, from time to time, Tommy should be fed on this delicious product. They thereupon, I am sure, sat down to a roast leg of mutton, to show that, if they were experts, they were by no means faddists. The method of procedure is this: Fill a can with a pound of small beans, on top place a piece of fat not larger than a shilling, seal up carefully, and wrap in a colored label on which is printed (and so must be true) the startling intelligence that ‘five beans are of more value than a piece of meat.’ Then, allow a pig to rub his sides against the packing case, and voila, you have a sustaining dinner ration of Pork and Beans! The first time you sit down to this repast, you experience the most frightful temptation to vainglory and pride, as being the equal of the ancient hermits. Then, you feel ‘orrible’ empty. So, even granting that a tin of beans is of greater value than a rib of beef, we are all ready to vote, and vote solid every time, for the old-fashioned steak.”

“I did not get my work finished till rather late tonight,” he notes under the date 4 January, “and, as I had to turn out again shortly, it was not worthwhile turning in. Some of my men were to make a raid on the enemy trenches in the early hours of the morning. This is dangerous work and often results in heavy casualties, so I make it a point to go round the line and give each man Absolution before he ‘goes over the top.’ It is a hard, anxious time and a big strain waiting for the word to be given, and I know it is a comfort to them to see the priest come round and a cheery word bucks them up. All went well with the raid. We should have had more prisoners, only a hot-blooded Irishman is a dangerous customer when he gets behind a bayonet and wants to let daylight through everybody. I got back to my bunk at six and slept like a top till seven. Not too long, you will say; but if you come out here, you will find all the old-fashioned ideas about food and sleep and wet clothes and the rest of it rapidly vanishing. It is wonderful what you can do with a cup of tea and one hour’s sleep in the twenty-four.”

Not all his ministry, of course, involved such risks or privations. Before starting a spell in the trenches Father Doyle used to endeavor to get as many men as possible to Confession on the previous evening and then to Mass and Holy Communion in the morning. As one battalion was some miles from the other, this meant an early start and ride or walk, through rain, slush, and snow, or later, over hard-frozen ground.

“I have celebrated Mass in some strange places and under extraordinary conditions,” he wrote earlier from the trenches on 28 December, “but somehow I was more than usually impressed this morning. The men had gathered in what was once a small convent. For, with all their faults and their devil-may-care recklessness, they love the Mass and regret when they cannot come. It was a poor miserable place, cold and wet, and the only light came from two small candles. Yet, they knelt there and prayed as only our Irish poor can pray, with a fervor and faith that would touch the heart of any unbeliever. They are as shy as children and men of few words, but I know they are grateful when one tries to be kind to them and they warmly appreciate all that is done for their soul’s interest.”

While in the trenches, Father Doyle was not allowed to have Mass for his men, owing to the danger of having many gathered together near the firing line. So, each morning he went back to where the reserve company was stationed, about a twenty minute walk; which gave those who were free a chance to come often to Holy Communion.

On February 2, however, he was able to offer the Holy Sacrifice in the trenches, as his chapel was in a dugout capable of holding ten or a dozen.

“But as my congregation numbered forty-six,” he says, “the vacant space was small. How they all managed to squeeze in, I cannot say. There was no question of kneeling down. The men simply stood silently and reverently round the little improvised altar of ammunition boxes, ‘glad,’ as one of them quaintly expressed it, ‘to have a say in it.’ Surely our Lord must have been glad also, for every one of the forty-six received Holy Communion, and went back to his post happy at heart and strengthened to face the hardships of these days and nights of cold.”

What a difference the Real Presence made in the ministrations and influence of a Catholic chaplain! His Irish lads had a simple strong faith and a reverence for the priest. That same afternoon (2 February) as Father Doyle was coming back from his round of the front-line trench, he found it necessary to get under cover as shelling began. So, he crawled into a hole in which six men were already crouching. No one could have been more welcome.

“Come in, Father,” cried one, “we’re safe now, anyhow.”

On another similar occasion the remark was made, “Isn’t the priest of God with us, what more do you want?”

The poor fellows fancied that Father Doyle was invulnerable. No wonder, when they saw him coolly sauntering around amid shells and splinters. He was always near to cheer them up when they were depressed or nervous and to minister to them when they were wounded. Here is a description of a “sick-call” in the early hours of 13 January 1917.

“Two men badly wounded in the firing line, Sir.”

“I was fast asleep, snuggly tucked up in my blankets, dreaming a pleasant dream of something hot. One always dreams of lovely hot things at night in the trenches—sitting at a warm fire at home, or huge piles of food and drink, but always steaming hot. ‘You will need to be quick, Father, to find them alive.’ By this time, I had grasped the fact that someone was calling me, that some poor dying man needed help, or perhaps a soul was in danger. In a few seconds, I had pulled on my big boots—I knew I should want them in the mud and wet—jumped into my waterproof, and darted down the trench.”

“It was just 2 a.m., bitterly cold and snowing hard. God help the poor fellows holding the tumbled-in ditch that is called the front line, standing there wet and more than frozen hour after hour. More than all, God help and strengthen the victims of this war—the wounded soldier, with his torn and bleeding body lying out in this awful biting cold, praying for the help that seems so slow in coming.”

“The first part of my journey was easy enough, except that the snow made it difficult to keep one’s feet; and I began to realize that one cannot run as easily at forty-four as one could at twenty-four. All went well until I reached a certain part of the trench, which rejoices in the attractive name of Suicide Corner, from the fact that the Germans have a machine gun trained on it and, at intervals during the night, pump a shower of lead on the spot in the hope of knocking out some chance passer-by. It was just my luck that, as I came near this place, I heard the rat-tat-tat of the beastly gun and the whizz of the pawing bullets. It was not a pleasant prospect to run the gauntlet and skip through the bullets. But, what priest would hesitate for a second, with two dying men at the end of the trench? I ducked my head and ‘chivvied’ down that trench. (I do not know what this word means, but I believe it implies terrific speed and breathless excitement.)”

“In the dark and at that distance, I was quite invisible to the German gunner. I think the Old Boy himself was turning the handle that night. Luckily for me, he was out of practice; the cold, I suppose, upset his aim. As I ran in the stillness of the night, on my left I could hear the grinding rat-tat-tat of the machine gun (sounding for all the world as if a hundred German carpenters were driving nails into my coffin), while overhead crack-crack whizz-whizz went the bullets, tearing after one another for fear they would be late. It was a novel experience to have a whole machine gun all to myself. It is a pleasure I am not particularly anxious to repeat. At the same time, I do not think I was really in very great danger as, judging by the sound, the leaden shower was going too high.”

“The guns make all movement by night very unpleasant. All night, both sides have any number of them firing from time to time at fixed points. For example, cross-roads, dumps, light railways—everywhere in fact where men are likely to be. Yet, in spite of the fact that each fires about ten thousand rounds each night and bullets are flying about like mosquitoes, it is very rare indeed that anyone is hit, with weeks at a time passing without a casualty and scarcely ever if one takes ordinary precautions.”

“The first man was *in extremis *when I reached him. I did all I could for him, and commended his soul to the merciful God, as he had only a few moments to live. Then I hurried on to find the other wounded boy. A journey along the firing line in the day-time is not an easy matter, but in the darkness of the night it baffles description. From time to time, a star-shell gave me light and I made good progress, only to end in blackness and a pool (or a shell-hole) full of mud and water.”

“I found the dying lad—he was not much more—so tightly jammed into a corner of the trench that it was almost impossible to get him out. Both legs were smashed, one in two or three places, so his chances of life were small, and there were other injuries as well. What a harrowing picture that scene would have made. A splendid young soldier, married only a month they told me, lying there, pale and motionless in the mud and water with the life crushed out of him by a cruel shell. The stretcher bearers hard at work binding up, as well as they may, his broken limbs; round about a group of silent Tommies looking on and wondering when will their turn come. Peace for a moment seems to have taken possession of the battlefield. There was not a sound save the deep boom of some far-off gun and the stifled moans of the dying boy, while, as if anxious to hide the scene, nature drops her soft mantle of snow on the living and dead alike.”

“Then, while every head is bared, come the solemn words of Absolution, ‘Ego te absolvo, I absolve thee from thy sins. Depart Christian soul, and may the Lord Jesus Christ receive thee with a smiling and benign countenance. Amen.’ Oh! surely the gentle Savior did receive with open arms the brave lad who had laid down his life for Him and, as I turned away, I

felt happy in the thought that his soul was already safe in that land where ‘God will wipe away all sorrow from our eyes, for weeping and mourning shall be no more.’”

Early in March 1917, Father Doyle secured another ten days’ leave and was able to pay a short visit—his last—to Ireland. An incident of this visit is recorded by a Scholastic of the Province of Sicily, who was studying at Rathfarnham Castle where Father Doyle stopped while in Ireland.

“I shall never forget the last time I saw Father Willie. It was the morning he was returning to the Front after his last leave home. We Juniors at the Castle had gathered in the hall to give him a rousing send-off. As he had not yet come down, I slipped into the chapel for a visit. There I found him. He was in uniform, standing at the altar, and knocking at the Tabernacle door most gently. It was his loving farewell to his Eucharistic Lord. I was greatly moved and edified at his simplicity and at his love for Jesus.”

On his return to the Front, Father Doyle chronicles for his father the demise of his famous dugout.

“My dear little dugout in the trenches has vanished. It did not fall gloriously in battle, pierced through with a shell or blown sky-high by a cunningly driven mine shaft. It did not even crumble away slowly, worn out by old age and labors like its venerable owner. It was ignominiously laid low by a common pick and shovel. I loved my tiny sand-bag hut, even though the roof was wondrous low and you had almost to put your legs outside the door if you wanted to stretch them. It would have given about as much protection as a cardboard box, had a shell hit it directly. But, once inside I felt quite ‘comfy,’ even when falling trumps made its poor sides quiver and shake again. Many a time, during the long hard winter, have I crept in out of the bitter cold with a sigh of relief, happy in the thought that the snow at least could not reach me there.”

“However, by an unlucky chance, this house on the hill stood apparently in the direct line of fire of a German battery. They landed four shells in front of the ‘hall-door,’ fortunately dropping them over the sand-bag wall in front, which saved the homestead considerably. They bashed in the trench a foot behind the house. Twice they smashed the trench a few yards in front and one biggish shell cut clean in two our beautiful tree (which spread its arms over the room) tearing the back out of the patient dugout. As the tree was a good eight inches or more in diameter, it was just as well it got the first smack.”

“Shortly afterwards, the General came along. Seeing the state of affairs, the General told the Padre to get him gone out of the danger zone. I am sorry to say, the disobedient Padre did not do this. The General then gave orders for the house to be pulled down, even though he had to admit that not a penny of rent was due. I felt there was little use in my trying to prove to the General that his fears were quite unfounded and that there was absolutely no danger. I do not mind telling you the cause of my security. I have a first-class guardian angel, which is not to be wondered at since you and darling Mother baptized me Gabriel. Whoever he is, he is a real decent chap and has done his work well. When the shelling begins, I send him out to sit on top of the roof. He does not like it a bit, but he goes all the same and then takes it out of me. Sometimes I hear him give a whistle, or whatever angels do in that way, and he shouts down, ‘Look out, Bill, there’s a big one coming.’ I know he only does that to frighten me, to try to get the wind up, as they say. So I shout back, ‘Go to heaven!’—for I suppose you cannot send a respectable angel any place else—and we remain the best of friends. He is the best back stop I ever met, but then he has the advantage of a big pair of wings to swish off the nasty dangerous ones to a safe distance. I am sorry to say he has lost his job now, for the morning I came out of the trenches the homestead was laid low. But I have promised to take him on again and to give him plenty to do before the summer is over!”

He was only a week back in the trenches after his short trip home, when the 48th Brigade received welcome orders to move to the rear for a rest. The rest, however, seems to have consisted chiefly of extra drill, apparently, preparation for the coming offensive.

“We left Belgium,” he writes, “on the Saturday before Palm Sunday (i.e., 31 March), a glorious morning, dry under foot, with brilliant sunshine. The Brigade of four regiments made a gallant show, each headed by its band of pipers and followed by the transport, etc. We were the first to move off and so came in for an extra share of greetings from the villagers who turned out to see us pass, as fine a lot of sturdy lads as you could wish to gaze on, not to mention the gallant chaplain.”

“Our march for the first day was not a very long one (something about 20 miles) but, as every pace took us further and further from the trenches, the march was a labor of love. At midday, a halt was called for dinner, which had been cooking slowly in the traveling kitchens that accompanied us. In a few minutes, every man was sitting by the roadside negotiating a big supply of hot meat and potatoes with a substantial chunk of bread. We poor officers were left to hunt for ourselves, a hunt that did not promise well at first, as the people in the *estaminets *were anything but friendly and said they had nothing to give us to eat. The reason, I discovered later, was that some British officers had gone away without paying their bill, a not uncommon thing, I am sorry to say.

Eventually, with the help of a little palaver and my bad French, our party secured some excellent bread and butter, coffee, and a basket of fresh eggs. On again after an hour’s rest.”

“Marching with a heavy rifle and full kit is no joke, hence our pace is slow. I often wonder how the poor men stick it, and stick it they do, most of them at least till I have seen them drop senseless by the road from sheer exhaustion. As a rule, they are left there to follow the column as best they can, for if falling out meant a lift, not many of the regiment would reach their destination on foot. To make matters worse, we had to tramp along over the rough paved roads, which must be an invention of the Old Boy to torture people. At first the road feels like this: mmmmm; then after ten miles: eeeeeee; till at last you are positive that they have paved the way with spikes instead of stones, something in this fashion: AAAAAAA. My poor feet!”

“At last the town we were bound for came in sight, and hopes of a good rest were high, when word came along that we were not to stay in that haven of peace and plenty but trudge on another three miles. The camel is supposed to be a patient animal, but Tommy can give him points any day. Our lodging was a mutilated country farmhouse, dirty and uncomfortable. The less said about it the better, but everyone was too tired to care much even though we officers, snoring on the floor, felt inclined to envy the sardines in their comfortable box.”

“It was impossible to have Mass for the men in the morning, even though it was Palm Sunday, as there was much work to be done and we had to be off early. I got away to the little village and offered up the Holy Sacrifice for them, emptied a coffee-pot, and fell into my place as the regiment marched off. That was a hard day. We were all stiff and sore for want of previous exercise, and, in addition, were well scourged by sleet, rain, and snow, though at times the sun did its best to brighten things up a bit. Our luck turned when we reached our night halting place, a good-sized town with comfortable billets. A big party of my men were quartered in the public ball-room, which contained an automatic organ. The last I saw of them was a score of ‘couples’ waltzing round quite gaily, without a sign of having the best part of a forty-mile march to their credit.”

“Monday saw us early afoot. Nothing of great interest, except that the country was becoming more hilly and prettier, the stones harder, and our feet and shoulders sorer. Quite a longing for the repose of the trenches was springing up in many a heart. That evening ended our tramp, and here we have been ever since and are to remain for some time longer, much to our joy. Probably, we shall return to the same place we came from, but no one really knows our future movements.”

“Here” was a little village in the Pas de Calais called Nordausques, on the right (east) of the main Saint-Omer-Calais road, about ten miles from each of these places. During this fortnight, away from the sound of the guns, Father Doyle had a very busy time. So indeed had the men.

“The morning,” he says, “is given up to various exercises, one of which is the storming of a dummy German trench to the accompaniment of fearful blood-curdling yells, enough to terrify the bravest enemy. The afternoon is spent at football and athletic sports, so the men are having a good, if strenuous time. So is the poor padre. My two regiments are quartered in two villages some miles apart, with the four companies of each regiment in different hamlets. To make things more inconvenient still, the two platoons of each company, thirty-two in all, are distributed in as many farmhouses. You can imagine I have no easy task to get round to see all my men, which I am anxious to do, so as to make sure that every man, if possible, gets to his Easter Duty. I have Mass every morning for them with many Communions daily, seventy today in one church; and then in the evening, having finished Devotions in one village and heard the men’s Confessions, I ride over to the other for Rosary and Benediction, with more Confessions. In addition to this, there are many stray units scattered about in various places, machine-gunners, trench-mortar battery men, etc., who, along with the instruction of converts, prevent me from feeling time hanging on my hands.”

This brief sojourn in the Pas de Calais enabled Father Doyle to celebrate Holy Week and Easter fittingly, and thus to offer the men emotions superior to those involved in rehearsals for future bloodshed.

“On Spy Wednesday evening,” he recounts, “after Benediction, I told the men I wanted nine volunteers to watch an hour during the following night before the Altar of Repose. I had barely finished speaking when the whole church made a rush up to the altar rails and was keenly disappointed when I told them I could only take the first nine, though I could have had thirty an hour if I wanted them. I was touched by the poor fellows’ generosity, for they had just finished a long, hard day’s work with more before them. I got the nine men to bring their blankets into the little sacristy and, while one watched, the others slept. Surely our Lord must have been pleased with His Guard of Honor, and will bless them as only He can.”

“Easter Sunday,” he continues, “was quite a red-letter day in the annals of the town. The regiment turned out in full strength, headed by the pipers, and crowded the sanctuary, every inch of the church, and out beyond. I had eight stalwart sergeants standing guard with fixed bayonets round the altar. At the Consecration and also at the Communion of the Mass, the buglers sounded the Royal Salute that is only given to Monarchs. At the command, the guard presented arms and, in our poor humble way, we tried to do honor to the Almighty King of Kings on the day of His glorious triumph. I must not forget to add that the lassies and maidens did us the honor of coming to sing during Mass, casting many an envious glance (so rumor says) down on the handsome and devoted Irish lads praying below.”

No wonder Father Doyle wrote a little later, “The faith and fervor of our Irish lads have made a great impression everywhere. I was once quite delighted to hear the Curé rubbing it in to his congregation, drawing a contrast between them and the Irish soldiers much to the disadvantage of the former.”

On Easter Sunday the good Curé received tangible proof of Irish faith, for his collection bag contained a very unprecedented number of silver coins and five-franc notes.

The quiet if strenuous interlude amid the hills and pine-woods of the Pas de Calais came to an end all too soon. Low Sunday saw the men once more on their traditional march, to the tune of cold pelting rain. That night a halt was made close to Saint Omer, which gave Father Doyle an opportunity to visit the twelfth-century Church and the old Jesuit College from which Stonyhurst was founded. The final stage of the journey was very trying. The men “had to face the cobble-stones at six in the morning, with a hurricane of rain and sleet that slashed like a whip,” and arrived near Locre after tramping for eight hours without a morsel of food. Once more, life in and out of the trenches began.

“We have not had such a quiet time for the past fifteen months,” records Father Doyle thankfully.

During the first fortnight of May the entire 48th Brigade—consisting of 2nd, 8th, and 9th R. Dublin Fusiliers and 6-7th Irish Rifles—was out of the trenches. The 2nd and 8th Dublins were in Locre and the 9th was at Clare Camp less than two miles west of Locre. The Rifles were at Kemmel, three miles east of Locre.

Father Doyle thus secured a few free days and, as he tells his father, decided “to make a little excursion and to pay a visit to the dear good nuns at Amettes, who were so kind to me on my first arrival in France. It was a trifle of some eighty kilometers (about fifty miles) of a journey. But, the weather being glorious—dry and not too hot—I thought little of it as I mounted my bicycle and started to trundle my twenty-odd stone along the roads of France.”

“I reached the convent late in the evening, after a most enjoyable and restful ride through the country, away from the din and roar of war. The Sister who opened the door looked at me in a dazed, frightened sort of way. ‘I remember you perfectly, Father,’ she said, ‘but I think I had better let Mother know first.’ Then she vanished like a flash, leaving me rather mystified. In a few moments, Mother and all her chicks came swarming in ‘Mais, mon Père, you are dead! We saw in the paper that you were killed by a shell—Pere Doyle, S.J., n’est-ce-pas? I told her about Father Denis Doyle, S.J., who, God rest his soul, has got me so many Masses and prayers by mistake. Thereupon we all fell upon each other’s necks. The convent larder was next emptied and, for a dead man, I did remarkably well, ending with a glorious sleep. I spent most of the next day wandering round the country with a visit to the home and shrine of the ‘beggarman saint,’ Benedict Joseph Labre. I often think he must be nearly mad with envy watching us in the trenches, surrounded, walked on, and sat upon by his ‘pets.’ Yet, from the same pets, deliver us, O Lord, as speedily as may be this coming hot weather!”

“On my way home I took in Noeux-les-Mines and heard the whole story of his Church and our Lady’s statue from the Curé—who, by the way, looked very uncomfortable and made a grab for the holy water when I appeared from the dead.” Before we left the Loos district, our Divisional Commander, General Hickie, suggested that all ranks should subscribe towards a memorial of our stay there and a monument to the memory of the men who had fallen in action. This was to take the form of a life-size statue of our Lady of Victories, to be carved in white marble by the best Paris sculptor and erected in the Church of Noeux-les-Mines, where the Divisional Headquarters were, with the names of the fallen inscribed on the pedestal. We are all to receive a small book containing a photo of the statue, the names of the subscribers, etc., which will be a pleasing memento of the 16th Irish Division.”

“On Passion Sunday the men arrived with the box, and asked the Curé where he wished our Lady of Victories to be erected. As it was only a quarter of an hour before High Mass, he told them to come back later. Then he turned into his own garden, a few yards away, to finish his Office. The Mass servers were playing outside the Church that at the moment was empty—the sacristan having finished his preparations had just left—when a 15-inch shell fired from a German naval gun crashed through the wall and exploded in the sanctuary. As a rule, shells burst on impact; but this, being an armor piercing shell, came through the wall like paper and exploded inside with results impossible to describe.”

“When I went into the ruin, I exclaimed, ‘M. le Curé, surely you have had fifty shells in here!’ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘only one; the havoc you see is the work of a single shot.’ Not a trace remains of the beautiful altar, where I so often offered the Holy Sacrifice. The carved stalls, the altar-rails, and benches and chairs are smashed into splinters and the roof and parts of the walls are stripped of plaster. I have never seen such a scene of destruction. The explanation says that the explosion took place inside the Church and the liberated gases rushed round like ten thousand mad animals, rending and tearing all they met, seeking an exit. The building is nearly as large as Kingstown Church but, from end to end, it is a perfect ruin. Pictures, statues, organ, all are gone; the door of the sacristy was blown in and the vestments torn to ribbons, and not a particle remains of the beautiful stained glass that filled the twenty large windows.”

“There is just one ray of comfort in this sad destruction: not a life was lost. Ten minutes later, the Church would have been crowded with civilians and soldiers and probably few of them would have been touched with bits of shell, but not a soul would have been left alive by the shock. I have seen men on the battlefield, sometimes a row at a time, standing or leaning against a trench, untouched by bullet or shrapnel, killed simply by the force of an exploding shell. You can picture the result in a strong enclosed building.”

“Here, as in so many other places, God again showed His power in a wonderful way. Quite near the altar stood a magnificent Calvary. One arm of the Crucified is torn off, but otherwise neither the figure nor the cross is injured. Poor Saint John got badly smashed up and Saint Mary Magdalen has a bullet through her heart, the very thing she would have asked for. Yet, our Blessed Lady, with the exception of a slight scratch on one hand, ‘stands by the cross,’ absolutely untouched in the midst of all the havoc and ruin. The shell fell in the sanctuary, blowing the altar to bits. After much searching and digging among the debris, the tabernacle was found whole and entire; inside, the ciborium was standing upright, not even the cover having been knocked off, and the Consecrated Particles in perfect order, though the tabernacle must have been blown to the ceiling.”

Father Doyle was soon back in Belgium among his men, who were enjoying their respite from the trenches. The two chaplains, Father Browne and Father Doyle, availed themselves of this interval to organize Month of May devotions for the men. Every evening, they had rosary, hymns, short sermons on the titles of our Lady’s Litany, and Benediction, followed by more hymns. The “boys” liked to hear their own voices.

“One result of the devotions,” writes Father Doyle, “has been the conversion of the only really black sheep in the regiment, a man very many years away from his duty, a hard, morose character, upon whom I had many times failed to make any impression. I saw it was useless to argue with him so, at the beginning of the month, I handed him over to the Blessed Virgin as a hopeless case with which she alone could deal. Last evening I met him and thought I would try once more to make him see the awful danger he was running of losing his soul. It was all no use, the devil had his prey too tightly held to shake off like that. Then, a thought struck me, ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘this is the month of May. You surely won’t refuse our Blessed Lady.’ The poor fellow fell on his knees and there and then made his confession. I gave him Holy Communion and now he is a changed man, as happy as a lark.”

Long before the titles of our Lady’s Litany were exhausted, it was time to return to the trenches. At the conclusion of such a respite, the chaplain used to give General Absolution. In a letter written to his father, about this time, Father Doyle thus describes and comments on the touching scene.