The Exploits of Father William Doyle, S.J.
Chapter 7 of 7
Part 7
7 August
“No Mass this morning, thanks, I suppose, to the kindly attention of the evil one. I reached my chapel of the previous morning, only to find that a big 9.5-inch shell had
landed on the top of it during the day. I went away, feeling very grateful I had not been inside at the time, but had to abandon all thought of Mass as no shelter could be found from the heavy rain.”
“The Battalion went out today for a three day rest, but I remained behind. Father Browne has gone back to the Irish Guards. He is a tremendous loss, not only to myself personally, but to the whole Brigade where he did magnificent work and made a host of friends. So, I was left alone. Another chaplain was appointed but, for reasons best known to himself, he did not take over his battalion and let them go into the fight alone. There was nothing for it but to remain on and do his work, and glad I was I did so, for many a man went down that night, the majority of whom I was able to anoint.”
“Word reached me about midnight that a party of men had been caught by shell-fire nearly a mile away. I dashed off in the darkness, this time hugging my helmet as the enemy was firing gas shells. A moment’s pause to absolve a couple of dying men, and then I reached the group of smashed and bleeding bodies, most of them still breathing. The first thing I saw almost unnerved me; a young soldier lying on his back, his hands and face a mass of blue phosphorous flame, smoking horribly in the darkness. He was the first victim I had seen of the new gas the Germans are using, a fresh horror in this awful war. The poor lad recognized me. I anointed him on a little spot of unburnt flesh, not a little nervously (as the place was reeking with gas), gave him a drink, which he begged for so earnestly, and then hastened to the others.”
“Back again to the aid-post for stretchers and help to carry in the wounded, while all the time the shells are coming down like hail. Good God! How can any human thing live in this? As I hurry back, I hear that two men have been hit twenty yards away. I am with them in a moment, splashing through mud and water. A quick absolution and the last rites of the Church. A flash from a gun shows me that the poor boy in my arms is my own servant, or rather one who took the place of my orderly while he was away, a wonderfully good and pious lad.”
“By the time we reached the first party, all were dead, most of them with charred hands and faces. One man with a pulverized leg was still living. I saw him off to hospital, made as comfortable as could be, but I could not help thinking of his torture as the stretcher jolted over the rough ground, and up and down the shell-holes.”
“Little rest that night, for the Germans simply pelted us with gas shells of every description, which, however, thanks to our new helmets, did no harm. Fritz is an expert in gas torture. He has long treated us to weeping shells, and many an unrepentant tear I have shed. Now he has some stuff that tickles your throat and nose like red pepper and makes you sneeze like a soda water bottle; a gas that burns your hands and face, a beast of a thing that gives you all the delights of a rough sea voyage; hence you can have quite a lively time if you wish to.”
8 August
“There is little to record during the next couple of days except the discovery of a new cathedral and the happiness of daily Mass. This time I was not quite so well off as I could not kneel upright and my feet were in the water that helped to keep the fires of devotion from growing too warm. Having carefully removed an ancient German leg, I managed to rest by sitting on the ground, a new rubric I had to introduce also at the Communion, as otherwise I could not have emptied the chalice. I feel that when I get home again I shall be absolutely miserable because everything will be so clean and dry and comfortable. Perhaps some kind friend will pour a bucket or two of water over my bed occasionally to keep me in good spirits.”
“When night fell, I made my way up to the part of the line that could not be approached in daylight, to bury an officer and some men. A couple of grimy, unwashed figures emerged from the bowels of the earth to help me, but first knelt down and asked for Absolution. They then leisurely set to work to fill in the grave. ‘Hurry up, boys,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to have to bury you as well,’ for the spot was a hot one. They both stopped working much to my disgust, for I was just longing to get away. ‘Be gobs, Father,’ replied one, ‘I haven’t the devil a bit of fear in me now after the holy Absolution.’ ‘Nor I,’ chimed in the other, ‘I am as happy as a king.’ The poor Padre, who had been keeping his eye on a row of ‘trumps’ that were coming unpleasantly near, felt anything but happy. However, there was nothing for it but to stick it out as the men were in a pious mood. He escaped at last, grateful that he was not asked to say the rosary.”
10 August
“A sad morning as casualties were heavy and many men came in dreadfully wounded. One man was the bravest I ever met. He was in dreadful agony, for both legs had been blown off at the knee. Never a complaint fell from his lips, even while they dressed his wounds and he tried to make light of his injuries. ‘Thank God, Father,’ he said, ‘I am able to stick it out to the end. Is it not all for little Belgium?’ The Extreme Unction, as I have noticed time and again, eased his bodily pain. ‘I am much better now and easier, God bless you,’ he said, as I left him to attend a dying man. He opened his eyes as I knelt beside him. “Ah, Father Doyle, Father Doyle,” he whispered faintly, and then motioned me to bend lower as if he had some message to give. As I did so, he put his two arms round my neck and kissed me. It was all the poor fellow could do to show his gratitude that he had not been left to die alone, and that he would have the consolation of receiving the Last Sacraments before he went to God. Sitting a little way off I saw a hideous bleeding object, a man with his face smashed by a shell, with one if not both eyes torn out. He raised his head as I spoke. ‘Is that the priest? Thank God, I am all right now.’ I took his blood-covered hands in mine as I searched his face for some whole spot on which to anoint him. I think I know better now why Pilate said, “Behold the Man” when he showed Our Lord to the people.”
“In the afternoon, while going about my rounds, I was forced to take shelter in the dugout of a young officer belonging to another regiment. For nearly two hours, I was a prisoner, and discovered he was a Catholic from Dublin and had been married just a month. Was this a chance visit, or did God send me there to prepare him for death, for I had not long left the spot when a shell burst and killed him? I carried his body out the next day and buried him in a shell-hole. Once again, I blessed that protecting Hand that had shielded me from his fate.”
“That night we moved headquarters and aid-post to a more advanced position, a strong concrete emplacement but a splendid target for the German gunners. For the forty-eight hours we were there, they hammered us almost constantly day and night till I thought our last hour had come. There we lived with a foot, some times more, of water on the floor, pretty well soaked through, for it was raining hard at times. Sleep was almost impossible—fifty shells a minute made some noise—and to venture out without necessity was foolishness. We were well provided with tinned food and a spirit lamp to make hot tea, so we were not too badly off. We rather enjoyed hearing the German shells hopping off the roof or bursting on the walls of their own strong fort.”
11 August
“Close beside us, I had found the remains of a dugout that had been blown in the previous day and three men had been killed. I made up my mind to offer up Mass there for the repose of their souls. In any case, I did not know a better ‘ole to go to.’ To this little act of charity, I attribute the saving of my life later on in the day. I had barely fitted up my altar when a couple of shells burst overhead, sending the clay tumbling down. For a moment I felt very tempted not to continue as the place was far from safe. Later, I was glad I went on, for the Holy Souls certainly came to my aid as I did to theirs.”
“I had finished breakfast and had ventured a bit down the trench to find a spot to bury some bodies left lying there. I had reached a sheltered corner, when I heard the scream of a shell coming towards me rapidly and, judging by the sound, straight for the spot where I stood. Instinctively, I crouched down, and well I did so, for the shell whizzed past my head—I felt my hair blown about by the hot air—and burst in front of me with a deafening crash. It seemed to me as if a heavy wooden hammer had hit me on the top of the head and I reeled like a drunken man, my ears ringing with the explosion. For a moment I stood wondering how many pieces of shrapnel had hit me or how many legs and arms I had left. I then dashed through the thick smoke to save myself being buried alive by the shower of falling clay that was rapidly covering me. I hardly know how I reached the dugout, for I was speechless and so badly shaken that it was only by a tremendous effort I was able to prevent myself from collapsing utterly as I had seen so many do from shell-shock. Then a strange thing happened. Something seemed to whisper in my ear, one of those sudden thoughts that flash through the mind. ‘Did not that shell come from the hand of God? He willed it should be so. Is it not a proof that He can protect you no matter what the danger?’”
“The thought that it was all God’s doing acted like a tonic. My nerves calmed down and shortly after I was out again to see if I could meet another iron friend. As a matter of fact, I wanted to see exactly what had happened, for the report of a high-explosive shell is so terrific that one is apt to exaggerate distances. An officer recently assured me he was only one foot from a bursting shell, when in reality he was a good 40 yards away. You may perhaps find it hard to believe, as I do myself, what I saw. I had been standing by a trellis work of thin sticks. By stretching out my hand, I could touch the screen, and the shell fell smashing the woodwork! My escape last year at Loos was wonderful, but then I was some yards away, and partly protected by a bend in the trench. Here the shell fell, I might say, at my very feet. There was no bank, no protection except the wall of your good prayers and the protecting arm of God.”
“That night we were relieved, or rather it was early morning, 4:30 a.m., when the last company marched out. I went with them so I might leave no casualties behind. We hurried over the open as fast as we could, floundering in the thick mud, tripping over wire in the darkness, and, I hope, some of the lay members cursing the German gunners for disturbing us by—an odd shot. We had nearly reached the road, not knowing it was a marked spot, when, like a hurricane, a shower of shells came smashing down upon us. We were fairly caught, and, for once, I almost lost hope of getting through in safety. For five minutes or more, we pushed on in desperation. We could not stop to take shelter for dawn was breaking, and we would have been seen by the enemy. Right and left in front and behind, some far away, many very close, the shells kept falling. Crash! One pitched in the middle of the line, wounding five men, none of them seriously. Surely, God is good to us, for it seems impossible that a single man will escape unhurt. Then, when the end seemed at hand, our batteries opened fire with a roar to support an attack that was beginning. The German guns ceased like magic, or turned their attention elsewhere, and we scrambled on to the road and reached home without further loss.”
This was the end of Father Doyle’s diary. There followed just this last message to his father, so pathetic in the light of his death the next day.
“I have told you all my escapes, dearest father, because I think what I have written will give you the same confidence that I feel, that my old armchair up in Heaven is not ready yet, and I do not want you to be uneasy about me. I am all the better for these couple of day’s rest and am quite on my fighting legs again. Leave will be possible very shortly, I think, so I shall only say au revoir in view of an early meeting. Heaps of love to every dear one. As ever, dearest, Father, your loving son, Willie. 14/8/17.”
Before this letter had reached home, the great Leave Day had come for Willie Doyle. He was called Home to his “old armchair” in heaven!
The descriptions given in this booklet of Father Doyle’s superhuman exertions and hairbreadth escapes, made it abundantly clear that only by some continuous miracle could he hope to survive another such advance. It came the next day when once more the Irish troops were moved up through and beyond Ypres to the front line running from Saint Julien to the Roulers railway south of Frezenberg. Every insignificant rise in the undulating Flemish farmlands in front of them was crowned by a German post. There were several strong “pill-boxes” (concrete blockhouses) and, in the middle of the line of attack, a spur (Hill 35) dominated every approach. It was these redoubts—especially Borry Farm Redoubt with its sixty expert gunners—that frustrated all attempts of the Irish when, at dawn on Wednesday, 15 August, they made their attack. Moreover, no supporting waves came up, for no living beings could get through the transverse fire of the German machine-guns. So, when the German counter-attack was launched in the afternoon, the Rifles, the Dublins, and the Inniskillings had to retire, taking with them what wounded they could. Many groups were surrounded and cut off or had to fight their way back in the night.
Father Doyle was speeding all day hither and thither over the battlefield like an angel of mercy. His words of Absolution were the last words heard on earth by many an Irish lad that day. The stooping figure of priest and father, seen through blinding blood, filled the glance of many in their agony. Perhaps once more some speechless youth ebbing out his life’s blood kissed his beloved padre or by a silent handshake bade farewell to the father of his soul.
“Ah, Father Doyle, Father Doyle.”
“Is that the priest? Thank God, I am all right now.”
“Ah, Father, is that you? Thanks be to God for His goodness in sending you. My heart was sore to die without the priest.” . . .
All the little stories come back to us as we try to reconstruct that last great day of priestly ministry and sacrifice. We shall never know here on earth, for, towards the evening of that heroic day, Father Doyle died a martyr of charity. The great dream that had haunted him for a lifetime had come true. He had shed his blood while working for Christ.
“Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends”(John 15.13). We do know details of Father Doyle’s death. When, on 15 August, the fighting became desperate and retirement inevitable, all noncombatants, including the doctor and chaplain, received orders to retire. Father Doyle did not retire (how could he when he was wanted so badly?) but continued to go round ministering to the wounded. About 3 p.m., he came to the Regimental Aid Post that was in charge of a Corporal Raitt, the doctor having retired according to orders. With Father Doyle was Private McInespie who was acting as his “runner.” Whilst in the Aid Post, word came that a wounded officer of the Dublins was lying in an exposed position. Father Doyle left the Aid Post at once, crawled out to the wounded man, and ministered to him. Then he proceeded to half-drag, half-carry the wounded man to a safer place. McInespie, who had followed, came up after a while and helped him with his burden. They got to a pill-box, out of which came two officers who stood around. The wounded officer was still alive, and Father Doyle asked McInespie to get some water to give him a drink. McInespie had gone a little way and, as the shelling began to grow heavier, the chaplain and the two officers were moving towards the pill-box, carrying the wounded man. Suddenly, a shell dropped close by, killing Father Doyle and the two officers instantaneously and hurling McInespie to the ground. When McInespie recovered sufficiently, he struggled to his feet. Seeing that his companions, and presumably the wounded officer, were dead, he staggered back to the Aid Post, gasped out, “Father Doyle is dead,” and collapsed.
The above details were first learned from a letter dictated to a Sergeant O’Brien by McInespie when in hospital suffering from the effects of the shell explosion that killed Father Doyle. After the war, McInespie came to Dublin and was interviewed. His story was practically the same story he told while in hospital. Corporal Raitt also came to Ireland. He, too, was interviewed and substantially bore out Mclnespie’s account. It was also asserted that some retiring Dublins, coming across the body of Father Doyle, gave it a hasty burial. No trace of such a grave has been found.
Mr. T. Cain, B.A., Head Master of Coleridge Street School, Hove, writes (26 October 1945): “The official Life of Father Doyle states that his body was never recovered. This is only partially true. On the morning of 16 August 1917, I was on machine-gun duty in a trench east of Wieltje near the road that forks to the right of Saint Julien. I was with the 36th (Ulster) Division, whose troops had gone over the top that morning in an attack that failed. During the course of the morning, four big Irish lads—Dublins, I believe—came along the trench, carrying a stretcher. The trench was knee deep in mud and water and carrying was difficult, so it is not surprising when they stopped to rest. I noticed then that they were weeping. With Kipling and the “beloved Colonel” in mind, I asked if the Colonel had been wounded. They replied that he had not, but that Father Doyle had been killed while attending the wounded in No Man’s Land, and they were taking the body back for burial. One of them added bitterly that there was no need for him to have been killed at all, since he could do nothing for the lads out there as they were all probably dead. I was greatly struck by the fact that these men had risked their lives in searching for and removing a corpse under heavy fire from the shells and were now taking a great deal of trouble to give it burial. My companion, a Protestant, was also much impressed and remarked on the affection showed for a chaplain by Catholics. After a while, the bearers passed on, left the trench, and got on to a nearby road. Almost immediately, a heavy barrage was dropped on the area. It is my opinion that the four men were killed by a direct hit on the road.”
It seems likely, therefore, that the remains of him, who often risked his life to bury friend and foe, lie commingled with those of countless unnamed companions beneath the plains of Ypres. Is not such a fate the consummation of his martyrdom?
“Entice the wild beasts to become my tomb, and to leave no trace of my body,” writes Ignatius of Antioch to the Romans, “so that falling asleep, I may be a burden to no-one. Then shall I really be a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world will not even see my body.”
Mr. Cain’s letter raises an interesting point; namely, the date of Father Doyle’s death. Up to this, the accepted date has been 16 August. General Hickie, commanding the 16th Division, in a letter to Father Doyle’s father, states that Father Doyle was killed
on 16 August. Mr. Cain says it was on the morning of 16 August that the Dublins came along carrying Father Doyle’s body.
Finally, Mr. Michael Hartney, Kilnagrange, Kilmacthomas, Co. Waterford, writing under date, 12 November 1945, says, “Mr. Cain is correct in stating that Father Doyle was killed on 16 August. I was on the eastern slope of Frezenberg Ridge during the greater part of that day with the Irish Rifles, one of the battalions of which Father Doyle was chaplain. Early that morning word reached our HQ to the effect that the troops to our right were retiring. The Colonel sent an officer to investigate. On his return a few hours later, this officer, a non-Catholic, said to me, ‘Hartney, I’m afraid your chaplain, Father Doyle, has been killed.’ He then added that he had seen Father Doyle’s dead body with others near a pill-box.”
The accounts given by Mr. Cain and Mr. Hartney seem to indicate that Father Doyle was killed on 16 August and to confirm the accepted opinion of the date of his death. If their account is correct, however, Father Doyle must have been killed between midnight and the early hours of 16 August, since he was found dead on the morning of that same day. Now, both Corporal Raitt, who saw and spoke to Father Doyle shortly before his death, and McInespie, Father Doyle’s runner, who saw him killed, assert that he met his death during the afternoon between three and five o’clock. Their evidence is borne out by Christopher Flynn, Delgany, Co. Wicklow. His testimony is the more valuable since before giving his account he had never heard or read the story of Father Doyle’s death, and so was not influenced by other accounts.
Christopher Flynn was a stretcher-bearer in the 8th Dublins and was present at the attack made in August along the line from Saint Julien to Frezenberg. According to Flynn, the 8th Dublins attacked at dawn on 14 or 15 August—he is certain it was one of these days, but not certain which of them. For most of the morning, Father Doyle was with Flynn, helping him with the wounded and absolving and anointing those near death. After some hours, Father Doyle left Flynn and moved away up the line. Towards evening, the shelling became so heavy that Flynn and a man named Morrissey had to take shelter in a dugout. While they were going there, Flynn saw Father Doyle and two officers moving towards a German pill-box some three or four hundred yards away. As he looked, a shell burst nearby, and Father Doyle and the two officers fell. As the shelling began to get heavier, Flynn and his companion withdrew further back. They made no attempt to go to Father Doyle and the fallen officers. This happened in the evening of the day of the attack between 4 and 6 p.m. It might have been a little earlier, Flynn admits. But he is quite positive that Father Doyle was killed in the evening and on the day the attack was made; namely, 14 or 15 August.
From these various accounts, the events in connection with Father Doyle’s death may be recorded, with almost certainty, as follows:
The 8th Dublins attacked at daybreak on 15 August. Father Doyle was killed the evening of that day. His dead body was seen on the morning of 16 August by an officer of the Irish Rifles sent to investigate. Later in the morning, four of the Dublins, searching for the body, found it and brought it along for burial as described by Mr. Cain.
Thus, did “Darling Mother Mary,” on the feast of her Assumption, fulfill her part of the compact made with her loyal soldier twenty-four years before—and once more in blood!
Military Tributes
It will not be inappropriate here to find a place for some military tributes to the soldier son and soldier saint.
“All through the worst hours an Irish padre went about among the dead and dying, giving Absolution to his boys. Once he came back to headquarters, but he would not take a bite of food or stay, though his friends urged him. He went back to the field to minister to those who were glad to see him, bending over them in their last agony. Four men were killed by shellfire as he knelt beside them, and he was not touched—not touched until his own turn came. A shell burst close by, and the padre fell dead.” (Sir Philip Gibbs in the Daily Chronicle and the Daily Telegraph; also in his book, From Bapaume to Paschendale 1917, p. 254).
“The Orangemen will not forget a certain Roman Catholic chaplain who lies in a soldier’s grave in that sinister plain beyond Ypres. He went forward and back over the battlefield with bullets whining about him, seeking out the dying and kneeling in the mud beside them to give them Absolution, walking with death with a smile on his face, watched by his men with reverence and a kind of awe until a shell burst near him, and he was killed. His familiar figure was seen and welcomed by hundreds of Irishmen who lay in that bloody place. Each time he came back across the field, he was begged to remain in comparative safety. Smiling, he shook his head and went again into the storm. He had been with his boys at Ginchy and through other times of stress, and he would not desert them in their agony. They remember him as a saint—they speak his name with tears.” (Percival Phillips in the Daily Express and also the Morning Post, 22 August 1917).
“Two instances, especially, should be recorded. The first, that of an officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps attached to the Leinsters, who spent five hours in circumstances of the greatest danger tending the wounded, and behaving in all ways with consummate heroism. The second, that of a Roman Catholic chaplain who went up with the men, sustained and cheered them to the last, till he was killed.” (The Time, 8, 22nd August 1917).
“No account, however fragmentary, of the 8th (Dublins) would be complete,” writes Frank M. Laird in Personal Experiences of the Great War, “without remembering our R. C. Padre, Father Doyle, a Dublin Jesuit. His name was known and loved throughout the whole Division for unexampled bravery and equal kindliness. When shells dropped round, ordinary mortals took cover or an opposite direction. Father Doyle headed toward them to see if he was wanted. One morning in the line, I was standing watching the communication trench a short way down getting a very nasty shelling. In a few minutes, Father Doyle arrived smiling, having just come through it in his usual visit to the front line, without his tin hat, which he could not be induced to wear. His gentlemanly manner, with his quiet humor and cheery conversation, all made him a very pleasant man to meet at any time and most of all in a bad time.”
“Is it any wonder that he was welcome in every mess, that the men worshipped the ground he trod on, and that he was worth several officers in any hot spot where endurance was tested to its height?”
“If I had gone through one thousandth part of what Father Doyle did,” said Captain Healy (8th Dublins), “or if I had run a hundredth part of the risks he ran, I should have been dead long ago. Whenever there was danger, there was Father Doyle, and wherever Father Doyle was, there was danger. When I saw him coming towards me, I told him to go away as I knew the enemy would shell the place at once! When shells were raining on us, he used to wander about from dugout to dugout as if he was taking a walk for the good of his health. If a man was hit, you would think he knew it by instinct. He was with the wounded man before anyone else. It didn’t matter where the man was lying, out he went to him.”
“He was one of the finest fellows I ever met,” wrote Lt.Col. H. R. Stirke (commanding the 8th Dublins), “utterly fearless, always with a cheery word on his lips, and ever ready to go out and attend the wounded and dying under the heaviest fire. He was genuinely loved by everybody and thoroughly deserved the unstinted praise he got from all ranks for his rare pluck and devotion to duty.”
“Father Doyle,” said another Colonel who knew him intimately, “felt fear deeply. He had a highly-strung nervous system and a vivid imagination that visualized danger fully and realized the risk before him—all the physical elements of cowardice were his. He went out to perils, not at the word of command that meant death to disobey, not with the lust of battle surging in his veins and sweeping him along with a primitive savage longing to kill, and not in the company of cheering, sustaining comrades. Father Doyle had no word of command, but his conscience and his sense of duty. He had no violent emotions to blind him to danger. Usually, he had no comrade to bear him company save grim Death, who walked very close to him at times. It may sound a paradox, but it is perfect truth: Father Doyle was the biggest coward in the 16th Division and the bravest man in the British Army!”
“An even more striking description was given by one of his men, who declared emphatically that Father Doyle was “the bloodiest bravest man in the War!”
“Father Doyle was one of the best priests I have ever met,” wrote General Hickie, commanding the 16th Division, “and one of the bravest men to have fought or worked out here. He did his duty and more than his duty, most nobly, and has left a memory and a name behind him that will never be forgotten. On the day of his death, 16 August, he had worked in the front line and even in front of that line and appeared to know no fatigue—he never knew fear. I can say without boasting that this is a Division of brave men yet, even among these, Father Doyle stood out. He was loved and reverenced by all. His gallantry, self-sacrifice, and devotion to duty were all so well known and recognized. I think that his was the most wonderful character that I have ever known.”
“Father Doyle was recommended for the Victoria Cross by his Commanding Officer, by his Brigadier, and by myself. Superior Authority, however, has not granted it, and as no other posthumous reward is given, his name will, I believe, be mentioned in the Commander-in-Chief’s Dispatch.”
Though Father Doyle cared nothing for human decorations—it was another Commander-in-Chief under Whom he served—it seems right to chronicle this judgment of others and to record the fact that, besides winning the Military Cross, he was recommended for the D.S.O. at Wytschaete and the V.C. at Frezenberg. Even before the Frezenberg action, he was reputed by many to have earned the V.C. Thus, Lieutenant Galvin, writing home on 14 August 1917, says, “If ever a man earned the V.C. in this war, it is Father Doyle. He is simply splendid. He comes up every night under heavy shell-fire, burying the dead, binding the wounded, and cheering the men.”
“Everybody says Father Doyle has earned the V.C. many times over,” writes a Sergeant of the Dublin Fusiliers in a letter to his mother, “and I can vouch for this myself from what I have seen him do many a time.”
“Father Doyle deserves the V.C. more than any man who ever won it,” said the Adjutant of Father Browne’s two Battalions.
The refusal of Superior Authority to recognize conspicuous bravery attested to by men of several regiments, by Father Doyle’s brother-officers, by his Commanding Officer, by his Brigadier, and by the General of his Division, aroused widespread astonishment and disgust.
A fellow-chaplain in The Month (1921) voiced the sentiments of every man when he wrote, “I cannot refrain here from expressing my opinion that among the many glaring inconsistencies that disfigured the award of honors, none was more remarkable than the refusal of the V.C. to this chaplain, who merited it as truly as any one of those—all honor to them—who received it; and not once alone, but twenty times. One hardly knows what to think.”
In its own way, the following generous appreciation by a Belfast Orangeman is rather unique. It was published in the Glasgow Weekly News of 1 September 1917.
“Father Doyle was a good deal among us. We couldn’t possibly agree with his religious opinions, but we simply worshipped him for other things. He didn’t know the meaning of fear, and he didn’t know what bigotry was. He was as ready to risk his life to take a drop of water to a wounded Ulsterman as to assist men of his own faith and regiment. If he risked his life in looking after Ulster Protestant soldiers once, he did it a hundred times in the last few days. The Ulstermen felt his loss more keenly than anybody, and none were readier to show their marks of respect to the dead hero-priest than were our Ulster Presbyterians. Father Doyle was a true Christian in every sense of the word and a credit to any religious faith. He never tried to get things easy. He was always sharing the risks of the men and had to be kept in restraint by the staff officers for his own protection. Many a time have I seen him walk beside a stretcher trying to console a wounded man with bullets flying around him and shells bursting every few yards.”
An even more convincing testimony was borne by a Fusilier who happened to be home in Dublin on leave at the time of Father Doyle’s death. Meeting a friend who told him the news, he kept repeating incredulously: “He’s not dead. He couldn’t be killed!” When at last he was shown a paper describing the padre’s death, the poor fellow knelt down on the pavement and began to pray. Then to the crowd that gathered round him he recounted how, when he was lying wounded in an exposed position and expecting every moment to be killed by a shell, Father Doyle had crept out to him and carried him to a place of safety.
A similarly spontaneous tribute was paid to Father Doyle’s memory by a burglar, presumably an ex-soldier, who broke into Mr. Doyle’s house in Dalkey at midnight in January 1922. He made the poor old man get up and unlock all the drawers. In ransacking a drawer, he came across a mortuary card of Father Doyle.
“Who’s that?” he asked excitedly.
“That’s my son, Father Willie Doyle, who gave his life for the soldiers in Flanders,” answered Mr. Doyle.
“That was a holy priest,” replied the robber, “he saved many souls.”
Whereupon he took the card, kissed it, put it in his pocket, and left without taking anything else!
Father Browne, who had been with Father Doyle in Clongowes and Belvedere, who had, above all, been so intimately associated with Father Doyle in their joint mission to the 48th Brigade, expressed his grief and his esteem in a letter, written on 20 August, from which the following passage is quoted.
“All during these last months, he was my greatest help, and to his saintly advice, and still more to his saintly example, I owe everything I felt and did. With him, as with others of us, his bravery was no mere physical show-off. He was afraid and felt fear deeply, how deeply few can realize. Yet, the last word said of him to me by the Adjutant of the Royal Irish Rifles in answer to my question, ‘I hope you are taking care of Father Doyle?’ was, ‘He is as fond of the shells as ever.’ His one idea was to do God’s work with the men, to make them saints. How he worked and how he prayed for this! Fine weather and foul he was always thinking of them and what he could do for them. In the cold winter, he would not use the stove I bought for our dugout. He scoffed at the idea as making it ‘stuffy’ and that was when the thermometer was fifteen to twenty degrees below zero, the coldest ever known in living memory here! How he loathed it all, the life and everything it implied! And yet nobody suspected it. God’s Will was his law. And to all who remonstrated, ‘Must I not be about the Lord’s business?’ was his laughing answer in act and deed, and not merely in word. May he rest in peace—it seems superfluous to pray for him.”
There once more we have Father Doyle’s unmistakable portrait, those characteristic traits familiar now to us who in these pages have read his inner life: the just-concealed cross, the unsuspected loathing, the fear so pleasantly disguised, the selfless work and incessant prayer, the loving trustfulness in God’s Will. And as we come to the close of this life-story, all its incidents are gathered up in memory to blend into a final cadence—the novice’s blood-sealed covenant, the consuming love and zeal, the hidden reparation, the vigils and scourgings, the pond at Rathfarnham, the nettles at Delgany, the mud and blood of West Flanders and the Somme. Nothing befitted such a life like the leaving of it.
“Did you not know I must be about my Father’s business?” he would have gently asked us, had we, prudent ones, expostulated with him that day for being foolhardy. His Father’s business, not bloodshed, hate, and strife, but mercy, brotherhood, and reconciliation. He might, of course, have stayed behind in Ypres or Saint Julien. He could, had he wished, have kept out of danger. Perchance some said, “He saved others, himself he cannot save.” They were right. “For whoever wishes to save his life, will lose it, and whoever for My sake loses his life, will save it. What does it avail a man if, after gaining the whole world, he has lost or forfeited himself ?” “For My sake”—“I tell you, as often as you did it for one of these My brothers, however lowly, you did it for Me.” Beyond and besides the great legion of faithful ordinary workers, there is need of a handful of heroes, men who save others because they cannot save themselves. Nicely calculated prudence could not survive without some of the foolishness of the Cross. The death of a hero or a martyr is a higher achievement than mere continuance of physical life.
“Lord, if it be Thou,” cried impetuous Peter, “bid me come to Thee upon the waters.” Christ said “Come” to foolish Peter, while the prudent apostles remained in the boat. Surely, as Father Doyle on that August morning looked out upon those undulating Flemish fields where shell-barrage and bullet-blasts laid low the advancing waves of brave men, surely he heard the Master’s voice bidding him come to Him upon the waters. And he came; with his greathearted faith, he never doubted.
“I am not foolhardy nor do I expose myself to danger unnecessarily, the coward is too strong in me for that; but when duty calls I know I can count on the help of One who has never failed me yet.”
How could he resist? Out yonder, in Verlorenhoek and Frezenberg and along the Hannebeke stream, the smashed and bleeding bodies of his poor fellows were lying.
“My poor brave boys! They are lying now out on the battlefield. Some are in a little grave dug and blessed by their chaplain, who loves them all as if they were his own children. Others stiff and stark with staring eyes, are hidden in a shell-hole, where they had crept to die. Sadly, in some far-off thatched cabin perhaps an anxious mother sits listening for the well-known step and voice that will never gladden her ear again.”
Having loved his “poor brave boys” in this world, and eased their passage to the next, he loved them to the end. He did not desert them in their day of defeat without dishonor. And so, somewhere near the Cross Roads of Frezenberg, where he lies buried with them, the chaplain and men of the 48th Brigade are waiting together for the great Reveille.