THE GREATER LOVE

New Zealand Tablet, 19 October 1916, Page 7

THE GREATER LOVE

(By Frederick Coleman, in the Triad).

' Greater love bath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.' The Padre spoke the words slowly and with deep feeling, then repeated them with solemnity in lower toneJ. O'Harrigan, the farrier-sergeant, wildest of a wild troop, had lost his life in an effort to bring a wounded corporal back from a shell-swept field. Two days before it had happened, and Father Ryan's mind was full of it that Sunday morning, as he said Mass on the cole! ground of a Flanders" beet-field. Ankle-deep in the mud, formed in a hollow square,, the regiment stood, while in fervent words their beloved Padre, simply and impressively, paid heartfelt tribute to the hero and his heroic death. Father Ryan's little sermons often ' stuck wid ye for a divil of a time,' as O'Harrigan had been wont to say. The farrier-sergeant's action, in itself by no means rare in general character, would have been forgotten in the melee of the forty-eight hours in the trenches, forty-eight hours in billets, then forty-eight hours up front again that followed the incident. But the Padre's brief reference to it-on the Sabbath morning made it ' stick ' with more than one trooper that night as the men plodded trenchward through the mud to take their turn in the firing-line. Jimmy Shea and Tim Donnelly sat close together for warmth in the lee of the trench parapet as the lower temperature of the wee small hours told of the passing of the night.

Close by them was their machine-gun, alternately their god or the subject of their most withering, searing reproach and anathema. It;- delicate mechanism behaved on most occasions quite docilely, as intended by its makers, but at times it jambed in true machine-gun perversity. It had been in action often, and was never free from a suspicion that it might act ' like the divil was in it,' when most needed. Glycerine in the water that filled the cooling-jacket and warm housings guarding it from the cold, told of the care lavished on the wicked little weapon by the precious pair that had it in their keeping. Jimmy and Tim were closer than blood-brothers, though an ill-assorted couple to look at. Jimmy was small of stature and slight of build. Bed hair and freckles gave him a fiery appearance, with which his temper kept pace. Tim was a big overgrown youth, slow where Jimmy was quick, black where Jimmy was red, and of sombre mood where Jimmy was sunny. Only when Jimmy's anger flared high was Tim cheerful, and then the power he had to soothe the boy and bring him back to reason and laughter was little short of uncanny. Care-free, Jimmy was talking in whispers in the early morning hours of the Padre and the Padre's talk of O'Harrigan. . ' It's not so much love of someone else that sends him to do a thing like that,' he argued. ' It's the brave, clean heart in a man. O'Harrigan had little love for any of us, but a braver man never drew the breath of life.' You're a fool as usual,' said Tim in a low tone. ! O'Harrigan had a heart as big as an ox, though few knew it. I'll give you in that he was brave enough, too, for the matter of that. Do you know, Jimmy, I had a letter from me mother this day that makes me wish I was in O'Harrigan's shoes, it does.' 'Shame on ye, ye big stiff!' from Jimmy. 'Can a letter from your mother make ye wish ye were dead,

man ? Such talk makes one like me, with no mother at all, want to fetch ye a crack over the nut. God bless the old woman ! What does she want of ye now that it should put ye in such a mind?' ' You know me about as well as if you had never set eyes on me, Jimmy,' said Tim with a sigh. It's not me that wishes meself dead, in a way. The mother has her heart set on me getting on in the army. Some fool told her in a moment she was unusual soft of heart that it was me would be getting a Victoria Cross one day. What should she do but pick on the idea and nurse it till it's grown big with her. " Now she writes me about every week. I've a fine chance of a V.C., I have! The only ones that have got it with us have been killed for it.- I'd be the last to get it at that price, for I've no longing to die, Jim. O'Harrigan may be recommended for one, now. If I'd 'a' done what ho done the mother might have been happy, but it don't lie in me, Jimmy.' ' Thanks be it don't,' said Jimmy sagely. ' O'Harrigan paid the price and did no good, for . didn't Shaugnessy cop it, too, before they got him back Stay alive, Tim, and let the V.C. take care of itself and the old woman worry.' But Tim Donnelly worried. More, he worried Jimmy. As the weeks passed, Mrs. Donnelly, with true Irish persistency, waxed eloquent in her written appeals to Tim to lose no opportunity to make a name lor the family. 'Look here, Tim,' said Jimmy one day, 'quit botherin' your head. Tell the old lady ye will keep your eye out for a chance to pluck a cross, and if ye see one lyin' up in front of us, ye will go hot-foot and pick it up. Tell her I'll help ye spot one if we get close enough to it, but we can't make chances of the like of thatwe've got to sit and wait till one comes by. Tell her that, Tim, and let her wait.' And Tim agreed to let her wait. No Hun gas attack was planned with more devilish ingenuity than the one at first dawn that found the troopers of the grand old cavalry regiment in the trenches near the Bellewaarde Lake. Just as the mist was rising from the water the blue-green gas-clouds floated lazily toward the British lines, borne on the softest of early-morning zephyr.!. An infantry battalion on the left caught the poison first, and the surprise of it drove the Tommies from the line. A choking, spluttering young subaltern raced down the trenches to the troopers, gasping, coughing, and calling out: ' Gas! Gas!' in horror-stricken tones. He meant well, but his warning was unnecessary, and the manner of it demoralising, especially to the newer and fresher reserve-men, with whom the great gaps in the old regiment had been recently filled. The stinging nostrils, flowing eyes, and the bitter metallic taste in the mouth told the men in the trenches of the coming of the chlorine cloud better than any words could tell them. Round their left a few moments later came the Hun attack, the way for it paved by the retirement of the infantry battalion. In further preparation of it, the big German howitzer shells began to rain down liko mad. Jimmy and Tim, standing beside their machinegun, were both gassed slightly before they had time to get their gas-pads in place over mouths and nostrils. Jimmy became violently ill. The troop captain, following the orders of a preconceived plan, directed the men in the front-line trench, outflanked by the German masses so near at hand, to fall back to an approach-trench a couple of hundred yards to the rear, which, with great foresight, had been turned into a fire-trench overnight. ' Don't go, Tim, without the little gun,' pleaded Jimmy between paroxysms of nausea. Tim was half-crazed with the gas. \ The fear of suffocation was strong in him. His powerful lungs seemed slowly closing in the grip of an unseen hand. .. A shell lit near by, demolishing part of the trench wall and dismounting the machine-gun. A piece of

the huge projectile hit the big trooper, tearing away a good-sized bite of flesh from his left arm. With a shriek he turned, clambered from the trench, and fled. He ran blindly, half-mad, racing anywhere to get to safety, almost as completely unconscious of his movements as if the life had been knocked from his body by the nearby concussion that had dazed his brain. The searing pain from the wound in his arm was bu}i a tiny item in the chaos into which his mind had been thrown. All sense of direction lost, he ran straight for the trench at the rear into which his regiment was being gathered. When not far from it, a shell burst ahead of him with blinding flash and shocking roar. He was thrown to the ground. In complete panic, he staggered to his feet again, and forced his failing limbs to carry him on, on, he knew not where. In his utter demoralisation, he had turned completely round, and was running haltingly, drunkenly, for the front line from which he had fled a few moments before. He staggered on, a swarm of bullets singing over him, ' Black Marias bursting on one side, then on the other. At last, after what seemed an age-long spasm of supreme effort, he tumbled into the deep trench in front, not ten feet from where Jimmy, his head singing and his body weak, but his frightful illness overcome, was busy digging the machine-gun from under a dozen sandbags that had been thrown upon it by a shell-upheaval near by. Jimmy turned with a grin as Tim fell into the trench. ' Come back, have ye?' he cried. ' Come back for that V.C. ? Get at it," then, me lad, and set this up. When the big shells stop comin' over the Bosche lads will be on lis, sure. Let's give 'em hell, Tim. The old gun's not hurt a mite. She will stop a good lot of the beggars if she's in the mood to behave herself.' But Tim was done. He struggled to his feet, a look of dumb agony on his white, drawn face. lie tottered as he stood. No V.C. for me. I ran,' he muttered thickly, and as he swayed a bullet struck him fair and ho fell, half on the machine-grim at his side. Then the Hun howitzers ceased their devastating shower of shells on the front trench, and the grey masses that had been biding their time poured in. They came eagerly, confident of victory. But they had builded without Jimmy and Jimmy's machinegun. Never had the ' old girl ' behaved so well. Not until the Hun crowd was close did Jimmy let her speak, and when she began her song the burthen of it was Death—Death quick and fast—Death in steel sheets that covered yards of trench-front, impassable for human forms while that keen Irish eye was behind her, while that sure Irish finger caressed her responsive trigger. The major in the approach-trench behind, versed in all the arts of trench warfare, was quick to grasp the situation. Reinforced by another lot that had come up in reserve, he dashed forward to his old position, and before many eventful minutes had passed, the front trench was won back and that part of the line saved. The major found Jimmy by his quick-firer, his chest torn with many a Mauser bullet. Stooping, his voice shaking with emotion, the major said, ' Jimmy Shea, you have saved the day. God bless you for a braver man than any of us !' Then catching sight of the dead trooper by the gun, he continued, ' Donnelly must have been mad, poor man. He was nearly back to us, then ran up again when a big shell landed right in front of him.' Jimmy raised himself on one arm. ' No, major,' he said. 'lt was me who came back. Tim stayed, sir. "He stayed and won the V.C, major. He did, indeed he did. It was Tim did it. He did it for his old mother, major.'

A look of wonder on the major's face died there. He caught the truth from the look in the eyes of the stricken boy. ' Well, well,' he said soothingly. ' Have it your own way, Jimmy Shea.' He saw the death-light, as he had seen it, oh ! so often in those terrible days. They took Jimmy back to the dug-out dressingstation, which he reached but a few minutes before the arrival of the major himself, whose thigh had been badly shattered by a bullet from a Hun machine-gun. ' Padre,' called the major to Father Ryan, as he saw the priest; 'see to Jimmy Shea. He's got it bad. And, Padre, the lad's to be humored if he mentions Tim Donnelly. He has something on his mind about his pal. Don't let him worry about it. I'm not done for yet, and I saw it all. The two of like devils. Something about a V.C. is bothering Jimmy. Tell the boy I'll get them each one if I have to storm the War Office itself. It will let him die easier, I think. Go now, Padre, and find him before he pegs out.' Father Ryan lost no time. The surgeon nodded sorrowfully as he pointed out the sadly wounded trooper. ' In a few minutes,' he whispered to the priest. 'Jimmy, my boy, have they, told you Do you know you have paid the great price, my son ? You soon are to see the glories of a better world than this. And you can go in peace, Jimmy, for it's a great thing you have done this day.' ' No, Padre, it was not me as did it. It was Tim that stuck in the trench, not me at all.' The fear that he would be misunderstood and his anxiety at the thought, made the pain in the lad's voice poignant and real. ' I know, I know, my son.' The Father's eyes filled with tears as his big heart went out to the boy. ' I know. The major told me, Jimmy.' ' But, Padre, promise me clear,' and Jimmy put an anguish of doubt into his words that made them throb. His eagerness was not to be denied. ' It's Tim will get the Cross, Padre, won't he now? It's Tim that stayed, Padre dear, it's Tim that stayed. Could ye promise he should get it, Padre? You know the old man is hard, but he's fair. Could ye promise ye would make him see it as it was, Padre?' ' I'll promise, Jimmy, I'll promise.' The boy's head fell back as if he had gained at last a goal long striven for. ' I'm not the giver of the Cross meself, as you well know, Jimmy lad, but the colonel shall know all Tim did, and if ever man deserved the Cross its Tim. The colonel will get it for him, Jimmy, I'm sure.' The words soothed Jimmy as if he had felt the touch of a mother's hand. He settled down lower on the rude couch, tired, giving himself up to the numbing longing for rest. His life was ebbing fast. As he lay, peacefully now, his torn body free from the racking pain that he had suffered during the earlier moments after the bullets had torn their cruel way through him, his lips moved gently. » The priest bent over him. Low came the words from the dying boy's lips: ' Greater love hath no man than this ' and then a sigh. A'smile transfigured the homely freckled face, as he caught a glimpse of some wondrous vision beyond the veil. His eyes closed gently, and Jimmy was gone to join the comrade he had loved so well. ' Greater love hath no man than this,' repeated the priest in benediction. 'Oh ! God, forgive us all, and remember, in Thy mercy, it was even more than his life the little lad would have laid down for his friend !'