FATHER CONNOR

New Zealand Tablet, 12 September 1918, Page 33

FATHER CONNOR

(By Rifleman Patrick Mac Gill, Author of The Great Push, etc.)

(TELLING OF THE LABORS WHICH AN AMERICAN CHAPLAIN PERFORMS.)

The dough-boys had been trekking for days, making their way towards the trenches of war. They had left Mud-wallow (the name they had given to the town in which they had been busy for many months, preparing for the hard business of war) five days ago, and even on the fifth night they were not in the line. But they were very near, so near that they could see the star-shells flaring in the heavens / and hear the patter of the eternal rifle fire. One company was billeted in a shattered village, a mere cluster of .houses with the walls broken and the roof-tiles slashed to splinters. The village had borne the brunt of war for years, but despite all the torrents of "hate” which had been loosened on the place, the natives were still there, following their daily toil and doing their various little jobs with the phlegmatic doggedness of the French peasantry. With a courage equal to that of the captain who remains with his doomed vessel until she founders, the people stuck to their homes, death hovering over them all the time, venturing out to the streets and fields when a lull occurred in the daily bombardment, and sleeping by night in the damp cellars, with the enemy shells bursting outside. They were a brave and courageous people, to whom the hearts of the American soldiers warmed. Three men were seated in a cellar : their talk was of the day to come, the morrow when they would go into the trenches for the first time. “I want to fight," said one of them. "I want to fight if not for France at least for the people of France, the women and children. They’re well worth dying for !” “So Father Connor said the day when i met him on the street outside here,’’ said the third man, a big, red-haired Irishman. Father Connor was the Catholic chaplain attached to the Brigade. “He was round the place speakin’ to the women and children, comfortin’ them and tellin’ them to bear up. But be the same token it was more than he himself could do to bear up. I met him after he had finished speakin’ to an old woman, and the poor man was heart broke, with the tears runnin’ from his eyes. And no wonder: for the poor woman that he was speakin’ to had lost both her children be a shell that had fallen on them two days back. And her man was also killed at the Avars, leavin’ her, the poor soul, without a one in the world sib iv her own.” A long silence followed this speech, and in the distance could be heard the sound of shelling and rifle fire. “What does this Father Connor do?” asked the sun-freckled boy, a strange huskiness in his voice. The story of the woman had affected him, but he strove to hide it. "I never see him do much.” “Well, I know what he does,” said the Irishman, "which is not to be wondered at, seein’ that I’m one iv his flock, A black sheep iv course, but for all that I like Father Connor. And he does work, works harder than any iv us, Iv course I don’t see him very often, but I do on Sunday at the Mass.” "And all the other days of the week are his offdays, I guess,” said the sun-freckled boy. "All that time he’ll be doin’ nothin’, only preparing his straight-from-the-shoulder stunts for the Sunday sermon.” "Ye may not have seen him often when ye were in Mud-wallow,” said the Irishman. "But ye’ll find him more to the ’fore when ye’re up front in the thick iv it. Be the get iv the man I know that he’ll be near at hand whenever he’s wanted. But at the pre.sent time he hasn’t as much to do as shows every time he does it. In Mud-wallow, - he made the rounds iv three hospitals about six , miles apart every mornin’,

givin' consolation to the men as needed it, writin' letters for them, and givin' them all the comfort in his power. Then the answerin' iv letters took a lot iv time. He gets letters from mothers who want to know why their, sons are not writin' oftener, from wives askin' about their husbands, and things like that. And he answer's them all. Then the fellow that's down on his luck comes along and pours his troubles into the chaplain's ears. And the chaplain has his work cut out for him to put heart into the dough-boy that's feelin' a bit homesick and tired iv it all. And all this and more is part iv the day's work for Father Connor. Then he "has to see about the buryin' iv the boys that's gone. What he doesn't do T don't know. For meself I'd rather go through a gas-attack without a gas-mask than be Father Connor or any other chaplain in the army. Glory be! but it's them that has the work cut out for them