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Padre, a Red
cross chaplain in France,
Prentice Sartell (1867-1937)
Ed. New York, E.P. Dutton & company [1919 ?)
PREFACE
At the request of the American Red Cross, received through the
War Commission of the Reformed (Dutch) Church, I sailed in June,
1918, to serve as a Red Cross Hospital Chaplain in the army
hospitals of France.
This is a narrative of personal relations, of intimate contact
between the chaplain and sick and wounded boys, first and
principally in Base Hospital 101, at St. Nazaire, and then in
Evacuation Hospital 13, where we were near enough the lines to
enable us to hear the constant rumbling of the guns and to
receive the wounded straight from the battle-field
[…]
1918
I am quartered in one of the many houses of Commercy that were
evacuated by their occupants when the Germans came down to St.
Mihiel four years ago and began dropping bombs and shells all
around the town. It is quite empty, except for a French Colonel
who has a room upstairs and whom I never see or hear, and a
little, elderly French couple, who are acting as caretakers.
Their home is at Igney, near Avricourt and on the road to
Strassburg, some fifteen hundred meters from the old frontiers
of Germany. On the twenty-ninth of July, 1914, five days before
the declaration of war, they saw the German Uhlans violate the
French frontier and pass through their little village. Eight or
ten days later a French patrol came through, stopping at their
doors in search of food. Monsieur took them to another house on
the outskirts of the village, where the horses could be hidden
in a barn and coffee served in a little inner room, windowless
and dark. He watched the patrol ride away, with a “Merci” and a
wave of the hand. The next day all but two were dead. One was a
prisoner, one had escaped, one was lying in the ditch with a
Uhlan’s spear transfixing him to the ground, and four were lying
in the road. ‘They had met and given battle to a heavier German
patrol-on French soil!
For some little time life in the village seems to have gone on
in much the same old way, although they were behind German lines.
But after the declaration of the blockade the Germans ordered
the old men and women, the children and the infirm, to assemble
at the church, with all their necessary baggage, on the
following afternoon. There they were all tagged and ticketed,
with labels pinned to their breasts, “Comme les moutons pour l’abbatoir,”
as Madame said, and then sent to Switzerland, to be returned to
France. The little old lady was one among many who were thus
sent away, but Monsieur was still vigorous, and able to work in
the fields for Germany, wherefor the two were separated, and he
went back alone to a very empty house that night.
Still, life was not so very hard. He received neither pay nor
rations; he worked in the fields from seven until eleven, and
from one until five. But one day out of every three was given
him for work in his own garden, and Sunday was a day of rest.
Every month the Mayor went to the town of Cirey, where the
American Red Cross gave him supplies for the forty-two Frenchmen
who remained in Igney, and so they managed to exist. Last spring
he was sent to Belgium and then, some months later, back through
Germany to Switzerland, and so he made his way at last to
Commercy and joined his wife, after over three years of
separation.
They had two sons, both in the French army, but one was taken
prisoner in the fall of 1914, and the other fell into German
hands last July. The news has just come to us that Henri, the
last to be captured, escaped from a German prison on the
thirteenth of October. That is all we know. Whether he succeeded
in making his way to Belgium or to Holland, whether he died on
the road, was killed by the electric wires that guard the Dutch
frontier, whether he will knock at the door to-morrow, or
whether he is to be just one more of the many mysteries that
only the Judgment Day shall solve we do not know. The little old
lady spoke quite hopelessly of her boys the other day, and I
tried to comfort her with the thought that the war was over and
the prisoners would soon be coming home. “Mais, Monsieur, ils
ont été quatre ans en Allemagne, et les répatriés sont tous
tuberculeux, tous, tous!” I stared at my fire, for there was a
timbre in her voice that warned me not to look. Then, in a
moment, the same serene and steady voice was asking if there was
anything that Monsieur desired, for, with his permission, she
was going to see her sister, but would return at four o’clock.
They take rare good care of me. I think, perhaps, they give me a
little extra care, because I belong to that Red Cross which
meant so much to them throughout those hard years in Germany.
Monsieur comes into my room every morning at half past six,
lights my fire, takes my shoes and puttees, brings me my shaving
water, and then opens my blinds. He is my alarm clock, necessary,
persistent, and far more courteous than Big Ben.
For the past several days, however, I have been awakened, not by
him, but by the sound of marching feet and rolling wheels in the
street beyond my darkened blinds. I knew exactly what those
sounds meant - the French army was marching by! Then Monsieur
has come in, put my hot water on the table, more wood on the
fire, opened the blinds, and gone out with a parting “C’est
presque sept heures, Monsieur.”’ So I have dressed, and watched
at the same time that which I shall never forget. Infantry,
Cavalry, Artillery, hour after hour and morning after morning,
the French army is marching by. I did not understand at first,
for I have seen these troops, or others just like them, marching
along these roads in the other direction, towards Verdun and the
Verdun front. When I saw them marching back I thought the French
army was going home. But yesterday I learned that these men in
the weather-worn blue were traveling the roads that lead to
Lorraine - this is the French Army of Occupation, going towards
the Rhine. They are pouring out over all the roads. Some go past
my windows, round the bend and climb the hill; others branch off
at the market place, and later I see them following the road on
the other side of the valley-faint, slow-moving dots in the
distance. The Infantry go along at a route step, with the skirts
of their long blue overcoats buttoned back, that they may step
off freely. ‘The officers are either on horseback or walk at the
side, most of these with a cane. The packs are heavy; their
casques rattle against their canteens as they dangle from their
belts; they are unshaven, splashed with old mud, but there is
some singing, much laughing, for the War is over -and THEY ARE
GOING TO LORRAINE !
It is not a pretty army, but it is very business-like and I do
not think that I should care to try to stop it from going to
Lorraine. The horses are very rough of coat, it is many a day
since they have been curried and groomed, but I have not seen a
single lame horse go by. ‘Their camions are all horse drawn; I
have seen no automobile camions go through, and they look like
the wagons of wandering gypsies, with bicycles fastened on in
front or behind, poles sticking out at the rear, dingy colored
sacks piled high, and every kind of seeming junk in evidence.
The brakes were long since worn out, and most of them now have
old shoes fastened on to replace the worn brakes, the hobnails
of the soles quite shiny from the friction of the wheels. This
morning the heavy artillery was rumbling along, the “cent
cinquante cinqs.” ‘Their camouflage of blues and yellows was
faded and dingy, bunches of dead grass covered their long
barrels, and the ten horses that drew each gun were, like all
the rest, long of hair and unkempt of coat. But these guns had
helped save France, and for reward they were going to Lorraine.
Behind the guns came more gypsy wagons with the field telegraph
equipments; then came the materials for the Engineers, some of
the wagons marked “Explosif,” and others bearing the heavy boats
for the pontoon bridges, these, too, painted with dingy blues
and yellows.
When I went to breakfast the army was rolling on, up the hill
and over the crest towards the east, following the road towards
Metz. Also, they were filling the village street as far as the
eye could see, a rolling, wavering mass of blue. When I came
back again the street was still full, but now with little Indo-Chinese,
all in uniform and with carefully blackened teeth. They had just
halted as I passed, and I went out and spoke to them. Many
understood French, and soon some fifty had gathered around me.
Whatever remark I made was promptly translated into Chinese, and
then all fifty began to speak at once. When that remark had
received full justice, they fell silent and waited for the next.
Some of these men have souvenirs of the War that they are glad
to sell-belts, helmets, trench knives, that were once the
property of the Boche. These men had little-a gold ring with a
seal of some kind, a German coin, these were all that they could
boast. Then the order to march was given, and the little men
started on, pushing or pulling the small two-wheeled carts in
which the impedimenta of the regiment had been gathered.
I fully expect to see the parade that will take place when Peace
is signed and the victorious armies march through Paris. I saw
the parade on the Fourteenth of last July, when the Allies,
French and American, English, Scotch, Irish and Welsh, Canadians,
Australians and New Zealanders, the Belgians, Poles, Czecho-Slovaks,
Italians, Serbians, Montenegrins, Greeks, and Portuguese marched
up the Avenue de la Grande Armée, turned off before they reached
the Arc de Triomphe, and came, by another road than the Champs
Elysées, to the Place de la Concorde, for only a victorious army
may pass through that Arch. I intend to see them when next they
march through Paris and go through that Arch and not around it.
But that will be an army spick and span. Boots and puttees will
be polished; belts and all leather work will be well groomed,
buckles burnished; gun barrels and bayonets will flash and
reflect the sun; there will be banners and plumes, and all the
pomp of an army on parade.
But the army that I have seen marching past my windows, unshaven
and unshorn, splashed with mud, dingy and stained, with its
unsightly wagons and its uncurried horses - this is the real
army. They are not on parade, they are not intended as a
spectacle, they have come from the field of battle, and they are
going to Lorraine.
I may forget, as memory weakens, that which I hope to see in
Paris, but I do not think I shall ever forget this which I have
seen passing along Commercy’s streets, in the red sunrise lights
of these November days, with the hoar-frost on the ground.
P.S. - December 3d: Henri knocked on the kitchen door at six
o’clock this morning!
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