Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/226

 backs, and soon the knapsacks will be off by order of our generals. In this supreme peril we need officers. And many, for many are being killed. You will see the priests in command of sections, companies—who knows if you will not see them in command of regiments if there are any priests left! There they are all the braver because it is their duty to be tender: beati milites, and if they are a little short in military instruction, which is easily acquired, one recalls the saying of Bonaparte to Subry—they have what is not to be acquired: contempt for death, for they are priests and they believe."

The superior education of the prêtre-soldat, as compared with the majority of his comrades, gives to his narrative letters a special value. A seminarist describes a night surprise on a German sentry post—

"I crawl through the mud, stopping for five minutes every three or four yards ... reach the edge of the canal and drop quietly in.... I advance very slowly, the sentry is not more than ten paces away. But suddenly my teeth begin to chatter, and I am unable, for all my efforts, to keep my jaws quiet. Fear? No, cold!... I am obliged to take my handkerchief and tie it round my head as if I had the toothache...."

He surprises the sentry, chokes him into insensibility, trusses him up, and crawls back to his men. The reconnaissance completed they return to their