Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/227

 lair in a little wood. They are troubled about the fate of the sentry.

"My sergeant, my two soldiers, and myself recite a decade of the Rosary for him. One of the soldiers refused at first to pray for a Boche. It was necessary to explain a whole heap of theological matters to him on charity in time of war. He at last consented on condition that we should say two other decades for our own dear soldiers.... I do not dare to say that I find pleasure in the work I have to do. But when I think of our poor France, and of the crimes of these barbarians: if you knew what they have done!"

So runs the record. Everywhere you find the priest first in danger, and in abnegation, confessing his comrades in the trenches, then heading their bayonet-charge; after the battle, his rifle laid aside, he is whispering consolation into the ear of some poor broken enemy, Pole or German, launched against civilisation by the bloodthirsty megalomania of a Prussian Emperor.

I cannot close this paper of random instances without transcribing in full the story of Sister Julie of Gerbeviller. This is how her name stands in the Journal Officiel—

"By order of the Minister of War to be Chevalier of the Legion of Honour: Mme. Amélie Rigard, in religion Sister Julie, nurse at the field hospital of Gerbeviller."

Appointed by her Superior to this hospital, she