Part 37 (2/2)

”Hurroo! Are you better, sir?”

”Where am I?” Jim asked thickly.

”'Tis in a church you are, sir, though it's not much like it,” said the little man. ”The Germans call it a hospital. 'Tis all I wish they may have the like themselves, and they wounded. Are you better, sir?”

”I . . . think I'm all right,” Jim said. He was trying to regain his scattered faculties. ”So they've got me!” He tried to look at Callaghan. ”What's your regiment?”

”The Dubs, sir. 'Tis hard luck; I kem back wounded from Suvla Bay and they sent me out to the battalion here; and I'd not been with them a week before I got landed again. Now 'tis a German prison ahead--and by all one hears they're not rest-camps.”

”No,” said Jim. He tried to move, but failed, sinking back with a stifled groan. ”I wish I knew if I was damaged much. Are there any doctors here?”

”There was two, a while back. They fixed us up somehow, and we haven't seen a hair of them since. The guards throw rations--of a sort--at us twice a day. 'Tis badly off we'd be, if it weren't for the priest.”

”Is he French?”

”He is--and a saint, if there ever was one. There he comes now.”

Callaghan crossed himself reverently.

A hush had come over the church. The _cure_, in his vestments, had entered, going slowly to the altar.

Jim struggled up on his elbow. There was perfect silence in the church; men who had been talking ceased suddenly, men who moaned in their pain bit back their cries. So they lay while the little priest celebrated Ma.s.s, as he had done every morning since the Germans swept over his village: at first alone, and, since the first few days to a silent congregation of helpless men. They were of all creeds and some of no creed at all: but they prayed after him as men learn to pray when they are at grips with things too big for them. He blessed them, at the end, with uplifted hand; and dim eyes followed him as he went slowly from the church.

He was back among them, presently, in the rusty black ca.s.sock. The guards had brought in the men's breakfast--great cans of soup and loaves of hard, dark bread. They put them down near the door, tramping out with complete disregard of the helpless prisoners. The priest would see to them, aided by the few prisoners who could move about, wounded though they were. In any case the guard had no order to feed prisoners; they were not nurse-maids, they said.

”Ah, my son! You are awake!”

Jim smiled up at the _cure_.

”Have I been asleep long, sir?”

”Three days. They brought you in last Friday night. Do you not remember?”

”No,” said Jim. ”I don't remember coming here.” He drank some soup eagerly, but shook his head at the horrible bread. The food cleared his head, and when the little _cure_ had gone away, promising to return as soon as possible, he lay quietly piecing matters together in his mind. Callaghan helped him: the Dublins had been in the line next his own regiment when they had gone ”over the top” on that last morning.

”Oh, I remember all that well enough,” Jim said. ”We took two lines of trench, and then they came at us like a wall; the ground was grey with them. And I was up on a smashed traverse, trying to keep the men together, when it went up too.”

”A sh.e.l.l was it?”

Jim shook his head.

”A sh.e.l.l did burst near us, but it wasn't that. No, the trench was mined, and the mine went off a shade too late. They delayed, somehow; it should have gone off if we took the trench, before they counter-attacked. As it was, it must have killed as many of their men as ours. They told me about it afterwards.”

”Afterwards?” said Callaghan, curiously. He looked at Jim, a little doubtful as to whether he really knew what he was talking about.

”Did ye not come straight here then, sir?”

”I did not; I was buried,” said Jim grimly. ”The old mine went up right under me, and I went up too. I came down with what seemed like tons of earth on top of me; I was covered right in, I tell you, only I managed to get some of the earth away in front of my nose and mouth.

I was lying on my side, near the edge of a big heap of dirt, with my hands near my face. If I'd been six inches further back there wouldn't have been the ghost of a chance for me. I got some of the earth and mud away, and found I could breathe, just as I was choking.

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