There were scores of stories like that, and the army lists contained the names of hundreds of these priest-soldiers decorated with the Legion of Honour or mentioned in dispatches for gallant acts.

The character of these men was filled with the spirit of Christian faith, though the war in which they sacrificed their lives was an outrage against Christianity itself.  The riddle of it all bewilders one’s soul, and one can only go groping in the dark of despair, glad of the little light which comes to the trench of the battlefield, because men like these still promise something better than hatred and blood, and look beyond the gates of death, to peace.

10

Not all French soldiers are like these priests who were valiant with the spirit of Christian faith.  Side by side with the priest was the apache, or the slum-dweller, or the peasant from the fields, who in conversation was habitually and unconsciously foul.  Not even the mild protest of one of these priests could check the flow of richly imagined blasphemies which are learnt in the barracks during the three years’ service, and in the bistros of the back streets of France from Cherbourg to Marseilles.  But, as a rule, the priest did not protest, except by the example of keeping his own tongue clean.  “What is the use?” said one of them.  “That kind of thing is second nature to the men and, after all, it is part of my sacrifice.”

Along the roads of France, swinging along to dig a new line of trenches, or on a march from a divisional headquarters to the front, the soldiers would begin one of their Rabelaisian songs which have no ending, but in verse after verse roam further into the purlieus of indecent mirth, so that, as one French officer told me, “these ballads used to make the heather blush.”  After the song would come the great game of French soldiers on the march.  The humorist of the company would remark upon the fatigued appearance of a sous-officier near enough to hear.

“He is not in good form to-day, our little corporal.  Perhaps it has something to do with his week-end in Paris!”

Another humorist would take up the cue.

“He has a great thirst, our corporal.  His first bottle of wine just whets his whistle.  At the sixth bottle he begins to think of drinking seriously!”

“He is a great amourist, too, they tell me, and very passionate in his love-making!”

So the ball is started and goes rolling from one man to another in the ranks, growing in audacity and wallowing along filthy ways of thought, until the sous-officier, who had been grinning under his kepi, suddenly turns red with anger and growls out a protest.

“Taisez-vous, cochons.  Foutez-moi la paix!”