1 Please ask Linn to thank Nellie for her letter received yesterday. 8thRoyal Irish Fusiliers,
B. E. Force
France.
24 March 1916. My dear Father, Unless I chance upon my imagination I
am afraid this letter will prove rather uninteresting,
as I have little news to give you, no thrilling "hairs-breath"
escapes to account, (possibly because I have had my few
remaining locks cut recently), nor can I ever say that
thanks to a magnificent piece of horsemanship I
escaped a happy dispatch to a better world by jumping
over a passing shell. I must only fall back upon a
description of my day's work last Sunday, which
will show you that, at times at least, I am kept
pretty much on the go. I started at seven in the morning by giving Holy
Communion to the men whose confessions I had heard
the previous evening, a goodly number I am
glad to say. This was followed by a number of
confessions in French for the townspeople and
some French soldiers — I am quite ready to face
any language at the present moment. This brought
me up to nine when my own Last Mass Parade.
By chance the whole regiment were in the village 2
which meant of course that the church would
not hold them, so I had arranged for Mass
in the open. The spot I selected was a large
courtyard in front of the school& whereby hangs
a tale. Armed with the Mayor's permission I
approached the schoolmaster for his sanction
and, I must say, found him most obliging
and very gracious, even helping to get things
ready. It was only afterwards that I discovered
that this man was a red-hot anti-clerical,
anti anything that was good in fact, quite
a bad lot, so that my request was about
the same as asking the Grand Master of
the Orange Lodge in Belfast for permission
to have Mass in his hall. He was so staggered
I suppose, by my innocent request he could
not find words to refuse, but the good folk
of the town are wild with delight and immensely
tickled by the idea of Mass in the porch of
his school above all people; needless to say
they have rulledit into him well. I had never celebrated Mass in the open air
before and I think the men were as much
impressed as I was. It was a glorious morning,
with just a sufficient spice of danger to
give the necessary warlike touch to the
picture by the presence of a German airoplane
scouting near at hand. I was a nice bit
anxious lest a local might come down in