Tommy by Richard Holmes Page B

could be in this ruin of a rotten civilisation? I have pondered as I sat down after singing a comic song to the men at rest. An amateur comedian struggling to make men forget for one short hour the horrors in the midst of which they live and are called upon to die; always an amateur, always more or less inefficient and untrained, I was typical it seemed to me of the Church I loved and served. 71
    And in
The Unutterable Beauty,
the volume of poetry he published in 1927, he acknowledged the burden:
    Of unpaid – unpayable debt,
    For the men to whom I owed God’s Peace,
    I put off with a cigarette. 72
    It was perhaps in their ability to shift easily between roles that Roman Catholics had the greatest advantage. They were, suggests Stephen Louden, ‘able to minister as priests, dispensing not fags but forgiveness, not just cheer but communion’. 73 Sacramental rituals were at their most valuable when men confronted the terrifying unknown, and there was something ‘commendably professional’ about the average Catholic padre. Irish regiments containing an overwhelming majority of Roman Catholics sometimes celebrated the sort of
grande messe militaire
once seen in the French army, whose drummers beat the long roll of
au champs
at the elevation of the Host. Rowland Feilding’s Connaughts heard High Mass in the village church at Locre on 17 December 1916.
    Three priests officiated. Soldiers, accompanied by a soldier organist, composed the choir, and the battalion bugles sounded the ‘General Salute’ during the Elevation. All was very impressive and, considering that they are only out of the trenches for a few days’ rest, the smart and soldierly appearance of the men was very remarkable. But there is never any difficulty – no matter what the circumstances – in getting a good Irish battalion to turn out well to go to Mass.
    â€˜The intensity of their religion is something quite remarkable,’ he reflected later, ‘and I had under-estimated it.’ 74 Father Francis Gleeson, mounted, with a stole over his service dress, gave absolution to 2/Royal Munster Fusiliers at a wayside shrine as the battalion moved up to attack Aubers Ridge in May 1915: the men, heads bared, within sound of gunfire, then sang the
Te Deum.
The Munsters lost nineteen officers (including their commanding officer and adjutant) and 374 men the next morning: only eight were taken prisoner. The incident formed the basis for Fortunino Matania’s well-known painting
The Last Absolution of the Munsters.
    But not all approved of the line taken by Roman Catholic clergymen. C. P. Blacker attended Mass with the Irish Guards and was shocked to see how the congregation was visibly horrified by Father Leahy’s description of hell. ‘I could not overcome a feeling of distaste,’ he wrote, ‘over the picture of this group of fine men weeping and striking their breasts when what they really wanted was a renewal of faith and a message of comfort.’ 75
    Many Church of England chaplains had to improvise. The Reverend Victor Tanner was in a trench at Passchendaele.
    After another shell fell close I said ‘Now, lads, I am going to ask you to do something which perhaps you have not done yet. I am going to ask you to close your eyes and pray that God will protect and keep the boys in the front line, and that He will extend the protection to us,’ and every man closed his eyes. We could scarcely hear one another’s voices amid the whistling and bursting of the shells. But God heard those prayers. That very trench was blown in during the afternoon and several men were killed or wounded. 76
    But if Anglican clergymen could not produce anything to equal the Connaughts’ High Mass, it is clear that the good ones could indeed engage the spirituality of their flock. Julian Bickersteth put considerable effort into preparing willing soldiers for confirmation, though he noted sadly how death