We knew a German gun across those fields was even then trained on this spot and would pay its respects in about one minute. Plummer tried to kick and shake life into the machine; I did the praying. Just before lay ruins of the old church. I thought of the countless times Holy Mass had been offered there, and humbly I asked God to spare me and my boy, to turn aside from us the stroke of death--but,
"Boom!" Across the fields came the sickening report! Ordering Plummer to throw himself to the ground, I was in the act of alighting, and was partly free of the machine, when the shell burst, about one hundred feet away. My right arm seemed to burn; but I was alive, and flat on the ground. Breathlessly we waited, like a boxer in his corner, until the next shell came over. This struck about a block away. At once we sprang to our feet and rushed into the shelter of Death Valley. Plummer was unhurt; but I was slightly bleeding from right arm and left leg. They were but scratches; and most humbly I thanked God for sparing us.
"Well, Chaplain, they winged you this time," said good Captain Cash, Abilene, Texas, Medical Corps, when I reported. My right forearm was broken, but nothing serious enough to make me an ambulance case.
I never recall those really worth while times without being reminded of a certain Lieutenant whose name I do not feel at present free to reveal. The attending circumstances were so deeply pathetic, and his confidence in me of a nature so sacred, I will but narrate the details without divulging his identity.
Handsome, generous, brave, highly competent in military art, he was as skillful in getting action from his giant gun as he was masterful in evoking music from his violin! If there was anything his platoon boys admired more, even than himself, it was the music of his ever generous, ever delighting violin. Deep in some dugout we would gather around him. Tenderly and fondly he would take the instrument from the battered box, patting it like a young mother her baby's cheek.
Beginning with some light popular air in which all would vocally join, he would soon glide like a spirit of melody to the unprofaned height of the music masters. Bach was his favorite. And when, with the mute, to soften the waves from unfriendly ears, he would interpret some symphony of the soul, we would forget our grim surroundings and dream we "dwelt in marble halls."