When they had reached the other side and gone into camp, they soon discovered that the first impression they had had of their chaplain held; that he meant to share and share alike with them whatever fell to their lot. Though he rated as captain and had therefore the right to associate with the officers and to mess with them, he didn’t seem to be spending much time at it. He was very good friends with those in authority, who seemed to like him; but he apparently cared more about making friends with the private in the ranks than with the Major, or the Colonel commanding. He was not a joke-maker; he didn’t slap the boys on the shoulder nor shout at them; but he carried about with him an atmosphere of good cheer of a quiet sort. And when, now and then, it came to a contest of wits, and somebody tried to put the chaplain in a corner, he was sure to find his way out with a quick and clever retort which brought the laugh without making things too uncomfortable for the cornerer--unless he deserved it, in which case he was pretty sure to wish he hadn’t spoken.
As to preaching--they crowded to hear him, after the first tentative experiment. The same unescapable logic, the same clear and challenging appeal, the same unafraid plain-speaking which had won Redfield Pepper Burns won these men--who were only boys after all. When it came to the matter of preaching they were keen and merciless critics. They didn’t want to be talked down to; they didn’t like to be beguiled into listening with song and dance; they wanted a man if he were going to speak to them at all to do it without mincing, or setting traps for their attention. They wanted him to look like a man and act like a man--and unequivocally and all the time _be_ a man. In the nature of things, it wasn’t difficult for Robert Black to fill this bill. A great many words have been written in the effort to tell what soldiers want--if they want anything at all--from their chaplain. They are not hard to satisfy, critical though they are and pitiless, when they detect failure to measure up to their requirements. The greatest of these requirements is certainly simple enough and just enough; it’s only what is required of themselves, which is to be men and comrades, to the last ditch.
