And yet, to those who willed the war and drank to the day of its coming, even the Cross has no sacredness. It is to them but a tool of war. An officer told me that during the German retreat from the Somme they noticed a peculiar accuracy in the enemy’s firing. The shells followed an easily distinguishable course. So many casualties occurred from this accurate shelling that the officers set themselves to discover the cause. They found that the circle of shells had for its center the cross-roads, and that at the cross-roads was a crucifix that stood up clearly as a land-mark. Evidently the crosses were being used to guide the gunners, and was causing the death of our men. But a more remarkable thing came to light. The cross stood close to the road, and when the Germans retired they had sprung a mine at the cross-roads to delay our advance. Everything near had been blown to bits by the explosion except the crucifix which had not a mark upon it. And yet it could not have escaped, except by a miracle. They therefore set themselves to examine the seeming miracle and came across one of the most astounding cases of fiendish cunning. They found that the Germans had made a concrete socket for the crucifix so that they could take it out or put it in at pleasure. Before blowing up the cross-roads they had taken the cross out of its socket and removed it to a safe distance, then, when the mine had exploded, they put the cross back so that it might be a landmark to direct their shooting. And now they were using Christ’s instrument of redemption as an instrument for men’s destruction.
But our young officers resolved to restore the cross to its work of saving men. They waited till night fell, and then removed the cross to a point a hundred or two yards to the left. When in the morning the German gunners fired their shells their observers found that the shells fell too far wide of the cross and they could make nothing of the mystery. It looked as if someone had been tampering with their guns in the night. To put matters right they altered the position of their guns so that once more the shells made a circle round the cross. And henceforth our soldiers were safe, for the shells fell harmlessly into the outlying fields. Nor was this the only time during their retreat that the Germans put the cross to this base use and were foiled in their knavery.