Item 04: James I. Marshall diary, 24 November-12 December 1916 - Page 87

[Page 87]

[On Church of England Australian Fund for Soldiers Overseas letterhead]

To Father Kennedy – of the "WHALE-OILS"

We arrived at the Battalion on the 23rd December '16, a batch of Reinforcements numbering 150, many of us looking forward to seeing the Father Kennedy, of whom we had even then heard so much. I had already decided that he certainly must be possessed of a remarkable personality indeed for to be alluded to only as "Father" by men who are non Catholics, and to be called spoken of so familiarly as "a good old b–, one of and the best "of them all" was indeed strange. And yet was it? I recalled numbers of ou[r] priests who appeared in such a light.

However my hopes of meeting him were soon shelved, for he was then away from the battalion for a spell. We were not with the men of the battalion for five minutes before we heard all about him, and heard his marching song sung around the fire at night. But then they told us how great a friend he was of the Colonel of his great friendship with the Colonel. Well, after his the latter's "welcome speech" to us, he stood in a very poor light, and I wondered anew. What they could they have in common? were my