Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 3]
biting my fingers in agony and wondering how much more I could stand without crying out, and so I wonder could our sufferings in the trenches on the Somme have been so acute, and yet I remember feeling that I had reached the last stage of physical exhaustion, dragging one weary leg after another, hoping that I might be wounded and be released from the torture of what I felt was the utmost "limit".
It was at this point I became aware of the Crucifix standing in the shadows of the dwarfed poplars with its pathetic figure of the suffering Christ and its inscription "Ecce Homo" - Behold the Man.
I want to speak of these French Crucifixes. No doubt you have read of the peculiar fact that they seem mysteriously to stand when everything else in its immediate vicinity was battered beyond recognition. I can testify to the truth of that. In such places familiar to the history of the War for the fiercest fighting, Longueval, Mametz Wood, Delville Wood and elsewhere, I have seen the crucifixes looking down on the scarred and battered roads, and every tree and thing that once stood, torn down near it. I think there is something good in the idea of drawng man's attention in his daily life to the supreme sacrifice of the Christ; but like everything, the sight of the crucifix becomes so familiar that to those who see it daily, it becomes of no account and is forgotten,
To British troops, it is unfamiliar and never have I heard a word of blasphemy concerning it, and I have often wondered have any in their stress of mind been touched by it. It was just such a crucifx of bent-iron work with the figure of the suffering Christ that caught my attention on our march out from the Somme and made me think deeply. We were toiling along, eyes on the ground - every footstep torture from blistered feet, picking our way, every muscle of the body aching with fatigue and the exposure of a fortnight to the elements.
At such a time our minds are dwelling on what we had escaped and hoping that the shells now becoming fewer and fewer
(3)