I have a story that, when they were in a
certain part of the line where the trenches were only thirty yards apart
(so close indeed that the opposing forces greeted each other by their
first names and borrowed one another's wiring tools), the Padre dragged
the harmonium into the front line and held service there, and the
Germans over the way joined lustily in the hymns. He kept the men of the
Antrims going on canteen delicacies and their officers in a constant
bubble of joy. He swallowed their tall stories without a gulp; they
pulled one leg and he offered the other; he fell headlong into every
silly trap they set for him. Also they achieved merit in other messes by
peddling yarns of his wonderful innocence and his incredible
absent-mindedness.
"Came to me yesterday, the Dicky Bird did," one of them would relate;
"wanted advice about that fat fraud of his, Peter. 'He's got an abrasion
on the knob of his right-hand front paw,' says he. 'Dicky Bird,' says I,
'that is no way to describe the anatomy of a horse after all the
teaching I've given you.' 'I am so forgetful and horsey terms are so
confusing,' he moans.
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