HEROIC CHAPLAIN

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2932, 18 November 1916, Page 6

HEROIC CHAPLAIN

OF THE SALVATION ARMY (By F. A. M'Kenzie, from the "Philadelphia Public Ledger".) The following article, written by Sir. V. A. M'Kensiie, is quoted from thti "Public Ledger," published in Philadelphia, -U.S.A.:— . . "I have heard of Liout.-Colonel William M'Konzie, the Salvation Army Chaplain in Gallipoli, from an Australian soldier, wounded at Anzac and returned to London. "Wo had a Salvation Army chaplain with us," said the Australian, "and ho was a tig, burly beggar, I can toll you, without a hit of nonsense in him. My! Some of the things ho did would ' make the hair stand on your head. One day wo wore sotting out for one of the 1 worst bits of the whole show. Wo had to storm the stiffest part of the Turkish front, and wo knew very well that not many of us were likely to come "Captain Mac, as we called him, declared he wa* coming with us. 'Boys,' ho said, I've prayed with you and I've preached to you; and do you think I am afraid to die with you? I'd be ashamed of myself'to funk it when you were up against it hard.' And ho came along with me, and not in the back line either. All ho had with him was a little stick, and he came out of the fight without scratch. I do not belong to the Salvation Army, and I'm not likely to belong to it, but I do know a, man when I meet him. And he was a man! "The captain arrived in Egypt with the first contingent of Australian troops, but when in due course they were sent on to the Dardanelles he did not immediately follow. The Australians arrived in Gallipoli late in April, and Chaplain-Captain M'Kenzie reached the front with the first brigade of the Australians the first week in May. At the spot where he landed tho Turkish trenches wore within 50 yards. There had not been as yet any Chaplains there. He was sent for because the boys themselves were most anxious that he should be with them. They knew him and liked him. "The captain's first work was to conduct the funeral service of the colonel of his battalion. In describing this event he wrote: 'I had to lie down-as I read the burial service, for hundreds of bullets- were whistling overhead. I thought 1 was outed on four separate occasions, twice with shells and twico with bullets. 1 "Next day, while ho was conducting a funeral sorvice, a shell fell and exploded close to where he and twenty ■other men were standing. Shrapnel fell all around them, and into the grave, but by a miracle not one of them was hit. "From a series of funerals under fire ho went straight off for twenty-four hours with the mon in the front trenches. 'I may or may not come out of this struggle alive,' he wrote, 'but whatever happens I am more than glad to be with the men and preach Jesus to them and try to live as a militant Christian should. I am supremely happy, and will die for uiy country and in tho interests of the rhon with readiness and without fear.' "He plunged into the new life witli sseal. 170 Burials In 10 Days. : " 'Here we stew in our own gravy,' he wrote at tho time. 'We are well dug iu, sitting tight and in great form; indeed,-ready for anything. I am as brown as a Jap, my nose is skinned, my ears are blistered, and I would pass for a half-caste. I am rapidly developing the instincts of a troglodyte', as I live in a dug-out and sleep on tho hillside where the shrapnel and bullets keep flying about.' "Hero he was, always sleeping fully dressed, ready for every emergency; dirty, as everyone else was, for he could not be otherwise; thirsty,' for although food was plentiful, water was very, very scarce; preaching, teaching, but, above all, living his faith. "In ten days he had read the burial service over 170 men. Then came Armistice- Day, when each went out to claim its own among the fallen in the No Man's Land between the lines. Meeting Under Fire. He established cordial relations even with some of the Turks on that day. One Turkish doctor gave him his visit-ing-card, and told hnn if ever he was taken a prisoner to show it, and ho would come to him. 1 He held meetings constantly. Hero is an account at the time of one of them:— "We had a meeting on Sunday evening on tho hillside just behind our trenches, 150 yards from tho Turks' trenches. We sat around on tho ground, and bad a very fine,' free time. The men entered into the spirit of the meeting with remarkable earnestness, and sang the six' devotional songs with deep religious fervour. A fierce cannonade was in progress from the naval guns, a stiff contest was taking place on our left about a mile distant, and the bullets were continually whizzing over our heads. "We wero 600 feet or so above the sea, which was- a mile and a half away from us, and ,in tho west' the sun was setting in glorious, gorgeous splendour, throwing its scintillating lights and shades over a blue sea of glassy spioothncss. Tho little birds were singing their good-night songs in the bushes close by, the wild flowers were blooming at our feet, and tho newmade graves contained the shattered bodies of tho many heroes who moved and had 'their being among us but a few short weeks ago, and who within these few weeks had given their promising young lives in the causo of righteousness and freedom. These men I sorely miss. My soul was moved to an unwonted degree as my eye took in tliat kaleidoscopic picture. Truly "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." "September found him with the rest of tho Australians at Suvla Bay, and here ho had some of his hottest experiences. In one of tho biggest charges, where ho advanced with the troops, his cap cover was pierced in three places, his baud was hit. and a spent bullet penetrated his right si/le. But these wounds did not stop him, and ho reached the Turkish trenches with tho rest of his brigade. Torturing Thirst. "For twenty-four hours together be searched through these trenches piled with dead aud dying and badly wounded to find his own Australian comrades. Homo of them had laid wounded there amid the terrible heat and torturing thirst for twenty hours and more. ._ "For forty-eight hours he and his fel-low-chaplains worked without any cessation, the most, awful forty-eight hours they had ever lived, and for five days he kept going ■ with brief snatches of rest. Besides helping with-the wounded, he had to conduct burial services over hundreds of men during these days, parties of men being buried in great groups. While conducting a burial of fifteen a bullet whizzed by within half an inch of his right ear, and kiTTecl a man standing by his side. Tlie captain'had been with his regiment in the trenchos for twenty weeks without a break, and the great light came immediately on lop of that. The regiment itself had been reduced to 180 effective men. Even his own iron frame almost broke down under the strain; the want of sleep, the want of food, still worse, the want of water and the eight of the agony which he could do so

little to appease. H© became ;i victim of neuritis, the most painful of all nervous diseases, and suffered agony with'' his back and legs. But be kept on andon and on. A Futile Fight. Winter arrived and brought some relief from the summer torment. The chaplain had lost all his possessions, and all his winter clothes, stolen by strangers on shipboard, but he found opportunity to secure fresh supplies, and returned after a rest, to tbo trenches, with, as ho said himself, "warm clothes, empty pockets, a vigorous body, and a mind to work.' He set about making his winter dugout, and had auyono gone to see him at that time in. his littlo homo dug in the hillside, they would have found him sitting on an old biscuit tin with a box for a table and a rush lamp for a light— a'treacle tin with bacon fat and a thick pieco of string for a wick. A fall of snow created a diversion for thesehardy Anzacs. Thousands of them had never gazed upon such a sight, but all the samo they were soon in the midst of a snowball'fight. Captain Mac looked over the field. How many of his old friends bad gone! How futile it all seemed! "Directly following tbo evacuation of the Gallipoli, Lieut.-Colonel M'Kenzie accompanied his battalion to the Western front, where he is still doing splendid service with the men." '