Last night we heard the crunching roar six times repeated in the field just across the road. Flannery and I got up and pulled on our shoes to go over and see what happened. Mules had been hit and two of our men slightly wounded. The bombs made holes in the soft earth, ten feet deep and nearly twelve in diameter, and one of them had fallen at the feet of two of our lads and had not exploded. I was particularly anxious about a lot of nice youngsters whom I had picked out after St. Mihiel for the Band—John Kyle, Robert Emmett Mitchell, Howard Casey, Pat Campion, Will Maroney, Will King, George Forms, John Killoran, Denis Glynn, Will Howard,—all lads that had volunteered before they were eighteen. I found them unharmed and rather enjoying the show. Lieutenant Bernard Byrne, who is not long with us and whose experience in warfare has not been of great duration, was ordered from the Supply Company a couple of days ago to duty with Company G. His first night in line he took out a patrol which he handled admirably and came back with two prisoners. A very good start indeed. Everybody has slept in his clothes for weeks. It would not be true to say that we never take them off, because that is part of the morning, though not of the evening ritual. Every morning officers and men, refined or roughneck, strip to the waist for the process of “Reading his shirt.” Not to put too fine a touch to it, we are all crawling with lice. Holmes has a boy who is at the interesting age of four, and his wife writes to him the usual domestic stories about his bright ways and sayings. “You ask her if that kid can read his shirt. Tell her I said that his old man can do it.” Mrs. Holmes sent word back to Father Duffy that while the youthful prodigy had not all the accomplishments of a soldier he could hike with any of us. I did not get the message for weeks afterwards, as my brother Chaplain was very much run down and Major Lawrence and I shipped him off, despite his protests, to the hospital. I do not need to worry about Father Hanley. As long as Ambrose Sutcliff’s Goulash Wagon can supply him with an occasional meal, he will keep going any place I put him—though that is not the right way to phrase it, for I always have to keep him pulled back from the places where he thinks he ought to be. I think I will take both my Chaplains home with me to the Bronx as curates. A Catholic church with a Methodist annex would be a novelty. Back in the peaceful days, a Jew friend of mine whom I was showing over my combination church and school said to me, with the quick business sense of his race, “You use this building for Church on Sunday and for school five days in the week. The only day it’s idle is Saturday. What you ought to do is to hire a good smart young Rabbi and run a synagogue on the Sabbath. I’ll bet you’ll make money at it.”