And now there were no crowds, there was no music. It was a journey more momentous, greater in historical importance, than the Regiment’s triumphant return from the Border, than its flower and flag decked setting forth for Camp Mills. But it was not, like those memorable events, a time for music and pomp. The feeling of the officers and men was one of stern delight, of that strange religious exaltation with which men of Celtic race and faith go into battle, whether the arena be Vinegar Hill, Fontenoy, or Rouge Boquet. As the trainful of happy warriors steamed through the first leagues of the journey to the Front, Father Duffy, the Regiment’s beloved Chaplain, passed from car to car hearing confessions and giving absolution. Rosaries—the last dear gift of mothers and sweethearts—were taken out and by squads, platoons and companies the soldiers told their beads. There was little sleep on the 69th special for Montreal that night—officers and men were too excited, too exalted for that. They had entered at last on the adventure of their lives. General O’Ryan had said that a soldier is a man who always wants to be elsewhere than where he is. This is not true of soldiers of the race to which General O’Ryan’s name indicates that he belongs. They want to be elsewhere—only when they are in some peaceful place. If the Regiment had been restless before, the second and third Battalions were doubly so after they had seen four companies of their comrades go away. But they had not long to wait. On the night of October 29th, the _America_ (formerly the _Amerika_ of the Hamburg-American line) pulled out of New York Harbor. There was no khaki on her decks; the only figures to be seen were sailors and deck-hands. But as soon as the vessel was out of range of spying Teutonic eyes, soldiers poured out of every hatchway. And as they thronged the deck-space available and looked their last for a long time at the lights along the fast receding shore, they showed a contentment, a mirth that amazed the crew, long accustomed to transporting troops. “What’s the matter with you fellows?” asked one sailor. “Ain’t you sorry to be leaving your homes? Didn’t you ever hear there was such things as submarines?” He had helped carry over all sort of soldiers, he said, Regulars, Marines and Guardsmen, but he had never before seen passengers so seemingly indifferent to the grief of leavetaking and the perils of the wartime sea. He couldn’t understand it. He might have been able to understand it if he had read Chesteron’s “Ballad of the White Horse.” For in that wise poem is an explanation of the psychology of the 69th New York, an explanation of the singular phenomenon of soldiers leaving their dear ones and setting out over menacing seas to desperate battle in a strange land as merrily as if they were planning merely an evening at Coney Island. Chesterton wrote: