“Right you are! Of course, it is only a small percentage, a very small percentage--a much smaller percentage than in our civilian population at home. But small as it is, it is just that much too many. Hell and blazes! These men are soldiers. They have left their homes, and their folks, to fight. Their people--their people are the best in our land. There's that young Pentland. A finer young chap never threw a leg over a broncho. He's in that tent hospital to-night. I know his mother. Three sons she has given. Oh, damn it all,” the doctor's voice broke at this point. “I can't speak quietly. Their mothers have given them up, to death, if need be, but not to this rotten, damnable disease. Look here, Pilot!” The doctor pointed a shaking and accusing finger at Barry. “You have often spoken against this thing, but next time you break loose, give them merry hell over it. You can't make it too hot.”
Long Barry sat silent overborne by the fury of the doctor's passionate indictment.
“Cheer up, old chap!” said the doctor, when his wrath had somewhat subsided. “We'll lick the Kaiser and beat the devil yet.”
“But, doctor, what can I do?” implored Barry. “That's part of my job, surely. Part of the job of the chaplain service, I mean. Oh, that is the ghastly tragedy of this work of mine. Somehow I can't get at it. These evils exist. I can speak against them and make enemies, but the things go on just as before.”
“Don't you believe it, Pilot, not quite as before. Behold how you have already checked my profanity. Even the old man has pretty much cut it out at mess. You don't know where they would have been but for you. Cheer up! Our wings may not be visible but, on the other hand, there are no signs of horns and hoofs.”
“Doctor, one thing I'll do,” cried Barry, with a sudden inspiration “We've a meeting of the chaplains' corps to-morrow. I'll give them your speech.”
“Expurgated edition, I hope,” said the M. O.
“No, I'll put in every damn I can remember, and, if need be, a few more.”
“Lord, I'd like to be there, old boy!” said the doctor, fervently.
Barry was as good as his word. At the meeting of the chaplains' corps, the time was mainly taken up in routine business, dealing with arrangements for religious services at the various camps within the area.