The old temptations to profanity, drink and lust, that had haunted the soldiers' steps at home, were found to be lying in wait for them here and in aggravated form. True, in the mess and in his presence among the men there was less profanity than there had been at the first, but it filled him with a kind of rage to feel that this change was due to no sense of the evil of the habit, but solely to an unwillingness to give offence to one whom many of them were coming to regard with respect and some even with affection.
“I hate that,” he said to the M. O., to whom he would occasionally unburden his soul. “You'd think I was a kind of policeman over their morals.”
“Oh, I wouldn't worry about that,” said the M. O., to whom the habit of profanity was a very venial sin. “You ought to be mighty glad that your presence does act as a kind of moral prophylactic. And it does, I assure you. I confess that since I have come to be associated with you, I am conscious of a very real, and at times, distressing limitation of my vocabulary. I may not be more virtuous, but certainly I am more respectable.”
This sentiment, however, brought little comfort to the chaplain.
“I am not a policeman,” he protested, “and I am not going to play policeman to these men. I notice them shut up when I come around, but I know quite well that they turn themselves loose when I pass on, and that they feel much more comfortable. I am not and will not be their policeman.”
“What then would you be?” inquired the M. O.
Barry pondered this question for some time.
“To tell the truth,” he said, at length, “I confess, I don't quite know. I wish I did, doc, on my soul. One thing I do know, the men are no better here in their morals than they were at home.”
“Better? They are worse, by Jove!” exclaimed the M. O. “Look at the daily crime-sheet! Look at that daily orderly room parade. It's something fierce, and it's getting worse.”
“The wet canteen?” inquired Barry, who had lost prestige with some in the battalion by reason of the strenuous fight he had made against its introduction since coming to England. Not that the men cared so much for their liquor, but they resented the idea that they were denied privileges enjoyed by other battalions.