Fr Doyle wrote home following his period of leave in June 1916, recording a somewhat unusual route back to France: “My postcard will have told you of my pleasant crossing, both from Ireland and England, and of my safe arrival here on Thursday evening. On my way over I suddenly remembered a promise I had made, to visit the Sisters of St. Joseph at Newport, Mon., if at all possible and as I had a day to spare I thought I should not do better than drop down there. As luck would have it my ticket ran from ‘Dublin to France’ so I changed at Chester and went down South by the Great Western Railway. Ticket collectors looked rather puzzled to find me so far off the track, but I ended all argument by asking them to deny the fact that I was making my way, surely if slowly, towards France. Had I examined my ticket sooner I might have gone round by the North of Scotland, taken a dive for Cornwall, and so worked on towards the land of frogs and Frenchmen. I had a very warm welcome from the good Sisters, but unfortunately the Mother Provincial, whom I wanted to see, was away on visitation, and the girl whom I had sent to Newport as a novice was in another house some distance away, so I saw neither of them. The following morning I went to London, slept at Farm Street, crossed to Boulogne on Thursday, reaching Bethune about eight the same evening. My travelling companion was a corpulent Major who spent most of the journey getting outside a formidable pile of eatables, with which he provided himself, the whole being steadied by two large baskets of strawberries. For a while I feared he would ’burst’ as the Yanks say, and then uncharitably I hoped he would, as I had had to run for my train and was starving in consequence, but my friend did not offer me a bite. I put up in the hotel that night, and the next morning, Friday, made my way up to the trenches where the Brigade had gone.”7
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:22:04 +0000
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