A Promise in Wartime

“When you make a promise to God, do not be slow to keep it.” — from Ecclesiastes 5

In 1917 Jack went to study at Oxford University. But there was a great war, and most of the young men were away fighting. Because he came from Ireland, Jack did not have to join the army. He chose to join anyway.

Jack trained to be an officer at a college called Keble. He shared a room with a young man named Paddy Moore. Paddy was almost exactly his age, and Irish like him. Paddy’s mother, Mrs Moore, had come to Oxford to be near her son, with his little sister Maureen. Mrs Moore was warm and kind, and she made Jack welcome.

Jack and Paddy made a promise to each other. If one of them was killed in the war, the one who lived would look after the other one’s parent. Maureen remembered this promise many years later.

Jack reached the trenches in France on his nineteenth birthday, 29 November 1917. It was cold and muddy and very hard. In April 1918 there was a battle near a French village. Some sixty enemy soldiers came out of the smoke with their hands up and gave themselves up to Jack. He said he was just glad they wanted to!

The next day, 15 April 1918, a shell burst close beside Jack. He was hurt in his hand, his leg and his chest. A kind sergeant called Harry Ayres, who had looked after Jack, was standing next to him, and he was killed. Jack got better in hospital, but a tiny piece of metal stayed in his chest for many years.

Paddy did not come home. He had gone missing in the fighting in March, and later his family learned that he had been killed. He was only nineteen.

War is a very sad thing, and Jack did not like to talk about it. But even when he did not yet believe in God, God was holding his life in his hands. And Jack had made a promise. Now he would have to keep it.

Dear God, please be with everyone who is in danger because of war today. Help me to keep my promises, even when it is hard. Amen.