The Red Vineyard
It was during the summer recruitment drive of 1916, the army seeking soldiers for the First World War effort, that a newly ordained Roman Catholic priest in the Miramichi got caught up in the excitement.
“He got carried away and said yes,” said the Rev. Canon Dr. Ross Hebb. “And it was in the paper the next day.”
The fact that one of his new priests had, without permission, just joined the war effort as a military chaplain did not sit well with the bishop over breakfast the next morning.
But a visit from a colonel smoothed things over, and soon Father Benedict Joseph Murdoch was on his way to Europe to serve as a military chaplain.
What happened there formed the basis of Murdoch’s poignant memoir, The Red Vineyard, published in 1923. And Ross, who has studied and written about the Great War for the past decade, has taken that nearly forgotten memoir and given it new life in his latest literary offering called A Canadian Chaplain in the Great War: Revisiting B.J. Murdoch’s The Red Vineyard.
The memoir was appealing to Ross for several reasons. There were 450 to 500 Canadian military chaplains who served in the First World War, but only two — Murdoch and Canon Fred Scott — published works about their experiences.
Secondly, Murdoch was from the Miramichi, and Ross has an affinity for Maritimers and their war experiences.
“This is a little-known gem that I wanted to bring to life,” said Ross.
The original memoir has about 100 small chapters, and Ross has added to that.
“I’ve written a fair-sized introduction, and as is usual with my books, I’ve written a running commentary about every three chapters or so.”
His own take is there to help readers understand the context and locations, he said.
“After 10 years of writing on the Great War, things obvious to me now are not so obvious to others.”
OFF TO EUROPE
Murdoch joined the 132nd Infantry Battalion, which included men from the Miramichi area and the north shore of New Brunswick. They trained in Sussex, N.B and Val Cartier, Quebec, before sailing to England.
Once there, his battalion was broken up, to Murdoch’s chagrin, and he was shipped to France to work in military hospitals.
As the restrictions on chaplaincy work eased, he found himself as the chaplain for RC men in four battalions, near or on the front lines, which meant a lot of walking, and if lucky, bicycling, between them.
“It was intense, very demanding,” said Hebb, adding Murdoch’s work was focused on the sacramental: offering Mass, Holy Communion and the Last Rights, and burying the dead.
Murdoch’s entire memoir builds to the intensity of August 1918 — The Great Defence of 100 Days — when the Allies broke through the German lines and the end of the war was in sight.
“There are very vivid descriptions of what that was like,” said Ross. “They were under repeated bombing raids and artillery barrages at the front lines, dodging bullets as they moved forward.”
Murdoch was with the doctors, the stretcher bearers and his men at the front, which culminated in a battle at Valenciennes, the last major French city held by the retreating Germans.
Murdoch was in the thick of it, administering the Last Rites to the men fallen all around him.
“He finished the Last Rights on his belly, while the grass above his head was being cut by the German machine guns.”
The war was over two weeks later, but a man does not experience all he did in two years and come out whole. For Murdoch, memories were his constant companion until he died in 1973.
BACK TO NB
But it wasn’t until the spring of 1919 that Murdoch returned home. He continued to serve with his men in Germany in the war’s aftermath. But his superiors realized his frail condition and began the process to send him home.
With him came letters to his bishop encouraging him to allow Murdoch plenty of time to rest and recuperate. His method of coping was to write about his experiences, which he did in 1922. He self-published his memoir in 1923.
For Ross, the opportunity to present the century-old memoir was intriguing.
“I wanted to bring it to life,” he said. “It’s a very good piece of literature, of Canadian literature, of New Brunswick literature, and something people don’t know about.”
The other factor that drew Ross in was the first-hand account of what was then called shell shock.
“Murdoch relates not just his war experience, but how his war experience affected him,” said Ross. “He does that in 1922. That’s very unusual.
“He uses his own experience, presented with humility, and that makes it an extraordinary work. By doing so, he becomes the spokesman for all soldiers, especially those having trouble adjusting to life.”
AFTERMATH
And Murdoch did have troubles. By 1932, it was clear that his days as a parish priest were behind him. With his bishop’s support, he moved to a cabin deep in the woods of Bartibog. There was always someone with him — to keep an eye on him and to celebrate mass with him.
“I don’t think it was lonely at all [living in the woods],” said Ross. “It was explicitly what he wanted. He loved the silence. He’d had enough noise.”
After two decades, he left the woods and moved into a shed next to a rural railway station. Health issues limited him, though he continued to write and self-publish more memoirs, devotionals and several novels, all of which Ross has read as part of his research.
It’s clear Murdoch kept a war journal, as the original book’s descriptions are far too vivid to be from memory only, said Ross. But his shed was ransacked at one point, and all his possessions, presumably including his war journal, were lost.
Had that journal survived, it would be in the Canadian War Museum, said Ross.
Through all this, there isn’t any hint of bitterness or regret in Murdoch’s writing of what the war cost him.
“He saw it as the very reason for his existence, this sacramental ministry to men, preparing them for the possibility of death,” said Ross. “He felt God called him to prepare these men for that eventuality.”
The title of Murdoch's memoir, The Red Vineyard, reinforces his belief in God’s purpose for him: to work in “the vineyard,” as we know it from scripture, but in Murdoch’s case, one awash with blood.
Ross was fortunate to meet Fr. Leon Creamer, Murdoch’s executor, as part of his research. Ross was there to seek permission to write his book, and discovered that Fr. Creamer had written a short book on Murdoch as well.
THE BOOK
As of late September, A Canadian Chaplain in the Great War: Revisiting B.J. Murdoch’s The Red Vineyard is available at Chapters, Indigo, Westminster Books in Fredericton and on Amazon.
Ross has two upcoming book launches:
• Thursday, Oct. 17, 2 p.m. at the Newcastle Public Library.
• Saturday, Oct. 19 at 2 p.m. at the Public Archives of New Brunswick on the UNB campus. Copies will be for sale at both launches at $24.95.
Since retiring in 2022, Ross has finished editing this book, and written an academic paper on the role of the military chaplain for the Canadian Catholic Historical Association. He also takes services in Benton and Stanley once a month.
He's now penned four books on the Great War. He is at work on his next book.
Photo captions:
1. This photo, from wikimediacommons.com, is titled “The Canadian Army in the United Kingdom during the First World War.” It depicts Canadian Army dispatch riders preparing to set out on a training ride across Salisbury Plain on their Douglas 2.75 horsepower motorcycles in January 1915. Military chaplain Fr. BJ Murdoch, before being posted to France, spent time training in the UK.
2. The Rev. Canon Dr. Ross Hebb with his latest book, A Canadian Chaplain in the Great War: Revisiting B.J. Murdoch’s The Red Vineyard.
3. Ross Hebb’s book is a companion piece to B.J. Murdoch’s original memoir called The Red Vineyard.