Evening star., 1943-06-10
Gay Wake for Air
Officer Halted BY
Death, Uninvited
Fate Transforms Purty
Into Argument Over
Mons Immortality
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.
Star Staff Correspondent

BY THOMAS r. HENRY.
Star Staff Correspondent.
STRATEGIC AIR FORCE CAMP.
North Africa.-This is the story of a
wake.
The waning, apricot tinted moon
had risen long after midnight over
the serrated, treeless rim of black
hills and threw veil of eerie light
on cluster of darkened Army tents
in the fiat North African valley.
Over the mountains a dog-or
iackal-was bowling.
From one OF the tents came the
music Of a mandolin fingered softly
and OF a low-voiced. moanful singing
OF the plaintive old English ballad,
Lord Randall, My Son.:
"Oh, mother, dear mother, come
make my bed now,
am tired of hunting and fain
would lie down"
And thus dramatically at am.
came to an end a wierd day and
night in this remote. dry valley-the
headquarters of an American Air
Force unit
Big Party Planned.
It had been hot. lazy Sunday
only one rather colorless bombing of
Panteueria with no combats. There
was temporary letup in the nervous
tension which grips air fighters. A
big night had been planned and was
announced on the officers bulletin
board-a combined birthday party
and wake"
1t was staff officers birthday. 1t
was the last day on duty here of
another of the staff officers who had
been transferred 20 another station
and who was one of the most popular
officers in the whole area. 1t was to
be his wake
Officers had been invited from sta
tions for many miles around. A lot
of American nurses were coming
from nearby tent hospital A
supply of palatable liquid had been
prepared by the resourceful mess
officer.
You certainly picked grand day
to come here said the area PRO, a
former Washington neWspaperman.
In the late afternoon the man
whose wake had been arranged
was killed with two companions in
the most colorless sort of take-of
crackup. He was veteran of scores
OF fights with the Luftwaffes best
and had long since been an ace with
his five victories.
Quickly the news spread about the
camp. The big, frosted birthday
cake quickly was removed from the
outdoor table which had been set in
festive style in the pink bowl of the
Algerian sunset Dinner was a
somber affair and so was the in
formal eettogether at the Niessen
hut officers club behind the mess
tent when the nurses came little
later
But this gathering went on far
Into the night and the late moonrise
after it had resolved itself into an
argument with no punches pulled
but conducted with extreme good
humor on life death. mans immor-
tality and the reality of the human
soul between an atheist colonel. for
merly one OF the countrys best
known music critics. and the camps
Catholic chaplain, a Catholic Uni
versity graduate student OF psychology
five years ago and an authority on
Tomistic philosophy. Others joined
in from time to time with inter-
mediate points of view but these
two were the chief protagonists.
The arguments were as old as the
ages between the skeptic and the
man of faith-between the demand
for rigid proof that one and one
makes two and the willingness to
accept it as intuitive knowledge.
There could be no victory and no
conclusions because the conflict was
behind two types of mind and two
systems Of life philosophy each COM
plete in itself.
Adiourns for Music.
1t went on into the early morning,
when with the utmost good fellow
snip. the whole gathering adjourned
to one Of the tents where the mando-
lin was secured by the well-knoWn
moonlight reconnaissance mel fhod
which produces almost anything in
North Africa on demand at any time.
The eX-muSic critic, it turned out,
was also the poSSeSSor of a voice so
soft that it was lndlStlngulShable
outside the tent. He sang range of
plaintive songs from German leider
to ballads of the Scotch highlands.
1t continued for two hours or more,
when the waning moonlight was
mingling with the orchid lumines-
cence of the rising sun over the
western hills.
The atheist critic and the padre
chanted together the solemn Kyrie
Eleison, Kriste Eleison. and the
strange night ended with the critic
singing the Wierdly appropriate folk
ballad which has come down the ages
OF the English-speaking race:
Oh, mother. dear mother. come
make my bed now.
am tired of hunting and fain
would lie down.
Oh, mother. dear mother, come
make my bed now,
! am tired of hunting and fain
would die now
And not until then. when the padre
insisted he must leave to oficiate at
funeral in the morning. did every
body realize that the strange gather
ing had really been the scheduled
cancel.