miracles are the business

IN front of the steel crash barriers more commonly associated with rock concerts and festivals, the Italians mill, elbows jutting and guarding against the queue-jumpers. Every so often the gates are opened and the little wizened man with his Red Cross armband makes way for the stretchered sick. Or the faltering mentally handicapped. Or the tip-tapping blind with their canes. Or the wheelchair bound. Or the nearly dead. The Italians, in their uniforms, must wait.

So they stand patiently, bizarrely. The single brown feather in their green felt caps stands also, the shimmers of its fine strands caught in the warm sunlight. And they stand. Waiting. An hour passes; and they stand. And then they pray.

From the inside of their green military jackets, decorated with a splash of regal purple, each pulls a set of well-worn, wooden rosary beads. ''Ave Maria . . .'' they say, before the words descend into a muttered mumble. ''Sancta Maria . . .'' Their voices rise before their words slip again into the unintelligible, until only the quick movement of their lips reveals they are praying.

A short while later - 10, perhaps 20, minutes pass, who knows how many decades of the Rosary - and the old man with the Red Cross armband opens the gate to allow the Italians inside. I follow, while outside the crowds grow longer. The French, German, Spanish, more Italians, Croatians, Canadians, Ukrainians: an A to Z of military and militaria. Rarely are so many soldiers from so many different armies gathered together; never for such a jarring, jolting reason.

The soldiers - men of war, perhaps as

peace keepers, but war still - have come together to pray. To make their Catholic pilgrimage to Lourdes. Inside the waiting area, there is little of the hustle and bustle, the raised voices that chirp in foreign languages, those voices that are silenced, momentarily, every five minutes or so when an instruction to ''shhhhhhhhhh'' is issued, like a sibilant hiss, over the tannoys which surround the Grotto. In the waiting area, the loud-speakers issue no such instructions. Instead the Hail Mary, intoned in Latin, is repeated in a gentle, genderless voice. Repeated until it disappears; transformed into nothing more than a peaceful, reassuring background sound, like birds chirping.

So they sit and pray while I think about them, try to understand what brings them here. I read the little green leaflet handed out by the old man with the Red Cross armband. ''Water is a sign of the love of Christ who gives his life for sinners. Water is a sign of Baptism that has given us life as the children of God. Water is a sign of the Sacrament of Penance, in which God offers us forgiveness, purification, reconciliation,'' it says. Is this why they come?

The story of Lourdes is a simple one. It begins, according to Catholic belief, specifically. On Thursday, February 11, 1858, a poor shepherdess named Bernadette Soubirous was sent to collect firewood to warm the former prison cell where she and her family lived. She went to the woods with her sister and her sister's friend, but, when Bernadette stopped to remove her shoes and socks, her companions deserted her.

Bernadette continued to collect wood on her own until she heard a strong wind blowing. At that point, she looked up and noticed that the trees were not moving. She looked around her and there, in a hole in a rock where pigs sought shelter, was a vision of a woman dressed in white with a blue cincture, a yellow rose on each foot, rosary beads in her hands. The vision said nothing and Bernadette ran, frightened.

A week later Bernadette returned to the rockand the vision appeared again. This time the vision spoke to Bernadette in her local dialect. ''Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou,'' it said. (''I am the Immaculate Conception.'')

The vision asked Bernadette to come to the Grotto each day for two weeks. On each of these days the vision gave Bernadette a new message for the world, but the world did not want to listen. Most people - especially the priest - in Bernadette's village thought her mad. But, eventually, they came to believe the stories she told, the messages which said there was a need for penance, a need for prayer, and a need for the faithful to come in procession.

During the ninth apparition, Bernadette heard the vision say: ''Would you mind going down on your knees, kissing the ground, eating the grass that is there - for sinners. Go drink at the spring and wash yourself there.'' The ground was dirty, the grass bitter, the water foul, but Bernadette carried out the vision's instructions. The villagers who had come with Bernadette that day were disgusted with her; they slapped her and abused her, before taking her before the public prosecutor.

Catholics believe this scene to be a metaphor of Good Friday, and by washing in the water Bernadette purified her soul and her heart. So now they come too, to wash in the water, to drink it, to make themselves purer and closer to their God.

So the Italian soldiers have come. Have come with their rosary beads and whatever dream or goal they wish to have realised. Around them are the sick. An old man in a naval uniform lies in a bed, a white tube sticks from his throat, three monks dressed in grey habits chant prayers beside him. They are young men, not old, and the sight looks a little strange: three young men of God trying to help an old man who has dedicated his life to more base, worldly, things.

The monks hold oxygen cylinders, portable machines with gauges and orange pin lights. The old man lies back with his ashen face, eyes closed. He doesn't look as if he will survive much longer; around five pilgrims die each day in Lourdes.

A few minutes later and the Italian soldiers and I are ushered into the baths; 17 of them were cut from the rock in 1954. The soldiers are ushered behind a blue and white deck-chair-striped curtain that looks as if it has been ripped from its place at a municipal swimming pool. The attendant ushers me into another changing room where I strip before going through to the baths. I try to think of religion, spirituality. Nothing comes.

The baths are not the rocks caves I expected, but level concrete flooring, steps leading down to

the water, blue tiles surrounding it all. I walk in to the water, barely above freezing.

The attendants urge me to say prayers. Then I walk forward to the end of the bath. Crouch forward. They throw me back. The cold paralyses almost every muscle. My lungs contract. Breath is exhaled in a burst. ''Mother of God. Pray for us. St Bernadette. Pray for us,'' they say. And I leave.

The shock of the cold water makes my legs weak, tingly. So, outside, I stop to watch the sick pilgrims. I watch the dying, made bald by chemotherapy. Watch them take their dreams and their hopes; take them to the waters where they pray for salvation; pray the waters will wash away their diseases and disabilities; watch them disappear behind the curtain before they return a few minutes later, their heads dripping that holy spring water.

They appear no different; but, perhaps, mentally they have changed, found the comfort they were looking for. It was their choice, their hopeful dream to come here,

we can only hope that they found what

they sought.

But then I watched the mentally retarded. Brought by their parents, dressed in clothes that brand them. Acrylic jumpers, flared jeans, too big glasses. Retard, they say. And their parents take them, smiling, grimacing, expressionless, into the baths. And they come out with their wet hair and their smiling, grimacing, expressionless faces a few seconds later. Oblivious.

They have understood nothing of what they have experienced; never dreamed of any of this. The baths are for the sick; they are mentally handicapped. For whose benefit were they submerged?

In the hotel later, Father Vincent clutches at my arm. In his warm Kelvinside accent, never lost despite his years at sea, he says: ''Everyone comes to Lourdes for different reasons. There are as many reasons as there are pilgrims; not all of them are selfless.''

The First Sorrowful Mystery (Revised): The British Military Come to Lourdes.

For a journey with such seraphic goals, it has a rather base and unconventional beginning. At the number 58 departure gate in Gatwick Airport, the captain of the anonymous charter aircraft announces to the waiting soldiers, disguised but still obvious in their civvies, that ''technical difficulties'' were inflicting at least a two-hour delay on her aircraft's departure. A few minutes later, she explains a little further.

''There is a problem with the toilets on the plane, they are out of order. We can either wait two hours for them to be fixed or we can take off now. It's a one-and-a-half-hour flight, it's up to you. All in favour of taking-off raise your hands now.'' And so began the British contingent's journey to the 40th international military pilgrimage.

Such a start, such initial concentration on lavatorial matters, appears a little inappropriate to a pilgrimage, and what met them at Lourdes, the first sight of that holy place, was little better. The town of Lourdes itself, it made clear, in neon overtures, from the outset, was fully prepared to drag things even further down-market.

Lourdes nestles at the base of the Pyrenees. In May, the weather is warm but still cloudy, and the clouds glide over the mountains, draping them in an organza haze. Everything lies in soft-focus, caught in a Vaseline-smeared lens like a forties film star.

Tree tops peak through their cloud covering, breaking the white with a deep, spring green. The Pyrenees mountains appear as rainforest, green and lush, garishly benefiting from a continuously nourishing low cloud base. Such scenery is perfectly idyllic.

In the centre of Lourdes stands the castle: a towering grey building which dominates the town. Only the cheap-but-strong wood scaffolding and its nauseating smell of deep, long-felt dampness, spoils its appearance: much of the building has become worn with age and its temporary support structure is ugly, pungent and unpleasing, yet its history and imposing presence save it still.

In the winter, when the pilgrims are few and the snow lies heavy, Lourdes no doubt seems like any small, south-western French town. It has a little market, functional and picturesque in equal measures; a moderately successful rugby team, shut down for the season; the characteristic boulangeries, patisseries, smoky cafes and restaurants, all decorated in the virginal white of fresh-fallen snow. But in the summer, things are different: never so pure or unspoilt.

After Paris, Lourdes is the second most important area of France to the nation's hotel trade. Each year more than five million tourists from 150 countries stay in one of the town's 360 hotels and 20 campsites (each with names like Hotel de Vatican and Hotel de la Madonna); seven million postcards are sent back home to expectant families and friends, wish you were here (as the Lord is). Such volume can but drag commercialisation with it, and what commercialisation! Lourdes is the home, the shrine, the church, the basilica, the cathedral of Ecclesiastical Tat.

Its two main roads meander, twisting through the town, before terminating abruptly at the Grotto. Each is lined with garish ecclesiastical souvenir shops.

Luminous statues of the Virgin Mary - the rocks double as an ashtray!; Sacred Hearts - watch the blood pump from his chest!; Lourdes (Mary) Mints - they're stamped with the Madonna!; Holy Queens - enjoy those flashing fairylight aureoles!; Plastic renditions of the Grotto - they come complete with water pump!; 3D pictures of Christ on the Cross - give it a tilt and watch him die! Roll up! Roll up! Get your souvenirs of God and Mary! Something to remember them

both by!

As the British contingent arrive, soldiers from other nations browse in the shops. Picking up the Virgin Mary keyrings. Laughing at the Jesus junk with their friends. The pilgrimage, and the town, have moved on, pushed to this by the profit-making urge.

''I have been coming, on-and-off for almost 25 years,'' says Father David Ward, an army chaplain. ''The commercialisation has been greater and greater each year; all the padres have a competition to see who can come back with biggest piece of Holy rubbish.

''There is not too much that can be done about it, people want something to remember their time here. But as long as the Grotto stays the way it is - quiet and peaceful, free from all that tat - then Lourdes will still remain uniquely special to me.''

Despite the problems caused by the shops and their tasteless marketeering, Lourdes is special to many Catholics, and to many soldiers. The international military pilgrimage met first in 1948 as a way of bringing French and German soldiers together after the horrors enacted during the Second World War. Since then, the number of both countries and soldiers has risen steadily; this year there are some 40,000 soldiers, partners, friends and associates, more than ever before.

From the beginning, reconciliation has been one of the main themes of these military pilgrimages, but always it is only time that allows reconciliation. After the Falklands War, the British and the Argentinian soldiers kept apart: wounds were too raw; the dead too recent. Today they are more tolerant of each other. But other wounds lie open still. The Bosnians and Croatians have no desire to be reconciled; the miasma of hate poisons the air between them. In time, it will dissipate; perhaps religion and pilgrimage will hasten the process, at least for some.

Yet at the opening ceremony in the underground Basilica of St Pius X - a huge sprawling concrete car park which houses some 20,000 worshippers within its brutalist walls - there are no resentments, only the cheering of flags, the raucous approval of national identity, preceding the drunkenness of later.

In the bars after the ceremony - when the brass bands have finished trumpeting, the drummers have finished drumming, the pipers have finished piping - the soldiers gather. The British contingent are generally officers or cadets from Sandhurst - in the army, religion is an officers' game. ''Your average squaddie will go out on a Saturday night, drink himself silly and shag anything that moves. With that and peer-group pressure, they are hardly going to make it to mass on a Sunday,'' says Father Martin.

So the cadets, Ruperts and Robs, order too much beer in their public school accents and find themselves drunk too quickly. Then the rugger-bugger stuff, toned down immensely, comes into play. ''I say,'' shouts one. ''The Irish are completely bonkers. One of them has just told an officer to fawk off.'' Tame stuff really, but, in the morning, its occurrence

is obvious.

Six a.m. An Irish officer cadet is seen sneaking from a bedroom. One of the British cadets staggers from the hotel, late for the morning march to the Grotto mass. As the band starts up and the marching begins he concentrates fully. His arms move in time. His legs don't. They swing out of time, one crossing over the other. His internal metronome dulled by drink.

Their march ends the Grotto where all is peaceful. Six, perhaps seven priests wait patiently at the side of the altar for the Ukranians to finish their mass. The Ukranians then file out slowly as the British begin their mass with typical, rousing Catholic hymns. Mary McAleese, the Irish president, gives the first reading.

When she, and the mass, are finished, the Italians arrive in their thousands (the country still has national service); they sing in much louder voices than the British contingent, participating, effected or affected, more. It is easy to see the importance of religion (and toned-down mass hysteria) in Lourdes.

Later in the day, the British gather at Calvaire to take part in the Way of the Cross ritual. The ground is rough and stony, the hill steep. One army sergeant takes his shoes off and climbs the hill, through the 15 spread-out stations, barefoot. ''I've done things this

year I'm not proud of, and I just wanted to make amends for them,'' he says. ''Bloody exhibitionist,'' says a chaplain.

Just before the midday sun begins to darken on Lourdes, the Blessing of the Sick begins on the Esplanade du Rosaire. A steady procession of soldiers, airforce personnel, navy men and women, push the sick and the dying in their wheelchairs and hospital beds along the esplanade. Flags flutter in the wind. Bands play triumphalist music. A priest grabs my arm. ''That's what it's all about. The military from so many countries coming together, not to fight, but to care for the sick, do something for others in front of God,'' he says.

The First Joyful Mystery (Revised): The Colonel Converts Though Others Are Not So Likely.

The sole Scotsman is instantly recognisable. The tartan trews and hat stand out in the crowd of more staid uniforms. Lt Col Andy Middlemiss, from Edinburgh, divisional colonel of the Scottish Division, is probably not the sole Protestant in Lourdes, but he

is certainly in the minority. ''I am not a Catholic, but I have been married to one for 23 years and I have always went to church with her,'' he says, in impeccably Edinburgh English. ''I have meant to come to Lourdes for a long time and I am glad I came, especially with the group.

''This place has given me something to focus on, more so than church. Am I going to convert? I think I might.''

At the hotel, the slightly camp priest plays with his drink. ''God, we've had quite a few saying they want to convert this year. The older ones are genuine, but the younger

ones . . . Catholicism is not about getting pissed in Lourdes for five days, but I have to admit that it's fun.''

Heaven can wait: the ill and infirm wait in their hospital beds and wheelchairs for the Blessing of the sick

God of small things: an Italian soldier falls to his knees at the statue of the Madonna, main picture, and far left, a nun fills a bottle in the shape of Mary with the water of Lourdes.

Above, a selection of some of the trinkets and ornaments on sale in one of the many kitsch souvenir shops