BURIAL PLACE OF 1000 SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2400, 4 March 1915, Page 9

BURIAL PLACE OF 1000 SOLDIERS

"DIED IN HOSPITAL." The special correspondent of the "Daily Chroniole" in North-East France, under date December 20, gives the following touching story of how fallen heroes who have died in defending thoir country are laid to rest: — "For have they not died for oountry and kin ? This morning they were laid to rest, brave fellows, in God's acre on the summit of the hill risin» near the cathedral—a white-sepulchred pinnacle in the centre of an amphitheatre lof rolling hills, with a segment of sea stretching away' beyond. . ' . "The sun shining bright—the first time for many days—in a radiantly blue sky, lighted on a melancholy scene. No gun carriage here, , with TJaion Jack o'erlaid, ana the measured tread of martial jfnoiuners following the bier to the graveside. Just two coffins, side by side in a deep trench awaiting the burial service, a 'small bunoh of white flowers resting on one. One is .a private of the Dublin. Fusiliers, the other a corporal of the 2nd Essex. A Catholic chaplain ciomes, his robes revealing as he walks the khaki beneath. Follows a firing party, who form up oh each side' of the trench, rifles reversed, heads down. "Quietly sobbing there is the corporal's young widow, with her ft motherly woman who has lost a soldier son. : Behind stand reverently the; grave diggers, two or three French people, 'and the writer. : Sonorously in the clear air rings out the priest's appeal to the Almighty. He jind the soldiers presont arms. At once his place is token-by a Church of England priest, not ' thei Chief Chaplain, Dr. Gwynn, Bishop ofKhartum, for he has justleft for, the front. ... "Never have.'the' beautiful i&mple words . of ; the ' burial service sounded i more impressively, more poignantly in .the writer's ears. '.The Lordgave and ■ the L?rd hath taken away.! Once more | the poor, widow was. shaken with sobs, for these last-Tites were, for her beloved I husband,- • > '

"A patise—and' then'the melancholyswoet cadenza of the 'Lust Post' trumpeting the triumph, of these fallen war-' riora ' gone to "their Valhalla. The men m khaki again present arms, about turn and depart. No salvo. It is out of place here. ' An orderly stifles ■ the lugubrious howling of someone's littledog. The clergyman goes to comfort the weeping women. The clods fall. "Day by day his this sad scene been enacted, 'sometimes 20 burials at a time. Over, a thousand British, Boldiora brought back from'the field to die id the ■ Dase hospitals are interred here. One day a tail obelisk will be' erected giving the names of these victims. Twenty-seven offioers have their graves here, including a colonel of the Ist Middlesex.; There are just small wooden crosses with numbers as an indication at present. Crude temporary crosses, with names, have been put up in memory of two captains and a'lieutenant. Here and there are'a few wreaths of immortelles.

"In the officers' section lies a nurse of the Red Cross named Ethel Feamey. She, also, was given the Boldiers' funeral described above. ■ "Fifty yards away:, may be seen a small forest- of . little wooden orosses—. only ,a.small patch'',of ground—the' Germans' sepulchre. Thirtyrthree of them have died in the hospitals here, including a captain .and three lieutenants, and they were given the same honours and rites as our own men. _ "In a day or two there will be a new grave in the British officers' seotion—a young lieutenant who passed away yesterday before his mother could reach him. He died as a soldier would. Was it not Carlyle who asked," "What better could a man than die in the service of his country?"