PRIVATE OREILLY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2531, 4 August 1915, Page 11

PRIVATE OREILLY

'A STORY OF TRENCH LIFE,

I have spent. part of two days in what is left of Belgium (writes Mr. William 6. Shepherd, the correspondent of the "Anierican United Press"), and I find that tho dream of the Belgians is to see their King ride back into Brus< sels. Men and women, boys and girls, merchants and farmers, talk and plan and have .visions of the time when tho "King comes home." > Across tho road from Mme. D 's r little cross-roads country store is a farm-house. I went over there for a glass of milk. Four children crowded round the Belgian farm woman as she talked to.me. "I take cstre of the farm myself," she said. "The children help me, but they are very little, are they not? They like better to take caro of Mr. O'Reilly's grave out in the yard. They farm the flowers 011 it." "May I see Mr. O'Reilly's grave?" I asked. "But certainly, Monseiur. Como with mo." We trooped through the little house to the back door, and there, in tho midst of the black'ploughed land was a huge mound of yellow wood-flowers. "Private Patrick O'Reilly, Dublin Fusiliers, Killed in Action," read the lettering on the white wooden cross. "The children loved him," said the woman. "Oh, did they know him?" "Know him ! Did he not use to live in this house with us? Did.he not bring tho children oranges from the town, and candy ? Was lie not always playing and laughing and making funny sounds like he thought ■ were French words? To hear him talk through his nose, like he said Frenchmen did! How tihe children used to laugh I And I, too. Wo were never afraid of tho shells and the bullets in our house when ho was there. Only half a mile over there, bohind the hill, are the English trendies, and Mr. O'Reilly used to have to go there very_ often. He always used to let the children pull 011 his big woollen mittens for him before ho started out for the trenches. Then lie would give them all one spank apiece and we would all laugh, and then he would start out, and wo would lie in our beds and think of him out there in the cold and wet on the other side of 'the hill where the bullets can hit you. But one morning, when the soldiers came back from tho front of the hill along the road that passes in front of. our house, Mr. O'Reilly was not with them. Pretty soon other men came from the trenches and they were carrying men on stretchers. '"Where is Mr. O'Reilly?' I asked them, . "'Ho is on that stretcher,' said a soldier. . ■ " 'Bring him into his home,' I said. I started to run into the house for some cognac, which is very good when a man is weak, but thoy stopped me, and a, soldier said, 'No use. Mr. O'Reilly is dead.' "Thoy were going to bury him somewhero nearby, and I asked them to mako his grave in our yard. And so thero it is. Wo will always take care of it."