LATE BRIGADIER-GENERAL C. H. J. BROWN

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3182, 5 September 1917, Page 5

LATE BRIGADIER-GENERAL C. H. J. BROWN

BURIAL ON THE BATTLEFIELD. (From Malcolm Boss, Correspondent with,' : the New-Zealand Forces in the Field.) • Northern France, June 13. ' Tho news of tho death of Brigadier- - General C. H. J. Brown, D.5.0.,,'.. N.Z.S.C., so soon aftor his brigade had, reached tho farthest lino in the Battle of Mcssincs to which Now Zealanders wero ..■■ asked to go, spread quickly throughout the division, and was received with:''. marked expressions of deep regret. A quiet, unobtrusive man, painstaking, and thoroughly sincere and' conscientious, ho had already won the respect and • the "affection of lua staff and of his men* He it was of whom I wrote in one of my earlier telegrams that, ju6t after the cap-' ture of Messines, he had walked all along -i his front line and reported everything; : satisfactory. This he had done in the.:: face of heavy enemy shelling. He succeeded in gotting safely back to his Headquarters during the day. Next day, white -. walking at the front in. company v"tt other officers, an enemy shrapnel shellburst low overhead, killing him instantly. It -was a mournful little group of New ; Zealand officers that subsequently gather--ed for the funeral. Among those vbo attended were General Brown's corps and . divisional commanders. Representatives of the French and, Belgian Missions also were present. The' body was borne to the . grave by a brigadier-general and five colonels, the band of a New Zealand regi- . ment playing the Dead March, in haul. ; The little procession made its way down, a pathway, bordered now by many hundreds of wooden crosses, and gathered, around the* grave to listen to the beautiful words of the "burial service read by the padre who had slipped a surplice ■ over his khaki. , It was a beautiful summer day> the trees were at their best, and the fields wore gay with wild flowers. As wo went 'down the narrow path / between the, crosses with our laden stretcher, other - stretchers, empty, were returning down another lane. And all the time the planes came and went,,their droning forming a. • strange accompaniment to the padres , monody. Beside the grave, bare-headed, ■(. stoodthelateGeneral'spvratwo&ons. It is \ not often that one could bei witnessj of,. such- a scene on the battlefields of Flan-,: ders. Our heaTts.went out to them. Here r; were these two young New Zealanders . who had come <«o many thousands or miles from the Antipodes burying their, own father within s onnd of the guns , in the battle in which all «nee.had fought. One's thoughts flew back, too, across tho leagues of distance to our _own.-. land where tho widow and.the mother would have the deep sympathy of all whose privilege it was to know fl» »,- band,and the father, and especially to know the soldier. \ ■, . ~■ ■; Then the final words of. the Wser ; vice and the bnglo notes of,-,* Lost Post,' tZtiful yet s£l, as his oojnrjtatag : him in his reshng-place: .'Ho useless, coffin enclosed his .breast ; it; jra a v simple soraler's funeral. .The.two boys toofa last look, and.thelittle P™» re-formed and marched I *- mnafcerv The hand marched to a . Hvdy toe. Then generals' and he otter the two sons of the dead; wS.went back to their more determined, perhaps, to fight on.