OUR NIGHTLY TASK

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1917, Page 4

OUR NIGHTLY TASK

(Daily Mail.) July 5 Theifiglit air blew soft and warm across the trenchland. Here and there lay groups of men crouching. The vigilant silhouette of a sentry broke at intervals the long, monotonous line of parapet. The men listened in silence to the noises of the night . . . the squeaking of rats, the whiz of flares, the steady crunch of pick and shovel, the distant bcotn and slow crescendo ol an occasional shell like a phantom express screeching across the heavens. And in a lonely traverse, wrapped in a shroud of khaki, lay a huddled figure.

There crept round the beihcl a little body of men. Silently they raised the dead body of their comrade. Crouching low, the cortege moved slowly across the shell-torn ground behind the parados, while the thunder of the guns, as though stilled by the hand of Fate, died a wav into silence.

A yawning shell-hole had been fashioned into a rough grave. The body of the dead man was laid beside the upturned earth.,- Two men jumped into the cavity. For an instant the remainder/of the party lay prone on the. ground as a yellow flare traced an arc oflight across the sky, glinting on sieel helmets and pale faces. When the ghostly radiance had given place to obscurity they lowered the body into its. resting-place. The two men in the grave guided it into position. . . ; The white face of the dead man with the pathetically bandaged head stared up at them. He seemed to be mutely expressing his thanks. Reverently they folded his arms across his body. His attitude betokened peace. The little party gathered round. Removing their steel helmets, they stood with bowed heads. The smell of freshly turned-up soil and the unmistakable odour ot decay wafted across their senses. Through each m'an’s mind flashed the unspoken question, “ My turn next ? ” lii that brief instant all the shams and petty deceits of their lives were torn from their eyes. _ They were face' to face with eternity. They saw the Unseen.

An N.G.O. muttered a few words of prayer foreign to his lips. He mentioned their comrade’s name. The familiar appellation of what a few hours ago was living sounded grotesquely out of place as applied to the dead.

. The burial party shovelled the earth over the body till the grave was filled up. On the mound they placed a little wooden cross made from the lid of a ration box. .It recorded simply the number, rank, name, and regiment of the dead. As though to remind them of the stern realities of the present, a distant gun reverberated deeply ; a machine gun spluttered out a sharp rat-tat-tat. And the funeral rites terminated abruptly. It was left to the bursting shells-to sound the requiem. German bullets crooned a mournful funeral song over the last resting-place of the British soldier.