Page 2 Advertisements Column 2

Taihape Daily Times, 20 November 1917, Page 2

SOMEWHERE ON THE SOMME NEW ZEALANDER’S SEARCH FOR HIS BROTHER’S GRAVE. A DESOLATE SCENE, Dr. H. W. Hills, brother of Mr P. R. Hills, of Colyton, describes in a letter how lie found his brother's I grave on the Somme battlefield: — I o

I have been in the neighbourhood and seen Larry’s grave. I went by the map reference and estimated it as being about 1000 yards due west of the church at Flers. So I took a compass with me and made for that village. First I found it difficult to estimate where the church had been. I hunted among the loose brick rubble and remains of roof and eventually found a book in French on the Catechism. Close by was a rounded arch, so I felt sure I had found the place. Near by were some flowers, and I picked up some larkspur and a kind of red spurge and started on my way. In the street of Flers I found

a discharged tank shell, so I took that too. I made due west and searched. Shell-holes were everywhere, and lines of barbed-wire at intervals. Covering all and hiding it were weeds about three feet high, thistles in bloom, daisies and poppies, and here and there stray ears of ripening barley. I searched for perhaps two hours in vain, and finally climbed to a gunner’s high-roofed dugout, rested, and tried to plan again. I decided to go towards High Wood, which lay bare and sinister close at hand. The trees were stripped, I sa v w no branches with leaves, and only remains of trunks standing up jaggedly. No living being to be seen anywhere. They say 50,000 dead lie in that wood. I saw a road passing through it which went towards Flers, the bleached white road somehow adding .to the sinister appearance of the wood. I struck on the road and traced it among the shell-holes and finally hit on a duckboard path four feet wide and covered with wire netting. Somehow I felt sure this was “Turk Lane,” mentioned by the adjutant in the note enclosed, and which I took with me. And then I passed an abandoned field gun (German, I think) and then found graves each side of the path. I saw New Zealand names on, and so was certain I was right. Then I saw the abandoned tank, made for it, clambered on top, and looked around. I could see no grave, but a trench at right ahgles to Turk Lane. So I made for the junction of the two and found the grave suddenly. It was situated in a large shell-hole and had two crosses. The original one was behind, and consisted of a rifle pointed upwards with a hole cut through the wooden part of the barrel. A bayonet -was stuck through this from each side, and the whole formed a rough cross. In front of this was a wooden cross with three names on it: Rfm. A. Anderson Cpl H. Best Rfm 0. W. Hills, B' Company, 3rd N.Z.R.8., 23rd Sept, 1916. I intended to weed the grave, but somehow it seemed a desecration. The three wnre covered with lucerne two feet and only the heads of the mounds were visible. I picked a handful of harebells and some purple five-petalled small wildflower like a

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