FORGOTTEN.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14293, 2 March 1912, Page 7

FORGOTTEN.

■ By Donald Macdonald in the Melbourne " Argus." Under tho impulso of sporting enthusiasm a few gentlemen havo in abput as many hours offered to contribute a thousand pounds towards the expenses of an international cricket team. After a dozen years' reflection and somo months of earnest effort, Victoria lias contributed rather less than a" quarter of a farthing per head as a memorial for those dead soldiers who in 'her

namo and for her glory sho was onco ■ proud to send «way to battle, and to tho gravo in which. they lie for- •• gotten. ... It is a pretty and a human conceit to imagine thorn sleeping there content—the dead . and their delusions under, the same -close-wrapping sod.- It is a fancy you sco engraved above the mounds on" "many a South African battlefield. • Thero was tho caso of Major Child, for example, . who fell upon'thc Tugela. 'Ho was'a."cheery*, a popular manj and comrades met him of a morning-with tho pleasaqt grieot-' i_g, "Is it well with tho Child?". His reply. - was- iuva,ritt\>|y the words "now " cut on-tho'gravestone. '* It is well with tho Child." 'Atidiri this human touch, with the pathos of its play upon words, • it seems to the passer-by that' tho « personality of tho.doad survives. Thero is something after all in stone and in an inscription. On a shoulder of AVag-" gon Hill I saw many of'tho-Imperial Light Horsemen rolled in their brown' blankets and laid sido by side. Above them is a noble monument with thcee words, "Tell England, all ye who pass this monument, that wo, who died' serving her, " rest here—content."' - Great, Britain, which-for so-many cenr tunes has never had war brought to her doors, heeds at tirftes the reminder' - that away in the vast spaces of her empire btrangers of ' tho legion that ne?er. was listed have . died - for her. Other lands similarly btessed'ih.peace,' and who havo never, known tho stark realism of war, need a reminder too. " One of the foremost . men in ..\{ e |. bourne m.his day,.on being shoivn.the ' grave of a former employee, killed in bouth Africa, gazed at'it for a lons timo m silence—that pins-point of \oving human contrivance, picked out or ' the brown, immensity of the veldt Then ho said',quietly, "Man, but. it's • ™» lonely H*. These . single gravos, * with the i long marches between—the graves m which most of our dead nj«»n he; and which lack even the! solemn , companionship .of greater battlefields,' are indescribably lonely. *It is the firstteeling that impresses you when yon come upon them suddenly. I never saw - one of them-without thinking of a few lines .of Kipling's, written on quit, another'theme, and witli a different meaning— , - " '" _ 9 -S°'« . M r '- n f-'«m_ cot to mine,*.' ii w . leß npoa V*rndo: %L S *}* c e y m S ° ut «"* far to-night,:' _ho Colour Sergeant ««id.

Sleeping out ■ ond far exactly - ox« presses the feeling. Sleeping out ■_o soundly that even neglect disturbs him not—so far that he is forgotten. Our lost riders with their fast marches suvl scattered fights, aro mostly in lonely graves, „ handful of mortality. _Un%. broadcast over the spaces of* Africa. Here and there a littlo cluster of men, such as those of Elands River, who, fr* tho sake of that one bravo fight, nnd" for the sake of the children otto-da? and the men of' to-morrow, ought not to bo quite forgotten. ■ ■ • -• And we- need, to think oi them before . the end, lying out often alone on the ridges or amongst the rocks, with the night and the shadows fast closing down. -\\„at visions' of hom 0 and country came to a man then—tho unforgettable bluo of his Australian hills, the beneficence of his. gum perfumes, the hundred things so lightly considered m the intimacy- of daily- lite that beconio blessings when- theY are tar off and upon the point of being-lost for over. Think of it—you will' havo somei notion of thc awful loneliness: In the depression of sickness, tho stagnation of camps, and sensations under fire those home thoughts-, will come to you otten and stay with.you long. In the spirit of war you are chancing it, not particularly exalted at the moment by the pleasant-heroics and generous wine of- a patriotic celebration, but having c" m facts and realism, often indcscribl ably horrid in their unimagined sudfsMiness, brought light' home to you. Hitherto you have been familiar with tragedy arranged and composed for tho stage, but in battle it seldom -happens that .way. ; Tho thingsithat .do happen are often grotesque and. indescribably horrid, and in print "they ar.e toned down to harmonise with decent conventions. But as a reality, .whpn thc red gods make their medicine -thoy make it strong and . bitter; —sometimet revolting. . y ' . . : j •It seems a pity—ifc.mtist- bo a reproach.— that so far we havo bceri unable to get a jnstor sense of proportion., a better idea of: tho. calibre, of the men who"played .the bigger game, a fuller measure of remembrance than a quarter of a farthing per head.for their memorial represents.