THE LAST POST.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4579, 7 June 1917, Page 3

THE LAST POST.

“JUST THE SUPREME SACRIFICE.”

BE COMFORTED, YE

(By Harold Begbie.)

The other day there died 1 in France a hoy from Glaycsmero School, who had been loved by all'who knew him. He was a boy’s hero, a mother’s hero, and the pride of his regiment. He had won the Military Cross and the D.S.O He died in the flush and rapture of his youth. His mother’s letter to the Headmaster has been printed in the school magazine, with the story of his end, in language so moving apd so beautiful that I .wish to give it a wider public. This boy was in the Rifle Brigade, and his colonel said to him: “He Avas the host company commander by far that I have seen out here As I said in my rec-

commendation of him for a D. 5.0., ho Avas the finest type of fighting officer I have ever seen.” A telegram from tho "War Office came to the boy’s home one day telling his parents that he had been seriously wounded. and that they might Adsit him at Abbeville. The father Avas unable to go, but the mother and another son started for France. They arrived an hour and a half too late, and yet not too late for such a farewell as will live in there souls for over. This is Avhat- the mother says:—

i “We saw him in tho mortuary, looksuch a soldier, and the dear forehead Avas hardly cold Avhen I kissed it. Ho Avas covered Avith the Union Jack, and l lay in front of the little altar, just the f supreme sacrifice. Wo stayed to the | funeral, early Thursday, Avhen a Captain Johnson and three privates shared the same service. One other mother was there, aaaljo had nursed her boy for some days ere he Avent, and we three mourners stoods in the glorious sunshine, thq blue sky piled with grand banks of Avhite clouds, and when the service Avas over the buglers saluted us and them, and. standing betAveen us and the open graves, •sounded tho ‘Last Post’ and the “Reveille’ as I have never heard them before. It must have Dolled beyond the clouds, and down the A r uults of heaven till J * — himself must have heard it. Then we hastened hack to England to tell the news avo dared not wire.” When you read these few words do you not- seem to see in tlii s one mother and this one son the Avhole human tragedy, and also the Avhole human glory of Avar? The boy avas what he Avas because of that breast Avhich had fed him, those arms Avhich had held him, that love which, had enriched him, inspired him, and consecrated ills young soul. And tliis devotion of tlie mother has for its end a grave in France. There aviis the brave parting in England when he went out. to figlm and then the last kiss on the “dear forehead Avliich Avas hardly cold.” And yet there Avas no agonised cry of revolt from the mother, no furious imprecations, and no bitterness of soul. For the soil, death in the glory and beauty of his youth; for the mother, a memory of all he was to her from infancy to tho hour of fai'CAvell. “He Avas covered with the Union Jack, and lay. in front of the little altar—just the supreme sacrifice.” So England stoops and kisse« the “dear foreheads” of her youth, covering them with her flag, laying them before the altar of God’s judgment, leaving them there as “just the supreme sacrifice.” She has mothered them from infancy under summer and Avi liter skies, giving them her roses to love, her hedgeroivs to hunt, Jior liills to climb, her great Avinds to make them strong, and her history for a tradition and an inspiration. She is bereft of her youth. She hear., the

“Last Post” sounding for them, and Avonders if the “Reveille” will sound ior us.

Shall it he in A r ain

His dazzling courage, his piteous pain ? Shall our glorious flag, that 113 flung so high, Slide doAvn but an inch in the starry skv ?

There is only one thing in England more moving than the death of these glorious children—it is the courage of their mothers. And that courage for us who remain should sound an eternal. a resistless “Reveille” in orr souls.