HIS GRAVE IN FRANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10119, 29 October 1917, Page 6

HIS GRAVE IN FRANCE.

BURfEL OF BRIGADIEfR-CENERAL JOHNSTON. (By the X.Z. Official Convspondentj Captain M. Ross.) AiUgust S. Another of our Brigadiers has been laid to rest in the soldiers* nvmnl -round at Baillool. Mrifty i'°W« ,° wooden crosses I'i'ont the move pOIM stone monument* of the dead ol that oleel city. Hero, practically in the, one cemetery, lie civilian dead ol Vtanco, and heroes from many parts ol the;'J»itish ICmpire. who have given thuir *ives in defence, of this fait land'. At a roUgn count there arc at least. oi*e t-howsjtncl live hundrocl graves there nmv. As tjie days pass new graves are dug, ■■}"" '« ( ' brown earth is heaped up again ovtv' the mortal remains of other brave nityj. In the llnvs to ciime. this bit of hallowed ground will be n place ol pclgnm-a"-o to men and women from man J' a far-distant home. Into the town its'cJi tlie German shells still drop ir.olll » long range, and the night raiders harry it with their bombs from the sky. out the life ol the town goes on much asif nothing unusual had happened. Around an open grave in the Soldiers' Burial Ground this meriting was -inhered a groop#of New Zealand officers to pay the last tribute to a dead comrade Brigadier-General V. hj. Johnston, On the preceding day, in the course of his duly at the front, he was killed by a German sniper's bullet. The little group included Generals Birdwood, Godl'ey and Russell. His body, in a plain coffin, was borne from the motor ambulance van to the grave on the shoulders of brother officers. At the conclusion of the burial service the chaplain said that no panegyric was needed in the case of a bravo soldier who was shot through the heart while doing his duty at the front. All they could do now was to show their respect for his virtues, and for those who were near and dear to him. In peace he had shown the virtues of modesty and humility, and in war he had shown by the manner of hi.s death the great virtue of courage. As the padres intoned the service their voices mingled with some of the sounds of war—the tiring ot a machine gun being fried by an aviator, the droning of the planes that flow overhead. ' A few villagers in an adjoining field looked tip curiously from their work as the bugles blew the melancholy notes of the Last Post. -There we left him, three graves away from the hist resting place ol our other dead brigadier. It is a fair spot in which to lieon the lower slopes, green held in which tlie wild flowers wen' blossomihg, and in the background the quaint towers and spires ol the old lonrteeiit'.li century Flemish town.