WHERE THEY LIE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 13908, 8 November 1919, Page 2

WHERE THEY LIE.

Fifty thousand Australian dead lie within the weedy, desolate zone f have just traversed (writes, a correspondent of the Sydney Sun). Fiity thousand as true-hearted men. as bright and eager youths as any country has left in this vast Cemetery of shattered life and promise. They lie —where do they lie? Let the truth be known. With a very large percentage one can but wave one's hand across a wilderness of broken earth, of thistles, and poppies, and rank high growth, and say, "They lie . . . there."

From Ypres to Amiens, from Passcheudaele to St. Quentin, along the whole British front, 1 have found our graves, and visited, too. the little -graveyards consecrated by padres prayers and services. But of 50 per cent, of our dead there will never again be earthly trace. That is the lowest estimate I could get from any officer of the graves registration units, or any member of the Imperial Graves Conimisaion. The percentage, I fear, will Ixi much higher. They lie where they fell, or where haggard comrades, amidst the ceaseless fury of the battle, fburied them in treuch or shell-hole; they lie ijnnained, unmarked, unknown. I do not think they would. have had it otherwise. For though the Australian soldier showed a tender care for every soldier's grave within his lines, he wished for himself, if death should find him, to lie out- his six teet where lie fell.' , - Except for the Lens and bcarpe battlefields. where our men never fought, there is scarcely a square mile in the long, broad area of desolation in which the distinctive A.I.F. gravemark. with its white circle round the cross, is not to be found; sometimes in lonely isolation, sometimes in little patches marking -a. casualty clearing-station or an old battalion headquarters, sometimes in the profusion of a new military .cemetery. Whenever it \yas possible, the Australian soldier marked his comrade's burial place in tliis way. It- says much for the Australian army that a, higher percentage of our dead is being accounted for than that.of other armies. It says in particular two things—that we did not lose ground and with it the guardianship of' the dead who won it; and that we carried back many dying and dead from the outer lines. I have walked over deserted fields, such as Bnllecou'rt, I, have picked my way across overgrown trendies and the deeply pitted fields towards .Reincourt, all tangled anci twisted still with wire and the broken weapons of two armies, in their prime: I have found the sunken pathway, which .'was an avenue of the dead, with our bodies heaped up on either side. And one outstanding impression has been the fewness of our crosses. But at Villers Brettoneux I have stood on a mound and seen more than a. thousand Australian gravemarks within easy view. At Messines and Wytsehaete they are to be found nestling beside redoubts. and scattered down the hillside towards the river, and in two pretty cemeteries behind Hill 62 from which our first lines ventured forth. In the Passeheiidaele area, they stand up in little groups, and meet- the eye singly on every acre of that dreadful field. All' is waste around them, and the spirit that broods over them is still sad and heavy-eyed. Stark realities of destruction-; and; death weigh heavily on the mind. But there is peacef.ulness now, and silence. The winds whisper through the* thigh-high growths. There is no longer the dirge of, shells, but rather a rustling as that. of. the leaves at home, or a rjjjan* like the ceaseless trashing of th<£ waters on some ibeacli they loved well in Australia. They lie in pes.?e, Jn perfect quiet, and gradually beauty , will, be evolved put of this chaos, "and their resting-places will be: lovely; again with the pretty things | that surround such a countryside as they' and their prattling children would have made and loved. It is part of our national duty to them that we should find every body that can be traced and place it in one of the many new consecrated graveyards. It is only a tiny part of the great and endless debt wo owe them, but a part so intimate and reverent, that wo should surely carry it through with exceeding thoroughness. This work has only begun. There are 25,000 British soldiers, divided into some fifty companies, going laboriously over the battlefields seeking and removing bodies, I say it Iras only begun, because, though the fields have been clear of enemy troops for nine months, great areas have still to be searched. The visitor cannot escape disappointment that more energy is not being put into the task. But the little graveyards are taking shape. Many are already closed with their quota of 900 or 1000 dead. They are flowerless, treeless. They are mere rows of newly broken earth with little temporary wooden crosses. But some day there will be tombstones and gardens, and little central buildings, and a large common six-sided cross and altar-stone, bearing the words, "Their Name Liveth for Evermore."

Five years must pass, say the officials, before all this can be completed. Then each man who has died i will have his tombstone, whether his bones lie here or not. The arms of his fighting force will be on top. a cross carved beneath; there will be his soldier's number. his full name, his rank, the dates of birth and death, the great words "Killed in Action," and room is left for his relatives to carve or stamp an epitaph or text, of not- more than 63, letters, including Spacings, in length. There will be no dummy graves in these thousand cemeteries, but stones will be erected for those who died and have not- been found. In the building qi* shelter complete records of the dead, with details of their death and names of next of kin. will be kept on parchment, so that those who come in future may know the story of brothers or sons who lie'in these parts. This part, oft he last-duty will be executed by the Imperial Graves Commission. on which each part of the Empire has a representative. So far as possible the Australian tombstones will be provided from Australia. They may.be either marble or concrete; it is believed the latter would have a better chance of standing through generations. Similar plans will be followed in Gallipoli and Palestine, with this difference, that in Gallipoli Australia. has charge of the initial work of clearing up the battlefields, whereas elsewhere the British War Office is solely responsible. Unless our authorities get to work at once there will be only one purely Australian cemetery iu France. That is the "Adelaide Cemetery" on the i Villers-Bretonneux-road near the old \\ bite Chateau. It is planned now to make the graveyard at the base of the great Australian National Memorial on Hill 104 a mixed cemetery, because enough bodies have not been recovered in the area to have it distinctively Australian. Those "of our, men who are working on memorials and cemeteries in France and Flanders are sad about this. They think we should have had our own cemeteries on such a costly battlefield as Passchendaele. There, near. Polygon Wood, I found British soldjers carrying Australian bodies three miles to be buried in the- British cemetery at Wiltje. -Though^in these "scattered formal graveyards .our tributes to the dead must necessarily be concentrated, a far wider area will for many generations of Australian's possess a- living interest.

In the little cemeteries, with their regular, even rows of headstones and their noble central crosses, will be the consecrated plots on -which the nation "can lavish its attention and express its sorrow. Mothers, maybe, will come to drop their tears; brothers will come, because perhaps he would have fished it.. But in the larger spaces beyond and around there will be wider ami freer habitations for the spirit of the A.1.F., winch loved space and distance, and everything that was generous—nothing that was cabined and confined.

But these spaces are to-day very ugly, very depressing, very sad. So •ugly and sorrowful that though I would not- dare to say to any mother jor.fbrotKer "Do not come," I would say .with full belief that it would be !the 'dead soldier's wish. "Wait a while." The battlefields to-day are tumbled masses of ruins, wide "tracts of desolate, overturned moorlands, on which high, stinging growths have sprung

in place of the crops that once were 'there, and the white torn roads seem to wander aimlessly through a blighted and deserted land. No one can cross itieni without catching the echo, though there is no sound, of a great sadness and deep grief. Little wooden huts are rising here and there. 'Hie country folk come slowly back. Implements "are arriving, work will soon begin. and the sights of battle will some day disappear. [do not say "Wait till then.'' but it will surely be many months before the deep melancholy that, broods here will have gone. •'Friendship cutteth grief by halves."— Bacon. Baxter's Lung Preserver is every day making new friends. Here is what one of them says : i "Allow me to compliment you on your Lung Preserver. It is some cold killer. Yesterday my throat was a continual reminder of its existence, and my nasal organ was a perpetual nuisance. I took three doses of 'Baxter's,' now my frontal ornament is once more a useful member aud my throat has ceased ifronv troubling, 'cause the cold bug is at rest. B. Crawford, 20 Symonds street, Auckland. Get a large 2s 6d bottle from chemist or store to-day.