THE “OLD CONTEMPTBLES.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20290, 24 December 1927, Page 12

THE “OLD CONTEMPTBLES.”

PILGRIMAGE TO MONS. TRIBUTE TO FALLEN COMRADES. {From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 16. For the first time since the war an organised party of the British soldiers who had fought at Mons 13 years age paid a visit on Armistice Day to the old battlefield. The party numbered 200. All of then were wearing the familiar 1914 star; most of them were wearing many other medals and decorations; three of them were wearing the Victoria Cross. Among these was Private F. S. Godley, Royal Fusiliers, who was the first to earn the Victoria Cross during the war. He obtained the honour for blowing up a bridge over the railway there. He was then" captured by the Germans, and was a prisoner throughout the war. Coloursergeant S. J. Bent and Driver Drain were the others. These three men led the procession through the town. immediately behind them were two soldiers who had been blinded during the war, Private M'Mullen nad Private England, each led by a companion. Behind these again were more than a dozen lame and limping survivors of the war, and then came the remainder, marching through the narrow, old streets, singing the old army songs, accompanied by a Belgian military band.

WELCOME BY THE BURGOMASTER. It was under* a grey sky that the representatives of the old British Regular 4rray wound their way through the cobbled streets to the Hotel de Ville, where they were welcomed by the burgomaster, who made a spirited oration. Mods, he said, would never forget thencoming, which he himself remembered. Mons was in some way part of British soil, because in its earth was the dust of the bodies of their glorious comrades. “ I greet you, glorious Old Contemptibles,” he ended, “ I welcome you in our After this the whole party, preceded by bands and ths military and civic representatives, marched to the town war memorial, where wreaths were laid, while the British visitors filed by bareheaded Ho the playing of the Belgian National Anthem. THE CEMETERY.

A procession was again formed, and the men marched a distance of two miles to the ce: etery. The pilgrims drew up behind the Stone of Remembrance, while the Belgian representatives, many of them with banners, stood before them at the foot of the Cross of Sacrifice. The hooters from Mons announced the start of the silence, Belgian bugleSs blew a single blast, and there was complete silence, made more impressive by the fluttering of the Belgian baners in the wind and the waving of the visitors’ own standard, which__ bears the simple inscription, “ God. King. Country.” It was a silence that will long be remembered by everyone who was privileged to be there, whether he was Belgian or British.