The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1918-02-05
Al Rest
How Sleep the Brave in
European Battlefields.

Hill 60, there was a little wooden cross
with the name Of French soldier
painted on it. The soldier fell away
back in the first months of the war.
when everything was fluid and the tide
Of war was shifting back and forth.
Soon after that our lines locked and
fr,oze, and ever since that he has been
sleeping in that frightful place known
as our Front.
For months that little cross had
stood there, while landmarks all about
II had been wiped out. while the tower
Of the Cloth Hall had been pulverized,
and the Verbranden Windmill splin-
tered to kiudling wood. I have often
paused mp there on the front line. after
a nasty strs.fe from Fritz, and regarded
with awe that immortal wooden cross.
With parnpets crnmpled in in many
places and the ground about pocketed
with shell holes. amid all this wild
havoc the sfznple memorial to the dead
French soldier seemed to bear charm.
One day or the Somme. while mov-
ing over French battlefield, looking
for a new position for our guns, 1
CHANGED upon the grave OF a corporal
Of the East Surrey regiment. He had
been hastily buried. just where he fell
upon the field of battle. There had
been no time for ceremony or for the
planting of a cross. His rifle had been
thrust into the ground to mark tho
grave and his soldiers cap was placed
upon the mound Of turf to serve as a
memorial. That little weatherbeaten
khaki cap was unobserved by many,
but to those who saw 1t was a memo
rial as eloquent as costly marble. AS
bent over to examine the grave I saw
a shingle. on which some rough hand
had scrubbed text with an indeliblc
pencil. The rains had washed blue
streaks across tile writing. One could
Just deciphcr the text. 1t was 'Thou
art forever with the Lord"
To encounter s,tch evidences OF faith
on the battlefield of the Somme. or in
the catacombs of st. Calixtus, was to
feel instinctively talat there at least
was the real thing Matters Of faith
were dark enough on the Sommc, but
to read the hope Of that Tommy was
like the bursting forth from darkness
of some serene and shining star.
! was in the Yprcs salient in April,
1915, and back there again in the
spring of 1916. That bloody and awful
salient is a vast graveyard of Canada's
fairest and best.
A young Canadian officer who was
| a comradc Of mine. told me how in
the summer of 1913 he left the city Of
Ypres, a cameo of priceless beauty.
| with the splendor OF its Cloth hall and
its cathedral and its guilds, and took
the tram-lne out to Kruystraesthcnk
Corner Alightng there, he and his
sister crossed the fields where tho
daisies and anemones were growing,
and RECALLED themselves in the won
drous charm of that Flemish landscape.
| Now on those same fields that officer
Is sleeping, and in summers to come
the flowers that spring up there shall
wave about his grave.
On fine mornings In June. as have
been coming in or going out from our
battery position, have passed through
the grounds of Bedford House, n Bel
gian chateau. and I have marveled at
what must have been the exceeding
beauty of that place in times of peace
A wistful loveliness still fingers round
the ruins. If in the past light hearts
have journeyed there for scenes Of
beauty, in years to come a host OF
deeper hearts will journey there as to
IA shrine.
If whore an Englishman is buried on
n foreign soil Is called "a little bit of
England" then we may call the Ypros
salient a mighty bit of Canada If
anyone were to inquire what is the
most important city of Canada, we
might answer unhesitatingly 1.-THE City
of Ypres." The hosts of our young
men who have fallen in battles round
that city have hallowed the name for
all Canadian hearts, and rendered the
place ours in the deepest sense
Montreal and Halifax, and Van
couvcr are among our lesser cities, but
| hpres, where so many of our brave
are buried. shall remain Tor us tho
city of our everlasting possessions.
| stood ono night on a certain hill!
that commands the firing line in an
almost boundlcsss panorama. Beside
me WAS an officer of the Second Ca
madam division. who had just come
out There that night. by its white
trail of iridescent light we could trace
the course OF the firing line for many
miles through France and Flanders.
Just to our left the line of light
jutted far out, like a lone cape into
he sea.
What is that jutting out placer"
my friend inquired.
That" ! answered, SIS the Ypros
'salicnt. the bloody anglo Of the British
line"
To mention the name of Ypres is to
have ones memory awakened with a
Fcritable Kaleidoscope of pictures. That
trail of light that jutted out into the
night looked like a cape, and an iron
cape 1t has been through months and
Years of war. But the holding of that
cape has been at an awful cost. and
there was not an inch along that trail
Ing line OF light that had not cost its
trailing line of blood.-Captain Arthur
Hunt Chute, in The North American
| Review"
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| Waslc hppf laufb.r huS haa- ,,r,.l