General de Castelnau responded with like eloquence and feeling. Two sentences of his reply voiced a sacred pledge:—
Nous garderons religieusement le dépôt sacré confié à notre dévotion, ici, à Terlincthun, comme dans toutes les nécropoles du front qui, de Boulogne à Belfort, jalonnent dans un funèbre alignement la voie sacrée, le calvaire des souffrances, des agonies et des deuils gravi la main dans la main par les valeureux combattants de nos deux nations.
Et lorsque chargé des parfums de la Patrie toute proche, le vent du large apportera à ces tombes la douce caresse du foyer natal, il se confondra avec le souffle de piété tendre et fidèle dont sont pénétrés toutes les âmes et tous les cœurs français pour les héros de l’Angleterre et de la France qui, tombés côte à côte au champ d’honneur, dorment côte à côte à l’ombre d’austères forêts de croix de bois élevant vers le Ciel leurs bras de miséricorde et d’espérance.
General de Castelnau then laid at the foot of the Cross of Sacrifice a wreath in the name of the Anglo-French Committee of our War Graves Commission, and General Lacapelle another in the name of the French Army.
One more act of homage was to be made. The King and Queen, passing slowly through the cemetery, ascended the steps to the Stone of Remembrance and then, bending lowly, the Queen placed before the stone, over which was draped the Union Jack—the merited pall of a soldier’s tomb—a wreath of rosemary for remembrance, and carnations, these last of the colour which takes its name from the stricken battle-field of Magenta. The French Guard of Honour saluted, lowering their standard. Its colours, mingled with the colours of our flag and with the deep purple of the Queen’s tribute, suffused the white stone as with heroes’ blood. The King and those around him saluted, while from the bugles of the Coldstream and Grenadier Guards, posted near the Great Napoleon’s Column, there came the sound, as of a long-drawn-out sigh, of “The Last Post.”
There is no music, of all the music of the world, that so brings home to the soldier’s heart, proud sorrow, healing consolation. In the daily round of his dutiful work “The Last Post” comes to tell him of the end of a day of this troublous life, that the shades have lengthened, the evening come, the busy world hushed, his work done, and he may rest. And, when he goes to the graveside to say the last farewell to a comrade who has found for ever peace, he hears again “The Last Post,” to say to him that his mate is not dead, but sleepeth, and will rise again. The common and everyday use of the music takes nothing from its nobility, but constantly communicates its message of immortality so as to make of it a habit of mind.
The call of “The Last Post” ended; and to the closing moment of the King’s pilgrimage came a sense of over-powering emotion, which made men look resolutely forward, not wishing to catch their neighbour’s glance. The spirits of the mighty army of the dead seemed to marshall in that God’s Acre, set high on the cliff looking over the sea; come to receive the homage of the King, for whom they died, and to hear that in the land which they saved their names will live for evermore.
Frank Fox.