"If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies blow
In Flanders fields."
XVI
A FUNERAL UNDER FIRE
It was in a ruined village behind the trenches. A fatigue party had just come out of the line, and was on its way to rest-billets in the next village. The men were tired so they sat down to rest in the deserted street. Suddenly, a scream, as from a disembodied spirit, pierced the air. There was a crash, a cloud of smoke, and five men lay dead on the pavement, and twelve wounded. Next morning I was asked to bury one of the dead. Under a glorious July sky a Roman Catholic chaplain and I cycled between desolate fields into the village. A rifleman guided us down a communication-trench till we came to the cemetery. It was a little field fenced with trees. There we found a Church of England chaplain. He and the Catholic chaplain had two men each to bury.
A burial party was at work on the five graves. It was the fatigue party of the evening before, and the men were preparing the last resting place of those who had died at their side. They worked rapidly, for all the morning the village had been under a bombardment which had not as yet ceased. Before they had finished they were startled by the familiar but fatal scream of a shell and threw themselves on the ground. It burst a short distance away without doing harm, and the soldiers went on with their work, as if nothing had happened. When the graves were ready, two of the bodies were brought out and lowered with ropes. The Church of England chaplain read the burial service over them, and we all stood round as mourners. Two more bodies were brought out and we formed a circle round them while the Roman Catholic chaplain read the burial service of his Church--chiefly, in Latin. There now remained but one, and he, in turn, was quietly lowered into his grave. He was still wearing his boots and uniform and was wrapped around with his blanket.
"No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him."
All his comrades who had been with him in the dread hour of death were mourning by his grave, and standing with them were his officer and two chaplains. I read the full service as it is given in our Prayer Book. It was all that one could do for him. The Catholic chaplain had sprinkled consecrated water on the bodies and I sprinkled consecrated soil. Was it not in truth holy soil? Behind me was one long, common grave in which lay buried a hundred and ten French soldiers; "110 Braves" was the inscription the cross bore. In front of me were three rows of graves in which were lying British soldiers. French and British soldiers were mingling their dust. In death, as in life, they were not divided.
I felt led to offer no prayer for the lad at my feet, nor for his dead comrades. He needed no prayer of mine; rather did I need his. He was safe home in port. The storm had spent itself and neither rock, nor fog, nor fire would trouble him again. His living comrades and I were still out in the storm, battling towards the land. He had no need of us, but his parents and comrades had need of him. We were there to pay a tribute to his life and death, to pray for his loved ones, and to learn how frail we are and how dependent upon Him who is beyond the reach of the chances and changes of this mortal life.
I was half way through the recital of the last prayer--"We bless Thy Holy Name for all Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith and fear"--when that fatal, well-known scream, as of a vulture darting down on its prey, again tore the air. The men, as they had been taught, dropped to the ground like stones. My office demanded that I should continue the prayer, and leave with God the decision as to how it should end. There was a crash, and the branches of the trees overhead trembled as some fragments of shell smote them. But there was nothing more. The men rose as quickly as they had fallen, and all were reverently standing to attention before the last words of the prayer found utterance. The graves were filled in and we went our several ways. Next day white crosses were placed over the five mounds, and we bade them a long and last farewell.
XVII