Just a note to let you know that I am still alive and
kicking. Things are much the same as when you left
here. We have had one good kick up since you were
wounded, that was on the 9th of May. We lost little
Lieut. ----, the best man that ever toed the line. You
know what like he was; the arguments you and him used
to have about politics. He always said you should have
been Prime Minister. None of the rest of them ever
mixed themselves with us the same as he done; he was a
credit to the regiment and to the father and mother
that reared him; and Tommy the boys that are left of
the platoon hopes that you will write to his father
and mother and let them know how his men loved him,
you can do it better than any of us. I enclose you a
cutting out of a paper about his death. He died at the
head of his platoon like the toff he was, and, Tommy,
I never was very religious but I think little ---- is
in Heaven. He knew that it was a forlorn hope before
we were half way, but he never flinched. He was not
got for a week or two after the battle. Well, dear
chum, I got your parcel and am very thankful for it. I
will be getting a furlough in a week or two and I will
likely come and see you, not half. All the boys that
you knew are asking kindly for you. We are getting
thinned out by degrees. There are 11 of us left of
the platoon that you know--some dead, some down the
line. But Tommy we miss you for your arguments, and
the old fiddle was left at Parides, nobody to play it;
but still we are full of life. I expect you will read
some of these days of something big. I may tell you
the Boches will get hell for leather before they are
many days older. We have the men now and the material
and we won't forget to lay it on. Old Bendy is major
now, he gave us a lecture a while ago and he had a
word to say about you and wee Hughes and Martin, that
was the night that you went to locate the mortar and
came in with the machine gun. He says the three of you
were a credit to the regiment. I just wish you were
back to keep up the fun, but your wife and bairns will
like to keep you now. Well, Tommy, see and write to
----'s father and let him know how his men liked him,
it will perhaps soften the blow. No more now, but I
remain your ever loving chum and well wisher, SANDY.
'Good night and God bless you.
'P.S.--Lochie Rob, J. Small, Philip Clyne, Duncan
Morris, Headly, wee Mac, Ginger Wilson, Macrae and
Dean Swift are killed. There are just three of us left
in the section now, that is, Gordon, Black, and
Martin, the rest drafted.
'Write soon.'
Thomas himself is not quite so simple. He is not writing as man to man,
but to an intermediary who will show every word to 'little -----'s'
family. He is not speaking just for himself, but for his old platoon,
and added to this responsibility is the manly duty of keeping up his own
repute, both as one who 'should have been Prime Minister' and as one who
'can do it better than any of us.' Thomas is somewhere or other in
hospital, but for all his hurts there are passages of his that come from
squared elbows and a very sturdy pen:
'He was young so far as years were concerned, but he
was old in wisdom. He never asked one of us to do that
which he would not do himself. He shared our hardships
and our joys. He was in fact one of ourselves as far
as comradeship and brotherly love was concerned. We
never knew who he was till we saw his death in the
Press, but this we did know, that he was Lieut. -----,
a gentleman and a soldier every inch, _and mind you
the average Tommy is not too long in getting the size
of his officer_, and it is not every day that one like
----- joins the Army....
He was liked by his fellow-officers, but he was loved,
honoured and respected by his men, and you know, Sir,
that _I am not guilty of paying tributes to anyone
where they are not deserved_....'
I love Thomas for the two italicised asides. It was not he who
underlined them; but they declare his politics as unmistakably as
Sandy's bit about those arguments with their officer. For 'little ----'
was the son of one of Scotland's noblest and most ancient houses; but
Thomas is careful to explain that they never knew that until the papers
told them, and we have internal evidence that Sandy never gave it a
thought. He lays no stress on the fact that 'none of the rest of them
ever mixed themselves with us the same as he done': the gem of both
tributes, when you come to think of it.
I think of it the more because I knew this young Harrovian a little in
his brilliant boyhood (Head of the School and Captain of the Football
Eleven), but chiefly because I happen to have seen his grave. It is on
the outskirts of a village that was still pretty and wooded in early
'17, though the church was in a bad way even then. Now there can be
little left; but I hope against hope that some of the wooden crosses
which so impressed me are still intact. For there as ever among his men,
I think even alongside 'wee Mac' and the others named in that pathetic
postscript, lies 'little ----', truly 'mixing himself with them' to the
last.
In the same row, under mound and cross as neat as any, lay 'an unknown
German soldier'; and for his sake, perhaps, if all have not been blown
to the four winds, the present occupiers[1] will do what can be done to
protect and preserve the resting-place of 'little ----' and his Jocks.
[Footnote 1: July, 1918.]