THE CHURCH MILITANT
DEATH OF DIGGES LA TOUCHE--A GREAT SPIRITUAL LOSS--THE CROSS AND
THE CRESCENT--A SPLENDID RECORD--ANDREW GILLISON'S DEATH--A GALLANT
CHRISTIAN SOLDIER--DUTY'S SACRIFICE
La Touche is dead....
Digges La Touche, the brilliant scholar, the fervid evangelist,
the militant divine, the fiery orator, the pugnacious debater, the
uncompromising Unionist, the electric Irishman--Digges La Touche, the
patriot, is dead: killed in his first battle, yea, in the first minute
of his first battle.
It came as a shock to those of us who knew him in camp. It will come
as a bigger shock to those who knew him in the Church, for it seems
scarcely more than a month since they bade him God-speed in Sydney. He
landed in Gallipoli on August 5, the eve of the big battle. That night
he went into the trenches. Next day he participated in the gallant
charge of the First Brigade which found its culmination in the capture
of Lone Pine Ridge. But La Touche never reached the Turkish trenches.
Charging at the head of his platoon, he had barely got beyond our
own trenches when a bullet struck him in the body. He fell. Later he
managed to crawl back to our trenches--and died.
For ten months he had pleaded with Church and State to let him serve
as a soldier of the king. For ten weeks he wore the uniform of an
officer of the Australian Imperial Force. For ten hours he did duty in
the trenches. For ten brief seconds he knew the wild exultation of the
charge. Then there passed away a great-hearted Britisher, strong of
soul and clear of vision, who counted it a great privilege to fight and
die for his king and country. The Crescent had glorified the Cross.
The pity of it all was that none of his friends knew he had arrived.
The Dean of Sydney--Chaplain-Colonel Talbot--was about to read the
burial service over eighteen soldiers who had perished in the charge.
He heard the name, and looked and saw his friend. That was the first he
knew of Lieutenant La Touche's arrival on Gallipoli--his arrival and
departure.
When we of the Sixth Light Horse first went into camp at Rosebery
Park, La Touche was there with the Thirteenth Battalion, under Colonel
Burnage, one of the most popular, as he afterwards proved one of the
most gallant, officers who ever donned a uniform. Dr. Digges La Touche
desired first to go as a chaplain, but was not selected. Far be it from
me to reflect on the judgment of the Archbishop of Perth who selected
the Anglican chaplains, but I have seen chaplains with not one tithe of
the qualifications that La Touche had for the job. Failing selection as
a chaplain, he enlisted as a private in the First Contingent. But he
was not over-robust and was transferred to the Second Contingent, and
rose to be a colour-sergeant in the Thirteenth. The Primate objected
to ministers serving as soldiers, and the friends of Digges La Touche
time and again urged him to remain behind. But his determination was
fixed, and though health considerations compelled his withdrawal from
the Thirteenth Battalion he attended an officers' training school and
gained a commission as second lieutenant; and he left Sydney in June
with the Sixth Reinforcements of the Second Battalion. Then, after a
brief spell in Egypt, he came to Gallipoli.
Before he got his commission La Touche was a great recruiting sergeant.
He never left in the minds of his hearers any doubts as to his opinion
of Prussian militarism and savagery. His addresses on the war were
fiery orations, inspiring men to patriotic self-sacrifice and zeal
for Empire. He summoned all the riches of his intellect to confound,
refute and castigate the nation that had done such scathe to Belgium.
And though no Turk or Hun died by his hand, Dr. La Touche inspired many
young Australians to take their place in the firing-line. Some of these
were with him in the fatal charge. He saw them dash on through the
bursting shrapnel, and he heard the cheers of victory as they gained
the parapets, bayoneted the defenders and captured the position. As
one thinks of him cut off in the prime of life, when the unbalanced
enthusiasm of his youth had hardly been tempered by experience, there
comes a feeling of revolt against the decrees of the God of Battles.
But Everard Digges La Touche was only one of the many brilliant young
men who have laid down their lives in this cruel war. Remembering the
inspiration of his example, one feels that he did not die in vain.
Others will speak of his scholarship--he was a student in law, arts and
theology, and a lecturer of Trinity College, Dublin, before he went to
Australia. I have seen him in the pulpit, in Synod and on the public
platform, but I leave it to others to appraise his churchmanship. I
merely record, with heartfelt sorrow, how Lieutenant La Touche died a
soldier's death on Gallipoli.
The Church Militant! Was it ever so militant as now, when all the
powers of darkness, all the forces of the Devil, are arrayed against
Christianity and all the manifold blessings of Civilization? Look at
stricken Belgium and the battlefields of France, where hundreds of
priests combine their holy offices as chaplains with the duties of the
soldier, a Bible in one hand, a sword in the other! See, at the head of
Russian armies, priests leading the soldiers into battle! And here, on
Gallipoli ...
We have our chaplains, and we have ministers of the Gospel fighting as
"happy warriors" in the ranks. Digges La Touche had the character of
the happy warrior, who
While the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.
But it matters little whether they go forth as armed men in the Great
Crusade, or to fight the good fight by ministering to the dying, or to
read the burial service over the dead, they all must needs be brave
men, ready to risk their lives. Death is very close to all of us in
this war--chaplains, doctors, stretcher-bearers and all.
Brave men, yes. Fighting parsons, soldier saints, whether they be
chaplains, or whether they have forsaken the study for the stricken
field, the pulpit for the platoon, or whether they be in the Army
Medical Corps, heroes of the Red Cross of Geneva. Some have been
killed, some wounded.
Andrew Gillison is one of those who has gone to his rest--one of
Gallipoli's heroes. Chaplain-Captain Andrew Gillison, of the Fourteenth
Battalion, Fourth Infantry Brigade, was the first of the Australian
army chaplains to be killed. Prior to the war--and that seems a long,
long time ago--he was a minister of St. George's Presbyterian Church,
East St. Kilda, and before that he was at St. Paul's, Brisbane. He
was well known and greatly loved throughout the whole Presbyterian
Church of Australia. He was no sour-visaged, long-faced Christian.
His religion was cheerful, optimistic and joyous. I met him at St.
Andrew's, Cairo, and then I knew why the Fourth Brigade almost
worshipped him. On the transport he was a prime favourite. He sang a
good comic song. He entered into the boxing tournament. He won his
first bout in fine style. Then he got a hiding, and took his beating
like a man.
It was meet that such a man should die giving his life for another.
Greater love hath no man than this; and Andrew Gillison would not have
willed it otherwise. It was while performing a work of necessity and
mercy on Sunday morning, August 22, that he was shot, and he died a few
hours afterwards.
The New Zealand and Australian Division had made a most gallant attack
on the hills occupied by the Turks. Pressing home the attack with the
bayonet, they drove the enemy from trench to trench and from ridge
to ridge. Deeds of valour were performed day after day and night
after night. Heroes died on every side, with no historian to tell how
gallantly they died. One of these young Australians was wounded in the
charge, and lay some distance behind the advanced position. It was then
that two fighting parsons came along a communication trench, which was
comparatively safe from rifle fire, but offered little protection from
shrapnel. From a slight hollow they saw the wounded man, in evident
agony, raise his hand, and try to move. Captain Gillison and Corporal
Pittenrigh--who is a Methodist minister when not a soldier--decided
to try to effect a rescue, though they knew a machine-gun was trained
on the trench, and had been warned to beware of snipers. Mounting the
parapet, they crawled along some distance towards the wounded man. A
couple of bullets zipped by, but they pushed on. More bullets flew, and
both the rescuers were wounded.
Then they tried to regain the shelter of the trench, and Gillison was
wounded again, but his companion managed to scramble in. Mortally
wounded in the chest and the side, the poor chaplain lay in the open,
but was soon carried in and conveyed to the field hospital. He was
conscious for a while and cheerful, though he knew his hours were
numbered. He was able to greet Chaplains F. Colwell and G. T. Walden,
who had just arrived with Colonel Holmes's Australian Brigade, and
Chaplain J. M. Dale of Brisbane. Before two o'clock he was dead, dying
as he had lived, a gallant Christian soldier.
That night, wrapped in a Union Jack, he was buried. It was bright
moonlight. Out in the Ægean the warships and hospital ships lay
passive. Back in the hills sounded the ceaseless rattle of musketry.
Chaplain-Colonel E. N. Merrington conducted a brief service, at which
were chaplains of all denominations and several officers and men of his
brigade and battalion. The little shallow grave lies a couple of miles
north of Anzac, on the edge of the five-mile beach that stretches on to
Suvla Bay. As with the hero of Corunna, "we carved not a line, and we
raised not a stone--but we left him alone with his glory." His comrades
went back to the firing-line with the memory of his self-sacrifice to
cheer them on. And we thought then of Longfellow's beautiful lines--
Dust thou art, to dust returneth,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Soon the battalion will erect a little wooden cross over his grave--one
more of those little wooden crosses that are so numerous on Gallipoli.
We who knew and loved him will never forget Andrew Gillison.