The author has used a large number of sources--newspapers, official
reports, private letters and diaries, as well as books--in gathering
the facts for these simple stories. Acknowledgments have been made
wherever it was possible to trace the source, and indulgence is asked
if through inadvertence or inability to find the original report any
requisite acknowledgment has been omitted. Very meagre particulars
of most of these brave deeds are at present available, for the
British V.C. does not talk of his exploits. But such facts as are
actually known ought surely to be given the widest possible publicity,
especially in the schools of the Empire.
“If I should die, think only this of me,
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.”
_Rupert Brooke._
“Will you at least try, if I am killed, not to let the things I have
loved cause you pain, but rather to get increased enjoyment from the
Sussex Downs, or from Janie singing folk-songs, because I have found
such joy in them, and in that way the joy I have found can continue
to live.”
_Letter to his Mother, from a young British
officer who was killed in action._
“O ye who fell, mistake not our warm tears,
We would not wish you back lest we should see
Your souls defiled by undistinguished years.”
_Charles Vincent._