How the South Staffordshire» held the Trench.
THE YPRES TIMES
213
country. A church has been built at Ypres by public subscription. Close to the
church Eton has built a school for the children of those British subjects who have
the care of the British Cemeteries there and in the neighbourhood, whom we must
all wish to see educated as citizens of their own country. The school was opened
in April with about 50 children, and more are now joining from the neighbourhood
on the Imperial War Graves Commission undertaking to convey them free of
charge from neighbouring villages. The London County Council has lent to the
school two excellent teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Morris, and a third, resident at
Ypres, has been engaged as an assistant.
Each parent pays about isof. per annumthe sum which he would pay at a
Belgian school. Over and above this amount it is calculated that the education of each
child will cost about £10 per annum. It has been decided that some of the schools
of England should be asked to educate a fixed number of children, the boys'
schools making the undertaking for the boys and the girls' schools for the girls.
Eton is ready to be responsible for 10 boys. Will you, after consultation with your
boys, or your Old Boys' Association, or both, help on the lines here indicated?
Such an enterprise would be a fine memorial made by their relations and friends
of those who died in defending the Salient.
The trustees of the school are the Bishop of Fulham (North and Central
Europe), the Chaplain-General to the Forces, and the Provost of Eton. There is
a local committee of management at Ypres consisting of the Rev. G. R. Milner,
Chaplain at Ypres; and Captain Perrott and Mr. Melles, of the'Imperial War Graves
Commission. A committee of ladies has been formed to take a special interest in
the girls attending the school, consisting of Lady Plumer (chairman), the Hon.
Mrs. H. Adeane, Lady Pulteney, and Lady Ware, with power to add to their
number. We consider that the maintenance of such a school at Ypres would be a
very appropriate gift from the schools of Britain. Any guaranteed support should
be for a period of ten years, after which the whole situation would be reviewed."-
Reprinted by kind permission of The Times."
Nineteen men and a sergeant stood
Grimly to arms as the word was passed
We can spare no more you must hold this
trench
Stick to it, cling to it right to the last."
Nineteen men and a sergeant watched
With smothered jest as the dawn drew nigh
Cruel and cold, like a patient ghoul,
Till a man could see to struggle and die.
Out of the silence, out of the gloom,
Came with a scream the ranging shell,
First of the furies, till with the day
The twenty were crouched in a battered hell.
Cavernous, pitted, the Belgian fields
Stretched in their ruin before the light
And the tumult sank, with a remnant left
Ripe for the thrust of the foemen's might.
On and on in their hosts they came
As the sun strode over the surging field,
Withered and broke and rallied and came
At the handful ignorant how to yield.
And the dusk stole down and the hosts drew back
Baffled and bitter and reeling and thin,
Sank to the arms of pitiful night-
And the dead were too many to gather in.
>V*
Not a word from that trench the whole day long
And still at night not a word to me
Go, bring me the truth the colonel said
And they crept through the ruins of earth to see
Silence Nought else through the field, in the
trench,
And never the murmuring more in jest
Crushed but unbroken, dead, unsubdued,
Nineteen men lay bosomed in rest.
They came to the lasttill his watch was done
His shattered body had death defied
And, roused by the voice of an English friend,
We have held it as ordered," he saidand died.
(Reprinted from Days of Destiny," by kind
permission of Lord Gorell, C.B.E., M.C.)
