With an Indian Field Ambulance
in Flanders
Last PostJ? on the Battlefield
148
THE YPRES TIMES
I speak the voice of England.
Hear me, France
Hear, Belgium Hear me, ye.
Ere sleep entrance,
Who rest in soft security.
Heed thine and mine,
The fighting men, death-armoured, who
Still man the line.
For I have set a watch I do not sleep.
Across the deep
I call I call I call my Sons.
Stars fall. Stars glow in stillness
Through black night,
Or Moon evokes dead day
In ghostly light.
Stark cold they lie and comfortless
Who sleep abroad,
In Earth's harsh hold, who shows no love,
And knows no lord.
I guard my own. The white battalions sleep
Across the deep.
Oh, hear Oh, hear, Oh, hear my Sons.
God struck your mustered armies into stone
Rigid as discipline, and orderly
In ranks alone,
That white austere parade fulfils
Your cavalry
Eternal witness challenging
War's victory.
A nd lest men break your peace, I vigil keep
Across the deep.
Sleep on Sleep on Sleep on my Sons.
Beatrix Brice
This article was published in The Guy's Hospital Gazette when the war was barely six months
old; and it has struck me that it might be re-printed, with the veil of censorship raised, and be of
interest to readers of The Ypres Times. It has not been altered in any particular, and the only
additions have been names entered in italics. It is interesting to recall that we walked in the streets
of Ypres in the last weeks of October, 1914, before a single stone had been displaced in that beautiful
city.C. H. Reinhold, M.C., Lieut.-Colonel, I.M.S., Chief Medical Officer, Delhi.
iiiTH INDIAN FIELD AMBULANCE, 3RD LAHORE DIVISION, I.E.F.A.
(Continued from the October, 1930, Edition.)
WE were given a few days' rest to refill our panniers and scrub down our gory
stretchers, and re-opened again to receive casualties on November nth; this
time in a Roman Catholic club, for we were now in a considerable town.
The Division had been experiencing a pretty rough time, and our sister ambulances,
which were more fortunately housed in schools, had been kept busy. The whole
Division was taken out of the trenches for a rest on November 16th, and the
following day we moved back into billets a few miles in rear of the fighting
MervilleHere we first began to get into touch with the other Indian Division,
and when next we resumed the offensive it was as an Indian Army Corps. The
middle days of November are memorable for bright and frosty weather; some of
the nights were intensely cold. We heard heavy and distant firing in the direction
of Ypres, and learned, in due course, that it punctuated the deathless story of the
7th Division and the shattering of the Prussian Guard. On November 22nd our
division began to exhibit signs of restlessness again, and on the 23rd we were
