Page:War, the Liberator (1918).djvu/15

 not my purpose to write of him critically; he interests me solely as a soldier who managed to get said in a few words some of the poignant things that we have all felt.

His biography is brief. His mother is the daughter of the well-known preacher, Guinness Rogers, who was an intimate friend of Mr Gladstone, from whom he received his first name of Ewart. He was educated at St Paul’s School, from where he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford. He was in the middle of his “Greats” course when war broke out and immediately tried to join the Army. At first he was rejected on the score of eyesight. Finally he got a commission in the Seaforth Highlanders, and was in France from July 1915 to August 1916, when he returned to England after having been wounded at High Wood. For eight months following his recovery he was at Cambridge, training cadets and eating his heart out to get back. In September last he returned to France, where he was killed on November 21st, 1917.

The first writing of his that I wish to quote is a letter; it expresses so inadvertently the inherent valour of the man—his cool, dutiful, take-it-for-granted and yet pitiful attitude towards the dreadful job he had on hand. It is written to his sister, describing how he won his M.C., and runs as follows:—

“You will probably have noticed in the official report that a raid was made on the 16th on the trenches at. That,