The Reverend Julian Bickersteth, who helped two men through their last hours on earth, wrote how one of them, who had joined underage in 1914 and had done three years at the front:
gave me all his little treasures to give to his friend or that. He wrote a letter to his sweetheart and sent her his letter with all its photographs and trinkets, a lucky farthing which she had given him for a keepsake, his last ‘leave’ ticket and other small things. He sent a letter to his best chum in the regiment and said he was sorry he hadn’t made good, and wished them all a Happy New Year and hoped they would get home safe after the war… As they bound him, I held his arm tight to reassure him – words are useless at such a moment – and he turned his blindfolded face to me and said in a voice with wrung my heart, ‘Kiss me, Sir, kiss me,’ and with my kiss on his lips, and ‘God has you in his keeping’ whispered in his ear, he passed into the Great Unseen.
Source:
Holmes, Richard. "Heart and Soul." Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front, 1914-1918. London: HarperCollins, 2004. 569. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Bickersteth (ed.) Bickersteth Diaries pp. 224-5.
Further Reading:
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