Last Letter
"I LEAVE MYSELF IN GOD'S HANDS"
EXTRACT FROM HIS DIARY
WRITTEN 19.9.17
LIEUTENANT JAMES LUNAN
The diary entry was written the day before James Lunan's death; he knew what was in store for him. The next day he was to lead his men in an attack on the German lines on the opening day of the Battle of Menin Road, part of Third Ypres. Attacking across a 14,500 yard front, the British achieved their objectives, showing what could be done in good weather and with a well-prepared attack.
But James Lunan was killed - as he obviously suspected he might be. We don't know how but three years later, on 10 August 1920, his body was discovered at map reference U.30.a.3.6. with no grave marker, which would indicate that he was killed in circumstances where it was not possible to retrieve and bury his body.
His faith in God was no temporary eve-of-battle phenomenon; Lunan, as the Aberdeen Press and Journal report of his death on Friday 28 September 1917 recorded, was an active member of the Boys Brigade connected with his church, Skene Street Congregational Church, where he was also secretary of the Sunday School. He came from a professional Aberdeen family where he had been educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and Robert Gordon College and worked at The North of Scotland and Town and County Bank Ltd. A member of the Territorial Force, he was called up on the outbreak of war. He served on the Western Front from February 1915 and achieved the rank of sergeant. Commissioned into the Gordon Highlanders in December 1915, he returned to Flanders in January 1917.
ATTIRED IN SUDDEN BRIGHTNESS
LIKE A MAN INSPIRED
SECOND LIEUTENANT TRICE MARTIN
In his poem, 'The Character of the Happy Warrior', published in 1807, William Wordsworth enumerated the qualities of the soldiers on whom the security of Great Britain depended during the Napoleonic Wars. One hundred and ten years later he could have been describing the young men on whom Britain's security again depended.
Second Lieutenant Martin's inscription quotes Wordsworth's poem and can perhaps be best understood by reading the rest of the section in which it appeared. In answer to the the question, 'Who is the Happy Warrior? Who is he whom every man in arms should wish to be?' Wordsworth enumerated his numerous qualities, which included:
... who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which heaven has join'd
Great issues, good or bad for human-kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness like a Man inspired;
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
The lines had a great resonance with the soldiers of the First World War, as can be seen by the following letter, which Second Lieutenant Alexander Gillespie wrote to his father on the eve of an attack.
Trenches: September 24 1915
My Dear Daddy,
... Before long I think we shall be in the thick of it, for if we do attack, my company will be one of those in front, and I am likely to lead it; not because I have been specially chosen for that, but because someone must lead, and I have been in the company the longest. I have no forebodings, for I feel that so many of my friends will charge by my side, and if a man's spirit may wander back at all, especially to the places where he is needed most, then Tom himself will be here to help me ...
It will be a great fight, and even when I think of you, I would not wish to be out of this. You remember Wordsworth's 'Happy Warrior':
Who if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad, for human kind,
Is happy as a lover, and is attired
With sudden brightness like a man inspired.
Well, I never could be all a happy warrior should be, but it will please you to know that I am very happy, and whatever happens, you will remember that. Well, anything one writes at a time like this seems futile, because the tongue of man can't say all that he feels - but I thought I would send this scribble with my love to you and Mother.
Always your loving
Bey
'Bey', Alexander Gillespie, was killed the next day. His body was never found and he is commemorated on the Loos Memorial, hence he has no grave and no inscription. The Tom he refers to was his brother, Lieutenant Thomas Gillespie, who was killed in action on 18 October 1914 and also has no grave.