Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
"Many of the cemeteries I have visited in the remoter and still desolate districts of this sorely stricken land, where it has not yet been possible to replace the wooden crosses by headstones, have been made into beautiful gardens which are lovingly cared for by comrades of the war.
And this unconscious duty performed, the afternoon sun now brightened the graves which crowded to the very fence, brought out the glint and polish of the new marble headstones, or showed the grooved names in the old and leaning slate ones. Some graves were enclosed by rails, and others barely lifted their tops above the long grass.
No wreaths; no marble headstones; no elaborate ornamentation; but in their place a battered cap, a rusty rifle or a mud-covered haversack, the treasured belongings of the dead. I had barely finished filming this scene when with a shriek several shells came hurtling overhead from the German guns and burst about a hundred yards behind our firing line.
John-James' chief peculiarity was displayed always during the week's holiday he took every year; on each day of this week he would make a pilgrimage to some cemetery. A new graveyard was an unfailing magnet for him; he would spend hours there and return next year to note what new headstones had taken root. "Why on earth do you want to go and spend all your holiday in cemeteries, John-James?"
I laid him out myself, in this house here, and I ought to know." Twenty-five years of time had done their work in all that country, as we learned when we entered the little barbed-wire enclosure of the cemetery where the Kid and his fellows were buried. There are no headstones in this cemetery, and no sacristan holds its records. Again Garrett had to search in the salt grass and greasewood.
On one side a magnificent cedar; on the other a great copper beech. Here and there among the tombs and headstones many beautiful blossoming trees rose from the long green grass. The laburnum glowed in the June afternoon sunlight; the lilac, the hawthorn and the clustering meadowsweet which fringed the edge of the lazy stream mingled their heavy sweetness in sleepy fragrance.
"First, it's the coffin that bu'sts in beneath the weight, then it's the bones," he added, with that grim realism which is begotten of familiarity. Dormer Colville did not trouble to translate these general truths. He suppressed a yawn as he contemplated the tottering headstones of certain master-mariners and Trinity-pilots taking their long rest in the immediate vicinity.
Robert exclaimed, as he beheld the harbor, the town, and the surrounding country from the top of the house the following morning. Berinthia pointed out the localities. At their feet was Copp's Hill burial ground with its rows of headstones and grass-grown mounds. Across the river, northward, was Charlestown village nestling at the foot of Bunker Hill. Ferryboats were crossing the stream.
By this time Clare abhorred the house for ceasing to contain Tess, and hastened away from its hated presence without once looking back. His way was by the field in which he had first beheld her at the dance. It was as bad as the house even worse. He passed on through the churchyard, where, amongst the new headstones, he saw one of a somewhat superior design to the rest.
There, leaning against the headstones all around, were many standing looking over the broad and placid sea, and turned to the soft salt air which blew on their hot eyes and rigid faces; for no one spoke of all that number.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking