La Touche is dead....

Digges La Touche, the brilliant scholar, the fervid evangelist, the militant divine, the fiery orator, the pugnacious debater, the uncompromising Unionist, the electric Irishman—Digges La Touche, the patriot, is dead: killed in his first battle, yea, in the first minute of his first battle.

It came as a shock to those of us who knew him in camp. It will come as a bigger shock to those who knew him in the Church, for it seems scarcely more than a month since they bade him God-speed in Sydney. He landed in Gallipoli on August 5, the eve of the big battle. That night he went into the trenches. Next day he participated in the gallant charge of the First Brigade which found its culmination in the capture of Lone Pine Ridge. But La Touche never reached the Turkish trenches. Charging at the head of his platoon, he had barely got beyond our own trenches when a bullet struck him in the body. He fell. Later he managed to crawl back to our trenches—and died.

For ten months he had pleaded with Church and State to let him serve as a soldier of the king. For ten weeks he wore the uniform of an officer of the Australian Imperial Force. For ten hours he did duty in the trenches. For ten brief seconds he knew the wild exultation of the charge. Then there passed away a great-hearted Britisher, strong of soul and clear of vision, who counted it a great privilege to fight and die for his king and country. The Crescent had glorified the Cross.

The pity of it all was that none of his friends knew he had arrived. The Dean of Sydney—Chaplain-Colonel Talbot—was about to read the burial service over eighteen soldiers who had perished in the charge. He heard the name, and looked and saw his friend. That was the first he knew of Lieutenant La Touche's arrival on Gallipoli—his arrival and departure.

When we of the Sixth Light Horse first went into camp at Rosebery Park, La Touche was there with the Thirteenth Battalion, under Colonel Burnage, one of the most popular, as he afterwards proved one of the most gallant, officers who ever donned a uniform. Dr. Digges La Touche desired first to go as a chaplain, but was not selected. Far be it from me to reflect on the judgment of the Archbishop of Perth who selected the Anglican chaplains, but I have seen chaplains with not one tithe of the qualifications that La Touche had for the job. Failing selection as a chaplain, he enlisted as a private in the First Contingent. But he was not over-robust and was transferred to the Second Contingent, and rose to be a colour-sergeant in the Thirteenth. The Primate objected to ministers serving as soldiers, and the friends of Digges La Touche time and again urged him to remain behind. But his determination was fixed, and though health considerations compelled his withdrawal from the Thirteenth Battalion he attended an officers' training school and gained a commission as second lieutenant; and he left Sydney in June with the Sixth Reinforcements of the Second Battalion. Then, after a brief spell in Egypt, he came to Gallipoli.

Before he got his commission La Touche was a great recruiting sergeant. He never left in the minds of his hearers any doubts as to his opinion of Prussian militarism and savagery. His addresses on the war were fiery orations, inspiring men to patriotic self-sacrifice and zeal for Empire. He summoned all the riches of his intellect to confound, refute and castigate the nation that had done such scathe to Belgium. And though no Turk or Hun died by his hand, Dr. La Touche inspired many young Australians to take their place in the firing-line. Some of these were with him in the fatal charge. He saw them dash on through the bursting shrapnel, and he heard the cheers of victory as they gained the parapets, bayoneted the defenders and captured the position. As one thinks of him cut off in the prime of life, when the unbalanced enthusiasm of his youth had hardly been tempered by experience, there comes a feeling of revolt against the decrees of the God of Battles.

But Everard Digges La Touche was only one of the many brilliant young men who have laid down their lives in this cruel war. Remembering the inspiration of his example, one feels that he did not die in vain.

Others will speak of his scholarship—he was a student in law, arts and theology, and a lecturer of Trinity College, Dublin, before he went to Australia. I have seen him in the pulpit, in Synod and on the public platform, but I leave it to others to appraise his churchmanship. I merely record, with heartfelt sorrow, how Lieutenant La Touche died a soldier's death on Gallipoli.

The Church Militant! Was it ever so militant as now, when all the powers of darkness, all the forces of the Devil, are arrayed against Christianity and all the manifold blessings of Civilization? Look at stricken Belgium and the battlefields of France, where hundreds of priests combine their holy offices as chaplains with the duties of the soldier, a Bible in one hand, a sword in the other! See, at the head of Russian armies, priests leading the soldiers into battle! And here, on Gallipoli ...

We have our chaplains, and we have ministers of the Gospel fighting as "happy warriors" in the ranks. Digges La Touche had the character of the happy warrior, who

But it matters little whether they go forth as armed men in the Great Crusade, or to fight the good fight by ministering to the dying, or to read the burial service over the dead, they all must needs be brave men, ready to risk their lives. Death is very close to all of us in this war—chaplains, doctors, stretcher-bearers and all.

Brave men, yes. Fighting parsons, soldier saints, whether they be chaplains, or whether they have forsaken the study for the stricken field, the pulpit for the platoon, or whether they be in the Army Medical Corps, heroes of the Red Cross of Geneva. Some have been killed, some wounded.

Andrew Gillison is one of those who has gone to his rest—one of Gallipoli's heroes. Chaplain-Captain Andrew Gillison, of the Fourteenth Battalion, Fourth Infantry Brigade, was the first of the Australian army chaplains to be killed. Prior to the war—and that seems a long, long time ago—he was a minister of St. George's Presbyterian Church, East St. Kilda, and before that he was at St. Paul's, Brisbane. He was well known and greatly loved throughout the whole Presbyterian Church of Australia. He was no sour-visaged, long-faced Christian. His religion was cheerful, optimistic and joyous. I met him at St. Andrew's, Cairo, and then I knew why the Fourth Brigade almost worshipped him. On the transport he was a prime favourite. He sang a good comic song. He entered into the boxing tournament. He won his first bout in fine style. Then he got a hiding, and took his beating like a man.

It was meet that such a man should die giving his life for another. Greater love hath no man than this; and Andrew Gillison would not have willed it otherwise. It was while performing a work of necessity and mercy on Sunday morning, August 22, that he was shot, and he died a few hours afterwards.

The New Zealand and Australian Division had made a most gallant attack on the hills occupied by the Turks. Pressing home the attack with the bayonet, they drove the enemy from trench to trench and from ridge to ridge. Deeds of valour were performed day after day and night after night. Heroes died on every side, with no historian to tell how gallantly they died. One of these young Australians was wounded in the charge, and lay some distance behind the advanced position. It was then that two fighting parsons came along a communication trench, which was comparatively safe from rifle fire, but offered little protection from shrapnel. From a slight hollow they saw the wounded man, in evident agony, raise his hand, and try to move. Captain Gillison and Corporal Pittenrigh—who is a Methodist minister when not a soldier—decided to try to effect a rescue, though they knew a machine-gun was trained on the trench, and had been warned to beware of snipers. Mounting the parapet, they crawled along some distance towards the wounded man. A couple of bullets zipped by, but they pushed on. More bullets flew, and both the rescuers were wounded.

Then they tried to regain the shelter of the trench, and Gillison was wounded again, but his companion managed to scramble in. Mortally wounded in the chest and the side, the poor chaplain lay in the open, but was soon carried in and conveyed to the field hospital. He was conscious for a while and cheerful, though he knew his hours were numbered. He was able to greet Chaplains F. Colwell and G. T. Walden, who had just arrived with Colonel Holmes's Australian Brigade, and Chaplain J. M. Dale of Brisbane. Before two o'clock he was dead, dying as he had lived, a gallant Christian soldier.

That night, wrapped in a Union Jack, he was buried. It was bright moonlight. Out in the Ægean the warships and hospital ships lay passive. Back in the hills sounded the ceaseless rattle of musketry. Chaplain-Colonel E. N. Merrington conducted a brief service, at which were chaplains of all denominations and several officers and men of his brigade and battalion. The little shallow grave lies a couple of miles north of Anzac, on the edge of the five-mile beach that stretches on to Suvla Bay. As with the hero of Corunna, "we carved not a line, and we raised not a stone—but we left him alone with his glory." His comrades went back to the firing-line with the memory of his self-sacrifice to cheer them on. And we thought then of Longfellow's beautiful lines—

Soon the battalion will erect a little wooden cross over his grave—one more of those little wooden crosses that are so numerous on Gallipoli. We who knew and loved him will never forget Andrew Gillison.