ON September 9, 1914, Joseph Walker enlisted for the duration of the war; on January 11, 1916, the sea bore his dead body to the dyke at West Capelle. Usually a body washed ashore in this neighborhood is buried at the foot of the dunes, without coffin, without ceremony. But not this time. This afternoon, at 1 P.M., while the northwest wind whistled over Walcheren, the English soldier was buried in the churchyard of West Capelle. Behind the walls of the tower where we sought protection from the gale the burial service was read.

First the vice-consul in the name of England spread the British flag over him who for England had sacrificed his young life. Four men of West Capelle carried the coffin outside and placed it at the foot of the tower, that old gray giant, which has witnessed so much world’s woe, here opposite the sea. The Reverend Mr. Fraser, the English clergyman at Kortryk, himself an exile, said we were gathered to pay the last homage to a Briton who had died for his country. It was a simple, but touching ceremony.

“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live.... He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down.” Thus spoke the voice of the minister and the wind carried his words, and the wind played with the flag of England, the flag that flies over all seas, in Flanders, in France, in the Balkans, in Egypt, as the symbol of threatened freedom—the flag whose folds here covered a fallen warrior. Deeply were we moved when the clergyman in his prayer asked for a “message of comfort to his home.”

Yes, who is Walker, No. 16092, Private Joseph Walker, Bedfordshire regiment? Who, in loving thoughts, thinks of him with hope even now when we, strangers to them, stand near to him in death? Where is his home? We know it not, but in our inmost hearts we pray for a “message of comfort and consolation” for his people.

And in the roaring storm we went our way. There was he carried, the soldier come to rest, and the flag fluttered in the wind and wrapped itself round that son of England. Then the coffin sank into the ground and the hearts of us, the departing witnesses, were sore. Earth fell on it, and the preacher said: “Earth to earth, dust to dust.”—From the Amsterdam “Telegraaf,” January, 1916.