Was it Kipling—I have failed to find the reference—who wrote
a poem on how Private Jones rode for the first time behind four horses, with the Colonel and officers to attend him and the band of the regiment to play him home ? I thought of that, as perhaps some others did, as I read reports of Private McGowan's funeral last Monday. Private McGowan rode home at Shanghai, where a Japanese machine- gun bullet had killed him, attended by a Major-General, a British Admiral, an American Admiral, a French Vice-Admiral and an Italian Major. Mounted Indian police rode before him, a detachment of Royal Ulster Rifles marched behind, and behind them again Italian sailors, French sailors, American marines, Dutch sailors, Sikhs and Chinese and White Russians. It was a great day- for Private McGowan. He knew nothing of it ; I hope some of his relations did.
JANus. JANus.
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