Lieutenant Ewart Alan Mackintosh, MC

Lt. Mackintosh, MC

On the outbreak of the Great War, Ewart Mackintosh was accepted by the Seaforth Highlanders, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 31 December 1914. He served with the 5th (The Sutherland and Caithness Highland) Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, part of 51st (Highland) Division.
On the evening of 16 May, 1916 Mackintosh led a raid on German trenches in the sector of the front line north-west of Arras. By the end of the night there were sixteen British casualties, including fourteen wounded and two killed. One of the dead soldiers was Private David Sutherland. Mackintosh had been trying to bring Sutherland, who had lost a number of limbs, back to the trenches. Sutherland died of his wounds and had to be abandoned; he has no known burial place. For his part in this action, Mackintosh was awarded the Military Cross (MC). His citation reads:

"For conspicuous gallantry. He organised and led a successful raid on the enemy's trenches with great skill and courage. Several of the enemy were disposed of and a strong point destroyed. He also brought back two wounded men under heavy fire."

The action, and particularly the loss of Sutherland, affected Mackintosh deeply, and he wrote perhaps his most famous poem, In Memoriam, in response:

"So you were David's father,
And he was your only son,
And the new-cut peats are rotting
And the work is left undone,
Because of an old man weeping,
Just an old man in pain,
For David, his son David,
That will not come again.

 

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year get stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

 

You were only David's father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight -
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

 

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers',
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.

 

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first-born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed 'Don't leave me, sir',
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer."

Later, Mackintosh fought and was wounded at High Wood on the Somme, and I include part of one of his other poems in my book about that struggle:

"Oh gay were we in spirit
In the hours of the night
When we lay in rest by Albert
And waited for the fight;
Gay and gallant were we
On the day that we set forth,
But broken, broken, broken
Is the valour of the North.

 

The wild warpipes were calling
Our hearts were blithe and free
When we went up the valley
To the death we could not see.
Clear lay the wood before us
In the clear summer weather,
But broken, broken, broken
Are the sons of the heather.

 

In the cold of the morning,
In the burning of the day,
The thin lines stumbled forward,
The dead and dying lay.
By the unseen death that caught us
By the bullets' raging hail
Broken, broken, broken
Is the pride of the Gael."

Mackintosh was killed in action 96 years ago during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917.