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[Page 13]
(From Captain Bean, Commonwealth War Correspondent.)
(Postmark 20 August 1916)
Headquarters
1st. Anzac,
France.
Dear Judge Ferguson,
I wrote to you a long while since, but I am not sure whether in the end I posted the letter, as I kept it until I had seen some of those who were with your son when the shell came into his dug-out and killed him. The other day I found a friend of mine, little Claud Jones, (a subaltern in the same Battalion) who was there with your son at the time. It is a sadly brief story. They were sitting there talking at the time – no hint of anything especial doing – when this shell came through the roof of the dug-out. Your son was killed quite instantly, Jones tells me.
I have no doubt that many others (I know that some of them have written) have told you what they thought of your boy and his work here. I heard his name mentioned more than once as that of an officer who had before him every likelihood of reaching a high position, and I have not the slightest doubt that had he come through this war it would have been to end it in a considerably higher rank. I have always heard that the way he managed his company on the memorable night when the Germans first got into our lines near Armentieres was all that could have been wished. You know that owing to certain matters, which were not within the control of the Battalion officers, there was an enquiry after that raid, and I understood that