Item 04: G. O. Hawkins letters to his family, 2 January 1915-November 1917 - Page 126
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[Page 126]
5
Is only gorse and heather round us. Thick, wild and tangling gorse, and dark browned heather of a vanished season.
We are on the moorlands.
Soon we pass a cottage almost hidden in a little belt of pines and gorse.
Falcon is seen on the roadside. One of the soldiers slips out from the ranks and catches it.
There is no fight shown by the frightened bird. It seems ill and suffering.
Almost every one of those noble soldiers expressing filthy speech some frightful method of putting the defenceless creature to death.
Not one notices the beauty of its feathers. The pitiful terror of its aching eyes; nor its helplessness
Not one seems to understand that it is a work of God as much as we ourselves.
A few calm words guardedly spoken induce them to let it go.
Did they notice the grace of its short flight.
Not they.