War Memorials

The Day Of Their Return, 10.

In the small town of Boseville on the Flone between Nova Roma and the Cimmerian Mountains:

"An inscribed monolith in the plaza commemorated its defenders during the Troubles." (p. 151)

Every town in Britain has a war memorial listing the names of those who died in World Wars I and II. Working in a factory in Sevenoaks, Kent, in the early 1970s, I met a guy who had just returned from Australia where he had gone immediately after World War II. Since he no longer had any relatives or other contacts still alive in England, he had come to Sevenoaks because his best friend during the war had been from there but he did not know whether his friend had survived the war. He checked Sevenoaks War Memorial and his friend's name was not on it. Then he thought of the outlying villages. Having hired a car, he drove to one of the villages and his friend's name was on the memorial there. I was born after the war but I have remembered that story about the war memorials until now.

"They shall grow not old

"As we that are left grow old.

"Age shall not weary them

"Nor the years condemn.

"At the going down of the sun

"And in the morning,

"We will remember them."