Caelli and I are in northern France to find seven Creswick diggers. The first two are actually New Zealanders, but are named on the cenotaph in Creswick, and are buried or memorialised in Belgium. On the day we arrived, it rained. And rained. Not really heavy rain, but constant (and certainly challenging for my first time driving in France!)
Our first stop was Messines Ridge NZ Memorial (which is within the Messines Ridge British Cemetery). Caelli's tablet had conniptions and refused to open our diggers file, so not only did we not have a name, but we also didn't have an exact location. However, we've both pored over the list so often that we were sure we'd recognise him by name once we saw him, and we even had an inkling who he was. John Miller Romeo.
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| Second from the top |
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| The cemetery part of Messines |
Then on to Kandahar Farm Cemetery, about three kilometres away. By the time we got there, it wasn't raining, but everything was wet. We thought we knew the name of the digger we were looking, but by the time we got to the final row, we were doubting ourselves. The grave of George Charles Victor Petrie was the sixth last that we looked at.
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| Yep - final row |
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| This is obviously the grave of a Jewish soldier |
Onwards once more through the rain to our accommodation for the next three nights. Au Bord de l'Eau - On the Water's Edge - is an old mill on an island in a tiny village. Our small room is on the first floor, but the view is wonderful.
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