Note found in the pocketbook of an English corporal killed during the battle of the Somme:

Dear Mother

I am writing these few lines severely wounded. We have done well our Batt. advanced about 3 quarters of a mile. I am laid in a shell hole with 2 wounds in my hip and through my back. I cannot move or crawl. I have been here for 24 hours and never seen a living soul. I hope you will receive these few lines as I don’t expect anyone will come to take me away, but you know I have done my duty out here now for 1 year and 8 months and you will always have the consolation that I died quite happy doing my duty.

Must give my best of love to all the cousins who [have] been so kind to me since I have been out here and the Best of love to Arthur and Harry and all at Swinefleet. xxx

He was identified as John Duesbery of Bradford, and the note and his other belongings were sent home to his family. In The Quick and the Dead, Richard van Emden writes, “His grave would have been marked in a rudimentary way, perhaps with a piece of wood or an upturned rifle, but whatever was placed there it was subsequently destroyed and John’s body lost.”