COMRADES
LET ME SLEEP TONIGHT

PRIVATE DAVID ARNOTT

ARGYLL AND SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS

29TH APRIL 1917 AGE 21

BURIED: POINT DU JOUR MILITARY CEMETERY, ATHIES, FRANCE


David Arnott enlisted on the outbreak of war and joined the BEF in France on 11 May 1915, serving with the 10th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The son of James and Grace Arnott from Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire, his father was an iron moulder, as were his three older brothers so it seems likely that David too became an iron moulder when he left school.
Arnott was killed in action during the battle of Arras. Both his parents were dead and it was a Mrs Arlow who chose his inscription. This was one of his sisters with whom he had been living before the war. The line comes from verse one of the hymn, 'Call of the Roll',from 'First Truths or Lessons & Hymns for Christian Children', published by the SPCK in 1843.

Sadly from the field of conflict,
Where the wounded and the slain
Lay with pale and upturn'd faces,
Some in peace and some in pain -
Slow we bore a dying soldier,
Who had fallen in the fight;
And to us he faintly whisper'd,
"Comrades, let me sleep tonight."