PRIVATE SAMUEL EWING
HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY
31ST DECEMBER 1915 AGE 19
BURIED: PINK FARM CEMETERY, GALLIPOLI, TURKEY
According to the Book of Job, there was once a good man called Job who feared God and eschewed evil. He was the greatest of all the men in the east with seven sons and three daughters, 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 she asses and a very great household. One day God told Satan that Job had "none other like him on earth, a perfect and an upright man". Satan's reply was that Job found it easy to be a good man because God had looked after him and given him so much; he wouldn't be like this if things went wrong. God challenged Satan to see if this was true and one by one Job lost everything he possessed until finally a great wind blew down the house where all his sons and daughters were gathered and killed them all. And what was Job's response? He shaved his head and tore his clothes and fell down and worshipped saying:
"Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Many relations, like Samuel Ewing's mother, chose these words as a headstone inscription. Like "Thy will de done" and "Not my will but thine be done" these inscriptions are the ultimate in the unquestioning acceptance of what people took to be the will of God.
Samuel Ewing served with the 6th Battalion The Highland Light Infantry, the City of Glasgow battalion. Posted to Gallipoli in May 1915, the batallion fought in many of the campaign's major battles - Gully Ravine, Achi Baba, Krithia - until the evacuation of Cape Helles on the night of the 8/9th January 1916. Ewing was killed nine days before the battalion was withdrawn.