SECOND LIEUTENANT DAVID CUTHBERT THOMAS
ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS
18TH MARCH 1916 AGE 20
BURIED: POINT 110 NEW MILITARY CEMETERY, FRICOURT, FRANCE
This is 'Dick Tiltwood', the young subaltern immortalised in Siegfried Sassoon's 'Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man'. Although Sassoon writes under a pseudonym, George Sherston, and disguises everyone in the book with pseudonyms, he doesn't disguise their qualities nor his feelings towards them. This is his first impression of Tiltwood:
"Twilight was falling and there was only one small window, but even in the half-light his face surprised me by its candour and freshness. He had the obvious good looks which go with fair hair and firm features, but it was the radiant integrity of his expression which astonished me. ... His was the bright countenance of truth; ignorant and undoubting; incapable of concealment but strong in reticence and modesty. In fact, he was as good as gold, and everyone knew it as soon as they knew him."
Sassoon tells us that 'Dick' was the son of a country parson, which was true of David Thomas. His father was the Revd Evan Thomas of Llanedy Rectory, Pontardulais in Glamorganshire. To Sassoon:
"Generations of upright country gentlemen had made Dick Tiltwood what he was, and he had arrived at manhood in the nick of time to serve his country in what he naturally assumed to be a just and glorious war. ... he was a shining epitome of his unembittered generation which gladly gave itself to the German guns and machine guns - more gladly, perhaps than the generation which knew how much (or how little some would say) it had to lose."
'Dick' was killed by a sniper whilst out with a wiring party. The bullet entered his throat but didn't kill him outright. He was taken to the dressing station but despite the fact that the Battalion doctor had been a throat specialist before the war he hadn't been able to save him.
Sassoon attends his funeral that night:
"... we stood on the bare slope just above the ration dump while the Brigade chaplain went through his words; a flag covered all we were there for; only the white stripes on the flag made any impression on the dimness of the night. ... A sack was lowered into a hole in the ground. The sack was Dick. I knew Death then."
David Thomas's epitaph, 'Per crucem ad lucem", through the cross to the light, or by suffering to heaven, confirms what Sassoon has already told us about him. The phrase summarised a monastic ideal that became the ideal for knightly piety and is therefore eminently suitable for someone who, "was a shining epitome of his unembittered generation which gladly gave itself to the German guns and machine guns".
It may not be insignificant that 'per crucem ad lucem' was the title of Cardinal Mercier's impassioned, patriotic and inspirational sermon in St Gudale's Cathedral, Brussels on 21 July 1916, Belgian Independence Day. Published as a pastoral letter, which eventually circulated round the world, it encapsulated Mercier's belief that 'per crucem as lucem', from sacrifice flashes forth light, therefore victory will prevail.