LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM HERBERT ANDERSON
HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY
25TH MARCH 1918 AGE 36
BURIED: PERONNE ROAD CEMETERY, MARICOURT, FRANCE
William Herbert (Bertie) Anderson was the eldest of William and Eleanora Anderson's four sons and the last to be killed. His wife, Mrs Gertrude Campbell Anderson, chose his epitaph. It's a modified quote from the poem 'To M.C.N' by 'Laurence Hope', the pen name of Adela Florence Nicolson (1865-1904). The poem is quite difficult to find on the Internet so I have included the whole of it here:
Thou hast no wealth, nor any pride of power,
Thy life is offered on affection's altar.
Small sacrifices claim thee, hour by hour,
Yet on the tedious path thou dost not falter.
To the unknowing, well thy days might seem
Circled by solitude and tireless duty,
Yet is thy soul made radiant by a dream
Of delicate and rainbow-coloured beauty.
Never a flower trembles in the wind,
Never a sunset lingers on the sea,
But something of its fragrance joins thy mind,
Some sparkle of its light remains with thee.
Thus when thy spirit enters on its rest,
Thy lips shall say, "I too have had the best!"
Mrs Anderson changed the word 'thy' for 'my' in the last two lines of the poem. And, it's the same inscription she had inscribed on her own grave in Invershin Cemetery, Creich, Sutherland after she died in 1967. She was buried under her husband's original wooden grave marker which, as it says on the base, was "brought from Mariecourt, France, by his wife".
Lieutenant Colonel William Herbert Anderson was killed on the fourth day of the German Spring Offensive when for some weeks afterwards it seemed as though they would sweep all before them and win the war. The fight was desperate, as evidenced by the circumstances in which Anderson won his Victoria Cross.
This site describes the war service and deaths of all four of the Anderson brothers. It is based on a novel written by Robin Scott-Elliott, 'The Way Home', which he in turn based on the story of the Anderson brothers.