"HIS GALLANTRY UNDER FIRE
WAS ALWAYS AN EXAMPLE
TO HIS MEN
AND OTHER OFFICERS"

SECOND LIEUTENANT ARCHER BENJAMIN LAXTON

ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY

21ST JULY 1917 AGE 19

BURIED: LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM


Both the tone of the words and the quotation marks make me think that this is an extract from a letter of condolence to his mother from Lieutenant Laxton's senior officer. The fact that she quoted from it for her son's headstone inscription indicates that she derived the intended comfort from it. Her son, after all, was only 19. He died in a Casualty Clearing Station at Lijssenthoek "of gunshot wounds head, right shoulder and right thigh".