The poet Rupert Brooke died 98 years ago today. I took this photograph back in 2009 when I visited the grave in an olive grove near Tris Boukes Bay on the Greek Island of Skyros. Brooke died of septicemia from an infected mosquito bite aboard a French hospital ship en route to the landings at
Gallipoli.
The site was chosen by his close friend, William Denis Browne - killed in action at
Gallipoli a few weeks later - who wrote
of Brooke's death:
"...I sat with Rupert. At 4 o’clock he
became weaker, and at 4.46 he died, with the sun shining all round his
cabin, and the cool sea-breeze blowing through the door and the shaded
windows. No one could have wished for a quieter or a calmer end than in
that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains and fragrant with sage and
thyme."
A couple of landscapes taken last week on the WW1 battlefields surrounding Ypres. Top: The Caterpillar Crater near Hill 60 created when 1st Australian Tunneling Company detonated explosives beneath German trenches. Above: a ploughed field hints at how the landscape may have looked during the war.
