SERJEANT ALASDAIR MARTIN
SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS
23RD OCTOBER 1916 AGE 22
BURIED: GUARDS' CEMETERY LESBOEUFS, FRANCE
Serjeant Martin's inscription combines a Latin saying with a Scottish Gaelic quote from the Old Testament. Look up the Latin saying - Amicus usque ad aras - and ninety-nine times out of a hundred you will be told that it translates as 'a friend to the altars', with the meaning 'a friend until death'. This is no doubt the meaning Alasdair Martin's mother intended But, despite its acquired meaning, it's worth making the point that this is not what the words originally meant. Plutarch records them being said by Pericles, and they do indeed translate as 'a friend to the altars'. Roman oaths were taken at altars, it was like swearing on the holy bible. So Pericles was telling his friend, who had asked him to lie for him, that although he was his friend he was not prepared to lie on oath for him.
The second part of the inscription, 'Gus am bris an la agud an teich na sgaillean' is a quotation from the Song of Solomon 4:6, 'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away'. It's a popular inscription in any language. And, like the Latin inscription above, its actual meaning has been replaced; it's now a reference to the time when the living will be reunited with their dead. In the Song of Solomon it's the words of a lover who is relishing being in her presence until the day breaks.
Six soldiers died on 23 October 1916 and were buried at map reference 57c.T.9.b.2.8. In August 1919 the Graves Registration Unit exhumed their bodies and was able to identify five of them as being members of the 2nd Battalion Seaforth Highlanders, including Sergeant Martin. They were re-buried them in the Guards' Cemetery, Lesboeufs.