break of war was to have gone to Oxford. He obtained a commission, was trained at Bedford, and was out in France, a Lieutenant of the Fourth Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders, by January 1915. Three months later, on the 23rd April, he was wounded, and on the same day of the same month, in 1917, he was killed in the battle for the Chemical Works at Roeux, on the Somme.
A friend who was with him at Winchester writes that even at eighteen Eugene Crombie 'had an air of perfect maturity. He was wise beyond his years, yet there was a golden thread of boyishness and humour running through all he said and did. He was courageous, morally as well as physically. Those who knew him well knew that within him there was a spiritual fire of true religion which made him love right for its own sake, and that his mind was exquisitely susceptible to the influences of poetry, nature, and music. But this side of him was kept hidden; not all who came into contact with him found it; but it was there, and reveals itself in the few poems he has left us, especially in
