The death in action of Pte. Alexander Murray, 2nd Seaforths, husband of Mrs Murray, Marybank, Kildary, Ross-shire, was recently announced in the Journal. Deceased was well known in the Kildary district, where he was the first married man in the parish to volunteer under the Derby Scheme. From boyhood he had been employed at Balnagown. He was hallboy at the Castle, then footman, and piper, and latterly gamekeeper. His death occasioned great regret in the district where his associations were so intimate and where he was greatly esteemed, and every heart throbs in sympathy with the sorrowing widow and young family, by whom he is survived.

Writing on October 26, the Rev. J. Gray, Chaplain to the 2nd Seaforths, in a letter to the widow, says: “You will have received the bad news about your husband, 40040 Pte. A. Murray, 2nd Seaforth Highlanders; I write with great regret to confirm the tidings. The battalion went into the line on the 18th October and took part in a most successful advance which secured the capture of two French villages and the release of several hundreds of civilians. On Wednesday morning we entered the second village and we were billeted in the houses and cellars of the village. I saw your husband in the forenoon. He was in good spirits. The enemy shelled the village in the course of the day and about five o’ clock most unfortunately your dear husband was killed by a piece of shrapnel while sitting round a fire with the other servants in B Coy’s billet. Pte. Maclaren (Aberfeldy) was wounded with the same shell. Your husband suffered no pain – death being instantaneous. We brought his body to a British Military Cemetery in the first village captured and there we reverently buried him along with Capt. Hector Munro, M.C., and seven other men of the Battalion.

“At the service, which I conducted at the grave, we gave thanks for the good soldier faithful unto death and we thought of the friends in the homeland who now mourn him. The pipers played a lament. In the foreign land all possible honour was done to our beloved comrade. While nothing we can say will ever make up for the loss you and your children have sustained, it may comfort you a little to know that your husband was held in the highest regard out here. His officer will write you himself, expressing his own regret. Meanwhile the Colonel, officers, and men join in sending you deepest sympathy. It is our prayer that you will have strength given you to endure the crushing sorrow. May the God of all comfort be with you and the fatherless children. Your dear husband has laid down his life for his own loved ones and has heard the welcome of the Master, ‘Well done good and faithful servant’.”

Captain Donald Munro, 2nd Seaforths, with whom Pte. Murray was on intimate terms from boyhood, writes: “I know how useless it is to offer sympathy to you in your awful loss, but I thought I must write. Your husband’s death is deplored by us all – officers and men. He was a splendid soldier and was respected by everyone. Try to be brave for his sake and the bairnies. It will be a little comfort for you to know that he did not suffer and that everything was done to show our respect for a gallant comrade. I personally saw the last offices done to the remains, and the grave is in a beautiful spot, and is marked by a cross. The body is next to that of Captain Munro of Foulis. As a friend of your husband I can only say how much I feel his death, but in time we will all be proud that he died for the greatest cause.”