THIS is the tale of two cousins.

They had the same name. They came from the same town. And they died within months of each other on the blood-soaked Western Front.

The first to die was Richard Forsyth McGibbon, a 21-year-old medical student at Glasgow University.

He was a second lieutenant with the 15th battalion of the Highland Light Infantry (HLI) - he was not a regular soldier or a conscript, but a volunteer, one of many thousands from Glasgow and Lanarkshire.

He met his end on November 16, 1916, in a casualty station run by the Canadian army in northern France, dying of wounds received in action at Beaumont Hamel.

Five months later, his cousin, also Richard Forsyth McGibbon, a second lieutenant with the Seaforth Highlanders, sister regiment to the HLI, died in the region of the Somme.

His body was one of many interred in a cemetery at Guémappe, in Wancourt.

The link between the two men has been discovered almost a century after their deaths by Jim Devine, secretary of the modern-day Highland Light Infantry Association.

And to add to the coincidences, the second McGibbon was killed in the same action as Jim's great uncle, William Quillan, who is also buried at Guémappe.

"It's a fascinating story," said Jim, with some understatement.

The first McGibbon was one of thousands of Scottish volunteers who signed up with the HLI in the Great War.

He joined the 15th battalion, the Tramways battalion.

Beaumont Hamel was a key British target early in the Somme offensive of 1916.

On November 13, some 40,000 soldiers set out to vanquish the German lines and occupy Beaumont Hamel and two other villages.

To the 51st (Highland) Division fell the task of routing the Germans from Beaumont Hamel.

Supporting them was the 32nd division, which included the 15th, 16th and 17th battalions of the HLI.

In the words of historian Martin Gilbert: "[They] stormed the labyrinth of fortified German underground tunnels, dugouts and command headquarters."

They prevailed - but only at great cost.

Among the many casualties was Richard. Surgeons fought to save him, but he died of his wounds, on November 16, in a casualty station run by the Canadian army.

HE was buried at Puchevillers British Cemetery, north-east of Amiens, one of 1763 burials from the Great War.

In due course, a telegram was sent to Richard's father.

The Evening Times reported: "As we intimated yesterday, Mr George McGibbon, Eastmount, Hawkhead Road, Paisley, has received a telegram informing him that his only son ... died from wounds."

Among Richard's possessions was his service sword, which was gifted to a former schoolteacher, Mrs Irene Jamieson, a friend of Richard's mother.

Irene in turn presented it to Jim, and it is now used in HLI Association school visits.

Jim carefully unsheathes the sword - it is still sharp.

Just beneath the hilt is an inscription, thought to have been paid for by McGibbon's brother officers.

Richard's name can today also be found on the plaque to the 15th HLI in Glasgow's Riverside museum of transport.

He was, of course, only one of a vast number of soldiers who died on the Western Front.

By some estimates, nearly a million lives were claimed in the ferocious fighting at Verdun and the Somme.

The Anglo-French forces had made some headway at the expense of the German forces dug in around the Somme, but not enough. The war still had a long way to go.

The Battle of Arras was a major Allied offensive that lasted from April 9 until May 16, 1917, with Allied forces subjecting German defences near Arras to a sustained assault.

ON April 23-24 the Seaforths, supported by the Camerons and the Black Watch, captured the village of Guémappe, near Wancourt.

Jim said: "They were unable to hold it due to their flanks being exposed. However, they managed to take and hold on to commanding positions above and below the village, preventing the Germans from retaking it."

Among the casualties were Richard's cousin - and William Quillan, Jim Devine's great-uncle.

Both, says Jim, died in the same assault on German machine-gun positions.

Richard, like his cousin, was a second lieutenant with the 10th battalion of the Seaforths; William, 23, from Govan, was a private, with the eighth.

They were buried at the Guémappe British Cemetery.

According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the cemetery contains 169 burials of the First World War, six unidentified.

Jim said: "Some details of the incident in which they both died can be found in the regimental history.

"It seemed that there were German machine-guns on an elevated position, and a group of soldiers stormed it, but the move was not successful. Most of the casualties in the cemetery are from that single action."

As for William, Jim added, "he was a volunteer who joined up under Lord Kitchener's call for a 'million man army'.

HIS local regiment would have been the HLI and I'm not sure how he ended up in the Seaforths, its sister regiment.

"But with the Kitchener volunteer battalions that were being drawn up, they would have been sent to where they were needed."

William was one of two brothers - the other emigrated to New Zealand - and died without children.

One of Jim's prized possessions is a wooden case containing some of his great-uncle's military items. There is a photograph of him in his Seaforth uniform, as well as his medals, his cap-badge and his epaulette badge.

There's also the so-called 'death penny' or 'dead man's penny' - a five-inch-diameter memorial plaque which was issued after the peace was signed to the next-of-kin of British and Empire servicemen who died during the war.

n On the web: www.highlandlightinfantry.org.uk