Boy Soldiers of the Great War (35 page)

After a further delay, Harold wrote in September directly to Lloyd George at the War Office to press his brother’s case. The Secretary of State for War was busy at the best of times, but it did not hurt to try and, out of sheer desperation to get things started, Harold wrote movingly, ‘Please allow Donald to come home and allow her [their mother] some joy after an agony of suffering already coinciding with the duration of the war.’

Official confusion followed. Harold was told that his brother’s birth certificate had not been received when, as he pointed out to Lloyd George in his next letter, it had been referred to previously as ‘returned herewith’.

Whether this correspondence in any way speeded up Donald Price’s withdrawal from the fighting line is not known. Harold’s wish that his brother might be sent home could and would not be granted, but his persistence partially paid off. On 27 September, the following letter was received:

Infantry Records

With reference to your letter No. RF/17164/PS dated 18.8.16 instructions have been issued for No. P.S 5473 Pte D. J. Price 20th Bn Royal Fusiliers to be withdrawn from the firing line in accordance with Army Council Instruction No. 1186 of 1916 para 2 (b).

Capt for DAG, GHQ, 3rd Echelon

Even then, it was not until 6 October, nearly three months after Harold’s first letter, that Donald Price was withdrawn. He was
returned to his battalion the following March immediately on passing his nineteenth birthday. In September 1917 he suffered a gun shot wound to his left knee and was hospitalized.

Losing experienced men, no matter what their age, was always grievous to any command. It is certainly evident from Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd’s letter to Mrs Evans that he found it hard to countenance losing a soldier, albeit under age, whom he had highly rated. The temptation must have existed for a CO to flout the rules, especially when a boy was so clearly physically capable and keen to stay. Rules and regulations regarding the use of equipment had been issued to officers in the line before and had been ignored when the CO could see that they ran counter to good sense. Would it be surprising if a CO were to resist losing a boy he trusted, particularly when so many of his experienced comrades had recently been killed or wounded?

Solid, reliable men were often at a premium and, as a rule, a number were withheld from general attacks – often those who had previously volunteered for trench raids or patrols. These men might be required to form the nucleus of a rejuvenated unit should it be needed. Invariably, some were boys, not because of their age, but simply because of their experience. By 1916 and 1917 there was a growing number of boys aged sixteen and seventeen who had been promoted to the rank of corporal or even sergeant, as well as others awarded medals for bravery.

According to Routine Orders issued later that summer by General Richard Haking, commanding First Army, boys sent down the line had to be noted in battalion returns as having been ‘detached for special duty’. Accompanying the note would be a demand for replacements, yet such replacements were rarely like-for-like. No numerical compensation could replace the experience of boys each of whom might be worth five fresh-faced newcomers, lads who might be full of enthusiasm but with little or no idea of how to survive, let alone conduct themselves in the face of the enemy.

Drafts replacing those killed or wounded had to be tutored in the practicalities of trench life. Sixteen-year-old Thomas Hope, who had been so quickly disabused of his enthusiasm for war, nevertheless was one who was considered to have the requisite knowledge and was chosen to pass on his wisdom.

Each sentry has one of the new soldiers and on my turn of duty I am accompanied by a fresh-faced youth of nineteen. He is excited at being actually in the front line, not a nervous excitement but more like that of a schoolboy, all eagerness and expectancy. I explain to him the lie of the land in front, point out the supposed machine-gun emplacements in the Jerry lines, our own posts in front of our wire mostly inhabited at night, and a hundred other things a soldier should know about his particular part of the line.

To all this I add my own pet theories and devices for cheating death. How to take a slanting look through a loophole. The spare cartridge stuck in the rifle sling. It is easier and quicker to insert than a new clip when one counts life by seconds. How to distinguish the different shells by their sound, and the necessity of judging accurately the interval between the bursts. The best way to approach a Jerry trench, and the necessity of taking advantage of every bit of cover. He takes it all in and asks for more until my fund of information becomes exhausted and we lounge against the sides of the trench. ‘How long have you been here?’ he enquires next. ‘Oh, about four months.’

Dick Trafford, the ex-coalminer, had been in France for a year and had survived the Battle of Loos. Although only seventeen years old, he was a trusted member of the company and well respected. It was fortunate for one newly arrived officer that Dick was around, for the young subaltern was a bag of nerves.

Soon after his arrival he said to me, ‘You’ve had plenty of experience, Trafford, could I more or less keep close to you, give me an
education.’ I said, ‘Well, sir, if that’s how you want it, sir, I don’t mind what-so-ever.’

In a reversal of normal roles, it was Dick who kept a close eye on the officer, until the day when the battalion was ordered to take part in an attack.

As we were getting ready to go over he came to me and said, ‘Now, what I want you to do is let me follow you over, and let me do what you do.’ ‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘you’re going to be very funny doing what I do, but if I happen to get hit, in any way, ignore me and carry on, carry on the attack. Don’t forget. Don’t bother about me, save yourself, sir.’

Shortly after going over the top, the officer was struck by several machine-gun bullets while attempting to peer over the lip of a shell hole. Dick found his body after the fighting abated. ‘And that was the end of him,’ recalled Dick. ‘He’d been sent out, but he’d no confidence, no confidence to do anything.’

Second Lieutenant Harold Cottrell was not lacking in confidence, only experience. He was keen to get to the front line not least so that he could set about avenging the death of his brother, George, who had been killed in a shell explosion at his gun battery in May 1915. Harold, a lad from Edgbaston in Birmingham, had applied for a temporary commission in October 1915, two months after his seventeenth birthday. In September 1916, he was given the order to proceed abroad. Taking his dead brother’s revolver, he left with a draft of 110 other ranks and three other officers to join a regular battalion, the 2nd South Lancashire Regiment, currently out on rest in huts in Acheux Wood on the Somme.

Second Lieutenant Cottrell’s abrupt departure for France surprised his parents, George and Agnes. They had been led to believe from statements made in the House that boys under
nineteen would not be sent abroad which, in the case of their son, would mean active service in 1917. Yet from his letters Harold was only too keen to get involved. Just a couple of days after stepping foot on French soil he penned a letter to his father. It is dated 28 September.

My dear Father

You will see that I have got up into the line at last and I am glad to say I have managed to get my own battalion.

I am afraid I am not allowed to give away my position, but I am not 100 miles away from that place that we have just captured, in fact I am in the middle of the Somme Battle.

We are at present in camp in a wood just behind the line with occasional ‘Hymns of hate’ coming across from Fritz.

The noise is terrific, and the sky is lit up with the flashes of shells and guns, mostly our side, and I expect it is pretty awful for the Hun. How they can stand it I cannot make out. All the prisoners I have seen have been fine big men and well set up.

We are going up into our trenches in a day or two now and I expect we shall be in the next push, however, don’t worry as it is quite a simple thing now …

With best love, ever your loving son,

Harold.

Two days later, he wrote again.

Just a line to let you know that I am going into action so I shall not be able to write to you for a few days.

We are going to take a certain bit of Hun trench, but as they have had a terrible Artillery strafing for the last two days I don’t suppose it will be very difficult. We have got the Canadians
attacking on our right, and as they bear no love for Fritz, we shall be in good company.

We are doing this show because this Battalion failed in one of the former attacks on Thiepval and so every one is keen to wipe out this score, and I can tell you this time there will be no prisoners, certainly not on my part because I have Freddy [his nickname for George, his dead brother] to think of.

We are quite close to Thiepval at present and luckily the Hun gunners have not discovered us. We came here yesterday in the pouring rain and it was not at all pleasant, but I am glad to say it is nice and fine now, and I hope it keeps nice for the attack, to which I am looking forward.

The guns are fairly going at it now and it is very soothing to think of the state of the Hun at the other end.

Best love

Ever your loving son

Harold.

Harold had just time to scribble this letter before the battalion left its billet at noon to march up to the support trenches. Harold was mistaken in the belief that his battalion would go into action. In the event, an attack was made by the Canadians to Harold’s right, in response to which German artillery fire was brought down on the trenches including those held by the 2nd South Lancashire Regiment. A number of casualties were sustained, including fourteen other ranks killed, and eighteen more wounded. One officer was also killed, and it happened to be Harold Cottrell.

Harold’s death coincided with Donald Price’s removal from the line for being under age, in accordance with June’s Instruction 1186. Yet Donald Price was six months older than Harold Cottrell, who had been allowed to go overseas to fight. This made no sense to George and Agnes Cottrell.

In the weeks after Harold’s death, his parents became involved in the usual exchange of letters with the War Office. As Harold’s body had been recovered there was a burial in Pozières Cemetery and information as to where he lay passed on to the family. Personal effects were returned, although the revolver that belonged to Harold’s brother was not forthcoming and enquiries were made as to its whereabouts. There was a final statement of his bank account and a settlement of outstanding monies totalling £4 16s 8d paid to his father. The formalities completed, George and Agnes Cottrell were left alone to mourn their dead sons.

Six months after Harold’s death, Agnes Cottrell sent a series of seven letters to the War Office. Each was typified by yet greater anger, as she sought specific answers as to how and why her son had died. The answers could not bring her any solace, though the army reluctantly forwarded her questions to France.

April 16th 1917

To The Officer Commanding

I am extremely sorry to waste your time by asking you questions about casualties, but the mother of the late Second Lieutenant H.W. Cottrell, who was killed in action at Mouquet Farm on the 30th September 1916, is so persistent in her enquiries, that I have no option but to do so.

She appears to have a grievance that certain questions addressed to Col. Craigie-Halkett [the former CO of the battalion] were not answered and so she desires to know:

(a) Approximate hour at which he was killed and hour of burial.

(b) Extent of his wounds.

(c) Manner of identification.

Mrs Cottrell has lost two sons in the war and it is evidently a case of a distraught mother who cannot control herself.

I would suggest that if you are unable to give precise answers
you should record such approximate information as you may consider will satisfy her questions.

Colonel

Assistant Military Secretary

The new commanding officer replied, but there was nothing he could add to what had been said before. In a letter written by Agnes on 26 April, she refers to the fact that no further information was offered in what had been ‘a most curt and callous reply’ to her last enquiry. She went on to write:

My son received his commission from Sandhurst two days before his 18th birthday – after a bombing course, he was sent to the front by Colonel Vaughan, 3rd South Lancs – before he had hardly time to breathe. He was killed nine days after leaving Waterloo … I wish once more to protest against the shameful sacrifice of a boy of eighteen contrary to the express announcement made in the House … I hold Colonel Vaughan, Colonel Halkett and the War Office who supported them, directly responsible for his death.

Mrs Cottrell was told that there had been no definite understanding that an officer under nineteen years would not be sent on active service. ‘I am to add,’ wrote the military correspondent, ‘that he was reported to be available for overseas by his CO both from a physical and professional point of view …’

There was little that Mrs Cottrell could do but reiterate her position. On 1 July 1917 she wrote:

I cannot understand your statement that no definite undertaking was given that a boy of 18 (under 19) should be sent overseas. May I say that a definite announcement made in Parliament is considered by the whole nation to be a ‘definite’ statement and that, had not such an announcement been made, I should never
have consented to my boy to be nominated and sent to Sandhurst so young …