²⁵ This meeting of the extremely colourful Harris again after five years is worthy of a footnote in red ink. While I can understand Jack’s disenchantment with this man at this time, I have discovered enough about Percy Gerald Kelsal Harris to cause me to like him very much. He is the master at Cherbourg House whom Jack refers to as ‘Pogo’ in Surprised by Joy (ch. IV). Of his arrival at the school in May 1912, Jack wrote: ‘“Sirrah”, as we called him .�.�. was succeeded by a young gentleman just down from the University whom we may call Pogo. Pogo was a very minor edition of a Saki, perhaps even a Wodehouse hero. Pogo was a wit, Pogo was a dressy man, Pogo was a man about town. Pogo was even a lad. After a week or so of hesitation (for his temper was uncertain) we fell at his feet and adored. Here was sophistication, glossy all over, and (dared one believe it?) ready to impart sophistication to us .�.�. After a term of Pogo’s society one had the feeling of being not twelve weeks but twelve years older.’

P. G. K. Harris was born in Kinver, Staffordshire, on 31 August 1888. From King’s School in Taunton he went up to Exeter College in 1907. That he left Oxford without taking a degree may be explained by those very qualities which delighted his pupils at Cherbourg House. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry in February 1915, and had been promoted to Captain by the time Jack was assigned to his command. If Harris wasted his time in Oxford and made a flashy but poor showing at Cherbourg, he cuts an heroic and dashing figure in Everard Wyrall’s official History of the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s) 1914–1919 (1927). Wyrall describes the bravery at Verchain which caused Harris to receive the Military Cross with this Citation: ‘For conspicuous gallantry near Verchain on 24 October 1918. At the river bank, in the darkness, considerable confusion and difficulty were experienced in throwing the bridges, owing to the heavy machine-gun fire. It was entirely due to his example and efforts that the bridges were thrown and that the men were able to cross. He subsequently led his company to a further objective, and carried out a personal reconnais-sance across the open under heavy machine-gun fire, obtaining very valuable information.’ A bar was added to that Cross as a result of Harris’s gallantry at Preseau on 1 November 1918. Wyrall wrote of it: ‘“Preseau”—it was here that the 1st Somerset Light Infantry ended its glorious record of fighting in the Great War .�.�. Assisted by Company Sergeant-Major R. Johnson, Captain P. G. K. Harris rallied his men and ordered them to charge. The whole line sprang forward with a cheer and, with the bayonet, flung the Germans back’ (p. 356).

It is, however, in Lt Col. Majendie’s History of the 1st Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry that the Cherbourg ‘Pogo’ of uncertain temper is seen as a man, not less glossy perhaps, but far more admirable than the one Jack remembered. ‘During the clearing of Preseau,’ wrote Lt Col. Majendie, ‘Captain P. G. K. Harris, M.C., was the chief performer in an incident which gave rise to some merriment. He was standing at the top of some cellar steps collecting prisoners, when a German came up from below “kamerading” with such enthusiasm that he collided with Captain Harris and knocked him down. Captain Harris sat down violently on top of a dead German, and in his efforts to rise put his hand on the dead man’s face. This was too much for Light Company’s Commander; he leapt at the offender and, mindful of his Oxford days, caught him such a left under the jaw that the unhappy German did not recover consciousness for a long time’ (p. 120).