11 This is the same Percy Gerald Kelsal Harris, ‘Pogo’, mentioned in note 7 of the letter of 5 May 1912. Harris was commissioned a lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry on 1 February 1915 and on 6 October 1917 he was promoted to captain. He had made a poor showing at Cherbourg House, but 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 reconnaissance across the open under heavy machine-gun fire, obtaining very valuable information’ (p. 354). 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 Colonel 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 some time’ (p. 120).