Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

16 crew on the yacht, largely because Jack had met and become smitten with a ballerina. It meant, of course, that Jack had to teach himself Russian in order to communicate with his first love and, for a while, few of Jack’s thoughts were about life back at home or playing cricket and football for Southwick. But everything changed following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand during the summer of 1914, and the deteriorating Anglo-German relations which culminated in Britain declaring war on 4 August 1914. As the early battles began on French and Belgian soil, Jack’s parents became increasingly concerned about his safety on the European mainland so after receiving telegrams and letters about the fact that hostilities were imminent, Jack and his pal swiftly decided to return home. After saying farewell to their new friends, the pair duly travelled to Helsinki, where two ships were departing for English shores. One was a sleek and elegant liner; the other was an ageing vessel. The liner was full, so the two young Englishmen had to board the older ship, later described by Jack as ‘no more than a rust bucket’. But it was a lucky break for the pair; shortly after reaching the North Sea, the liner sank. After their heady adventures overseas, and the brief romantic interlude, it was quite a shock for Jack to return home and to find the newspapers full of doom-laden stories about the War and the heavy loss of life in the early battles of the autumn of 1914. But, like other young men of the time, Jack recognised there was a job to be done for King and Country, and shortly after returning, he joined the Royal Sussex Regiment. 6 For the next few months, he took part in training at Witley Camp in Surrey as a member of the 12th Battalion, also known as the 2nd South Down, and together with the rest of the battalion, remained on British soil throughout 1915, wondering when their time would come for active service. Orders arrived in the following February when they travelled by train to Dover, from which they duly sailed across to Calais, arriving on French soil on 5 March 1916. The battalion then headed by train, lorry and then on foot towards the village of Fleurbaix, near Lille, not far from the French border with Belgium. It took them a fortnight to get there. 7 After taking over a series of trenches on 20 March and establishing their headquarters in nearby farmhouses, the battalion remained at Fleurbaix for the next three months. On arriving, the soldiers were given clean clothing, a chance to bathe and a series of inoculations against a host of the real and imagined diseases that might affect them whilst they were in action. Their mission in northern France was to take part in the Battle of the Somme – the first To Russia, with love 6 The regiment was formed in 1881 and raised, in all, 23 battalions for the Great War, all of which saw action in various parts of Western Europe. Several other relatives joined up: the Royal Sussex archives also list Alfred Sidney Mercer in the eleventh battalion and Walter George Mercer in the twelfth - both were killed during the hostilities. 7 By Eurostar, the journey from St Pancras to Lille can be done these days in under ninety minutes!