Rank: Staff Sergeant
Regiment: Army Service Corps
Address: 80 Milward Road, Hastings
Other Info: At the Front. Additional name information from the Lives of the First World War website.
The text from ‘A French Boy’s Terrible Experience’ reads: “These portraits are of Staff Sergeant E Pollington, A.S.C., and Marcel, a French boy who is with the Staff Sergeant “Somewhere in France”. The photographs were sent by Staff Sergeant Pollington to Mr J O Forster, newsagent, 55 Queens Road, Hastings and with them a letter, from which we take the following extracts: – At the beginning of the war the Germans captured the village where Marcel and his mother lived alone. They held the village eight days, and it was the eighth day which was the worst for him. The German soldiers came to their house, and tried to outrage his mother, and with her resisting one of them clubbed her with his rifle, and when she was on the floor a German officer shot her with his revolver. The little chap told me he witnessed it all. It was at this point the German cyclist came in with the news that the French and English were advancing, and they cleared out. The French Zouaves cleared them at the point of the bayonet. After he saw his mother buried Marcel went with the French soldiers, but these having to go to the trenches, sent him back. He then went with the English motors, and finally ended up with falling across our Company. He first worked with the cooks, but I, seeing he wanted looking after, took him under my charge. He is working now under me, and I can say he is very handy as an interpreter sometimes, and helps me with my French”
Published: August 1915 & February 1916
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