William George (Bill) Pearce, b. 1892) and his brother Edward John (Ted),b.1894) were born in Hampshire and enlisted together at Portsmouth on 20th August 1914. Their first posting was with the Royal Engineers to a fort in the Solent dating from the Napoleonic wars, where they operated and maintained searchlights. Ted, the younger brother, proved very able but Bill, not up to the technical trials of engineering, was posted for infantry training. Determined to stay together, the brothers invoked the then military custom and practice of allowing brothers to serve together to serve together if they wished. They did so wish. Both became infantrymen with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, serving together in Mesopotamia, Palestine, Salonika, Macedonia and, most memorably, in Palestine. On 11th December 1917, they marched into Jerusalem behind Allenby. Later, sitting about and waiting for orders, they were joined by an officer in Allenby's entourage who chatted informally to them; they had met Lawrence of Arabia. It was in Jerusalem that they bought the crucifix that illustrates this story. In the spring of 1918, they were shipped back to Europe, and after two months rest and recuperation in western France - necessary because many of the men had malaria - came at last, that autumn, to the Western Front. The Germans were in retreat, closely pursued by infantry, Bill and Ted among them, in good shape and good heart. During the night of October 10-11th 1918 the two brothers became separated. Bill found Ted hanging on the old barbed wire with a severe gunshot wound in his left leg. Bill carried his brother to the field dressing station where orderlies were told to 'put him over there'. Bill knew what this meant: Ted was not expected to survive. Bill stormed off, muttering rebelliously. Less than a month later, he was himself was killed in action, on the same day (November 9th) and in the same sector as Wilfred Owen. Ted, however, did not die. Surgery left him with a three inch stump, just enough to support a prosthesis, fitted at Roehampton, from where he was honourably discharged on January 8th 1920. A long and active life lay ahead of him. In middle age he married my mother's sister, gardened, painted, took his terrier rabbiting, and earned a long-service gold watch as a clerical employee of British Celanese. He spoke little of the war and it was not until the last year of his life, after his wife's death, that he that he told us about the burden he had carried for 72 years. He was convinced that when Bill left him at the dressing station in October 1918, he intended to desert. Bill's death so soon afterwards served seemed only to confirm Ted's fear that his brother had been shot by firing squad as a deserter. Ted died at the age of 97, before we could tell what we now know: that Bill died honourably in battle, and lies in a beautifully tended grave in the Fontaine-au-Bois Cemetery in northern France. We laid poppies there for them both, for the young man who died in the Great War, and the old man who lived so long, and died still burdened by grief and by shame at what he thought his brother had done. May they both rest in peace.
Photographs of decorative crucifix, made of wood and mother of pearl (?)

Front
Middle East
A crucifx from Jerusalem bought by my uncle, Ted Pearce
Remembrance
Memorabilia
An ornate crucifix of wood and mother of pearl, purchased in Jerusalem in December 1917 by my uncle, Ted Pearce (individual images and pdf of collected images).
Ted Pearce