PRIVATE EDWARD A COOK
KING'S SHROPSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY
19TH APRIL 1917 AGE 20
BURIED: DUD CORNER CEMETERY, LOOS, FRANCE
Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
Lamentations 1:12
Edward Cook's inscription is taken from the Old Testament book of Lamentations 1:12, although it's possible that Emma Cook, Private Cook's mother, might have known the words from Stainer's 'Crucifixion' where they are spoken by Christ on the cross. As a declaration of grief it is very powerful; Mrs Cook might have been comforted to know that that for those who pass by her son's grave today it is not 'nothing' to them.
Cook was killed in the 1st Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry's successful attack on the old German front line. A and B companies attacked at 5 am on the 18 April when eleven soldiers were killed and twenty-five wounded. The next day, the 19th, B and D companies continued the attack, but the regimental history does not list the number of casualties.