PRIVATE MALCOLM MITCHELL
LANCASHIRE FUSILIERS
7TH AUGUST 1915 AGE 19
BURIED: SKEW BRIDGE CEMETERY, GALLIPOLI, TURKEY
On the night before his crucifixion, Christ went with his disciples to Gethsemane. He asked Peter, James and John to watch whilst he went to pray. But when he came back he was dismayed to see that they they had fallen asleep:
What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
St Matthew 26:41
Malcolm Mitchell's mother signed for his inscription, 'Watch and pray'. It's the refrain of the hymn, 'Christian, seek not yet repose' . Watch and pray because you are in the midst of foes who lie in wait to ambush you, watch and pray because that is what Christ asked you to do:
Watch, as if on that alone
Hung the issue of the day;
Pray that help may be sent down:
Watch and pray.
Mitchell, in 1911 a plumber's boy, joined the 8th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, a territorial battalion, on the outbreak of war. It was immediately sent to Egypt to defend the Suez Canal. However, Mitchell cannot have been with them. His medals came up for sale recently and they included the 1914-15 Star, not the 1914 Star. He was with the battalion when it landed in Gallipoli on 5 May 1915 and was killed in action two months later in the Battle of Krithia.