Private Fraser

Private Evan Fraser

Other than the fact that he had enlisted on 9 June 1914, and was drafted to join 2 Battalion Royal Scots on 27 December, little further is known about 19 year old Fraser’s service career. However, at 4 p.m. on 24 May 1915, he was missing when the unit was suddenly ordered to move out from their billets at La Clytte.

The next day, Fraser appeared at the local railway station at La Motte au Bois and went up to a gendarme. Fraser told the latter that that he had come from Merville and felt ill and asked the policeman if he knew the time of the next train to St. Omer. The gendarme replied that there was no train to St. Omer until the following morning and then arrested Fraser. Under interrogation at the gendarmerie, Fraser explained that he wanted to go to St. Omer to visit his brother and a pass had been issued for the purpose. Unfortunately, the pass stated that he had permission on 25 May to visit his brother at Ballieul, not St. Omer and although it was signed by Lt. J.M. Anderson, the signature was a palpable forgery.

Fraser was handed over to the British and held under close arrest in a tented encampment at Vlamertinghe, from where he escaped sometime during the night of 3-4 June. Twenty-four hours later Fraser was detained near St. Sylvestre Cappel and returned to Vlamertinghe. While still awaiting trial, he was employed carrying out sanitary fatigues around the camp and without much effort, escaped a second time on 19 June. Again, he was arrested the following day at a cottage near Thieushouk, near Fletre by a couple of suspicious British soldiers.

When Fraser finally faced trial by Field General Court Martial at Brandhoek on 13 July, he was charged having deserted on three occasions and (having a fake pass) conduct to the prejudice of good order. Undefended, Fraser pleaded guilty to possessing a forged pass but not guilty to the remaining charges and thereafter remained mute throughout the proceedings. Then, after the private had declined to say anything in mitigation, the court invited 2nd Lieutenant E.P. Combe, the battalion adjutant to give evidence about Fraser’s character. Combe testified:

“The accused has, since the day he joined, been a continual source of annoyance to the regiment. He always to shirk his work and leave several time and refuses to soldier by continually deserting.”

The court breached both 2 Army Routine Orders and service custom by permitting Combe to air these prejudicial remarks. In fact, Fraser’s disciplinary record showed that he had previously only once been found guilty of attempting to desert but for that offence he had been sentenced to death on 21 April. Instead of being then executed, a week later the punishment had been reduced to 10 years penal servitude and then suspended by General Horace Smith-Dorrien.

As far as the first charge of desertion was concerned, Fraser’s motives had to be inferred from circumstantial evidence presented by the French gendarme. In an otherwise uncorroborated statement, the gendarme recalled Fraser had mentioned wishing to visit his brother at St. Omer, However, since the gendarme could only recall the date he had performed the arrest as, “About 2 ½ or three months ago”, the court found Fraser not guilty on the first charge of desertion. The court appeared unconcerned about probing Fraser’s motives for going absent whilst he was awaiting trial on the first charge. They found him guilty of the desertion on both the remaining charges and sentenced the soldier to death .

The written proceedings were forwarded directly to 3 Division headquarters for confirmation but after a week the documents were returned and the court was ordered to re-assemble and revise their findings on the second and third convictions for desertion. In a note which accompanied the order, the Deputy Assistant Adjutant General, 3 Division explained that the testimony presented in court did not provide enough evidence to support either of the two convictions for desertion.

This apparent ineptitude of the court may have been due to the appointment of a captain as president, instead of a more competent and experienced officer of field rank, there being none of the latter immediately available for the task. However, when the same three officers re-assembled on 24 July the revision process did not entail a second hearing, instead their deliberations extended only to a re-consideration of their original findings. On the third charge, escaping from Vlamertinghe on 3-4 June, they now concluded that Fraser had not been a deserter but was guilty of absence without leave. Alongside the fourth charge, deserting from the camp at Vlamertinghe on 19 June, the president of the court wrote:

“The accused did attempt to desert but the Court doubt whether such facts constitute in Law the offence stated in the IV charge, therefore they find him guilty of the offence in such one of these charges as the facts in Law constitute, i.e. When of Active Service, attempting to desert His Majesty’s Service.”

That the court never bothered to determine the motives for which they ultimately sentenced the soldier to death suggests their indifference on the issue, even when Fraser’s life hinged on the outcome. It remains a morbid irony that Fraser was found not guilty of the offence which had caused him initially to be held in custody at Vlamertinghe, from whence he had gone on to commit the two offences which were to cost him his life.

It is also open to question whether Fraser’s fate was sealed as a result of a flawed hearing or the determination of higher command to ignore legal niceties in a desire to ensure Fraser’s execution. Either way, with the assistance of an articulate and experienced prisoner’s friend Fraser may have lived to fight another day or so.(1) Instead, the Army disposed of the convicted man at 4 a.m. on 2 August in a ritual supervised by Major Rich, Assistant Provost Marshal, 3 Division.

Notes: On this point see also: Army Injustices, Daily Dispatch 5.3.19.