Fourteen.

Private James Charles Martin was in a bad state. Exhausted and suffering from a high fever, he lay aboard the hospital ship Glenart Castle under the watchful eye of Matron Frances Hope Logie Reddoch. Jim was nearly fifteen thousand kilometres from his family in Hawthorn, Victoria. He had lost over half his weight serving in the squalor of the trenches at Gallipoli and had contracted typhoid fever. Soldiers often contracted the disease in the unsanitary conditions of the trenches. Then again, most soldiers were not fourteen years old.

From a young age Jim had been keen for all things military. He had eagerly joined the cadets at school and watched as thousands of Australian men marched out in 1914. Jim yearned to be a part of that and so he decided to enlist. At the time the minimum age of enlistment was eighteen. Although he was only fourteen, he looked older than his age and his voice had deepened, so Jim reckoned that there was a chance he could pass for an eighteen year old. However, he would still need parental permission. After he threatened to run away from home, join under another name, and not write any letters home if she didn't give her permission, Jim's mother Amelia reluctantly gave her written permission. It worked and Jim succeeded in enlisting with the 21^st Infantry Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in April 1915.

^{Image courtesy of the National Archives of Australia.}

Several months later and Jim was serving in the trenches at Gallipoli. Although casualties from enemy action were slight, the conditions in the trenches were less that desirable. Jim remained positive and wrote to his family: “Don't worry about me as I am doing splendid over here.” The front line work, poor weather and short rations, as well as the sickness, flies, lice and mosquitoes, took their toll on the battalion and eventually Jim. He contracted typhoid fever and initially refused treatment. Another soldier of the 21^st Battalion, Private Cecil Joseph Hogan, wrote that “…he took bad but he stuck to his post till the last like the brave lad he was…” Jim was eventually forced to seek treatment and at five o’clock on the afternoon of the 25^th October he was evacuated to the Glenart Castle.

^{Extract of letter from James Martin to his parents, Gallipoli, 4 October 1915.}

Jim now could do nothing but lay there, his life slowly leaving him. Matron Reddoch wrote a letter to his mother Amelia explaining what happened next:

“We got him to bed comfortably and did everything possible for him. He said he was feeling much more comfortable and thanked me so nicely for what had been done for him. He then settled down to get a sleep but died quite suddenly and quietly of heart failure at 6.40pm.”

Jim was just a few months shy of his fifteenth birthday.

^{Extract of letter from Matron L. H. L. Reddock to Amelia Martin, S.S. Glenart Castle, 26 October 1915.}

In the short time he had been with his unit, the young man had proven himself. A sergeant in Jim’s platoon said he had “never had a man in his platoon who paid more attention to his duty.” Jim is believed to have been the youngest Australian to have died in the First World War.

^{Extract of letter from Lance Corporal Cecil Joseph Hogan to Amelia Martin, Gallipoli, 5 November 1915.}

The 25th October this year will mark 99 years since Jim's passing. The correspondence mentioned as well as several letters Jim wrote to his family have been digitised as part of the Anzac Connections digitisation project and are available to view online here.