by Helen Watts
As the white smoke and mist dispersed, the Second Lieutenant on the prow gave one final salute as the wreck of the spooky submarine dipped beneath the Atlantic waves for the last time.
13: The Brave Nurse
If you were asked to name someone who could be described as a ‘living legend’, who would it be? You might immediately think of someone you adore, admire or respect, such as a pop star, a movie star or a footballer. Perhaps you would choose someone incredibly brave, adventurous or clever, such as Malala Yousafzai, Bear Grylls or Professor Stephen Hawking. Alternatively, perhaps someone would spring to mind who is legendary for a negative reason, such as a notorious criminal or an unpopular political leader. Will the person you chose be remembered for decades to come? Will people still be telling stories about them in fifty, sixty, even one hundred years’ time?
Consider which people from the past have managed to attain that legendary status. Whose actions and achievements have not only earned them a place in the history books, but have led to stories about them being passed down from one generation to the next? Now pick one of these people, and consider how much of their story you know to be true. Can every detail about their life be proven as fact? You may find that their story has been changed, enhanced and edited along the way. Yet perhaps that is what makes legends so interesting. They all start with some element of truth, but they can evolve and grow so that each retelling is fresh, exciting and new.
We should not be surprised how many legends have their roots in the First World War. In those tumultuous years of 1914–1918, there were thousands upon thousands of people whose actions and bravery deserve respect and admiration. We will never know all of their stories, but one person whose story has earned a place in legend is British nurse, Edith Cavell (4 December 1865–12 October 1915). Edith did not become famous until after her death, and although no one can deny that she deserved her legendary status, it is quite possible that her story would never have become so well known had the British Government not chosen to champion her as a war hero.
The following tale is inspired by Edith’s life story…
On a cold December morning in 1865, a baby girl was born in the small Norfolk village of Swardeston. Her father, Frederick, was the vicar of the village church, and her mother, Louisa Sophia, was the daughter of Frederick’s housekeeper.
Frederick and Louisa adored their baby girl. They christened her Edith, and looked forward to the day when they could settle with their new daughter in the brand new vicarage which was soon to be their home.
Frederick was a generous man – some may say foolishly so – for the money which was being spent on the new vicarage, next to the church, was coming from his own pocket. No matter, he always said, that his own family had to go without some luxuries, it was right and proper that they should set a good example and be charitable towards others.
The baby Edith thrived and grew into a healthy, active young girl. More Cavell children followed, and the well-behaved Edith was a perfect big sister to her three siblings, Florence, Lilian and little John, whom they all called Jack.
Louisa loved her children so much, that when they became old enough for schooling, she could not bear to part with them and announced that she would teach them at home. So all four children would spend their weekdays around the large circular table in the vicarage’s library, learning about far away countries, reading about the wonders of the natural world, studying art, music and the sciences, and of course, learning how to read and write and do their sums. At the weekends they would spill outdoors and play happily together in the vicarage gardens. But the best days of all, were those when their father wasn’t busy in the parish. Then he would join in their games and even dress up in a bear costume and chase them around the house.
Within this nurturing, caring environment, Edith grew into a confident and enterprising young teenager. No teenage rebellion for her; rather she channeled her energies into positive things, such as helping her mother in the Sunday School and raising money for a new Sunday School room.
At last, the time came for Edith to leave home and start to find her own way in life. At sixteen, she waved goodbye to her mother and father, and to Florence, Lilian and Jack, and headed off to boarding school.
Edith missed her home, but she was hungry to learn and she worked hard in all her lessons, showing herself to have a natural talent for French. She longed to be a teacher, so as soon as she had passed all her exams, she found a job as a governess.
Edith enjoyed her new role, and was pleased to be able to provide the same kind of love and affection to her young charges as she had received from her own parents. Yet she could not extinguish the burning desire for adventure that had sparked inside her in those happy days of home schooling alongside her brother and sisters. She wanted to learn more about the world, to expand her knowledge and become the best teacher she could be.
So when the generosity of a kind departed soul saw Edith inheriting a modest sum of money, she leapt at the opportunity for her first taste of travel and exploration. Heading for the snow-capped mountains and the lush green valleys of Austria and Bavaria, she travelled to some of Europe’s most beautiful countries, soaking up the language and culture like a sponge.
It was on her travels that Edith first came upon a venture which was to change the course of her life. She visited a hospital whose doors were open to everyone, rich or poor, no matter what their background or status, and where all treatment was free. It was run by a man with the memorable name of Doctor Wolfenberg, and so impressed was Edith with his charitable approach to medicine, that not only did she decide to donate her remaining inheritance to the hospital, she also made up her mind that one day, she was going to become a nurse.
But with no more money to spend, Edith knew she must first return to work as a governess.
For five years, she cared for the children of a French-speaking Belgian family in the beautiful city of Brussels and became so fluent in French that it was difficult to tell her from the locals.
Although now a mature woman approaching thirty years of age, Edith still missed her home back in Norfolk and whenever she had time off, would return to the peace and tranquility of Swardeston and the beautiful vicarage with its moat. It was on one such summer break that Edith first fell in love. The object of her desire was her second cousin, Eddie.
But there was no time for their relationship to turn into anything stronger, for Edith’s attention was soon diverted to her father, whose health was ailing. Terrified of losing him, Edith swapped her post in Brussels for a chair by her father’s bedside and devoted her time to nursing him back to health. The joy of seeing her father getting better each day convinced Edith that nursing was really her destiny, and as soon as her father was strong enough, she headed for London and signed up at nursing school.
Once again, Edith was a star pupil, learning fast and working hard. She was not afraid of a challenge, no matter how big or small, even risking her own life to help the victims of a typhoid fever outbreak which was threatening to devastate the seaside town of Margate in Kent.
So fine a nurse did Edith show herself to be that she was soon back in Brussels, passing on her skills in a new nurses’ training school. But life for Edith – and for the people of Belgium – was about to change again, and for the worse.
Edith’s beloved father, Frederick, fell ill once more, and this time lost his battle for life. Then, in August 1914, while she was in Norfolk comforting her widowed mother, Edith heard the shocking news that Germany, under orders from its power-hungry Kaiser, had invaded Belgium.
The grief-stricken Louisa begged her daughter to stay in the relative safety of Britain but Edith, whose sense of duty was strong, knew that the teaching hospital now needed her more than ever, and she hurried back across the sea to Belgium.
If the German army had expected an easy passage through Belgium to France, it had a nasty surprise, for the people of Belgium, outraged at the invasion, put up a serious fight. Snipers lay in w
ait for the invaders to arrive, civilians poured into the streets when they did, and the fighting was bloody and merciless. The German soldiers’ response was even more ferocious and in a desperate attempt to maintain control, they swore to take ten Belgian lives for every German soldier lost.
The wounded and the dying poured into Edith’s hospital which had now become a Red Cross station and, remembering the neutral approach of her mentor, Doctor Wolfenberg, she refused to turn anyone away. Man, woman or child, patients on both sides of the conflict lay next to one another and benefited from her care.
But despite the Belgians’ best efforts, Brussels fell after only a few days of fighting, and one after the next Edith’s nurses returned to England. Only Edith and one faithful assistant remained, determined to care for the wounded and the sick, whatever their allegiance.
Aware of the dangerous situation she was placing herself in, Edith put pen to paper and wrote a letter to send home to England.
My darling mother and family,
If you open this, it will be because that which we fear has now happened, and Brussels has fallen into the hands of the enemy. They are very near now and it is doubtful if the Allied armies can stop them. We are prepared for the worse. I shall think of you to the last, and you may be sure we shall do our duty here and die as women of our race should die. God bless you and keep you safe.
One night that autumn, when everything was quiet in the ward and all the patients had settled into an uneasy sleep, Edith heard a noise in the grounds outside her window. Stepping into the back garden, her heart beating loudly in her chest as she peered into the dark, Edith came face to face with two disheveled British soldiers. On the point of exhaustion, the men told Edith how they had become separated from their battalion in the retreat from Mons. Lost and hungry, they were now stranded in enemy territory, desperately trying to make their way home.
Taking pity on her countrymen, Edith gave the men food and water and hid them in her quarters. For the next fourteen days, they remained there in secrecy, recovering from their ordeal, while Edith sought help.
We know by now that when Edith put her mind to something, she made it happen. Despite the danger, she joined an underground network of forgers, safe houses and guides which could furnish the two soldiers with the money, identity papers and maps they needed to make an escape north out of Belgium and across the flat fields, canals and dykes of Holland to the coast.
The two lucky survivors from Mons became the first of more than two hundred Allied soldiers who were provided with a safe passage home thanks to Edith’s courage and tenacity. She was well aware that she and her fellow conspirators were at risk of arrest should any of them be discovered. She knew, too, that the soldiers she was hiding would be shot if caught. Yet she pressed on, each escape becoming more risky than the last as it became harder and harder to avoid the inquisitive eyes of the Germans.
Edith told no one of her secret activities. She sewed all incriminating paperwork safely inside a cushion in her room and always held her nerve, even when the Germans suspected that she was up to something and carried out a search of the clinic. While Edith calmly showed the soldiers around, her latest charge – a Belgian collaborator – crept out of the back garden unseen.
But Edith’s luck was running out, for on 31 July 1915, the German soldiers came back to search the clinic again and this time, when they left, they took Edith with them, her hands bound. Whether they had been tipped off, or whether they had seen Edith acting suspiciously, they did not say. All her captors did tell her was that she was not alone: two others involved in her scheme had also been taken prisoner and they, the captors lied, had confessed all. Poor Edith, who believed what she was being told, accepted defeat and admitted her part.
It took just ten weeks for the Germans to bring Edith to trial and while pleas for her release came from as far away as America and Spain, the British Government remained silent, fearing their intervention would anger the Germans and do Edith more harm than good.
All alone in the dock, Edith’s only defence for aiding the Allied soldiers was that, had she not helped them, they would have been shot. To her German accusers, this was no defence at all, and Edith was sentenced to be executed the very next day.
The last friendly face that Edith saw before she faced the firing squad came to her that night in the form of an English chaplain. Finding her calm, free of bitterness and resigned to her fate, the chaplain took communion with Edith, then they quietly sang ‘Abide With Me’. Holding back the tears, Edith gave the chaplain a prayer book, asking that he honour her last wish that it be taken to her cousin back in Swardeston. Only after he left the room did the chaplain glance inside and see that Edith had dedicated the book to her one and only sweetheart, sending her darling Eddie her love.
Edith Cavell and her two fellow conspirators were executed not long after dawn on 12 October 1915. There are those who say that that the men in the firing squad could not bear to shoot such a kind and gentle soul, and fired wide. There are those who say that before the guns fired, Edith fainted and was put to death instead by a single pistol shot, fired by a German officer. Others say that one of the gunmen threw down his rifle in protest and was himself shot alongside Edith for his disobedience. There is, of course, also the possibility that nothing out of the ordinary happened at all. But whatever the details of Edith’s final moments, her body was hurriedly buried close to the firing range and her grave marked with a simple wooden cross.
Edith’s life had been cut short, but the effects of it lived on, as news of her death sent ripples of anger around the world. In trying to make an example of the brave nurse, the Germans had given their enemies all the ammunition they needed for a powerful propaganda campaign. In this shocking story, the Germans were the evil villains and Edith was the perfect patriotic heroine – a symbol of bravery and courage.
So important was Edith’s legacy considered to be, that when the war was finally over, special arrangements were made to return her body to Britain where she could be laid to rest in her beloved church in Swardeston. To mark her life, a memorial was held in her honour at Westminster Abbey, with Queen Alexandra and Princess Victoria in the congregation alongside nurses from all over the world. And in the spirit of Edith’s sense of charity, The Cavell Nurses’ Trust was set up in her name, to provide rest homes for retired nurses.
Edith never wanted fame and she never set out to become a martyr. But through her actions, her kindness, her bravery and her courage, she nonetheless became a true legend of the First World War.
14: The Christmas Truce
The temporary truce which was called in the trenches in the Christmas of 1914 is well known thanks to the letters and diaries of the soldiers who were part of it. However, for those lucky enough to return home, the happenings of that Christmas would have been told to families and friends not as a series of facts but as a story… because that’s what people do, quite naturally. Here is our version of that Christmas 1914 tale.
In December 1914, the soldiers of the King, under the command of General Haig, were locked in battle with the troops of the Kaiser on a long battle front, sometimes in France, more often in Belgium.
This was especially sad as many of the brave young men who had joined up had done so believing that the war would be all over by Christmas. But instead, at the blast of an officer’s whistle, thousands of them found themselves going ‘over the top’ from their trenches, only to be scythed down by a hail of bullets from across No Man’s Land, in the attempt to gain a minute piece of territory that would often revert back to the opposition in battle the following day.
Far away, in the peace of his office in the Vatican City, Pope Benedict XV suggested a temporary hiatus in the war for the celebration of Christmas.
His proposal was not well received by the high-ranking German and British officers who sat around the large circular tables of their respective command centres. They had worked hard to get their men addicted to the adrenaline of battle and so the
y had no appetite for the Pope’s festive truce.
Yet in spite of the reluctance of the generals and the politicians, as Christmas drew nearer and the men all along the trenches began to receive parcels from loved ones at home, the Christmas spirit was growing.
A rash of tiny fir trees had broken out in No Man’s Land. Whenever they could, the German soldiers would reach over the top of their trenches, wrench up the little trees and re-plant them in piles of earth marking the edge of their trench. Then, on Christmas Eve, they illuminated the trees with candles.
Fifty yards opposite, across the shell holes and abandoned dead bodies strewn across No Man’s Land, soldiers in a Bedfordshire regiment paused to open their parcels from home.
Among them were Tommy and Billy, two mates who had at met at trials for Luton Town FC before going together to the army office to sign up. Tommy had been sent a knitted blanket, a fruit cake and some cigarettes, or ‘coffin nails’ as they called them. Billy was amazed to discover that his father had sent him a caser – a brown, flattened, leather football filled with a pink rubber bladder with the nozzle pointing through the lace holes. Tommy and the other soldiers pulled Billy’s leg. Why would his dad think he would need such a gift?
Ignoring their jibes, Billy set about blowing the ball up, and used a small piece of twig to seal the tube. As no officers were watching, Billy and Tommy started a game of keepy-uppy.
They had just finished their game when they heard an outbreak of singing from the German trench.
Stille nacht,
Heilige nacht…
The English soldiers responded:
Silent night,
Holy night…
The two nations were singing the same carol to each other, in the middle of a war.
