Edith Cavell

by Diana Souhami

  She told to tell you she was quite well. She told me it was some time she received a letter from England. I spent Xmas & the New Year with your daughter.

  A month later Jesse Tunmore’s father wrote to tell Mrs. Cavell his son was suffering from “acute mania,” and was in a straitjacket in the Netley military hospital, near Southampton. When Jesse Tunmore was better he wrote again and Mrs. Cavell replied on July 29:

  I was very pleased to hear from you again, and still more to know that you have been restored to health—the best of earthly blessings. I hope you feel thankful to God for His great mercy … I have had, as you will know, a very anxious time not knowing what was going on in Brussels but at present all seems quiet, though there is much distress which Miss Cavell and her nurses do their utmost to relieve—May God bless her and bring her home in peace that I may see her again. Life with me is uncertain as I am in my 81st year.

  At her great age, she too was caught up, in a way, into resistance work.

  At the beginning of the war it had been relatively easy to get across the border to Holland: it took a guide, a bribe to an official, an unguarded bit of moorland. In the first months an estimated 34,000 men got out of Belgium into Holland: young Belgians—as young as seventeen—who wanted to join the army on the Western Front, as well as French and English soldiers.

  After the battle of Charleroi in August 1914, French wounded were taken to a hospital at Jumet. One of the surgeons, Dr. Marcel Détry, had worked with Depage and Sister White in the St. Gilles hospital, and lived near Edith Cavell. At weekly intervals, up to January 1915, he sent to her French soldiers he had operated on. One by one she got them to the border.

  On January 27 the chemist Georges Derveau brought to Edith Cavell, from Mons, Lance-Corporal Doman of the 9th Lancers, and Corporal Chapman of the Cheshires. They lodged with her until February 11. At Mons, Doman had been wounded in the back by shrapnel. His horse had had one of its legs blown off underneath him. He lay on the battlefield until picked up by German soldiers and taken to the Wihéries hospital. He, Chapman, and a Sergeant Rothwell, escaped and lived rough in the Mormal Forest until scared by German searchers. Rothwell got separated and no more was heard of him. Doman and Chapman with the help of Auguste Joly reached Mons disguised as priests.

  At one time eighty fugitive soldiers were hiding in the School, waiting for safe passage. Edith Cavell sent them out in the day, adrift in the city, while she kept the semblance of normal life: lectures to nurses, inspection of the new School, care of civilian patients. At night the soldiers crowded back, into basement rooms, into beds in corridors. When German officials carried out routine inspections the men left the building via the garden, or got into hospital beds. Doman, she told them, was a Belgian agricultural worker with a chronic rheumatic condition. Lives depended on her pretense. She developed an ability to act, to persist with a lie, to be consistent in dissimulation.

  A genuine priest helped the onward passage of Doman and Chapman on February 11. He gave Edith Cavell the torn half of a visiting card and told her of a café where they would rendezvous with their unknown guide. The men must not speak English for that would give them away. She took them there, ordered three beers and put the torn card on the table. A man came in, put down the other half of the card, then guided them to a small village south of Antwerp. Four days later they reached England. Doman wrote at Edith Cavell’s request to her mother:

  It is with kind permission of your daughter Miss Cavell of rue de la Culture Brussels that I write to you. I am a wounded soldier and was taken prisoner in Belgium where I escaped from. I was passing through Brussels & your daughter kept us in hiding from the Germans for 15 days & treated us very kindly. She got us a guide to bring us through Holland & we arrived in England quite safe. Your daughter wishes for you to write to her & let her know we arrived here safe, as you must not let anyone know or they may visit her home in Brussels. But be careful what you put in. Just say J. Doman and P. Chapman arrived here safe. Of course full details cannot be given until after the war. Your daughter is in good health and quite well. I thought it best to let you know this in case you have not been able to get a letter from her.

  Such letters worried Mrs. Cavell. She wrote anxiously to Sergeant Doman asking how risky the whole business was. He tried to reassure her:

  Referring to it being risky for her well I don’t think she has much to fear as when the Germans are about the English do not remain in her house, but go out and hide in the town, & I do not think she will have any more prisoners there as we were the last two who were left … she told me she had sent a guide with letters to Holland but had an idea that he had been caught and was taken prisoner and it costs a considerable amount of money to get these guides to do such risky work. I think when the war is over she will be highly praised and well rewarded for the good work she has done.

  Such reassurance could not have been total. If the work was so risky for guides, why was it less so for an Englishwoman, a symbol of hatred to the enemy? And where was the proof that her resistance work was done? How did she get the money to pay these guides? How deeply entrenched was she in war work? Mrs. Cavell was eighty. She wanted her daughter home. It disturbed her to have soldiers who had been to hell and back arriving at her door.

  By March 1915 an electrified wire perimeter fence had been strung along the whole border. It was patrolled day and night, and scanned by searchlights from watchtowers. None the less Doman was by no means the last of the “prisoners.” Through March, April, May, June and July, a stream of soldiers booked in as patients or visitors at rue de la Culture. Their decimated regiments were the West Kents, the Munster Fusiliers, the Connaught Rangers, the Cheshires, Norfolks, West Riding and Middlesex, the Royal Irish Rifles, the Royal Scottish Fusiliers, the Royal Field Artillery, the Black Watch, the Royal Scottish Rifles, the 4th Regiment of Zouaves, as well as Belgian and French civilians who wanted to enlist.

  In March she dispatched Lance-Corporal Holmes of the Norfolk Regiment who had been gravely wounded at Mons. He lived close to her mother in Norwich. She gave him a Bible and a letter to give to her mother. For Mrs. Cavell, the vicar’s widow, openly to acknowledge in a letter receipt of a Bible would seem innocent enough. But then Edith Cavell would know of the safe arrival of Corporal Holmes and that the system was still working. Holmes handed it and the letter to the maid at 24 College Road but did not go into the house. Mrs. Cavell seemed reluctant to meet him. Perhaps she felt fearful of the implication to herself and others of her daughter’s work.

  For Edith Cavell, the underpinning steel of endeavor was unchanged. She served and stayed true to her conscience. Her work of reforming Belgian nursing standards was temporarily frustrated. It was a small shift from making clothes for impoverished refugees to making clothes to disguise soldiers who needed to escape, a small step from smuggling letters over the border to smuggling men. But the shift in her citizenship status was total. The German authorities had no moral or legal worth in her view. She would not obey their rule that all foreign nationals should report to them, nor comply with their conception of law. In their terms she was miscreant, criminal, traitor. Her right was their wrong. Her work became ever more dangerous. She put her life on the line for these men who had been through much: Private McGuire, Sergeant Shiells, Captain Motte, Corporal Ribbens, Private Sheldrake, Bandsman Christie, Sergeant Scarrett …

  Private T. C. Scott of the Norfolk Regiment arrived at the School in April with wounds to his chest and feet. He was very ill. For months the Richez family, relatives of Auguste Joly, had kept him in a boarded-over cellar. After close calls with the military police they brought him to the rue de la Culture. One night when uniformed men with bayonets inspected, Edith Cavell woke him, hid him in a barrel in the garden and covered him in apples.

  It became a long, dangerous, expensive journey to the frontier: passwords, disguises, an ever-changing paraphernalia of codes, bribes and cunning. The price of bribes reached a thousand francs. Spies followed close
on the heels of resistance workers. Guides were men of courage, men like Charles Vanderlinden. They learned every detail of the terrain, knew of poachers in the woods who would give directions, and how to wrap rubber strips round the electrified wires of the border fence, or push a barrel between them so the fugitives could crawl through. But guides and escapees got caught and shot at the border. Along the river Scheldt were boatmen who might ferry men across at night. Some men swam the river’s width despite searchlights that swept the water.

  Germany poured more men into the war. Suspicion was everywhere: passenger boats might be loaded with munitions, the postman might be an undercover agent. Citizens coded their patriotism into the color of their hats or ties. But it was touch and go who could be trusted. Menace was everywhere: the forced entry of uniformed men with pistols and bayonets, apprehension on a tram, in a café, on the street. Survival needed luck and cunning.

  Edith Cavell turned away none of the soldiers brought to her. Jack walked with her to the handover points. Behind them followed her “guests,” dressed as agricultural workers or miners. One onward route was by tram to Haacht, 30 miles away. To avoid the guards they would leave the tram before the end of the line. In Haacht they were given information about the movements of the Germans.

  In the School it was ever harder for Edith Cavell to discipline these men. They were not, like her student nurses, obliged to do as she said. They were young, had been through hell, and wanted a good time. José took their meals to them and told them when to disperse round the town. Edith Cavell asked them to leave the house singly, keep to the back streets, not to drink, not to speak English, not to return late. But she could not watch them all the time. She was still a working matron.

  The men had no capacity for sitting in silence in a walled-off room. They were energetic, unafraid of risk and removed from army discipline. They liked going to the corner café, Chez Jules, and to another café in nearby rue Vanderkindere. They talked in English, for they knew no French. They drank, chatted up Belgian girls, and talked to seemingly friendly workmen. And even when they tried to appear incognito, disguised with felt hats and French mustaches, Edith Cavell told Reginald de Croÿ their singularly English walk and stance gave them away.

  Doctors and nurses who lodged in the street spoke of being disturbed by very English noise. The engineer Georges Hostelet, who often visited the School, commented on male laughter and shouting, and urged her to be more cautious. Louise Thuliez heard how a group on a tram told passengers they had come from Miss Cavell’s nursing home, were on their way to M. Séverin’s house and were then going to cross the Dutch frontier. And there was a problem with Edith Cavell’s German maid, Marie, who was divided in her allegiance and antipathetic to this harboring of wanted men.

  A German command post was set up in the same road as the School. Soldiers herded into the School’s top rooms could see them in the evenings, playing cards. A field across the road next to Depage’s closed Institute, which before the war had been a drill ground for Belgian soldiers, was now used by civilians to grow vegetables. Unknown individuals would question them and watch the School. Unspecific protracted roadworks went on in the street. Danger was near. Edith Cavell grew careless, not with regard to the men she was helping, but in protecting her own skin. Her letters home became incautious. On March 11 she wrote to her cousin:

  My dear Eddy,

  Your letter came from the American Consul yesterday the 10th of March. You apparently sent it on the 1st of Feb! You see our correspondence has gone back to the Middle Ages like so many other things out here at present. It was good of you to remember me and to offer your help. There is so much to do and yet so little actually in Brussels. We have no wounded—the Allies do not come here and most of the Germans are sent back to their country, the few that remain are nursed by their country-women—so we are at present denied the great consolation of being of use in our special way. Of course, there are other things to do and I am helping in ways I may not describe to you now. There are many things I may not write till we are again free.

  As you offer your help do you think you could find out any news of the soldiers on the enclosed list! They are relations of some of the girls here and are fighting at the front or perhaps wounded or killed. You could write to London or to France but we can’t. If you can collect any money for our poor, we should be very grateful, but I don’t quite see how you could send it out, as money for the English is confiscated if found.

  The last letter from my mother was dated 22nd January. If this reaches you will you send her a line to say all is well here. She is naturally very anxious and I do not know whether she gets my letters. There are not many opportunities of sending.

  What do you do these days, are you still farming, or is that given up? I like to look back on the days when we were young and life was fresh and beautiful and the country so desirable and sweet.

  Many thanks for your kind letter My dear Cousin from

  Yours affectionately

  Edith

  It was a letter to arouse suspicion if it fell into hostile hands. Who were the soldiers on the list, why did she want money, what were her ways of helping which she could not describe? Three days later, on March 14, she wrote a similarly incautious letter to her mother:

  All is very quiet here still, we are policed by the enemy and people are arrested often without warning otherwise things go on much as usual.

  We are very busy in spite of the fact that we have no longer the hospital for any private staff—there has been a great deal to do lately in ways which I must describe to you later. Have you heard from Doman or Chapman?

  We go into the new building next month, I will send you in good time the new address. It is advancing and becoming habitable but will not be finished for May 1st when we should be installed.

  An immense Zeppelin passed over the plain and our house yesterday evening seeming just to clear the roof—the first that has visited us for a long while.

  Sister Whitelock from the hospital has taken Sister White’s place and promises to be a success—I am wondering if Sister Burt is still at Withernsea—Marie has been giving me a good deal of trouble. I expect I shall have to send her away one of these days, but must wait in prudence till after the war. Jackie is well and more attached to me than ever, he won’t leave me now even to go for a walk with Gracie—he takes no notice of the Gs but passes them with sublime indifference like all the Belgians.

  The Institut opposite is still shut up and the owner away at work in Flanders with his wife, who has lately been over to America. I could tell you many things but must save them till later.

  My dearest love to you and Lil and the children

  Ever your affectionate daughter

  Edith

  Gracie’s love to you all

  Coded news from her daughter of sudden arrests, of being policed by the enemy, of a German maid giving trouble, of low-flying Zeppelins, of many things that could be said but weren’t, disturbed Mrs. Cavell. Zeppelins, huge cigar-shaped dirigibles stuffed with bombs, were already being used to terrorize Paris and London.

  Marie Depage (1872–1915) nurse and resistance worker. She died when the Lusitania was torpedoed, May 7, 1915

  In March 1915, with no end to the war in sight and with ever-mounting casualties, Marie Depage had gone to America to raise funds for the Océan hospital and the Red Cross. Queen Elisabeth of Belgium sent her a letter wishing her mission success. Of the Depages’ three sons, two had enlisted. They also had plans to get Edith Cavell across enemy lines to work at the La Panne hospital.

  For two months Marie Depage toured American cities from Washington to Pittsburgh. “The big conflict of the present war is still in the future” she told her audiences.

  We must foresee the coming slaughter and be prepared to render instant aid to the thousands of wounded, friends and foes, who will fall within our lines. When we follow the army into our devastated land, we shall find nothing; it is a land stripped bare, and often we shall
not find even shelter to house our wounded soldiers. We must, therefore, have in store a number of field hospitals such as the American Red Cross is today sending to Belgium with every supply, including beds, linen, instruments, sterilisers, and ambulances. We shall also need money to be used for fuel and emergencies.

  She raised $100,000 in money and $50,000 in supplies. She had planned to return to Europe on the SS Lapland but at the last minute changed to Cunard’s flagship the Lusitania, the “greyhound of the sea,” because it was the fastest ship on the Atlantic. She was in cabin E61. There were 2,150 people on board. It left New York harbour for Liverpool on May 1. Even on this crossing Marie Depage raised money for the Red Cross from passengers.

  On May 7, 10 miles off the coast of Ireland, a German U-boat surfaced. Its commander Captain Schwieger wanted to recharge its batteries. The Lusitania was 700 meters away. He torpedoed its starboard side. There was an explosion and the ship began to sink. Then there was a second larger explosion. The ship keeled over and went down in eighteen minutes. Marie Depage tried to jump from the port side, got tangled in ropes on the deck, struggled free, but drowned.

  Fourteen hundred people died including 128 Americans and 95 children. Some of the dead were trapped in the ship’s lifts. The sinking of the Lusitania shocked the Allied world. It served as a rallying cry for recruitment and for America to join the war. It was viewed as a violation of the rules of engagement, an act of terrorism. Three months previously Germany had overruled an attempted international agreement that non-military vessels suspected of carrying war materials should be abandoned rather than sunk immediately.

  Germany denied the accusation that the second catastrophic explosion was caused by another torpedo. They said it was because the ship was stuffed with munitions. (Recent salvage of the wreck unearthed millions of rounds of .303 bullets. There had been tons of crates in the hold dubiously labeled CHEESE, BUTTER, OYSTERS.) Antoine Depage identified his wife’s body. He buried her close to the hospital at La Panne and named his research unit after her: the Institut Marie Depage. There was no time to grieve. There was too much to grieve about. For Edith Cavell it was another blow to all her hopes. The ideal of heaven on earth seemed ever further away. But through the door of Depage’s hospital came an unending stream of wounded in need of care. Through the door of the School in rue de la Culture, fugitive soldiers came, desperate for escape.