Edith Cavell

by Diana Souhami

  Thus the document of indictment that was prepared. But after the war’s end, in 1919 when the spy Georges Gaston Quien was tried for war crimes in Paris, Otto Mayer, giving witness, stated that Edith Cavell, apart from her initial response about the amount of money given by de Croÿ, when she apparently corrected Bergan and said it was not 5,000 francs but 1,500, had evaded answering any question directly. Her deposition was according to Bergan and Pinkhoff.

  During this interrogation the barrister Albert Libiez was brought in. She was asked if he had visited her house. She apparently said she was not sure, she could not remember, she did not think she knew him but it was quite possible he had been to her house in her absence. She said—she was said to have said—that she used guides known to her as Louis and Victor Gilles; she did not think they were related; she had no idea where they lived; she supposed those were not their real names; yes, one of them was sent by Séverin, the other by Capiau; yes, one was about twenty-eight, tall and thin, powerfully built with a brown mustache turned up at the ends and bushy hair parted in the middle.

  This second deposition was again read to her in Pinkhoff’s French. She again signed the German version. As before, she had no idea what she had signed. Her signature was witnessed by the document’s author, Sergeant Henri Pinkhoff.

  Edith Cavell was taken back to her cell. Three days later on August 21 she was again taken before Bergan and Pinkhoff. They had now arrested Countess Jeanne de Belleville and wanted an indictment of her. Yes, Edith Cavell was supposed to have said, the Countess had brought eight or ten men to her, English and Belgian, who wanted to cross into Holland. She did not know where the Countess lived, she received no money from her, knew nothing about the men brought to her; yes, she concurred, the countess was from forty-five to fifty years old, gray-haired, wrinkled, unmarried. It would not have been Edith Cavell’s way to describe a friend and a woman whom she respected in quite such words. Louise Thuliez said of Jeanne de Belleville: “She had blue eyes and curly gray hair, an aquiline nose and rapid, energetic walk. She seemed indefatigable. Everything about her breathed simplicity and goodness. Her natural gaiety was such that in the most tragic moments of our adventure she remained smiling and undaunted.”

  Quite what Edith Cavell said or did not say was lost in perverse translation. Her signed statements were shown to the other prisoners. Georges Hostelet later said that when he read the apparent depositions by her and Louis Séverin he just did not believe they had made them. He could not believe Edith Cavell would have said things that were so compromising, above all to herself. He told Bergan he was distorting the truth and intent on false conclusions. “By insinuation and false translation, they altered the sense of confessions and obtained what they wanted,” Georges Hostelet was to write in his account of this trial. Thus the law, at this particular time, in this particular place: an edifice of dishonor that compounded the wrongdoing of those who created and exercised it. Aeschylus wrote in Agamemnon in 458 BC that the first casualty of War is the Truth. Bergan and Pinkhoff ignored evidence that failed to support what they intended to prove. Helping men to the Dutch border slipped into recruitment of troops for the enemy. Resistance to occupation slipped into espionage and treason.

  Edith Cavell did not bend or demur to the criminal investigation techniques of the Kommandantur, to the uniformed authority of Pink-hoff and Bergan. Her uniform was put away. She was not before them as a nurse. She dissimulated and was vague over the numbers of men she had helped, their whereabouts after they moved from her care, the identity of the guides. She knew her unit was finished, but that the work would go on elsewhere.

  And so the prosecution prepared its case. The German military had commandeered all civic buildings in Brussels. The scene would shift to trial by military tribunal at the Brussels Senate, the building where the nation’s founding principles were enshrined. The military courts, under the command of the Governor General, exercised criminal jurisdiction in cases of “treason in time of war.” Of all the accused due to appear before this tribunal Edith Cavell was at greatest risk. She was English, and therefore viewed by her prosecutors as a small but vital and tangible incarnation of the enemy.

  37

  SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

  She expected a cursory trial and imprisonment. As a nurse she had counseled many people, uncertain about the time left to them, on the need to leave their affairs in order, settle debts and make their wishes known. She knew events might now move fast and that she had to relinquish control.

  The day after her second interrogation she wrote a letter about her affairs to Sister Wilkins:

  My dear Sister,

  I am sorry you have had to wait so long for an answer. I have asked to see you but it may not be till after sentence so do not try any more—just write all you want to know and I will reply on the first occasion.

  1. Miss Jemmett owes the School about 420 francs. I send her 25 francs to be kept by you for immediate needs. Tell M. Héger all about her professionally and ask him to do what he can for her—explain that it is since last year only she has been so ill and tell him I have done all in my power, as we cannot communicate with her father. I have been obliged to go on as you know—he will pay all expenses on the first opportunity. I do hope he will allow her to stay as a patient—otherwise I cannot see what will become of her.

  2. Pauline’s money is in the bank and she shall have it when I am again free. I send 25 frs also for her wants. Will you explain her case to M. Héger and tell him that she has been with us over 2 years and is only 16, and that she is my godchild. Perhaps he will let her stay as she works well and I am afraid greatly for her if she left.

  3. You will find 2 cheques in my room, of last summer (not signed) which should go in the School cash box. Also there is owing to the School 30 francs for little Edith Marguaty. I paid her pension on August 1st and have not been repaid. M. Héger knows all about that.

  4. I think you had better state the case of old Mme. de Blanc. Perhaps as she cannot pay it would be well for the Committee to decide about her at once. Explain that we took her when we had practically no patients—and out of pity when the Hospital was closed.

  5. Many thanks for all your kind thoughts for me. I should like some blue and white striped combinations from my drawer, a little notepaper and some handkerchiefs—also my Imitation of Christ—a little red book in my shelves and my prayer book.

  I am sorry about the maids but not surprised. Tell Pauline to be a good girl. I hope José and his family go on well. My dear old Jack! Please brush him sometimes and look after him. I am quite well—more worried about the School than my own fate. Tell the girls to be good and work well and be tidy. I am sure you have many worries. Are all my things put away safely? With camphor? Don’t buy anything for me, I do very well with what I have. My love to you and Sister and Nurse Horn et mes bons amitiés à toutes mes jeunes filles—Mlle. Maturin et Nurse Progloff, dites des bonnes choses de ma part aux domestiques dans la maison et la cuisine, que je pense toujours à tout le monde.

  Affectionately yours

  E. Cavell

  Please see the nurses going for their exam for the 2nd time in

  October study regularly.

  23rd August

  Thus her concerns. “I am quite well—more worried about the School than my own fate.” As she awaited her “own fate” she tried to do what was right by all she had loved and worked for. And so she worried that Grace Jemmett would not be housed or her depression treated, that Pauline might be homeless, Jack not brushed and pining, that the School’s finances would not be in order, the student nurses might fail their exams, that old Mme. de Blanc might go uncared for.

  For herself she turned to the little book Sister Wilkins delivered to her: Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ. She scored lines against many of its texts: Vanity it is, to wish to live long, and to be careless to live well. She would have liked to live long. She had paid into her pension fund. She and her sister Florence talked of founding a re
tirement home for nurses, with a garden like the Garden of Eden at the London Hospital, with hammocks, flowers and fountains and a machine for making tea. England was her home and she thought to go back there when her working days were done. She would have liked a tranquil old age, in the company of nurses, with the ordinary pleasures of peacetime. But to be careful to live well, was of more importance to her. It was a clear path. It meant being unselfish and doing her best and what was right, wherever she found herself and however demanding that might be.

  O God who art the truth make me one with Thee in everlasting charity. Charity was love and in her religious belief, truth and love elided. Love guided her work as a nurse. In the shocking times in which she found herself she kept allegiance to it, beyond the frenzied carnage outside her locked cell door.

  He is truly great that is great in charity. He is truly great that is little in himself and that maketh no account of any height of honor. He is truly learned that doeth the will of God and forsaketh his own will. It was a demanding aspiration but one impressed on her since childhood, and one from which she did not swerve. Her imitation of Christ was truly how she had chosen to live, truly how she dreamed the world might be.

  Neither is it any such great thing if a man be devout and fervent when he feeleth no affliction; but if in time of adversity he bear himself patiently there is hope then of great proficiency in grace. She had so often, to those she nursed, at their time of great affliction offered hope, and urged patience. She was in a time of adversity now. Her world was taken from her: the old Nurses’ School and the new, her family, her mother, Swardeston, Norfolk. She would “bear herself patiently,” for she knew the importance of a state of grace.

  It was not that she had her eye on the reward of heavenly pastures, pleasant living conditions beyond the grave; it was rather that love, goodness, devotion, grace, God, by cast of mind and upbringing defined her. So, alone in her cell, she took courage from the thoughts of a fifteenth-century mystic who went deep into the human heart to find what it meant to be good: Man looketh on the countenance, but God on the heart. Man considereth the deeds, but God weigheth the intentions.

  Days of solitary confinement turned to weeks and months. On September 14 she sent her permitted one letter a week to all her nurses, a careful prison letter, in French, composed with an awareness that it must pass her jailers:

  Your charming letter gave me great pleasure and your lovely flowers have brought life and colour to my cell, the roses are still fresh, but the chrysanthemums did not like prison life any more than I do, and did not last long.

  I’m glad to hear you’re working hard and are devoted to your patients and that the patients are well pleased. I hope you get on with your studies just as if I was there. Examination time is near and I very much want you to succeed. The new term begins very soon; try to learn from past experience and be on time for lectures and don’t keep your tutors waiting.

  At every point in life we learn something new. If you were in my place you would realise how precious freedom is, and how grateful we should be for it.

  It seems the new School is coming along nicely. I hope to see it again one day soon and all my nurses too.

  Au revoir. Be wise, be good.

  Your devoted Matron

  Edith Cavell

  It was a stilted letter, directed at Bergan and Pinkhoff to let them know all she needed to do, but written to give hope to her nurses. She did not sound subdued. Philosophical and demanding, yes, but that was familiar to them and reassuring. It was not her way to generate anxiety. Professor Héger told the nurses he expected she would be sent to a German prison. That was bad enough news. “We could not believe it to be possible,” said Jacqueline van Til.

  The following week Edith Cavell wrote to Professor Héger:

  Saint Gilles Prison, Sep. 22, 1915

  Monsieur Héger,

  Miss Wilkins has told me that you would like me to write to you. I am glad to respond to your request. Unfortunately I have not been able to send any letters.

  I deeply regret having been forced to leave the School at the time of our moving and to have left all my affairs in disarray. I hope that by now everything is well organised and as you would wish it.

  I very much hope to see you a little later on; there will be things to arrange and discuss and I hope to have the opportunity to speak with you.

  Please give my regards to all the members of the Committee.

  Edith Cavell

  Two days later she received a letter from a Mme. Francis, with news that Pauline had left the School and was working as a maid for a woman in another part of the city. For her next weekly letter Edith Cavell wrote to Pauline on September 27:

  My Dear Pauline,

  Will you thank Madame Francis for so kindly writing to me and for being kind enough to take an interest in you? I was very glad to hear you were with a kind lady and hope you will try to please her and stay with her, for as I told you it is no good to keep changing. I was very sorry to hear you had left the School, but I hope now all is for the best.

  Do not worry about your money. If I am free soon I will come and see you, if not, I will leave it in the hands of Miss Butcher for you. I hope you will try not to spend it as it will be very useful for your little sister perhaps one day. You had 235 francs on July 1st but spent some of it on linen and I sent you 25 francs by Sister, so now you should have 200 francs which I will arrange for you alone. If you can still continue saving give the money to Miss Butcher to put with the rest. Be a good girl and don’t forget all I have tried to teach you. Say your prayers and go to church when you can and remember not to make friends with people you don’t know and that you must never repeat the things you hear which are not your business.

  Goodbye my child. If I want a little maid you must come back to me. Write me a line now and then. Let Miss Butcher always have your address so that I may know where to find you.

  Your affectionate godmother

  E. Cavell

  27th Sep 1915

  It was a goodbye letter, an acknowledgment she could do no more and must relinquish guidance and financial help. She offered only a mild rebuke for the gossip to Quien that had cost her dear.

  By the end of September, though the Prince de Croÿ had eluded them, Bergan and Pinkhoff had what they needed, including Baucq’s admission to Neels. Edith Cavell was allowed to see Sisters Wilkins and Whitelock in the presence of a German guard. “We talked,” Sister Wilkins wrote, “of the nurses and the nursing, the domestic staff, the patients and her beloved Jackie, who was terribly lonely without his mistress.”

  “She appeared so frail,” Sister Whitelock wrote, “walking down the long corridor between two German soldiers, and as soon as she had received us she was recalled to be questioned again, but happily was allowed to come back and stayed with us a whole hour. She talked of the School and her nurses and begged us to look after them until she came back.”

  On October 4, Edith Cavell’s permitted letter was to Sister Wilkins:

  My dear Sister,

  The bill 115 frs per month must go into the rue du Fort on Oct 1st for 6 months i.e 69 frs. We pay it monthly to Mlle. de Camp.

  The money from MJ, 800 frs, please keep in hand till I tell you how to place it. I hope you will get it soon, as I want to arrange all before I go.

  Bring me the cheques to sign which you will find in a box in my room. If the sisters or trained nurses want testimonials from me please bring Christian names and dates—also when S. Whitelock entered and left St. Gilles hospital. Servants characters also.

  Will you please send me at once:

  My blue coat and skirt

  white muslin blouse

  thick grey reindeer gloves

  grey fur stole

  6 stamps

  So sorry not to have seen those who came Sunday, many thanks for everything. Love to you all. I hope to see you again soon as time may be short.

  Matron

  Time indeed was short. The date of the t
rial was set for October 7. She wanted her blue coat and skirt, her white muslin blouse and her gray fur stole for her appearance in court.

  38

  THE EFFORTS OF OTHERS

  Bergan and Pinkhoff put together evidence for the military tribunal. The accused stayed isolated in St. Gilles prison. A lawyer on the governing committee for the Nursing School, a M. Van Alteren, attempted intercession on Edith Cavell’s behalf. He was arrested by the military police. The committee then engaged Thomas Braun, a Belgian lawyer who spoke German and French and had appeared at many of these tribunals. He would not be allowed prior communication with her, but he could speak for her in court.

  On August 23, three weeks after Edith Cavell’s arrest and six weeks before her trial, news of her plight reached England. Her brother-in-law Longworth Wainwright wrote to the Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray next day: “I have news through Dutch sources that my wife’s sister, a Miss Edith Cavell, has been arrested in Brussels and I can get no news as to what has happened to her since August 5.”

  He received an immediate reply:

  The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs presents his compliments to Mr. Longworth Wainwright and with reference to his letter of the 24th instant is directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to state that he has requested the United States Ambassador to make enquiries by telegram as to the arrest of Miss Cavell at Brussels.