William Thomson Hill

“ No law book in the world, least of all those dealing with war regulations, makes such a differentiation, and the female sex has but one preference according to legal usage, namely, that women in a delicate condition may not be executed. Otherwise a man and woman are equal before the law, and only the degree of guilt makes a difference in the sentence for a crime and its consequences.
In the Cavell case all the circumstances are so clear and convincing that no court-martial in the world could have reached any other decision. ”

“ Frederick Cavell, lived with his family at the New Rectory. It is a pleasant sunny house with a large garden. Such parsonages are common in all the unspoiled rural parts of England. A little gate leads to the churchyard close by.
In a great city no man would live willingly close by a cemetery. In such a village as Swardeston the nearness of the graveyard is a consecration. New graves appear among the old ones from time to time. The oldest of these others have faded gently into the grass. Nobody is left to tend them or to remember whose bones they cover. ”

“ I have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me.
I thank God for this ten weeks’ quiet before the end. Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty. This time of rest has been a great mercy. ”

“ It is notably the face of an upright man. Surely capable of sternness, he would be just to the point of inexorableness unless his face belies him. A sense of duty is implicit in every line; and we have the best of reasons for knowing that he transmitted this part of his character to his daughter Edith.
“The clever Miss Cavell” she was called in later years when she worked at a London hospital; but a more dominant characteristic was a rigid insistence upon what she deemed to be right. This was the constant theme of the father’s sermons to his village flock. ”

“ Edith Cavell’s early womanhood was spent in London—at the London Hospital, the St. Pancras Infirmary, and the Shoreditch Infirmary in Hoxton. Her training was obtained at the London Hospital, the great institution in the Whitechapel Road which is now nursing many wounded soldiers. The women who train in this hospital pass through a hard school. All hospital nurses work hard, but the nurses who come from “The London” think they know more of the strain of their calling than any others.
“The London” proposes to raise a memorial to Nurse Cavell. ”

“ The German nurses training under Miss Cavell had already left—conducted to the frontier by her to save them the anxiety of being in an enemy capital. At this time the German soldiers were ruthlessly slaughtering Belgian women and children. The new authorities approved of her continuing her work: no longer, since the outbreak of war, a training institution, but a Red Cross Hospital. It is admitted even by her enemies that she threw herself ardently into her work without respect [Pg 21] of nationality. Wounded Belgians and Germans were treated alike. ”

“ The full story of the next few months of Edith Cavell’s life cannot be told until after the war is over. Brussels, as she had written, became cut off from the world. The hospitable old city became a nest of spies. “Newspapers were first stopped, then suppressed, and are now printed under German auspices. The few trains that run for passengers are in German hands, and wherever you go you must have, and pay for, a passport. No one speaks to his neighbour in the tram, for he may be a spy. ”

“ In England when the meanest felon is arrested he is warned by the officer who reads the charge to him, that he need not make any statement unless he wishes, and that anything he says may be used in evidence against him. In Brussels, under German rule, Edith Cavell’s judges deliberately set themselves to extort admissions by which to condemn her. ”

“ For “The London” gave her the thorough training which enabled her to become the skilful teacher of others, and to instruct the nurses who should succour with equal care the wounded of all nations.
At the end of her arduous training at the London Hospital in 1896, Miss Cavell went to St. Pancras Infirmary as Night Superintendent. She stayed there for a little more than three years. Then she became Assistant Matron at the Shoreditch Infirmary in Hoxton. She left Hoxton in 1906 to start the work in Brussels which ended only with her cruel death. ”

“ Some day, when the war is over, another grave may be dug in this quiet spot. If [Pg 3] the poor mutilated frame of Edith Cavell is ever permitted to be brought back home, her countrymen will come here to look upon the place where she lies. In this October of 1915 she sleeps in a land ravaged by war, and those who killed her will not stoop even to the tardy pity of giving back her body.
But in those early seventies the village churchyard was not a place of sadness to the Rectory children. ”

“ The lot of a school-girl is not too happy at the best among new companions. When [Pg 10] their language and ways are those of a foreign country they can become a source of torture to a sensitive child. Some of these school-girl irritations Edith Cavell had to bear; yet such early annoyances evidently left little mark on her, for she returned many years later to Brussels of her own free will, and conquered the affections of the Belgians a second time. ”

“ Countless British, Belgian and French soldiers are now again fighting in the Allies’ ranks who owe their escape from Belgium to the activity of the band now sentenced, at the head of which stood Miss Cavell.
With such a situation under the very eyes of the authorities only the utmost severity can bring relief, and a Government violates the most elementary duty towards its army that does not adopt the strictest measures. These duties in war are greater than any other. ”

“ Rectory has long ago lost any signs of newness. It is one of the ways of Old England to call some of its most ancient things New, as if it could never learn to tolerate change kindly, even after centuries of wont. ”

“ Her success as a nurse, both in Brussels and the slums of London, owed three-parts of its efficacy to her overflowing sympathy. “It was her gentle way,” said an old patient, “that did most to make me well again; I felt she was a minister of God working for my good.” And there are wounded British soldiers who have pressed the doctors to send them back quickly to the firing line. “We will go back willingly,” they say, “to avenge this great woman’s death.”
Daily Mirror Photograph.
THE REV. FREDERICK CAVELL, FATHER OF NURSE CAVELL.
Daily Mirror Photograph. ”

“ Once for all, the activity of our enemies has been stopped, and the sentence has been carried out to frighten those who might presume on their sex to [Pg 55] take part in enterprises punishable with death. Should one recognise these presumptions it would open the door for the evil activities of women, who often are handier and cleverer in these things than the craftiest spy. ”

“ But we cannot follow the incidents of the last day of Edith Cavell’s life without becoming aware that a design had been conceived in some brain to hurry on the last penalty before there was time for a reprieve.
Mr. de Leval had heard privately on the evening before (Sunday, October 10th) that the trial was over, and that the death sentence had been demanded. The trial had ended on Friday, but Mr. Kirschen, the lawyer, did not report to Mr. de Leval as he had promised. Neither on Saturday nor [Pg 41] Sunday could Mr. Kirschen be found, and he disappears altogether from view after the trial. ”

“ If the others are shown mercy it will be at the cost of our army, for it is to be feared that new attempts will be made to injure us if it is believed that escape without punishment is possible or with the risk of only a light sentence. ”

“ Only pity for the guilty can lead to a commutation. It will not be an admission that the executed sentence was too severe, for this, harsh as it may sound, was absolutely just, and could not appear otherwise to an independent judge.
It is asserted that the soldiers told off to carry out the execution refused at first to shoot, and finally fired so faultily that an officer had to kill the accused with his revolver. ”

“ Whitlock’s appeal for information, and for authority to start the defence. Mr. Whitlock repeated his request on September 10th, but it was not until two days after this date that Baron Von der Lancken replied to the appeal. He set forth in this letter the only official statement ever made by the German authorities as to Miss Cavell’s “crime.” It is worth reading in his own words:—
She has herself admitted that she concealed in her house French and English soldiers, as well as Belgians of military age, all desirous of proceeding to the front. ”

“ The judges would feel they were under supervision, and would be likely to be more severe in consequence. Mr. Kirschen declared that there was not the least chance of a miscarriage of justice, and promised to inform Mr. de Leval of every development of the case.
We may judge of the value of his advocacy from the fact that he afterwards broke all these promises except one. He did tell Mr. de Leval when the trial was coming on. ”

“ Mr. Braun stated that he had seen another Belgian lawyer, Mr. Kirschen, who had [Pg 32] agreed to undertake the defence. Another delay, while Mr. de Leval got into touch with Mr. Kirschen. At last there was to be an opportunity to obtain some details of the accusation. What had Miss Cavell admitted? asked the American counsel. ”