Lest We Forget: World War StoriesThompson, John G. (John Gilbert)
History
Lest We Forget: World War Stories
Thompson, John G. (John Gilbert)
Readers -- History; Readers -- World War, 1914-1918
Your devoted friend,
BRAND WHITLOCK.
Official:
I have just heard that Miss Cavell, a British subject, and
consequently under the protection of my Legation, was this
morning condemned to death by court-martial.
If my information is correct, the sentence in the present case
is more severe than all the others that have been passed in
similar cases which have been tried by the same Court, and,
without going into the reasons for such a drastic sentence, I
feel that I have the right to appeal to your Excellency's
feelings of humanity and generosity in Miss Cavell's favor, and
to ask that the death penalty passed on Miss Cavell may be
commuted and that this unfortunate woman shall not be executed.
Miss Cavell is the head of the Brussels Surgical Institute. She
has spent her life in alleviating the sufferings of others, and
her school has turned out many nurses who have watched at the
bedside of the sick all the world over, in Germany as in
Belgium. At the beginning of the war Miss Cavell bestowed her
care as freely on the German soldiers as on others. Even in
default of all other reasons, her career as a servant of
humanity is such as to inspire the greatest sympathy and to call
for pardon. If the information in my possession is correct, Miss
Cavell, far from shielding herself, has, with commendable
straightforwardness, admitted the truth of all the charges
against her, and it is the very information which she herself
has furnished, which has aggravated the severity of the sentence
passed on her.
It is then with confidence, and in the hope of its favorable
reception, that I have the honor to present to your Excellency
my request for pardon on Miss Cavell's behalf.
BRAND WHITLOCK.
But no real attention was paid to the American notes. Edith Cavell was
sentenced at five o'clock on the afternoon of October 11, and was put
to death that same night.
Permission was refused to take her body for burial outside the prison.
It is doubtless still buried in the prison yard unless the Germans have
removed it for fear a monument may be erected above it. The English are
to erect a monument in her honor in London. Dr. James M. Beck, in
writing about her case, says of her burial in the prison yard, "One can
say of that burial place, as Byron said of the prison cell of Chillon:
'Let none these marks efface, for they appeal from tyranny to God.'"
SON[2]
He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!
And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.
For my hair is gray, and his was gold; he'd the best of his life
to live;
And I'd loved him so, and I'm old, I'm old; and he's all I had to
give.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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