Violet Asquith, I hear, is going to marry that ugly man Bonham-Carter (nickname ‘Bongy’) – a long and ancient wish on his part. Her father’s secretary!
Then Sonny Titchfield!!!* Marries a girl of 30!! (he is 22!). An old maid like that!! She is stuck up and narrow-minded so dear Sonnie hasn’t a chance of getting out of a groove.
Miss Venetia Stanley who has only just stopped a very very serious flirtation with the Prime Minister – some say they loved each other so much he was meditating eloping!!! (hence no care for his high office and High Explosives!) – well, she is going to marry Mr Edwin Montagu. To do it she has to change her religion and be a Jewess!!
Then – after 4 July – it was Diana who monopolized Violet’s attention. In the early hours of that morning, Diana broke her leg falling down some steps on Brighton beach. She was with Duff Cooper.* It was a bad break and Violet took charge of the search to find a top surgeon to operate. ‘Your mother is nearly off her chump just now with trouble upon trouble,’ Charlie wrote to John: ‘Diana, poor dear, has had a baddish smash. Both leg bones broken, the smaller in two diagonally, and part of the knob at the base of the larger one. She goes to hospital tomorrow or the next day. Sir A. Lane does the op: rather a serious one.’
Charlie was writing on 6 July. As was evident from his last paragraph, neither he nor Violet were anticipating John’s immediate return: they knew that his division was in action in the Ypres Salient: ‘Your mother almost demented with one thing and another,’ Charlie reiterated: ‘dreadfully nervous about you – longing to get you over here again. I suppose there’s no chance, but don’t miss one if there is. The family are badly in need of you. Your father looked worried to death, poor man, but is behaving well.’
Charlie’s letter pointed to one conclusion: if neither he nor Violet were expecting John back from the Front, they couldn’t have played a part in his departure.
More puzzling, however, was the letter I found to John from Rothesay Stuart Wortley. He was John’s fellow ADC. Oddly, though his letter was dated 10 July – the day after John was invalided home – both he and the division’s commanding officers were expecting him back at headquarters at any moment. Further, Rothesay’s letter intimated that John had in fact been ill.
So what had actually happened?
It was only when I read the war diary of Colonel Beevor – the North Midlands Chief Medical Officer – that the blurred events of that week came into focus.
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It seems John did leave the Front for medical reasons. They were not the ones stipulated in his War Office file, but it looks very much as if they were genuine.
According to Colonel Beevor’s diary, around the time John left, a virulent stomach bug was circulating through the North Midlands in early July. Whether it was viral, or caused by contaminated water, is unclear, but a large percentage of the troops went down with it. By mid-July, Colonel Beevor was describing it as an ‘epidemic’. As his entry on the nineteenth reveals, the bug claimed its victims quickly:
19 July
7.30 am. Went to Ouderdom to examine 140 sick reported as left behind by the 5th Leicesters when they went into trenches last night. There were 4 cases suspicion of paratyphoid and over 50 with diarrhoea. This latter disease is so prevalent just now. Inquiries confirm that the men generally are most careful about the water they drink. I consider it due chiefly to catarrh of the intestine brought about by the recent cold winds and rain. The 5th South Staffords had 120 cases of it yesterday.
The illness hit the North Midlands just as the division’s brigades were completing their first tour of duty in the Ypres Salient. Captain Hills was with the 5th Leicesters, the night they left the trenches. It was 5 July, and they had been in the line for six days:
We marched back to Ouderdom, feeling that we had escaped from our first tour in the ill-famed salient fairly cheaply. Even so, we had lost two officers and 24 Other Ranks wounded, and seven killed, a rate which, if kept up, would soon very seriously deplete our ranks. On reaching Ouderdom, we found that some huts had now been allotted us instead of our bivouac field, and as on the following day it rained hard, we were not sorry. Our satisfaction, however, was short-lived, for the hut roofs were of wood only, and leaked in so many places that many were absolutely uninhabitable and had to be abandoned. At the same time some short lengths of shelter trench which we had dug in case of shelling were completely filled with water, so that anyone desiring shelter must needs have a bath as well. This wet weather, coupled with a previous shortage of water in the trenches, and the generally unhealthy state of the salient, brought a considerable amount of sickness and slight dysentery, and although we did not send many to Hospital, the health of the Battalion on the whole was bad, and we seemed to have lost for a time our energy. Probably a fortnight in good surroundings would have cured us completely, and even after eight days at rest we were in a better state, but on the 13th we were once more ordered into the line and the good work was undone, for the sickness returned with increased vigour.
As Hills described, by the end of their fourth day in the trenches, a fifth of the battalion was suffering from the illness:
The weather throughout the tour was bad, but on night of 17th/18th, when we were relieved at midnight by the Sherwood Foresters, it became appalling. We were not yet due for a rest, having been only four days in the line, and our orders were to spend the night in bivouacs at Kruisstraat and return to the trenches the following evening. Weakened with sickness and soaked to the skin, we stumbled through black darkness along the track to Kruisstraat – three miles of slippery mud and water-logged shell holes – only to find that our bivouac was flooded, and we must march back to Ouderdom and spend the night in the huts, five miles further west. We reached home as dawn was breaking, tired out and wet through, and lay down at once to snatch what sleep we could before moving off again at 6.30pm. But for many it was too much, and 150 men reported sick and were in such weak condition that they were left behind at the huts, where later they were joined by some 40 more who had tried hard to reach the trenches but had had to give up and fall out on the way.
These were the troops Colonel Beevor saw on the morning of 19 July. ‘Four officers were sent to hospital,’ he noted in his diary: ‘one so ill he had to be sent to the Base.’ Other ranks were left to recover in their water-sodden billets. ‘I hear the 120 cases of diarrhoea in the 5th South Staffords all recovered in 2 or 3 days after resting in huts,’ Beevor reported a few days later.
It was Colonel Beevor who sent John home to England. But, as a jocular letter from Rothesay Stuart Wortley reveals, the doctor had only sent him home for a few days.
Rothesay was writing to John on 10 July – the day after he left France:
I am actually pulling myself together to write you a letter. You have no idea what the effort is costing me. The primary reason is to send you a pass, without which it seems you cannot return to this country. What with the difficulties the authorities put in the way they would appear to think one wanted to come back!
He went on to ask John to bring back some song sheets: ‘Chattanooga’; ‘Un Peu d’Amour’; ‘Teach Me How to Foxtrot’. Then he filled him in on bits of gossip: ‘Kitchener, Asquith, Joffre, French and Millerand all had a meeting at Calais. It was arranged for 8am. French turned up in time but nobody else arrived till 2 hours later. Fury of Sir John! Asquith – when told the meeting was at 8 o’clock – said, “Oh, but I don’t get up till 8.30!” And so we continue to beat the Boche!’
Only casually at the very end of his letter did Rothesay mention John’s illness. ‘How is your inside?’ he asked. ‘Well, I hope, and on the high road to recovery.’ Rothesay obviously didn’t think it serious. And neither, evidently, did Colonel Beevor.
The most likely scenario is that John had caught the bug that was circulating through the division. Beevor knew that it lasted ‘2 or 3 days’ at most: it was why he sent him home for such a short period of time.
Nonetheless, it was surprisin
g that he opted to send John back to England in the first place. He hadn’t sent any other officers home; they went to a nearby hospital to recuperate. Even the worst case – ‘one so ill’ – went to one of the Base hospitals at Boulogne. As for other ranks, they were left to recover without treatment.
But, on closer scrutiny, Beevor’s caution is understandable. Twice in the previous nine months the Duke and Duchess had questioned John’s fitness for active service. On both occasions, he and General Stuart Wortley had overruled them.
The first time, as I’d discovered, was in October 1914, when Violet and Henry – in league with General Bethune – claimed John had a serious heart condition. After establishing the claim was untrue, Stuart Wortley had written to the Duke: ‘I should be sorry to see a nice smart boy like him ruined by staying at home,’ he told him: ‘I do not, therefore, intend to take any further steps in the matter. My medical officers here support my action and do not consider that any grave risks are being run.’
Four months later – and just ten days before the North Midlands embarked for the Front – Beevor was personally involved when, for the second time, Violet and Henry questioned John’s fitness on the grounds of his ‘heart condition’. On this occasion, Beevor had called on the Duke at Arlington Street. He took with him a letter of introduction from Stuart Wortley: ‘My dear Henry,’ the general wrote. ‘The bearer of this note is my Principal Medical Officer – Colonel Beevor – who will tell you his opinion about John.’
The previous day, Beevor had examined John. Having given the Duke his opinion, he gave him an official record of the examination:
I have carefully examined Lieut. The Marquis of Granby and find he has no apparent organic disease. The heart is somewhat irritable but at present no intermission of its rhythm exists and with ordinary care this officer should be medically fit to perform the duties of an ADC at home and abroad.
By standing up to the Duke, Beevor and Stuart Wortley had assumed personal responsibility for John’s health. They had also promised to keep a careful eye on him. It was why, a month after Beevor saw the Duke at Arlington Street, he wrote to reassure him:
Your Grace
I feel sure you will be glad to hear from me that your son is weathering the storm of active service well – he has had a little sore throat last week, but soon got over it and now looks better than when in England. Everybody has had sore throats and hundreds suffered from influenza, but on the whole the Division is the healthiest in the country.
There has been a great improvement in the weather lately and I trust your son will continue to benefit by the improved conditions.
Will you convey kindest regards to Her Grace and, believe me,
Yours sincerely
Beevor.
I could see why, when John fell ill in July 1915, Beevor opted to send him home for a few days’ leave. He was erring on the safe side.
Yet, in sending him home, Beevor unwittingly played straight into Violet’s hands.
Even as John’s ship docked at Folkestone, Dr Hood was waiting to examine him.
Again among Violet’s gold-dusted letters, I found a copy of the letter Dr Hood wrote to the Director General of the Army Medical Service shortly after examining John. His diagnosis was in dramatic contrast to Colonel Beevor’s:
July 9 1915
Sir
I have this morning seen and carefully examined, at 16 Arlington Street, the Marquis of Granby who has been sent home on sick leave by his regimental doctor, Dr Beevor.
I find Lord Granby suffering from gastro-hepatitic symptoms of the same character as those he has had on former occasions, following a rather severe attack of dysentery in combination with malaria, contracted at Rome some four or five years ago.
The action of his heart is unsatisfactory.
In my opinion he requires at least a month’s absence from official duty, and I think it would be wise if you would kindly appoint a board to adjudicate his condition.
I am faithfully yours
Donald W. Hood CVO
Foreign Office Physician in charge of Hospital for Wounded Officers
47 Roland Gardens
At Violet’s instigation, Hood had come up with a spurious diagnosis to extend John’s leave from a few days to ‘at least a month’. Intentionally, he had triggered a whole set of official procedures: John could not return to the Front until he passed a medical board.
A brief entry in Duff Cooper’s diary confirms that John was nowhere near as seriously ill as Hood was suggesting.
That very evening – 9 July – Duff, who was working at the War Office, went to a dinner party at John’s sister’s house in Belgravia. John was one of the guests. ‘I dined with Marjorie Anglesey at Eaton Square,’ Duff recorded: ‘John Granby, Willie de Grunne, Phyllis and Jacqueline de Portalès. They were all looking very beautiful …’
John had evidently recovered from the bug that he had caught in France. More importantly, however, the diary entry suggests that he was not complicit in Hood’s diagnosis. If he had been feigning a serious illness in order to escape the Front, he would hardly have gone to a dinner party the night he was invalided home. He would have lain low.
Hood’s lie was believed. Very quickly, as the report of the army medical board John attended on 23 July reveals, it was officially sanctioned. Beevor had sent him home with a common stomach bug, yet it was Hood’s version of events that the board surgeon recorded in the report:
The above-named officer [Lt J. H. M. Marquis of Granby] was sent back from France on 9 July suffering from diarrhoea, the effect of old malarial poison contracted some time ago in Rome; of a very obstinate character, with abdominal pain and symptoms of dyspepsia. It is surmised that the abdominal discomfort may indicate a condition of chronic appendicitis.
Hood was a doctor of considerable standing; he was the senior physician at the Foreign Office; the patients he treated at his general practice in Mayfair were among the wealthiest, most influential men and women in Britain. The army surgeon had no reason to disbelieve him; it was understandable that he had deferred to his opinion.
Out in France, even Colonel Beevor believed Hood’s diagnosis. Early in August, John’s father wrote to relay the details – and to send his commiserations to the North Midlands. On the night of 31 July, the Notts and Derby Brigade – the troops of which predominantly came from towns and villages on the Duke’s Derbyshire estate – had suffered 380 casualties when the Germans attacked their trenches at Hooge. Just the week before, the Lincoln and Leicester Brigade – recruited from the Duke’s Leicestershire estates – had lost seventy-five men after a mine exploded under their trenches.
Beevor had not replied to the Duke immediately; he was too busy attending the wounded:
10 August 1915
Your Grace
It was extremely kind of you to write and send your sympathy to us in this second great blow of the War – a kindly thought for which I am deeply grateful.
I am sorry to hear Lord Granby is still troubled with his digestion and am more than ever leaning to the theory of his gastric mucous membrane and liver cells having been damaged during service in the Roman Campagna. If so, all the more need for baths, massages and special foods.
You would be proud to hear your Notts & Derby Brigade saved the situation when a Brigade of the new Army was driven back in front of Hooge – not only that, but they stuck it out under unfavourable conditions for a further 5 days. They were as steady as veterans. I hope soon to get 7 days’ leave and if you are in London to have the pleasure of giving you details and map demonstration of the fight. There can be no objection to my telling you by letter how gallant they were in fetching water for the New Army wounded, and on one occasion, when 30 wounded were left in a small wood on our immediate left, their stretcher bearers and Doctor went out, dressed them and fetched them in, under a perfect tornado of shellfire.
We are glad to hear of your continued good work in raising new units and wish you all the satisfaction your sp
lendid patriotism richly deserves.
With my kindest regard to Her Grace and Lord Granby.
The one person who didn’t believe Dr Hood was John.
At the medical board he attended on 23 July, the army surgeons gave him two months’ leave and told him ‘to apply for a Board before its expiration should he feel fit to return to France’.
The scraps of evidence left in the Muniment Rooms suggest that almost immediately John had tried to get back to the Front. Among them was a letter, dated 10 August, from his aunt, Lady Mildred Manners. John’s next medical board was due on 22 September, when his two months’ leave expired. Evidently an almighty row had erupted when Violet and Henry learned that he was intending to apply for an early board – as the army surgeons had suggested. Lady Mildred, whom John was fond of, had been roped in to dissuade him:
‘For heaven’s sake, don’t go out before you need,’ she wrote:
Sept 22nd is near enough, and I think it rotten you should go back at all – after all there are plenty of things that your brain could apply itself to at home and be of far more service to the country than being ADC to ESW! All the twaddle that is talked about by people saying that everyone must go out makes me sick. Why send anyone that could do good work elsewhere to risk his life out there – and after all, you have been. As to going out sooner. That is of course merely madness on your part!
John did not apply for an early board; he waited until 22 September. But as a panicked note from Violet to Charlie reveals, he was determined to return to France. ‘Darling C,’ she wrote on 10 September, ‘I fussed myself to arrange an “entrevue” uninterrupted with “him” and only yesterday afternoon did I get it and in an empty resounding room and I blurted on a little.’
The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery Page 37