The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery (49 page)

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 surprising 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 splendid 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 ‘resounding room’
was in the Muniment Rooms, on which John had begun work.

‘He said he was sorry for Father and me,’ Violet continued. ‘All was quite gentle and no loud voices. I make out I have a little breathing time still, as his “board” won’t be till after he has come here again on Sunday. I should like him to have another bit of long leave – and he to go to Harrogate where he is not seen by “estate people” – and then to come to London to have a job, like Rex Benson’s Intelligence Dept.’

Two days later, after another talk with John, Violet wrote to Charlie again: ‘He distinctly said to me, if they don’t pass me, of course, this is another matter – but I did not go on. He did not snub me – but I felt I better not say anymore for fear he might think I would do
something
.’

As the date of the board approached, Violet worked herself into a spin. Her next letter to Charlie suggests that John realized that Hood was in league with her, and that he was trying to obtain a medical certificate from another doctor. His return to France was contingent on it: without it, the board would not pass him fit for active service. At the time, Colonel Beevor was home on leave in London; Violet suspected that John had asked him to supply the certificate:

Charlie dear

Is it possible that he has got a ‘letter’ from Beevor to say he ‘
is fit
’ that will pass him at once? I have only just thought of that possibility.

Can you find out if he
did
get Beevor to do anything for him?

For you see Beevor told Hood he considered John quite fit to go back.

Do get at the Beevor thing!

Violet did not wait for Charlie’s answer. Unwilling to run the risk that Beevor had given John the requisite certificate, she wrote to her friend, Lieutenant-Colonel Oswald FitzGerald. He was Lord Kitchener’s private secretary and she had been cultivating him ever since she had first met him earlier in the spring.

‘Now, I have written to FitzGerald!!’ she confessed to Charlie:

I have said – from a sense of duty only – I
believe
my son, when he goes up to his board, will ‘forget’ to bring the letters from the doctor who has been attending him, so as to circumvent things by saying he is now fully well and able to leave the 22nd Sept. I asked FitzGerald to warn the board that they should see the doctor’s report – as I know he considered him not yet fit to go. You know, he, FitzGerald, told me he could do this, if John was trying to get out before he was well enough.

In fact, John did not produce a certificate from Beevor when he appeared before the board. But as the surgeon’s report shows – and as Violet suspected – he had ‘forgotten’ to take Hood’s certificate with him.

The report also shows
that John told the army surgeons that he was ‘
distinctly
better’. Yet no matter what he told them, it was immaterial. Primed by Lieutenant-Colonel FitzGerald, they gave him a further two months’ leave on the grounds that the intemperate conditions in the trenches would ‘aggravate’ his illness.