And the Band Played On (28 page)

Britain had declared war on Germany less than two months earlier and anti-German feelings were running high. The battles of the Marne and Mons had already been fought and a growing list of casualties had been appearing in newspapers, including the
Standard
. Wounded soldiers serving with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers were being invalided home and Gordon Highlanders had been taken prisoner. A major sea battle was under way in Heligoland. The people of Dumfries had responded generously to an appeal by the
Standard
for blankets to be sent to the Front. Here, exclusive to the
Standard
, was a heartbreaking account of Scotland’s bravest in the front line of the Great War: a young girl from Dumfries, no less.

Dickie put the story at the top of page two, the place reserved for the lead article, and he wrote the headline himself. He advised his production manager to expect extra demand and to increase the print run accordingly. On the morning of Wednesday 16 September, queues formed outside newsagents’ shops in Dumfries to buy the
Standard
. It has to be said that, if it had been true, it would have been a very good story.

The story ran the length of the page and reproduced in full the letter written by ‘Nurse Mullard’ and the note scribbled by Grace in her dying moments.

Information has been received in Dumfries of brutalities perpetrated by German soldiers on Nurse Grace Hume, a young woman belonging to the town, who was engaged in Red Cross work in Belgium. Nurse Hume, who was twenty-three years of age, was on the nursing staff of a Huddersfield hospital, and about three weeks ago she volunteered for service at the Front, and proceeded to Belgium. She had already given admirable services on the field, performing deeds of genuine heroism, when on Sunday 6th September, the field hospital at Vilvorde, near Brussels, to which she was attached, was set on fire by German soldiers, and numerous atrocities perpetrated on the wounded and the nursing staff.

Nurse Hume is a daughter of Mr A Hume, music teacher, Dumfries, and in a letter which has been received by her sister, Miss Kate Hume, Dumfries, who is living apart from her father and stepmother, a nurse who formed one of the hospital staff describes the circumstances under which Nurse Hume met her death. The letter was written by Nurse Mullard, who, on her way from Belgium to Inverness, on Friday last broke her journey at Dumfries, and conveyed to Miss Hume the news of her sister’s terrible death. She had written the account of Nurse Hume’s death, intending to have it forwarded to her sister, but on account of her being ordered home from Belgium for duty at Inverness, she was enabled to hand the letter personally to Miss Hume, and also to give her some fuller details.

It appears that Nurse Hume was the victim of horrible cruelty at the hands of German soldiers, and died in great agony after being terribly mutilated. When the hospital had been set on fire by the Germans, they started to wreak vengeance on the wounded soldiers and the nurses who were in attendance on them, and the letter describes how one of the Allies’ soldiers caught two German soldiers in the act of cutting off Nurse Hume’s left breast, her right one having been already cut off. The Germans were instantly killed.

Nurse Mullard, in her letter, also gives an example of the bravery displayed by Nurse Hume in her work, and in conversation with Miss Hume she gave a fuller account of her heroic action on the field, when she saved a wounded soldier from a barbarous attack by a German. While bringing in a wounded soldier she was attacked by the German, who was disguised in the uniform of one of the allied troops. He made to fire at the wounded soldier, when the nurse with great bravery threw a gun at him, thus deflecting his aim. Before he had time to recover she shot him dead.

Shortly before she died Nurse Hume, although suffering great pain as the result of the horrible treatment she had received, was able to write a note on a scrap of paper, which she handed to Nurse Mullard, with the request that it should be forwarded to her sister in Dumfries.

The story was immediately picked up by the wire services and published in later editions of some national newspapers, including the
Yorkshire Post
. The atmosphere at the
Standard
’s office was electric, the newsroom bursting with pride. The
Standard
’s young reporter, Edward Whitehead, spent the day basking in everyone’s approval and accepting congratulations on his world scoop. The paper’s subeditor Robert Laidlaw found a quiet corner where he couldn’t be overheard and filed the story to several newspapers and agency wire services, hoping to make a pound or two from this enterprising piece of freelancing. Mr Dickie, rarely seen outside his office, took to the editorial floor, telling anyone who cared to listen, including the company secretary Mr Hunter, that the qualities of good judgement, decisiveness and courage were what set editors apart from ordinary journalists.

In the afternoon, Laidlaw, the story now being too important for the young Whitehead, went to interview Kate for a follow-up story for Saturday’s paper (the
Standard
appeared twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays). Kate gave him just what he needed – details of Nurse Mullard’s visit and a description: ‘A woman of about thirty-eight years of age, rather tall, thin; she has a very sweet, soft face; brown eyes, fair brown wavy hair; she wore a navy blue costume and carried a small handbag.’ Laidlaw made a verbatim note of this in shorthand in his notebook.

Around the same time, 200 miles away in Huddersfield, Grace Hume was walking past a newsagent’s shop when she saw a billboard for the
Yorkshire Post
which said:

Out of curiosity she went in and bought the paper, wondering if it was anyone she knew. At first she couldn’t believe what she read. Then she wondered if Nurse Mullard had somehow got someone else’s name mixed up with her own. Realising the distress the erroneous report of her death must have caused her father, she went at once to the nearest telegraph office and sent a telegram to her father. It was brief and to the point:

She then wrote a postcard to her sister Kate. It was rather witty, although it is unlikely she intended it to be:

‘Just received news of my own murder in Belgium. Can you give me name and address of person calling herself Mullard. Write by return. Important, Grace.’

The telegram was delivered to 42 George Street shortly before 7 p.m. that evening. When Andrew Hume read it he was neither surprised nor relieved, as he had never for a moment thought that Grace was dead. Once the full facts had been revealed to him, he had taken the rather uncharitable view that Grace had neither the competence to qualify as a nurse nor the courage or initiative to go to Belgium. Alice had taken an even more aggressive view of the whole drama as it had unfolded, telling friends that if indeed her stepdaughter had been murdered and mutilated, which she doubted, ‘it was the death she deserved to die’.

Andrew then telephoned Mr Dickie, who was horrified to hear that Grace was alive and well, while trying to sound quite the opposite. ‘What wonderful news, Mr Hume,’ he lied. He promised Andrew an immediate inquiry to get to the bottom of ‘Nurse Mullard’s hoax’, as he described it, and in the meantime he would put a notice in the window of the
Standard
’s offices and publish a prominent story in Saturday’s edition correcting the story. He sent Mr Laidlaw to George Street to collect the telegram with instructions to put it into the
Standard
’s window under a notice saying, ‘Nurse Hume Alive and Well’.

All newspapermen take some enjoyment from their colleagues’ misfortunes but it is difficult not to feel sorry for Mr Dickie. How badly he had been let down by his staff, he must have thought. How he wished he had listened to his colleagues misgivings instead of setting aside all caution in the hope of a scoop. He must have wondered how he would explain this reversal to the
Standard
’s most avid reader, his wife, when he returned home. Before tomorrow he would have to decide how he would also explain it to Mr Hunter, the company secretary.

Grace Hume’s revelation that she was alive and well in Huddersfield came just hours too late to stop the following day’s newspapers repeating the report and even embellishing on it. Editors fell like hungry wolves on a story that confirmed everyone’s worst fears and prejudices about the Germans. The
Yorkshire Post
wrote about ‘monsters in human form’ and ‘the blond brute avid of lust and prey’. After the
Pall Mall Gazette
, the
Westminster Gazette
, the
Globe
and the
Evening Standard
published more details of Grace’s murder, the story was picked up in newspapers abroad. Several newspapers, including
The Times
, ran leaders condemning the shocking barbarity of the villainous Bosch, which was seen as vindication of Britain’s decision to go to war. Reporters were despatched to Dumfries on the overnight train to interview the grieving father and stepmother. Members of Parliament tabled questions in the House of Commons. The allegations attracted huge public interest, developing a political dimension which kept the debate alive even when the reports were exposed next day as a hoax. The Germans accused Britain’s secret service of planting the story to whip up anti-German sentiment.
The Times
countered by suggesting that it had been put about by German agents ‘in order to discredit all atrocity stories’, the assumption being that ‘Nurse Mullard’ was a German agent who forged the letters and handed them to Grace’s unsuspecting sister.