23rd April 1915

[michaeldr]

From ‘The Hood Battalion’ by Len Sellers

“Word was now getting around that Brooke was in a serious condition:

Telegram from Major John Churchill to First Lord.

‘Rupert Brooke now on board French hospital ship Duguay Trouin has septicaemia. Condition very grave. Please inform parents and telegraph instructions if anything special.’

Sent 1am 23/4/15. Received 5.40am Admiralty.

On the morning of 23 April the surgeons found it necessary to give Brooke stimulants. They operated under anaesthetic to cauterize the infected area, and to establish a focal abscess in the thigh to try and draw off the bacteria concentrated in his neck. Asquith and Browne took it in turns to stay at his bedside. Brooke seemed once to regain consciousness, but nothing could be understood when he tried to speak. By 2pm his temperature was 106 degrees; Chaplain Failes of the 1st Brigade was called and prayed at his bedside. At 4.46pm, when Browne was at the bedside, with the sun shining all round his cabin and the cool sea breeze blowing through the door and shaded windows, Brooke died, feeling no pain, according to the doctors. He was just 27 years old.

Medical certificate number 24 gave the cause of death as oedema malin et septicocomia foudroyante (malignant oedema and rapid septicocomia). But there was now much to be done, as the Grantully Castle had received orders to sail for Gallipoli at 6am the next morning. Denis Browne recalled:

‘We felt that he would hate to be buried at sea; he actually said in chance talk, some time ago, that he would like to be buried on a Greek island. A decision was therefore made to bury him on Skyros.’

To allow for this to be done in time, duties had to be shared out. At 7pm Browne, Freyberg and Lister set out to select a place for the grave and chose the spot in the olive grove where Brooke had rested just three days before during the field exercise. It was a most lovely place, about one mile up a valley from the sea above a watercourse, dry at that time but torrential in winter, and flanked by two mountains. At the feet of the olive trees the ground was carpeted with mauve flowering sage. An olive tree drooped over the grave site, leaning slightly forward and extending its upper branches over a small area clear of undergrowth. The officers broke the surface, then the men set to work digging the grave.

While this was taking place, the Frenchmen aboard their vessel fetched small palm trees and placed them in a rectangle on the upper deck, in the middle of which was set the coffin under a British flag. There was no time to engrave a name plate, so Asquith asked a French orderly for a cauterizing iron and, by the light of a lamp, burned deeply into the coffin the name and date. Rupert’s pith helmet, holster and pistol were placed on the coffin, as he had no sword, and he was dressed in full uniform.

A steam pinnace from the Dartmouth came alongside, carrying General Paris and some divisional staff; Colonel Quilter, Major Myburgh(second in command of the Hood) and a party of 12 officers of the battalion were in another boat. A third boat contained a French contingent. The coffin was lowered into Quilter’s boat and the crew presented arms. Waiting them on shore were 12 bearers, all petty officers of the Hood, commanded by Shaw-Stewart, who formed a guard of honour drawn up on the quay. The journey to the grave began at 9.15pm. As the moon was clouded over, men holding lamps were posted along the route to help the bearers over the rough ground. At 11pm Lister, by the grave, saw a lantern approaching. The leading man, called Saunders, was holding a large white-painted cross with the words ‘Rupert Brooke’ across the centre. He was followed by Lieutenant Shaw-Stewart with a drawn sword, leading the firing party. Then came the coffin, with General Paris and the officers behind.

The grave was lined with sprigs of olive and flowering sage. Colonel Quilter threw in a wreath of olive, then Captain Failes read the Church of England burial service. Three volleys were fired into the air, and Shaw-Stewart presented arms. At the foot of the grave was a small white cross, presented by Brooke’s platoon. A Greek interpreter wrote in pencil on the rear of the larger cross, which had been placed at the head of the grave:

‘Here lies the servant of God, Sub-Lieutenant in the English Navy, who died for the deliverance of Constantinople from the Turks.’

The service over, Asquith, Freyberg, Lister, Browne and Kelly stayed behind to gather lumps of pink and white marble, which they heaped into a cairn over the grave. As they stood there in a fitful breeze that made the trees rock gently, Denis Browne thought, as they all did, that he wouldn’t wish a better grave, nor a different burial. Cleg Kelly wrote in his diary on 23 April:

‘When the last of the five of us his friends had covered his grave with stones and took a last look in silence – then the scene of the tragedy gave place to a sense of passionless beauty engendered both by the poet and the place.’

The First Lord sent Major John Churchill a telegram at 11.50pm on 23 April, 1915:

‘Personal from First Lord to Major John Churchill.

Endeavour if your duties allow to attend Rupert Brooke’s funeral on my behalf. We shall not see his like again.’

It came too late, and John Churchill replied to Winston:

‘I received your wire about poor Rupert Brooke but he was already buried. He had a most romantic funeral.’

At dawn the Grantully Castle weighed anchor, heading for Gallipoli………………….”

[frev]

Indeed - a most romantic funeral - for a romantic at heart. He was spared the disillusionment of the realities of war.

And what better epitaph could he be given than the immortal opening lines of his poem 'The Soldier'

'If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a a foreign field

That is forever England ....'

[jayne w]

I always think that Denis Brownes description of the burial one of the most romantic and evocative.

It would have been interesting to see, had Brooke lived, what he would have thought and written about the horrors of the rest of the war. Not quite in the vien of "The Soldier" I think. His idealism would have quickly faded or maybe he would have taken a staff job and avoided the worst of it. He was offered a staff job before Gallipolli but refused it.

He and the other war poets ignited my interest in the war so I shall be remembering him today.

Jayne W

[michaeldr]

his poem 'The Soldier'

'If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England ....There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

November-December 1914

I hope that you don’t mind my completing the quotation Frev

Best regards

Michael D.R.

[michaeldr]

Quote: It would have been interesting to see, had Brooke lived, what he would have thought and written about the horrors of the rest of the war. Not quite in the vien of "The Soldier" I think. His idealism would have quickly faded

I think that you are right Jayne. Indeed, Nigel Steel writing in the IWM’s book on ‘The Death and Burial of Rupert Brooke’ says that this too was the opinion of Edmund Blunden who ‘found it hard to believe that had Brooke reached the Western front in 1916 he would still have been writing in the style of the sonnets and felt that Fragment showed how much he had already begun to absorb the reality of his new experience. Fragment suggests that Brooke, had he not died at Skyros, would in time have observed and recorded the experience of Gallipoli with the requisite style and power…”

For Fragment see

 

[jayne w]

Hello Michael,

Thanks for the link to "fragment". Have you ever been to Skyros? I'd love to go bit I understand the grave is quite inacessible? One day before I die...

Cheers Jayne W

[michaeldr]

No Jane, I haven’t been

But perhaps one day

Like your good self, I keep hoping

Regards

Michael D.R.