The Quick and the Dead by Richard van Emden

Author:Richard van Emden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

After all the government-inspired rumours and tales of German atrocities, all the posters that portrayed Germans as snarling, mad, gorilla-like creatures rampaging across the globe, it might have surprised a large segment of the British public to discover that diplomatic contact between Britain and Germany was constant, necessarily cooperative and even occasionally cordial. Communication might be through a third party, but it was essential if the respective governments were to keep track of a whole host of ‘interests’ trapped overseas. News about men taken prisoner, and as a consequence their welfare, was of great importance. Equally, there was the exchange of lists of the missing and the dead, as well as of the property of the deceased.

For those whose loved ones had simply vanished, there were few personal items that made their way home. It was as if these families had lost twice over, and so when the property of the missing did resurface, it was treasured no matter how banal it was or what condition it was in.

In an extraordinary but not unique case, enmity was put aside for a moment as property was exchanged between families on opposing sides of the line. This was a private not a government initiative, although the transaction had necessarily to pass through official channels.

The process of exchange began on 27 July 1915 with the death near Ypres of a German pilot named Roser. His plane had been seen to crash behind British lines at Sanctuary Wood though Roser was known to have fallen out of the aircraft and landed near trenches occupied by the 6th Sherwood Foresters. The battalion’s Commanding Officer, Colonel Godfrey Goodman, gave an order that personal items belonging to the dead flyer should be collected and brought to him. The German officer was buried with military honours.

On his own initiative, Goodman sought to return Roser’s private belongings to his widow through the offices of the United States’ Berlin embassy, forwarding detailed information as to the position of the pilot’s grave. What followed next was an extra ordinary act of reciprocation. Lieutenant Reinhardt, the brother of Roser’s widow, heard about Goodman’s actions and forwarded information about a British officer killed in October 1914. In a letter, Reinhardt paid tribute to Goodman’s ‘chivalrous service’ before turning to the issue of the British officer he had found. The man, forty-two-year-old Captain Henry Maffett of the 2nd Leinster Regiment, was missing, believed killed. Through American diplomatic channels, Reinhardt could ‘convey news of the fallen English comrade in arms to his widow who has probably remained in complete ignorance of his fate since 1914’. He went on to explain that Maffett was killed by a shell splinter as he advanced at the head of his company. His death ‘must have been quick and painless, as he still held a pencil and half written dispatch in his hand’. Reinhardt’s men buried Maffett and he gave the location of his grave. Reinhardt confirmed, too, that he had Maffett’s wrist compass and two handwritten dispatches which he promised to return.

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