From his makeshift aid post, Fred Davidson could hear the whistle of sniper bullets strafing by, interspersed with the terrifying cacophony of rifle fire and the crump of exploding shells.
It was the end of October 1914. While only the first few days of his service in the trenches at the Western Front, on the border of France and Belgium, Fred was already adjusting to the routine bombardment from German soldiers who lay in trenches 600 yards away.
His battalion – Scotland’s 1st Cameronians – were grossly under-equipped compared to their enemy. No periscopes, flares, hand grenades or trench mortars. And the same was true of medical supplies. As medical officer (MO) of the rough and ready regiment, the 25-year-old minister’s son and his small team of orderlies had to make do with comparatively meagre equipment.
With each casualty that came Fred’s way over the course of the gruelling months which followed, he had to make impossible decisions – who to patch up and send back into the field, and who to leave behind.
“It was very difficult for a doctor, because the Hippocratic Oath is to put the patient first. But an Army doctor is trained to put the battalion first,” said Andrew Davidson, grandson of the World War I MO.
“But I think Fred would have known that. After all, boys brought up in the Edwardian era grew up reading about daring exploits and sacrifice.”
Andrew never knew his grandfather, having only been two days old when Fred died of cancer in 1959. But 100 years after the outbreak of the Great War, the English journalist and author has delved back in time in an effort to know his grandfather better.
Andrew’s primary source of research has been a compendium of 250 photographs taken by Fred and his fellow Cameronian and friend Lieutenant Robert Money. As photography was discouraged in the early days of the war, and later banned by way of an official British Army order, the collection of images offer a rare insight into the outbreak of war, and the lives of the bright-eyed soldiers in the days before the bitter stalemate of trench warfare took hold.
Combined with memoirs of Fred’s fellow officers and months of scouring official archives in a South Lanarkshire museum, Andrew has been able to piece together a fuller picture of the mild-mannered medic who became one of the first to receive the Military Cross for his duties at the front line.
SON OF THE MANSE
Fred Davidson was born on January 3, 1889, in St Cyrus in the Mearns to the Rev Robert Davidson of St Cyrus Church, and his wife Susan, nee Cunningham.
The Davidson family lived in a handsome five-bedroom manse which stood atop a cliff, 200 feet above the village’s beautiful beach.
Though windswept and somewhat remote, the manse proved a fine home for the family who would become deeply engrained in local life – ever mindful of their responsibilities to the community.
“Fred was a classic product of his upbringing and education,” explained Andrew.
“As the son of the manse, you are always guarded because you are forever watched by the rest of the community. You have to represent the minister’s family, and so you have to be well scrubbed and never misbehave in public.”
Unlike his five brothers who were schooled in Montrose Academy, Fred was sent to Fettes public school in Edinburgh aged 12 when his mother’s brother – the pre-eminent Scottish medical academic, Daniel Cunningham – saw potential in Fred’s sharp mind.
To leave his family for Fettes was a huge wrench for Fred.
“He was sent to an English-system school, and so felt apart from his brothers. I think he could have been a lonely man, but very ambitious. He was very bright and excelled in getting scholarships right through. He really wanted to make something of himself,” said Andrew.
The combination of growing up with the responsibilities of being the son of a well-respected minister, and his cast-iron ambition to flourish within a prestigious education system, had a strong impact on the man Fred became.
“The photographs of Fred wearing a black armband after his mum’s death in 1909 show that he was very conscious of what he looked like, and of social etiquette,” said Andrew.
“He was very sensitive to the fact that he wanted to be as posh as the people he went to Fettes with. That really changed him, especially compared to his brothers who were quite boisterous.”
Upon completing his schooling, Fred, then 18, secured the Governor’s Exhibition to Edinburgh University, where he was mentored by his uncle. Fred’s aptitude for absorbing vast amounts of information by rote proved critical to his success in studying medicine, and by 1913 he had enrolled at the Royal Army Medical Corps.
By the following year, Fred was assigned to the 1st Cameronians, undergoing training in Aldershot, London and Glasgow’s Maryhill. He would have little time to bond with the battalion, though, as the drums of war soon sounded after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in June – the infamous spark that started WWI.
TRENCH FOOT AND LICE
With the Austro-Hungarian Empire declaring war on Serbia, the pacts between the Great Powers then triggered their entry into the war, and the “Auld Alliance” between Scotland and France was re-ignited. Fred and his battalion were called to arms on August 15, 1914, to aid in the push against German forces in northern France.
The Cameronians settled into their gruelling duties at the Western Front trenches where the first casualties hit the battalion.
Compound fractures, neck haemorrhages, daily sick parades, rampant lice infestations and trench foot – all were under Fred’s purview within the 1,000-strong battalion. His training, both at university and in the Royal Army Medical Corps, had been excellent, but little could have prepared him and his comrades for the atrocities of World War I – a war which the British Expeditionary Force had expected to be over by Christmas.
Fred learned to rely on his quick encyclopaedic mind, a natural talent for remaining calm under fire, and his nimble fingers to save the lives of many of his brothers in arms. In turn, the soldiers came to rely on his reassuring presence – his pipe ever lodged between his teeth, his hushed patter keeping the injured calm, and a solidly stoical demeanour.
But the position of an MO was often a lonely one. Compared to the camaraderie among combatant soldiers, being the battalion’s medic meant a life on the fringes.
“One thing you realise is how much the MO is on the outside,” Andrew said.
“You are not part of the gang fully. The combatant officers are the real gang. You are friends with these people but never totally close. And it’s interesting how similar he was to a minister in this regard.”
Despite his remote position, Fred grew to love his comrades – a fondness which is clear from the numerous photographs of his time at the front line.
“That’s why my grandfather kept his photo albums. He was only 25 years old, trained for just two years and this regiment looked very odd, full of grumpy Glaswegians and Cockneys. But he really bonded with them. Even though he wasn’t a combatant officer, he really loved these guys.”
FAMILY TIES
Unlike hundreds of his fellow Cameronians, Fred Davidson survived WWI, though his service wasn’t without personal injury. On Saturday, March 13, 1915, while stationed at the Bois Grenier trenches, his luck ran out.
Sniper fire rang out in the late hours of the evening. While tending to his injured comrades, he took direct hits, though mercifully none fatal.
He awoke days later in a hospital in Folkestone, south-east England, where he had been sent after a brief stay in Armentieres. In a twist of fate which would not be out of place in a wartime romance novel, one of the first faces he saw upon awakening was Marie Jacques, the daughter of a Lancashire businessman. The pair became close friends and, a few years later, husband and wife.
He returned to France in June 1915, but not to the Cameronians. After armistice was declared on November 11, 1918, Fred settled in Camberley, Surrey, setting up a GP practice. He never returned to live in his Scottish homeland.
“I think my grandfather had reinvented himself as an Englishman after the war,” said Andrew.
“Like so many did after WWI. It was so shocking and a lot of people thought ‘I’m not going to lead the same life now’. Fred was very ambitious and so reinvented himself. He occasionally went back to Scotland to visit his brothers who were ministers by that time. But he was a different man.
“Somehow that north-east coast breeds this incredible drive, determination and ambition, and it can’t always be satisfied in the north-east.”
The collection of photographs and memoirs have now been published by Short Books in beautiful hardback format. The process of writing Fred’s War, as it is titled, has offered Andrew a window on to his family’s history.
But a particularly poignant connection exists between Fred and Andrew beyond their familial ties – both have lost children. Fred and Marie’s twins, Ivor and Ian, contracted polio in 1929, killing Ivor and badly maiming Ian. And in 2008, Andrew’s second daughter, Rosa, drowned in the family’s swimming pool aged 19 following a suspected epileptic seizure.
“I was severely shocked when I lost my youngest daughter in the accident,” Andrew said.
“It took me time to get back on my feet. And I always knew this had happened to my grandad, and how it had changed him and my grandmother. I wanted to know more about that and understand it, and writing this was part of that journey. Though it’s not what the book is all about.”
Above all, Andrew explained, the book aims to explore WWI, the lives of the brave British soldiers who fought for their country in a time of great hardship, and of life-changing camaraderie.
“We could have called it Opening Shots,” he said. “It’s about how the war solidified into trench warfare. I hope it explains the bigger war in a way that hasn’t been done well before.”