In acting as directress of three hospitals, Miss Cavell found full scope even for her unusual organizing capabilities. In addition to her arduous lectures throughout the day, she gave four lectures to the doctors and two to the nurses every week. She always attended at the operating-theatre herself. One of her greatest pleasures was the children's ward, decorated in blue and white after her own design; she made a special point of visiting the little inmates every evening. The better class of Belgians paid for the services of the private staff of nurses, but the call of the poor never went unheeded.
Although Miss Cavell was intensely happy in her work in Brussels, she always looked forward with positive joy to visiting her aged mother, with whom she spent every possible holiday in England. In the summer of 1914 mother and daughter were enjoying one of these affectionate reunions.
Suddenly the great war-cloud burst. Edith Cavell was in her mother's garden weeding a bed of heartsease when she heard the news. She needed no heart-searching to decide where her duty lay; and, without hesitation, she returned hotfoot to Belgium, where she had an intuition that she would be wanted.
II
THE HEEL OF THE OPPRESSOR
When Germany had disclosed her infamous designs against the neutrality of Belgium, followed by her declaration of war against France, succeeded in a few hours by the entry of Great Britain into the fray, Miss Cavell's intuition of trouble became an absolute and appalling fact, with the positive certainty that war's ghastly harvest would mean work for nurses in Brussels.
Forthwith the Berkendael Medical Institute became a Red Cross Hospital, of which Miss Cavell was directrice, with a number of English and Belgian nurses under her charge. Others of her training staff and some of the school probationers were in a board school, which had been rapidly converted into another hospital. Some of the nurses of the Training Institute were of German nationality, and these sorrowfully made a hasty departure for the Dutch frontier, carrying only hand luggage, which was all that they were allowed to take. Miss Cavell was sorry to have to send them away, but they would have been in a most invidious position if they had remained in an enemy capital towards which the German army was ruthlessly hacking its way.
Although there was every indication of the extreme danger of Belgium, none could foresee the inexpressible agony that awaited her. How utterly Miss Cavell herself failed to realize the impending doom of the heroic little nation was shown in her letter of August 12, 1914, which she addressed to the Editor of The Times: