Minna von Stachelberg read her cousin’s note and received the worn and anxious-looking Vivie like a sister ... like a comrade, she said, in the War for the Vote ... “which we will resume, my dear, as soon as this dreadful Man’s war is over, only we won’t fight with the same weapons.”

But though kind, she was not gushing and she soon told Vivie that in nursing she was a novice and had much to learn.  She introduced her to the German and Belgian surgeons, and then put her to a series of entirely menial tasks from which she was to work her way up by degrees.  But if any English soldier were there and wanted sympathy, she should be called in to his ward ...  From that interview Vivie returned almost happy.

In the hot summer months she would sometimes be allowed to accompany Red Cross surgeons and nurses to the station, when convoys of wounded were expected, if there was likelihood that British soldiers would be amongst them.  These would cheer up at the sound of her pleasant voice speaking their tongue.  Yet she would witness on such occasions incongruous incidents of German brutality.  Once there came out of the train an English and a French soldier, great friends evidently.  They were only slightly wounded and the English soldier stretched his limbs cautiously to relieve himself of cramp.  At that moment a German soldier on leave came up and spat in his face.  The Frenchman felled the German with a resounding box on the ear.  Alarums!  Excursions!  A German officer rushed up to enquire while the Frenchman was struggling with two colossal German military policemen and the Englishman was striving to free him.  Vivie explained to the officer what had occurred.  He bowed and saluted:  seized the soldier-spitter by the collar and kicked him so frightfully that Vivie had to implore him to cease.

Moreover the Red Placards of von Bissing were of increasing frequency.  As a rule Vivie only heard what other people said of them, and that wasn’t very much, for German spies were everywhere, inviting you to follow them to the dreaded Kommandantur in the Rue de la Loi—­a scene of as much in the way of horror and mental anguish as the Conciergerie of Paris in the days of the Red Terror.  But some cheek-blanching rumour she had heard on a certain Monday in October caused her to look next day on her way home at a fresh Red Placard which had been posted up in a public place.  The daylight had almost faded, but there was a gas lamp which made the notice legible.  It ran: 

CONDAMNATIONS

Par jugement du 9 Octobre, 1915, le tribunal de campagne a prononce les condamnations suivantes pour trahison commise pendant l’etat de guerre (pour avoir fait passer des recrues a l’ennemi): 

     1 deg.  Philippe BAUCQ, architecte a Bruxelles;

2 deg.  Louise THULIEZ, professeur a Lille;

3 deg.  Edith CAVELL, directrice d’un institut medical a
Bruxelles;

4 deg.  Louis SEVERIN, pharmacien a Bruxelles;