_STRICKEN BY FEVER_
Continued Visitation of Hospitals--Sudden Illness--Conveyed to
Sanatorium--Visit of Lord Raglan--Convalescence--Accepts Offer of
Lord Ward’s Yacht--Returns to Scutari--Memorial to Fallen Heroes.
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
LONGFELLOW.
Nothing daunted by the fatiguing journey to the camp hospitals at
headquarters related in the last chapter, Miss Nightingale, although
she was feeling indisposed, set out the next morning to visit the
General Hospital at Balaclava and the Sanatorium. She was accompanied
by the ubiquitous M. Soyer, who was carrying out his culinary campaign
at the Crimean hospitals, and attended by her faithful boy Thomas.
After spending several hours inspecting the wards of the General
Hospital, Miss Nightingale proceeded to the Sanatorium, a collection
of huts perched on the Genoese heights nearly eight hundred feet
above the sea. She was escorted by Mr. Bracebridge, Dr. Sutherland,
and a sergeant’s guard. The weather was intensely hot, as is usual
in the Crimea during the month of May, and the journey, following on
the fatigue of the previous day, proved a trying one. Half-way up the
heights, Miss Nightingale stopped to visit a sick officer in one of the
doctor’s huts, and afterwards proceeded to inspect the Sanatorium.
She returned to Balaclava, and next day went to install three nurses in
the Sanatorium; and on her way up again visited the invalid officer in
his lonely hut. During the succeeding days she continued her inspection
of the hospitals in Balaclava, and also removed her quarters to the
_London_, as the _Robert Lowe_, in which she sailed, was ordered home.
It was when on board the _London_, while she was transacting business
with one of her nursing staff, that Miss Nightingale was suddenly
seized with alarming illness. The doctors pronounced it to be the worst
form of Crimean fever, and ordered that she should be immediately
taken up to the Sanatorium. She was laid on a stretcher, and tenderly
carried by sad-eyed soldiers through Balaclava and up the mountain
side amid general consternation. Her own private nurse, Mrs. Roberts,
attended her, a friend held a large white umbrella to protect her face
from the glaring sun, and poor Thomas, the page-boy, who had proudly
called himself “Miss Nightingale’s man,” followed his mistress, crying
piteously. So great was the lamenting crowd that it took an hour to
get the precious burden up to the heights. A hut was selected near a
small stream, the banks of which were gay with spring flowers, and
there for the next few days Florence Nightingale lay in a most critical
condition, assiduously nursed by Mrs. Roberts and attended by Drs.
Henderson and Hadley.
It seemed strange to every one that Miss Nightingale, after passing
unscathed through her hard labours at Scutari, when she had been in
daily contact with cholera and fever, should have succumbed to disease
at Balaclava, but the fatigues of the past days, undertaken during
excessive heat, accounted largely for the seizure, and some of her
friends thought also that she had caught infection when visiting the
sick officer on her way up to the Sanatorium.
Alarmist reports quickly spread, and at Balaclava it was currently
reported that Florence Nightingale was dying. The sad tidings were told
at the Barrack Hospital at Scutari amidst the most pathetic scenes.
The sick men turned their faces to the wall and cried like children.
The news in due time reached London, and the leading articles in the
papers of the time show that the public regarded the possible death
of our heroine as a great national calamity. Happily the suspense was
brief, and following quickly on the mournful tidings came the glad news
that the worst symptoms were passed, and that in all human probability
the precious life would be spared.
Miss Nightingale, in a touching bit of autobiography, attributes her
first step towards convalescence to the joy caused on receiving a bunch
of wild-flowers.
During the time that Miss Nightingale lay in her hut on the Genoese
heights, some very sharp skirmishes were taking place between the
allied troops and the enemy, and it was reported that the Russians were
likely to attack Balaclava by the Kamara side. Miss Nightingale’s hut
being the nearest to that point, would, in the event of such a plan
being carried out, have been the first to be attacked. Thomas, the page
boy, constituted himself guard of his beloved mistress and was ready
to die valiantly in her defence. It would, however, be an injustice to
the Russian troops to imply that they would knowingly have harmed even
a hair of Florence Nightingale’s head. Her person was sacred to friend
and foe alike.
Lord Raglan was deeply concerned at Miss Nightingale’s illness, and as
soon as he heard from the doctors in attendance that he might visit
her, rode over from headquarters for the purpose. Mrs. Roberts, the
nurse, thus related to M. Soyer the account of the Commander-in-Chief’s
unexpected call:--
“It was about five o’clock in the afternoon when he came. Miss
Nightingale was dozing, after a very restless night. We had a storm
that day, and it was very wet. I was in my room sewing when two men
on horseback, wrapped in large gutta-percha cloaks and dripping wet,
knocked at the door. I went out, and one inquired in which hut Miss
Nightingale resided.
“He spoke so loud that I said, ‘Hist! Hist! don’t make such a horrible
noise as that, my man,’ at the same time making a sign with both hands
for him to be quiet. He then repeated his question, but not in so loud
a tone. I told him this was the hut.
“‘All right,’ said he, jumping from his horse, and he was walking
straight in when I pushed him back, asking what he meant and whom he
wanted.
“‘Miss Nightingale,’ said he.
“‘And pray who are you?’
“‘Oh, only a soldier,’ was the reply; ‘but I must see her--I have come
a long way--my name is Raglan--she knows me very well.’
[Illustration: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE AS A GIRL.
(_From the drawing by her sister, Lady Verney._)
[_To face p. 208._
]
“Miss Nightingale overhearing him, called me in, saying, ‘Oh! Mrs.
Roberts, it is Lord Raglan. Pray tell him I have a very bad fever, and
it will be dangerous for him to come near me.’
“‘I have no fear of fever or anything else,’ said Lord Raglan.
“And before I had time to turn round, in came his lordship. He took
up a stool, sat down at the foot of the bed, and kindly asked Miss
Nightingale how she was, expressing his sorrow at her illness, and
thanking and praising her for the good she had done for the troops.
He wished her a speedy recovery, and hoped that she might be able to
continue her charitable and invaluable exertions, so highly appreciated
by every one, as well as by himself.
“He then bade Miss Nightingale good-bye, and went away. As he was going
out, I said I wished ‘to apologize.’
“‘No! no! not at all, my dear lady,’ said Lord Raglan; ‘you did very
right; for I perceive that Miss Nightingale has not yet received
my letter, in which I announced my intention of paying her a visit
to-day--having previously inquired of the doctor if she could be seen.’”
Miss Nightingale became convalescent about twelve days after her
seizure, and the doctors were urgent that she should immediately sail
for England. This our heroine steadfastly declined to do, feeling
that her mission was not accomplished, and that she could not desert
her post. Although in a state of extreme weakness and exhaustion, she
felt that time would accomplish her recovery, and she decided to return
in the meantime to Scutari, with the intention of coming back to the
Crimea to complete her work.
A berth was arranged for her in the _Jura_, and Miss Nightingale was
brought down from the Sanatorium upon a stretcher carried by eight
soldiers and accompanied by Dr. Hadley, Mrs. Roberts (the nurse),
several Sisters of Charity and other friends. When the procession
reached the _Jura_, tackle was attached to the four corners of the
stretcher, and the invalid was thus swung on deck by means of pulleys.
She was carefully carried to the chief cabin, and it was hoped that
she would now accomplish the voyage in comfort. Unfortunately, a
disagreeable smell was discovered to pervade the _Jura_, caused by a
number of horses which had recently been landed from it, and shortly
after being brought aboard Miss Nightingale fainted. The page Thomas
was dispatched to recall Dr. Hadley, who, when he arrived, ordered that
the illustrious patient should at once be conveyed to another vessel.
Miss Nightingale was temporarily taken to the _Baraguay a’Hilliers_,
until an order could be procured from the admiral for another vessel.
Meantime Lord Ward, afterwards Earl of Dudley and father of the present
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who had been active in sending help to the
sick and wounded, heard with great concern of the inconvenience, and
indeed danger to life, which Miss Nightingale was suffering, and at
once offered her the use of his yacht, the _New London_, to take her
to Scutari. Lord Ward further arranged that the yacht should be at her
entire disposal, and no one should be on board except his medical man
and those whom she chose to take with her. Miss Nightingale was pleased
to accept Lord Ward’s offer, and she was accordingly conveyed to the
yacht, and established in great ease and comfort. Besides her personal
attendants Miss Nightingale was accompanied by Mr. Bracebridge and M.
Soyer.
Before her departure Lord Raglan visited Miss Nightingale on board the
_New London_, but little did she think that in a few short weeks the
brave commander would have passed to the great majority. He had shown
himself most sympathetic to her mission to the East, and had received
her letters in regard to reforms in the hospitals with attention, while
in his dispatches to the Government he had paid the highest tribute to
the value of her work amongst the sick soldiers. During the period of
Miss Nightingale’s convalescence, he sent frequent inquiries after her
health.
Meantime, Lord Raglan’s difficulties as Commander-in-Chief of the
British forces were daily increasing. On June 18th, 1855, the allied
armies were to make the general assault on Sebastopol. Lord Raglan had
proposed to preface the assault by a two hours’ cannonade to silence
the guns remounted by the enemy during the night, but Pélissier, the
French commander, pressed for an immediate attack at daybreak, and
Lord Raglan yielded rather than imperil the alliance. The result was
disastrous, ending in the terrible assault and repulse of the British
troops at the Redan. The Commander-in-Chief felt the failure deeply,
and it was to announce this defeat that he wrote his last dispatch to
the Government, June 26th. On the 28th he breathed his last, worn out
and disheartened by the gigantic task with which he had been called to
grapple.
Miss Nightingale, in her own weakened condition, was deeply affected
by Lord Raglan’s death. He was a man of charming and benevolent
disposition, and thoroughly straightforward in all his dealings.
Wellington described him as “a man who wouldn’t tell a lie to save his
life.” He had served under that great commander during half his career,
and was proud to the last, when he had to contend with much adverse
criticism, that he had enjoyed the confidence of Wellington.
Lord Raglan was blamed for not visiting the camps during the earlier
stages of the Crimean war and ascertaining the condition of his
soldiers, whereby much of the sickness and misery might have been
obviated, but his biographers say that this charge, though not
groundless, was exaggerated. Lord Raglan was a rough and ready soldier,
who disliked ostentation, and in this way many of his visits to the
camp passed almost unnoticed. The impromptu call which he made at Miss
Nightingale’s hut, already related, was thoroughly characteristic of
Lord Raglan’s methods.
Miss Nightingale returned to Scutari a little more than a month
after she had left for the Crimea, and was received on landing by
Lord William Paulet, Commandant, Dr. Cumming, Inspector-General, and
Dr. Macgregor, Deputy-Inspector. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the
Ambassador, offered her the use of the British Palace at Pera, but Miss
Nightingale preferred to use the house of the chaplain, the Rev. Mr.
Sabin, and there she made a good recovery under the care of solicitous
friends.
Often in these days of returning strength she would stroll beneath the
trees of the cemetery of Scutari, where so many of our brave men lay.
It is situated on a promontory high above the sea, with a fine outlook
over the Bosphorus. Flowers planted by loving hands were decking the
graves of many of her friends who had passed away during the winter,
and the grasses had begun to wave above the deep pits where the
soldiers lay in a nameless grave. During these walks Miss Nightingale
gathered a few flowers here, a bunch of grasses there, and pressed and
dried them, to keep in loving memory of the brave dead. They eventually
formed part of a collection of Crimean mementoes which she arranged
after her return home to Lea Hurst.
This burying-ground was really a portion of the ancient cemetery
of Scutari, the most sacred and celebrated in the Ottoman Empire.
Travellers have described the weird effect of the dense masses of
cypress-trees, which bend and wave over three miles of unnumbered
tombs, increasing each year in extent. The Turks never disturb their
dead, and regard a burying-ground with great veneration, hence the
ancient and yet modern character of the Scutari cemetery, and the
great extent of the graves over the wide solitude. So thick are the
cypress-trees that even the Oriental sun does not penetrate their
shade. Byron has described the scene as--
The place of thousand tombs
That shine beneath, while dark above
The sad but living cypress glooms
And withers not, though branch and leaf
Are stamped by an eternal grief.
According to a poetic legend, myriads of strange birds hover over the
tombs, or flit noiselessly from the Black Sea to the fairer one of
Marmora, when they turn and retrace their flight. These birds have
never been known to stop or feed, and never heard to sing. They have a
dark plumage, in unison with the sombre cypress-trees over which they
incessantly flit. When there is a storm on the Bosphorus, they send
up sharp cries of agony. The Turks believe that the weird birds are
condemned souls who have lived an evil life in this world, and are not
permitted to rest in a tomb, and so in a spirit of unrest they wander
over the tombs of others. One of the most beautiful monuments in the
vast cemetery is the one which marks the grave of Sultan Mahmoud’s
favourite horse.
The Turkish Government gave a piece of ground adjacent to the sacred
cemetery to serve as a burying-place for the British soldiers who fell
in the Crimea. And it was at the instance of Miss Nightingale that a
memorial was erected there to the fallen heroes. She started the scheme
during her period of convalescence at Scutari, and it was completed
after the conclusion of the war. Some four thousand British soldiers
lie in the cemetery, and in the midst of the nameless graves rises a
gleaming column of marble. The shaft is supported by four angels with
drooping wings. On each side of the base is inscribed in four different
languages:--
“THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY
QUEEN VICTORIA
AND HER PEOPLE.”