_Inexactitudes—Labels—Cholera—“The Lady with the Lamp”—Her
humour—Letters of Sister Aloysius._
About the middle of December Miss Nightingale had to rebuke very severely
one of her own nurses, who had written a letter to the _Times_ which made
a great sensation by its lurid picture of the evils in the hospital—a
misrepresentation so great that the nurse herself confessed in the end
that it was “a tissue of exaggerations”—perhaps “inexactitudes” would be
our modern word.
Meanwhile, the small-minded parochial gossips at home were wasting
their time in discussing Miss Nightingale’s religious opinions. One who
worked so happily with all who served the same Master was first accused
under the old cry of “Popery,” and then under the equally silly label
of “Unitarianism.” Her friend Mrs. Herbert, in rebuking parish gossip,
felt it necessary to unpin these two labels and loyally pin on a new one,
by explaining that in reality she was rather “Low Church.” The really
sensible person, with whom, doubtless, Lady Herbert would have fully
agreed, was the Irish parson, and his like, when he replied to some
foolish questions about her that Miss Nightingale belonged to a very rare
sect indeed—the sect of the Good Samaritans.
Miss Stanley tells a most amusing story of how one of the military
chaplains complained to Miss Jebbut that very improper books had been
circulated in the wards; she pressed in vain to know what they were. “As
I was coming away he begged for five minutes’ conversation, said he was
answerable for the men and what they read, and he must protest against
sentiments he neither approved nor understood, and that he would fetch me
the book. It was Keble’s ‘Christian Year,’ which Miss Jebbut had lent to
a sick midshipman!”
It was a brave heart indeed that the Good Samaritan needed now, with
cholera added to the other horrors of hospital suffering, and the
frost-bitten cases from Sebastopol were almost equally heart-rending.
It was early in January 1855 that Miss Stanley escorted fifty more
nurses. Most of them worked under Miss Anderson at the General Hospital
at Scutari, but eight were sent into the midst of the fighting at
Balaclava, and of the life there “at the front” the letters of Sister
Aloysius give a terrible picture. We have, for instance, the story of a
man ill and frost-bitten, who found he could not turn on his side because
his feet were frozen to those of the soldier opposite. And it came to
pass that for two months the death-rate in the hospitals was sixty per
cent.
Night after night, the restless, lonely sufferers watched for the coming
of the slender, white-capped figure with the little light that she shaded
so carefully lest it should waken any sleeper, as she passed through the
long corridors watching over the welfare of her patients, and to them she
was “the Lady with the Lamp.”
We still see with the American poet:—
“The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.
“Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.
“And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.”
“Ah,” said to me old John Ball, the veteran of the Crimea, who had been
wounded at Alma and been at Scutari a month before her arrival, so that
in his later days there he saw the changes that she wrought, “ah, she was
a _good_ soul—she was a _good_ woman!” And through his words, and those
of the other old men who remembered her, it was possible to discern a
little of the glow, the humour, the homely maternal tenderness with which
the _Wohlgebohrene Dame_ had comforted young and old in their hours of
patriotic wounding and pain.
For herself, in the long days of sacrificial service, was there any
human solace, any dear companionship, any dawning light of love?
For us at least, the mere outsiders, to whom she is just a very practical
saint and a very great woman, “there lives no record of reply.” But we
know that, though hers was the solitary path, which yet was no solitude
because of the outpoured love and sympathy to others, when in her
presence once some one was chattering about the advantages of “single
blessedness,” she, with her quick sense of humour, replied that a fish
out of water might be blessed, but a good deal of effort was needed to
become accustomed to the air!
None of the letters describing the Scutari life are more interesting than
those of Sister Aloysius, the Irish Sister of Mercy, from whose graphic
descriptions quotations have already been made.
“She and her companions had had only a few hours in which to
prepare for a long and dangerous journey, with the details of
which they were quite unacquainted, only knowing that they were
to start for Turkey at half-past seven in the morning, and
that they went for the love of God.
“‘And who is to take care of you from this to Turkey?’ asked
one of their amazed well-wishers. To which the Sisters only
replied that ‘they hoped their guardian angels would kindly do
so.’”
Needless to say, the little party _did_ reach its destination safely,
and “at last,” writes Sister Aloysius, “a despatch came[14] to say that
five Sisters were to proceed to Scutari, to the General Hospital; while
arrangements were made for the other ten Sisters to proceed to a house on
the Bosphorus, to await further orders. At once the five Sisters started
for Scutari: Reverend Mother, Sister M. Agnes, Sister M. Elizabeth,
Sister M. Winifred, and myself. When we reached Scutari we were shown
to our quarters consisting of one little room, not in a very agreeable
locality. However, we were quite satisfied none better could be found,
and for this little nook we were thankful.
“Of course, we expected to be sent to the wards at once. Sister M. Agnes
and the writer were sent to a store to sort clothes that had been eaten
by the rats; Rev. Mother and Sister M. Elizabeth either to the kitchen or
to another store. In a dark, damp, gloomy shed we set to work and did the
best we could; but, indeed, the destruction accomplished by the rats was
something wonderful. On the woollen goods they had feasted sumptuously.
They were running about us in all directions; we begged of the sergeant
to leave the door open that we might make our escape if they attacked us.
Our home rats would run if you ‘hushed’ them; but you might ‘hush’ away,
and the Scutari rats would not take the least notice.
“During my stay in the stores I saw numberless funerals pass by the
window. Cholera was raging, and how I did wish to be in the wards amongst
the poor dying soldiers! Before I leave the stores I must mention that
Sister M. Agnes and myself thought the English nobility must have emptied
their wardrobes and linen stores to send out bandages for the wounded—the
most beautiful underclothing, the finest cambric sheets, with merely a
scissors run here and there through them to ensure their being used
for no other purpose. And such large bales, too; some from the Queen’s
Palace, with the Royal monogram beautifully worked. Whoever sent out
these immense bales thought nothing too good for the poor soldiers. And
they were right—nothing was too good for them. And now good-bye stores
and good-bye rats; for I was to be in the cholera wards in the morning.
“Where shall I begin, or how can I ever describe my first day in the
hospital at Scutari? Vessels were arriving, and the orderlies carrying
the poor fellows, who, with their wounds and frost-bites, had been
tossing about on the Black Sea for two or three days, and sometimes more.
Where were they to go? Not an available bed. They were laid on the floor
one after another, till the beds were emptied of those dying of cholera
and every other disease. Many died immediately after being brought
in—their moans would pierce the heart—the taking of them in and out of
the vessels must have increased their pain.
“The look of agony in those poor dying faces will never leave my heart.
“Week in, week out, the cholera went on. The same remedies were
continued, though almost always to fail. However, while there was life
there was hope, and we kept on the warm applications to the last. When it
came near the end the patients got into a sort of collapse, out of which
they did not rally.
“We begged the orderlies, waiting to take them to the dead-house, to
wait a little lest they might not be dead; and with great difficulty we
prevailed on them to make the least delay. As a rule the orderlies drank
freely—‘to drown their grief,’ they said. I must say that their position
was a very hard one—their work always increasing—and such work; death
around them on every side; their own lives in continual danger—it was
almost for them a continuation of the field of battle.
“The poor wounded men brought in out of the vessels were in a dreadful
state of dirt, and so weak that whatever cleaning they got had to
be done cautiously. Oh, the state of those fine fellows, so worn
out with fatigue, so full of vermin! Most, or all, of them required
spoon-feeding. We had wine, sago, arrowroot. Indeed, I think there was
everything in the stores, but it was so hard to get them.... An orderly
officer took the rounds of the wards every night to see that all was
right. He was expected by the orderlies, and the moment he raised the
latch one cried out, ‘All right, your honour.’ Many a time I said, ‘All
wrong.’ The poor officer, of course, went his way; and one could scarcely
blame him for not entering those wards, so filled with pestilence, the
air so dreadful that to breathe it might cost him his life. And then,
what could he do even if he did come? I remember one day an officer’s
orderly being brought in—a dreadful case of cholera; and so devoted was
his master that he came in every half-hour to see him, and stood over him
in the bed as if it was only a cold he had; the poor fellow died after a
few hours’ illness. I hope his devoted master escaped. I never heard.
“Each Sister had charge of two wards, and there was just at this time
a fresh outbreak of cholera. The Sisters were up every night; and the
cases, as in Scutari and Kullali, were nearly all fatal. Reverend Mother
did not allow the Sisters to remain up all night, except in cases of
cholera, without a written order from the doctor.
“In passing to the wards at night we used to meet the rats in droves.
They would not even move out of our way. They were there before us, and
were determined to keep possession. As for our hut, they evidently wanted
to make it theirs, scraping under the boards, jumping up on the shelf
where our little tin utensils were kept, rattling everything. One night
dear Sister M. Paula found one licking her forehead—she had a real horror
of them. Sleep was out of the question. Our third day in Balaclava was a
very sad one for us. One of our dear band, Sister Winifred, got very ill
during the night with cholera. She was a most angelic Sister, and we were
all deeply grieved.
“She, the first to go of all our little band, had been full of life and
energy the day before. We were all very sad, and we wondered who would be
the next.
“Miss Nightingale was at the funeral, and even joined in the prayers.
The soldiers, doctors, officers, and officials followed. When all was
over we returned to our hut, very sad; but we had no further time to
think. Patients were pouring in, and we should be out again to the
cholera wards. Besides cholera there were cases of fever—in fact, of
every disease. Others had been nearly killed by the blasting of rocks,
and they came in fearfully disfigured.
“Father Woolett brought us one day a present of a Russian cat; he bought
it, he told us, from an old Russian woman for the small sum of seven
shillings. It made a particularly handsome captive in the land of its
fathers, for we were obliged to keep it tied to a chair to prevent its
escape. But the very sight of this powerful champion soon relieved us of
some of our unwelcome and voracious visitors.
“Early in 1856 rumours of peace reached us from all sides. But our
Heavenly Father demanded another sacrifice from our devoted little band.
Dear Sister Mary Elizabeth was called to a martyrs’ crown.
“She was specially beloved for her extraordinary sweetness of
disposition. The doctor, when called, pronounced her illness to be fever;
she had caught typhus in her ward. Every loving care was bestowed on her
by our dearest Mother, who scarcely ever left her bedside. Death seemed
to have no sting.... She had no wish to live or die, feeling she was in
the arms of her Heavenly Father. ‘He will do for me what is best,’ she
whispered, ‘and His will is all I desire.’”
At Scutari Miss Nightingale’s work of reorganization was bearing swift
fruit. The wives of the soldiers were daily employed in the laundry she
had established, so that they had a decent livelihood, and the soldiers
themselves had clean linen. But, of course, a great many of the soldiers
had left their wives and children at home.
A money office also had been formed by the Lady-in-Chief, which helped
them in sending home their pay. It was she too who arranged for the safe
return of the widows to England, and it was she who provided stamps
and stationery for the men, that they might be able to write to those
dear to them. No one had had a moment, it seemed, to give thought to
anything but the actual warfare with all its horrors, until her womanly
sympathy and splendid capacity came on the scene. With her there was
always little time lost between planning and achieving, and happily she
had power of every kind in her hand. Besides her own means, which she
poured forth like water, the people of England had, as we saw, subscribed
magnificently through the _Times_ Fund, and with one so practical as the
Lady-in-Chief in daily consultation with Mr. Macdonald, there was no
longer any fear of giving to church walls what was intended to save the
lives of ill-clad and dying soldiers.