_Miss Nightingale visits Balaclava—Her illness—Lord Raglan’s
visit—The Fall of Sebastopol._
At last, in the May of 1855, the Lady-in-Chief was able to see such
fruits of the six months’ steady work at Scutari that the scene of her
labours could be changed, and she set out for Balaclava to inspect the
other hospitals, for which, as superintendent of the ladies in the
military hospitals in the East, she was responsible. She wished to see
for herself what was being done for the soldiers on the field. Besides
Mr. Bracebridge and her nursing staff, M. Soyer accompanied her with a
view to improving the cooking arrangements for the army in the field, and
he writes with his usual vividness:—
“Thomas, Miss Nightingale’s boy, the twelve-year-old drummer
who had left what he called his ‘instrument sticks’ to make
himself her most devoted slave and messenger, was also allowed
to go.
“At nine,” says M. Soyer, “we were all on shore and mounted.
There were about eight of us ready to escort our heroine to the
seat of war. Miss Nightingale was attired simply in a genteel
amazone, or riding habit, and had quite a martial air. She was
mounted upon a very pretty mare of a golden colour which, by
its gambols and caracoling, seemed proud to carry its noble
charge. The weather was very fine. Our cavalcade produced an
extraordinary effect upon the motley crowd of all nations
assembled at Balaclava, who were astonished at seeing a lady so
well escorted. It was not so, however, with those who knew who
the lady was.”
Later he gives us a most characteristic glimpse of the light-hearted
courage and high spirit of his Lady-in-Chief:—
“Mr. Anderson proposed to have a peep at Sebastopol. It was
four o’clock, and they were firing sharply on both sides.
Miss Nightingale, to whom the offer was made, immediately
accepted it; so we formed a column and, for the first time,
fearlessly faced the enemy, and prepared to go under fire.
P. M. turned round to me, saying quietly, but with great
trepidation, ‘I say, Monsieur Soyer, of course you would not
take Miss Nightingale where there will be any danger?’ ... The
sentry then repeated his caution, saying, ‘Madam, even where
you stand you are in great danger; some of the shot reach
more than half a mile beyond this!’ ... ‘My good young man,’
replied Miss Nightingale in French, ‘more dead and wounded have
passed through my hands than I hope you will ever see in the
battlefield during the whole of your military career; believe
me, I have no fear of death!’”
By a little guile the eager Frenchman led the unsuspecting idol of the
troops into a position where she could be well seen by the soldiers; and
while she was seated on the Morta, in view of them all, it hardly needed
his own dramatic outcry for a salutation to “the Daughter of England” to
call forth the ringing cheers which greeted her from the men of the 39th
Regiment, and the shouts were taken up so loudly by all the rest that the
Russians were actually startled by them at Sebastopol.
The darkness fell quickly, and half-way back to Balaclava Miss
Nightingale and her party found themselves in the midst of a merry
Zouave camp, where the men were singing and drinking coffee, but warned
our friends that brigands were in the neighbourhood. However, there
was nothing for it but to push on, and, as a matter of fact, the only
wound received was from the head of Miss Nightingale’s horse, which hit
violently against the face of her escort at the bridle rein, who kept
silence that he might not alarm her, but was found with a face black and
bleeding at the end of the journey.
After her night’s rest in her state-cabin in the _Robert Lowe_, though
still feeling used up with the adventurous visit to the camp hospitals,
Miss Nightingale visited the General Hospital at Balaclava and the
collection of huts on the heights, which formed the sanatoria, and
also went to see an officer ill with typhus in the doctors’ huts. She
renewed her visit next day, when, after a night at Balaclava, she settled
three nurses into the sanatorium, and then for some days continued her
inspection of hospitals and moved into the ship _London_, the _Robert
Lowe_ having been ordered home.
Worn out by her ceaseless labours at Scutari, she had probably been
specially open to infection in the sick officer’s hut, and while on board
the _London_ it became clear that she had contracted Crimean fever in a
very bad form.
She was ordered up to the huts amid such dreadful lamentations of the
surrounding folk that, thanks to their well-meant delays, it took an
hour to carry her up to the heights, her faithful nurse, Mrs. Roberts,
keeping off the sun-glare by walking beside her with an umbrella, and
her page-boy Thomas weeping his heart out at the tail of the little
procession.
A spot was found after her own heart near a running stream where the wild
flowers were in bloom, and she tells in her _Nursing Notes_ how her first
recovery began when a nosegay of her beloved flowers was brought to her
bedside. But for some days she was desperately ill, and the camp was
unspeakably moved and alarmed.
Britain also shared deeply in the suspense, though happily the worst
crisis was passed in about twelve days, leaving, however, a long time of
great weakness and slow convalescence to be won through afterwards.
During those twelve days some very sharp skirmishing took place, and
there was talk of an attack on Balaclava from the Kamara side, in which
case Miss Nightingale’s hut would, it was said, be the first outpost
to be attacked. Any such notion was, of course, an injustice to the
Russians, who would not knowingly have hurt a hair of her head—indeed, it
may almost be said that she was sacred to all the troops, whether friends
or foes. But at all events it gave her boy Thomas his opportunity, and he
was prepared, we are told, “to die valiantly in defence of his mistress.”
Soyer gives a picturesque account of Lord Raglan’s visit to Miss
Nightingale when her recovery was first beginning. He begins by
describing his own visit, and tells the story through the lips of Mrs.
Roberts, Miss Nightingale’s faithful nurse.
“ ... I was,” he writes, “very anxious to know the actual state
of Miss Nightingale’s health, and went to her hut to inquire.
I found Mrs. Roberts, who was quite astonished and very much
delighted to see me.
“‘Thank God, Monsieur Soyer,’ she exclaimed, ‘you are here
again. We have all been in such a way about you. Why, it was
reported that you had been taken prisoner by the Russians. I
must go and tell Miss Nightingale you are found again.’
“‘Don’t disturb her now. I understand Lord Raglan has been to
see her.’
“‘Yes, he has, and I made a serious mistake. 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.”
“‘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 her 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 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.”’”[15]
The doctors, after her twelve days of dangerous illness, were urgent for
Miss Nightingale’s instant return to England; but this she would not do:
she was sure that, with time and patience, she would be able once more to
take up her work at Scutari. Lord Ward placed his yacht at her disposal,
and by slow degrees she made recovery, though Lord Raglan’s death, June
18, 1855, was a great grief and shock to her.
Wellington said of Lord Raglan that he was a man who would not tell a lie
to save his life, and he was also a man of great charm and benevolence,
adored by his troops. He felt to the quick the terrible repulse of our
troops before Sebastopol that June, having yielded his own counsels to
those of France rather than break the alliance, and he died two days
after the despatch was written in which he told the story of this event.
Writing to the Duke of Newcastle in October, he had entreated for his
army a little repose—that brave army, worn out, not only by the ordinary
fatigues of a military campaign, and by the actual collecting of wood and
water to keep life from extinction, but by cholera, sickness, and the
bitter purgatorial cold of a black hillside in a Russian winter.
“Repose!” echoes Kinglake with sardonic bitterness, and we too echo it,
remembering how, two days afterwards, it was riding through the devil’s
jaws at Balaclava, to hurl itself but a little later against its myriad
assailants at Inkermann!
Repose! uncomplaining and loyal, in the bitter grasp of winter on the
heights of the Chersonese, holding day and night a siege that seemed
endless, the allied armies had proved their heroism through the slow
tragedy. And when at last, on the day of victory, amid the fury of the
elements and the avenging fury of their own surging hearts, they grasped
the result of their patient agony, though
“Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,”
that final moment of onset did but crown the fortitude of those long,
slow days of dying by inches in the slow clutch of starvation, that had
been so much harder to bear, while they saw their comrades in the anguish
of cholera and felt their own limbs freezing beneath them.
But it was doubtless a brave assault, and it was sad that their loved
commander was not there to see; for, while the Malakoff fell before
the French, it was the British troops that took the Redan—that Redan
of which it has been written that “three months before it had repulsed
the attacking force with fearful carnage, and brought Lord Raglan to a
despairing death.”
There is tragedy, therefore, in the fact that when, so soon afterwards,
Sebastopol fell, the triumph was not his.
It was on September 8, amid a furious storm which suddenly broke up a
summer-like day, that the cannonade joined with the thunder and the final
assault was made. Though the first shouts of victory came at the end of
an hour, it was nightfall before the fighting ceased and the Russians
retreated. Sebastopol was in flames. And before the next day dawned the
last act in this terrible war-drama was over.
Within a month of leaving Scutari Miss Nightingale was already there
again, and during these days of slowly returning strength, when she
wandered sometimes through the beautiful cemetery where the strange,
black-plumaged birds fly above the cypresses and, against the background
of the blue Bosphorus, the roses garland the tombs, she planned, for the
soldiers who had fallen, the monument which now stands there to their
undying memory, where under the drooping wings of the angels that support
it are inserted the words, “This monument was erected by Queen Victoria
and her people.”