Florence Nightingale, the Angel of the Crimea: A Story for Young People

"Let Mrs. Herbert also know that I wish Miss Nightingale and the ladies would tell these poor, noble wounded and sick men, that no one takes a warmer interest or feels more for their sufferings or admires their courage and heroism more than their Queen. Day and night she thinks of her beloved troops. So does the Prince.

"Beg Mrs. Herbert to communicate these my words to those ladies, as I know that our sympathy is much valued by these noble fellows. – Victoria."

I think the tears may have come into those clear eyes of Miss Nightingale, when she read these words. She gave the letter to one of the chaplains, and he went from ward to ward, reading it aloud to the men, and ending each reading with "God save the Queen!" The words were murmured or whispered after him by the lips of sick and dying, and through all the mournful place went a great wave of tender love and loyalty toward the good Queen in England, and toward their own queen, their angel, who had shared her pleasure with them.

You will hardly believe that in England, while the Queen was writing thus, some people were still sadly troubled about Miss Nightingale's religious views, and were writing to the papers, warning other people against her; but so it was. One clergyman actually warned his flock not to subscribe money for the soldiers in the East "if it was to pass through Popish hands." He thought the Lady-in-Chief was a Catholic; others still maintained that she was a Unitarian; others were sure she had gone out with the real purpose of converting the soldiers to High-Church views.

In reading about this kind of thing, it is comforting to find one good Irish clergyman who, being asked to what sect Miss Nightingale belonged, replied: "She belongs to a sect which unfortunately is a very rare one – the sect of the Good Samaritans."

But these grumblers were only a few, we must think. The great body of English people was filled with an enthusiasm of gratitude toward the "angel band" and its leader. From the Queen in her palace down to the humblest working women in her cottage, all were at work making lint and bandages, shirts and socks and havelocks for the soldiers. Nor were they content with making things. Every housekeeper ransacked her linen closet and camphor chest, piled sheets and blankets and pillowcases together, tied them up in bundles, addressed them to Miss Nightingale, and sent them off.

When Sister Mary Aloysius first began to sort the bales of goods on the wharf at Scutari, she thought that "the English nobility must have emptied their wardrobes and linen stores, to send out bandages for the wounded. There was the most beautiful underclothing, and the finest cambric sheets, with merely a scissors run here and there through them, to insure their being used for no other purpose, some from the Queen's palace, with the royal monogram beautifully worked."

Yes, and the rats had a wonderful time with all these fine and delicate things, before the Sisters could get their hands on them!

These private gifts were not the only nor the largest ones. The Times, which you will remember had been the first to reveal the terrible conditions in the Crimea, now set to work and organized a fund for the relief of the wounded. A subscription list was opened, and from every part of the United Kingdom money flowed in like water. The Times undertook to distribute the money, and appointed a good and wise man, Mr. McDonald, to go out to the East and see how it could best be applied.

And now a strange thing came to pass; the sort of thing that, in one way or another, was constantly happening in connection with the Crimean War. Mr. McDonald went to the highest authorities in the War Office and told of his purpose. They bowed and smiled and said the Times and its subscribers were very kind, but the fact was that such ample provision had been made by the Government that it was hardly likely the money would be needed. Mr. McDonald opened his eyes wide; but he was a wise man, as I have said; so he bowed and smiled in return, and going to Sidney Herbert, told his story to him.

"Go!" said Mr. Herbert; "Go out to the Crimea!" and he went.

When he reached the seat of war, it was the same thing over again. The high officials were very polite, very glad to see him, very pleased that the people of England were so sympathetic and patriotic; but the fact was that nothing was wanted; they were amply supplied; in short, everything was "all right."

Many men, after this second rebuff, would have given the matter up and gone home; but Mr. McDonald was not of that kind. While he was considering what step to take next, one man came forward to help him; one man who was brave enough to defy Red Tape, for the sake of his soldiers. This was the surgeon of the 39th regiment. I wish I knew his name, so that you and I could remember it. He came to Mr. McDonald and told him that his regiment, which had been stationed at Gibraltar, had been ordered to the Crimea and had now reached the Bosporus. They were going on to the Crimea, to pass the winter in bitter cold, amid ice and snow; and they had no clothes save the light linen suits which had been given them to wear under the hot sun of Gibraltar.

Here was a chance for the Times fund! Without more ado Mr. McDonald went into the bazaars of Constantinople and bought flannels and woolens, until every man in that regiment had a good warm winter suit in which to face the Crimean winter.

Did anyone else follow the example of the surgeon of the 39th? Not one! Probably many persons thought he had done a shocking thing, by thus exposing the lack of provision in the army for its soldiers' comfort. This was casting reflection upon Red Tape! Better for the soldier to freeze and die, than for a slur to be cast upon those in authority, upon the rules of the service!

So, though McDonald stood with hands held out, as it were, offering help, no one came forward to take it.

He went to Scutari, and here at first it was the same thing. He offered his aid to the chief medical authority over the hospitals; the reply was calm and precise: "Nothing was wanted!" He went still higher, to "another and more august quarter"; the answer was still more emphatic: there was no possible occasion for help; soldiers and sailors had everything they required; if he wished to dispose of the Times fund, it might be a good thing to build an English church at Pera!

"Yet, at that very time," says the historian of the Crimea, "wants so dire as to include want of hospital furniture and of shirts for the patients, and of the commonest means for maintaining cleanliness, were afflicting our stricken soldiery in the hospitals."6

Mr. McDonald did not build an English church; instead, he went to the Barrack Hospital and asked for the Lady-in-Chief.

I should like to have seen Florence Nightingale's face when she heard his story. No help needed? The soldiers supplied with everything they needed? Everything "all right"?

"Come with me!" she said.

She took him through the wards of the Barrack Hospital, and showed him what had been done, and what an immense deal was yet to do; how, though many were comfortably clad, yet fresh hundreds were arriving constantly, half naked, without a shred of clean or decent clothing on their backs; how far the demand was beyond the supply; how fast her own stores were dwindling, and how many of the private offerings were unsuitable for the needs they were sent to fill; how many men were still, after all her labors, lying on the floor because there were not beds enough to go round.

All these things good Mr. McDonald saw, and laid to heart; but he saw other things besides.

Perhaps some of you have visited a hospital. You have seen the bright, fresh, pleasant rooms, the rows of snowy cots, the bright faces of the nurses, here and there flowers and pictures; seeing two or three hundred patients, it has seemed to you as if you had seen all the sick people in the world. Was it not so?

In the Barrack Hospital (and this, remember, was but one of eight, and these eight the English hospitals alone!) there were two or three thousand patients; it was a City of Pain. Its streets were long, narrow rooms or corridors, bare and gloomy; no furniture save the endless rows of cots and mattresses, "packed like sardines," as one eye-witness says; its citizens, men in every stage of sickness and suffering; some tossing in fever and delirium; some moaning in pain that even a soldier's strength could not bear silently; some ghastly with terrible wounds; some sinking into their final sleep.

Following the light, slight figure of his guide through these narrow streets of the City of Pain, McDonald saw and noted that

"Wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form, and the hand of the Spoiler distressingly nigh, there is this incomparable woman sure to be seen. Her benignant presence is an influence for good comfort even among the struggles of expiring nature. She is a 'ministering angel' without any exaggeration in these hospitals, and as the slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night, and silence and darkness have settled down upon those miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed alone, with lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds.

"The popular instinct was not mistaken which, when she set out from England, hailed her as a heroine; I trust she may not earn her title to a higher though sadder appellation. No one who has observed her fragile figure and delicate health can avoid misgivings lest these should fail… I confidently assert that but for Miss Nightingale the people of England would scarcely, with all their solicitude, have been spared the additional pang of knowing, which they must have done sooner or later, that their soldiers, even in the hospitals, had found scanty refuge and relief from the unparalleled miseries with which this war has hitherto been attended."

Look with me for a moment into one of these wards, these "miles of sick" through which the agent of the Times passed with his guide. It is night. Outside, the world is wide and wonderful with moon and stars. Beyond the dark-blue waters of the Bosporus, the lights of Stamboul flash and twinkle; nearer at hand, the moonlight falls on the white city of the dead, and shows its dark cypresses standing like silent guardians beside the marble tombs; nearer yet, it falls full on the bare, gaunt square of building that crowns the hill. The windows are narrow, but still the moonbeams struggle in, and cast a dim light along the corridor. The vaulted roof is lost in blackness; black, too, are the corners, and we cannot see where the orderly nods in his chair, or where the night nurse sits beside a dying patient. All is silent, save for a low moan or murmur from one cot or another. See where the moonbeam glimmers white on that cot under the window! That is where the Highland soldier is lying, he who came so near losing his arm the other day. The surgeons said it must be amputated, but the Lady-in-Chief begged for a little time. She thought that with care and nursing the arm might be saved; would they kindly delay the operation at least for a few days? The surgeons consented, for by this time no one could or would refuse her anything. The arm was saved; now the bones are knitting nicely, and by and by he will be well and strong again, with both arms to work and play and fight with.

But broken bones hurt even when they are knitting nicely, and the Highland lad cannot sleep; he lies tossing about on his narrow cot, gritting his teeth now and then as the pain bites, but still a happy and a thankful man. He stares about him through the gloom, trying to see who is awake and who asleep. But now he starts, for silently the door opens, and a tiny ray of light, like a golden finger, falls across his bed. A figure enters and closes the door softly; the figure of a woman, tall and slender, dressed in black, with white cap and apron. In her hand she carries a small shaded lamp. At sight of her the sick lad's eyes grow bright; he raises his sound arm and straightens the blanket, then waits in eager patience. Slowly the Lady with the Lamp draws near, stopping beside each cot, listening to the breathing and noting the color of the sleepers, whispering a word of cheer and encouragement to those who wake. Now she stands beside his bed, and her radiant smile is brighter, he thinks, than lamplight or moonlight. A few words in the low, musical voice, a pat to the bedclothes, a friendly nod, and she passes on to the next cot. As she goes, her shadow, hardly more noiseless than her footstep, falls across the sick man's pillow; he turns and kisses it, and then falls happily asleep.

So she comes and passes, like a light; and so her very shadow is blessed, and shall be blessed so long as memory endures.

CHAPTER XII.

WINTER

O the long and dreary winter!7O the cold and cruel winter!Ever thicker, thicker, thickerFroze the ice on lake and river,Ever deeper, deeper, deeperFell the snow o'er all the landscape,Fell the covering snow, and driftedThrough the forest, round the village.O the famine and the fever!O the wasting of the famine!O the blasting of the fever!O the wailing of the children!O the anguish of the women!All the earth was sick and famished;Hungry was the air around them,Hungry was the sky above them,And the hungry stars in heavenLike the eyes of wolves glared at them!

"The bad weather commenced about November the 10th, and has continued ever since. A winter campaign is under no circumstances child's play; but here, where the troops had no cantonments to take shelter in, where large bodies were collected in one spot, and where the want of sufficient fuel soon made itself felt, it told with the greatest severity upon the health, not of the British alone, but of the French and Turkish troops… To the severity of the winter the whole army can bear ample testimony. The troops have felt it in all its intensity; and when it is considered that they have been under canvas from ten to twelve months – that they had no other shelter from the sun in summer, and no other protection from wet and snow, cold and tempestuous winds, such as have scarcely been known even in this climate, in winter – and that they passed from a life of total inactivity, already assailed by deadly disease, to one of the greatest possible exertion – it cannot be a matter of surprise that a fearful sickness has prevailed throughout their ranks, and that the men still suffer from it." – Lord Raglan to Lord Panmure, February, 1855.

After the battle of Inkerman, the allied armies turned all their energies to the siege of Sebastopol, the principal city of the Crimea. You will read some day about this memorable siege, one of the most famous in history, and about the prodigies of valor performed by both besiegers and besieged; but I can only touch briefly on those aspects of it which are connected with my subject.

The winter of 1854-5 was, as Lord Raglan says, one of unexampled severity, even in that land of bitter winters. On November 14th a terrible hurricane swept the country, bringing death and ruin to Russians and allies alike. In Sebastopol itself trees were torn up by the roots, buildings unroofed, and much damage done; in the camps of the besiegers things were even worse. Tents were torn in shreds and swept away like dead leaves; not only the soldiers' tents, but the great hospital marquees were destroyed, and the sick and wounded left exposed to bitter blast and freezing sleet. The trenches were flooded; no fires could be lit, and therefore no food cooked; and when the snowstorm came which followed the tempest, many a brave fellow lay down famished and exhausted, and the white blanket covered his last sleep.

In the harbor even more ruin was wrought, for the ships were dashed about like broken toys that a wilful child flings hither and thither. The Prince, which had just arrived loaded with clothing, medicines, stores of every description, went down with all her precious freight; the Resolute was lost, too, the principal ammunition ship of the army; and other vessels loaded with hay for the horses, a supply which would have fed them for twenty days.

This dreadful calamity was followed by day after day of what the soldiers called "Inkerman weather," with heavy mists and low drizzling clouds; then came bitter, killing frost, then snow, thaw, sleet, frost again, and so round and round in a cruel circle; and through every variation of weather the soldier's bed was the earth, now deep in snow, now bare and hard as iron, now thick with nauseous mud. All day long the soldiers toiled in the trenches with pick and spade, often under fire, always on the alert; others on night duty, "five nights out of six, a large proportion of them constantly under fire."

Is it to be wondered at that plague and cholera broke out in the camp of the besiegers, and that a steady stream of poor wretches came creeping up the hill at Scutari?

The Lady-in-Chief was ready for them. Thanks to the Times fund and other subscriptions, she now had ample provision for many days. Moreover, by this winter time her influence so dominated the hospital that not only was there no opposition to her wishes, but everyone flew to carry them out. The rough orderlies, who had growled and sworn at the notion of a woman coming to order them about, were now her slaves. Her unvarying courtesy, her sweet and heavenly kindness, woke in many a rugged breast feelings of which it had never dreamed; and every man who worked for her was for the time at least a knight and a gentleman. It was bitter, hard work; she spared them no more than she spared herself; but they labored as no rules of the service had ever made them work. Through it all, not one of them, orderlies or common soldiers, ever failed her "in obedience, thoughtful attention, and considerate delicacy." "Never," she herself says, "came from any of them one word or one look which a gentleman would not have used; and while paying this humble tribute to humble courtesy, the tears come into my eyes as I think how amidst scenes of loathsome disease and death there arose above it all the innate dignity, gentleness and chivalry of the men (for never surely was chivalry so strikingly exemplified), shining in the midst of what must be considered as the lowest sinks of human misery, and preventing instinctively the use of one expression which could distress a gentlewoman."

If it was so with the orderlies, you can imagine how it was with the poor fellows for whom she was working. Every smile from her was a gift; every word was a precious treasure to be stored away and kept through life. They would do anything she asked, for they knew she would do anything in her power for them. When any specially painful operation was to be performed (there was not always chloroform enough, alas! and in any case it was not given so freely in those days as it is now), the Lady-in-Chief would come quietly into the operating room and take her stand beside the patient; and looking up into that calm, steadfast face, and meeting the tender gaze of those pitying eyes that never flinched from any sight of pain or horror, he would take courage and nerve himself to bear the pain, since she was there to help him bear it.

"We call her the Angel of the Crimea," one soldier wrote home. "Could bad men be bad in the presence of an angel? Impossible!"

Another wrote: "Before she came there was such cussin' and swearin' as you never heard; but after she came it was as holy as a church."

And still another – perhaps our Highland lad of the night vigil, perhaps another – wrote to his people: "She would speak to one and another, and nod and smile to many more; but she could not do it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on our pillows again content."

Miss Nightingale never wearied of bearing testimony to the many virtues of the British soldier. She loved to tell stories like the following:

"I remember a sergeant who, on picket – the rest of the picket killed, and himself battered about the head – stumbled back to camp (before Sebastopol), and on his way, picked up a wounded man and brought him on his shoulders to the lines, where he fell down insensible. When, after many hours, he recovered his senses, I believe after trepanning, his first words were to ask after his comrade: 'Is he alive?'

"'Comrade indeed! yes, he's alive – it's the General!' At that moment the General, though badly wounded, appeared at the bedside. 'Oh! General, it was you, was it, I brought in? I'm so glad; I didn't know your honor. But if I'd known it was you, I'd have saved you all the same!'"

I must not leave the story of this winter without telling of all that Miss Nightingale did for the soldiers' wives. There were many of these poor women, who had come out to this far country to be near their husbands. There was no proper provision for them, and Miss Nightingale found them in a wretched condition, living in three or four damp, dark rooms in the basement of the hospital. Their clothes were worn out; they were barefooted and bareheaded. We are told that "the only privacy to be obtained was by hanging up rags of clothes on lines. There, by the light of a rushlight, the meals were taken, the sick attended, and there the babies were born and nourished. There were twenty-two babies born from November to December, and many more during the winter."8

The Lady-in-Chief soon put an end to this state of things. First she fed and clothed the women from her own stores, and saw that the little babies were made warm and comfortable. In January a fever broke out among the women, owing to a broken drain in the basement, and she found a house near by, had it cleaned and furnished, and persuaded the commandant to move the women into it. All through the winter she helped these poor souls in every way, employing some in the laundry, finding situations for others in Constantinople, sending widows home to England, helping to start a school for the children. Altogether about five hundred women were helped out of the miserable condition in which she found them, and were enabled to earn their own living honestly and respectably. Writing of these times later, Miss Nightingale says: "When the improvements in our system which the war must suggest are discussed, let not the wife and child of the soldier be forgotten."

Another helper came out to Scutari in those winter days; a gallant Frenchman, M. Soyer, who had been for years chef of one of the great London clubs, and who knew all that there was to know about cookery. He read the Times, and in February, 1855, he wrote to the editor:

"Sir: After carefully perusing the letter of your correspondent, dated Scutari … I perceive that, though the kitchen under the superintendence of Miss Nightingale affords so much relief, the system of management at the large one in the Barrack Hospital is far from being perfect. I propose offering my services gratuitously, and proceeding direct to Scutari at my own personal expense, to regulate that important department, if the Government will honor me with their confidence, and grant me the full power of acting according to my knowledge and experience in such matters."

It was April before M. Soyer reached Scutari. He went at once to the Barrack Hospital, asked for Miss Nightingale, and was received by her in her office, which he calls "a sanctuary of benevolence." They became friends at once, for each could help the other and greatly desired to do so.

"I must especially express my gratitude to Miss Nightingale," says the good gentleman in his record of the time, "who from her extraordinary intelligence and the good organization of her kitchen procured me every material for making a commencement, and thus saved me at least one week's sheer loss of time, as my model kitchen did not arrive until Saturday last."

M. Soyer, on his side, brought all kinds of things which Miss Nightingale rejoiced to see: new stoves, new kinds of fuel, new appliances of many kinds which, in the first months of her work, she could never have hoped to see. He was full of energy, of ingenuity, and a fine French gayety and enthusiasm which must have been delightful to all the brave and weary workers in the City of Pain. He went everywhere, saw and examined everything; and told of what he saw, in his own flowery, fiery way. He told among other things how, coming back one night from a gay evening in the doctors' quarters, he was making his way through the hospital wards to his own room, when, as he turned the corner of a corridor, he came upon a scene which made him stop and hold his breath. At the foot of one cot stood a nurse, holding a lighted lamp. Its light fell on the sick man, who lay propped on pillows, gasping for breath, and evidently near his end. He was speaking, in hoarse and broken murmurs; sitting beside him, bending near to catch the painful utterances, was the Lady-in-Chief, pencil and paper in hand, writing down the words as he spoke them. Now the dying man fumbled beneath his pillow, brought out a watch and some other small objects, and laid them in her hand; then with a sigh of relief, sank back content. It was two o'clock. Miss Nightingale had been on her feet, very likely, the whole day, perhaps had not even closed her eyes in sleep; but word was brought to her that this man was given up by the doctors, and had only a few hours to live; and in a moment she was by his side, to speak some final words of comfort, and to take down his parting message to wife and children.