CHAPTER XVII.Miss Nightingale visits Balaclava—Her illness—Lord Raglan’s visit—The Fall of Sebastopol.
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 calledhis ‘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.”
“Thomas, Miss Nightingale’s boy, the twelve-year-old drummer who had left what he calledhis ‘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!’”
“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 theRobert 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 alsowent 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 shipLondon, theRobert Lowehaving 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 theLondonit 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 herNursing Noteshow her first recovery began when a nosegay of her belovedflowers 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 throughthe 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, satdown 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]
“ ... 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, satdown 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 herwork 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,”
“Stormed at with shot and shell,Boldly they rode and well,”
“Stormed at with shot and shell,Boldly they rode and well,”
“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 theFrench, 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 rosesgarland 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.”