Emma put her sewing down, stood, and stretched. “I can’t stand it in here. Can’t we go outside, walk in the courtyard or something?”
“Miss Nightingale told us not to,” I said.
“And if she told you to climb on the sill and jump out the window would you do it?” Emma said. A few of the others chuckled. Emma went to the window and stared out for a bit but soon came back to her halfhearted needlework.
That evening Miss Nightingale called us all together, partly to let us know why we were still kept from the wards, but also I think because she wanted to tell us some things about nursing—nursing the way she thought it ought to be done. She said things at the start that got some of the older nurses’ backs up, about nursing not having to do with giving medicines or bandaging wounds.
“First, and most importantly, it is essential for us to let the bodies of the sick and wounded heal themselves. And to do this they must have fresh air, warmth, and food.”
“Fresh air and warmth! In this climate it’s not possible. Would you have us go opening windows everywhere?” It was one of the nuns.
“Would you have the sick and wounded breathe only the air in a ward full of other sick and wounded men? It is possible to let in fresh air without giving patients a chill. Warming bottles, blankets—do we not have these tools at our disposal?”
What she said made sense to me, who didn’t know anything about proper nursing, but I could see the looks some of the others gave her. They weren’t likely to take what she said without a grain of salt.
“And food—what of food for them that can’t stomach it?” Mrs. Drake asked.
“Of course they would not eat what a healthy man eats,” said Miss Nightingale, “but without nourishment how can a body have the strength to heal itself? Light beef broths, softened bread—these must be fed to those not capable of a proper meal.”
The more she spoke, the more unbelieving the nurses looked, as if she were speaking blasphemy against the gospel truth. Only the Sellonites and the St. John’s nurses took it all in without doubting.
For me, I knew I’d rather be warm, fed, and breathing fresh air if I were sick. But so far we hadn’t any chance to put Miss Nightingale’s methods to the test, and there was little sign we would very soon, so what was the point?
For three more days our lives were the same. Everyone got cross. I began two more letters to Will but couldn’t make out what to say. I wrote one letter to my mum, short and easy, so she wouldn’t have to pay to get it read. Not that I could’ve made it very long anyway.
On the fourth day Miss Nightingale let us walk into town for exercise.
“Let’s go together to the market!” Emma was like a bird let out of a cage, she flapped about so.
I didn’t much care where we went, so long as it was out. Even the cold didn’t bother me. Scutari was so different from London. There were people everywhere in colorful striped costumes. Every so often, chanting rang out through the air, and all around us people put down little rugs and bowed toward the east.
We wandered through the market, looking at the fruits and sundries. Sellers thrust their wares at us and followed us when we didn’t buy them. I spent no money, in spite of the fact I could have spared a penny or two. I was saving my first week’s wages to pay Will back.
When time came to return to the barracks, I was a little sorry. Emma was so disappointed she looked like she’d burst out crying any minute and went straight to her bunk without a word to anyone.
The next day an awful smell came in through the gaps in the windows.
“Ugh! What is that?” Emma said, pinching her nose.
The smell was so bad it made me retch. One nurse started sprinkling eau de cologne everywhere, but all it did was add a sweetness to the bad smell. We couldn’t go out, and we were trapped inside with the odor. Mr. Bracebridge went off to find out the cause.
“It’s the sewers,” he said when he came back. “The latrines aren’t deep enough, and they drain directly into the Bosporus.”
“Why didn’t we smell it before?” Mrs. Drake asked.
“That’s because of the wind. The direction shifted and now carries the smell back inside.”
“Even Miss Nightingale wouldn’t want the windows open to this stink!” Mrs. Drake said, and everyone laughed.
I went over to close the one window we’d opened, hoping it would make the awful smell go away. As I fastened the latch, I stopped and stared. Our windows looked out over the Bosporus, and when it was clear we could see all the way over to Istanbul. It wasn’t clear that day, but in the distance I could just make out two ships coming into port, not from the direction of the Sea of Marmara, but from the Black Sea. “Look!” I said. The others all crowded round.
“They’re the ships carrying wounded from Balaclava,” Mr. Bracebridge said.
We didn’t move, but watched the slow dance of docking and then the horrible parade of men, some walking but wrapped in dirty, bloodied bandages, most being carried out by Turkish workers who hoisted them like meat carcasses and dropped them on the ground near the hospital. I wanted so to go out and do something, but we were caged up like a flock of black rooks, only able to squabble amongst ourselves.
The rest of the afternoon and evening we sat silently at our sewing, listening to the shouting and running about outside. When Mrs. Clarke came in with our dinner I couldn’t eat a bite. But it wasn’t the smell this time. It was wanting to help and feeling completely useless.
Just as we were about to get ready for bed, Miss Nightingale walked in, looking smart and purposeful. Her eyes were bright. I’d never seen her so well.
“I have good news in all this tragedy,” she said. “Dr. Menzies and I have agreed on the disposition of nurses, and we are to commence our duties at dawn.”
I could’ve whooped aloud, although why the beginning of hard, sad work should seem so exciting I didn’t know. At least we’d be doing something. And getting out of those rooms that had begun to feel more like a prison than a hospital.
That night I could hardly sleep. I tossed and turned more even than when I was hiding on the docks in Folkestone. We were going to do what we’d come here for at last. Would I be able to manage? I didn’t know much. Just follow directions, Emma said once when we were talking. I had watched a man get his leg cut off in Paris. Would this be worse? I couldn’t imagine. Give them air, keep them warm, give them nourishment. Surely that wouldn’t be too difficult?
I must have fallen asleep at some point but I felt as though I’d hardly closed my eyes when a bell woke me up. Miss Nightingale stood in the common room, dressed in a uniform just like ours—only hers was made of silk and fit her proper and without the sash—banging on a bell with a wooden spoon. I think everyone was so dazed that no one complained about the early hour.
“Sisters Sarah Anne and Elizabeth, you’re to go to the sick wards and help the doctors there since you are the most experienced nurses. As to the other wards, we shall have a rotation, which I have planned. Fraser, Bigelow, Erskine, Kelly, Sharpe—come with me. Sisters Margaret, Ethelreda, and de Chantal and Mrs. Drake, Mrs. Lundy, and Mrs. Hawkins, I’ll show you to the ward you will work in today as well. The rotation will be posted this evening.”
It felt like freedom to walk out into the corridor that went all the way around the building, sun slanting in through windows that faced the parade ground in the middle. We didn’t go into the ward right next to our room, though. Instead we went down the stairs to the ground floor where Dr. Menzies waited for us.
At first when we entered that dark, lowest floor of the hospital it was hard to make out what was there. The smell was so bad that we all covered our mouths at the same time and more than a few of us stifled retches. The stink was ten times worse than what came into our rooms up above. I didn’t know it right then, but it turned out that we were very close to where the latrines emptied, right underneath the floorboards. And here that awful smell blended with other odors. Blood. Rotting flesh. Sweat. A trac
e of gunpowder.
“These are the men who were just admitted last night,” Dr. Menzies said.
As my eyes become accustomed to the half light, I could make out shapes writhing on the floor. “Shapes” was all I could think to call them. Human bodies so mixed together and covered with blood and gore it seemed I was looking at a single creature.
“The wards are above. If you’ll follow me.”
We picked our way gingerly through the men on the floor to a staircase. Maybe upstairs in a proper ward there would be more order. My hopes didn’t last long. I heard Miss Nightingale exclaim before I reached the top of the staircase, “But there are no beds! And the linens are filthy. The stink is abominable. What is that surgeon over there doing?”
I hardly noticed that Emma had put her arm through mine and was clinging tightly to me as we entered the ward. It wasn’t much better than the scene below, except that more of the men had bandages wrapped around them. Otherwise, their faces were just as covered in battlefield filth and they still lay on the floor or on the infested divans that lined the walls—the floor was at least cushioned with straw. We were all too horrified to move. I looked toward where Miss Nightingale pointed and saw that a surgeon and three orderlies had a man pinned down and were setting up to amputate his arm.
“Have you no operating table? No chloroform? Not even a curtain to shield the other patients from the sight?” Miss Nightingale’s voice rose.
Dr. Menzies planted himself in front of her so she couldn’t see the surgeon. “This is a hospital in a time of war. We do our best with what we have. We have difficulty getting our supplies. We have asked repeatedly for beds and more linens, yet they do not come.” Dr. Menzies sounded angry.
“There’ll be a fight for sure,” Emma whispered to me.
“Might I have a word with you in your office, Dr. Menzies?” Miss Nightingale said.
The two of them went off, leaving the rest of us in the ward. A sigh went out all of a piece from us. I guess we had been holding our breath.
One or two of the men who were not unconscious or in so much pain they couldn’t speak raised their heads. “I’m from Wiltshire,” said one. “Any news of Wiltshire?”
Mrs. Drake went to him and knelt down beside him. “I was just in Wiltshire at the beginning of the month. The weather’s already bitter.” She chatted on to him about home, bits of nonsense and recollecting places they both knew.
Once that fellow spoke up, more and more of the men began to ask questions. “What’s happening in London? Do you know a Mrs. Holbrook? Will you fetch me a drink of water? I’m ever so thirsty.”
We soon spread out amongst the men, doling out what comfort we could. I crouched down close to one fellow who was trying to say something but could only whisper. “Can I help you?” I asked.
“You’re pretty,” he whispered, and tried to smile but the effort caused him pain and he closed his eyes. He was all twisted up in a dirty sheet. I tried to ease it out and straighten it. I didn’t notice until then that the straw beneath him was crawling with vermin. I pulled my hands away quick. He opened his eyes. “I know I don’t look so handsome right now,” he managed to squeeze out. I couldn’t bear to let him think it was him that made me shrink away so I stiffened my back and got on with what I was doing.
Emma was tending to the soldier next to me. She tipped up a cup of water carefully into his mouth. Most of it dribbled out the sides. He looked as though he might die at any second, he was so pale and still. “Eek!” she screamed, ripping the silence open, and dropped the cup.
“What is it?” I asked. She pointed to a large rat that ran up and down and over the men until it disappeared into a hole at the base of the wall. I looked down the long ward. Every now and then another rat would poke its head out and run. “Blimey!” I said. “There’s rats everywhere.” Some of the heaving shapes I thought were men were actually rats scurrying over bodies too wounded or sick to scare them off.
Emma dug her fingers into my arm. “If this is what we’re in for, I’m going home!”
“If you ain’t seen rats in a hospital before, get used to it.” It was Nurse Grundy. She was always pretty nice to me, but her face had gone hard and set, like there was another person she kept inside until she needed to put her on. None of the other experienced nurses had batted so much as an eyelid at the rats here, although they were afraid enough of them in our quarters.
The Sisters of Mercy spread out across the ward and went from pallet to pallet speaking to the men, touching them lightly, straightening linens. Right then I wondered if I had the courage to be like them. It didn’t matter how bloody, how filthy a soldier was, they did what they could for him. It was all too much to get into my head. And these men had mostly already been operated on and were patched up and healing—or perhaps on their way to dying—so not even fresh from the battlefield.
Before I had any more time to think, Miss Nightingale came back without Dr. Menzies. “Nurses,” she said, “we have work to do.”
Everyone gathered again and followed Miss Nightingale. We headed to another of the corner towers. Once we got there she divided us into groups: those who would clean, those who would sew, and those who were strong enough to lift the men. Emma and I went with the cleaners, of course.
I don’t know how Miss Nightingale did it, but soon we had mattress ticking and bales of straw being dumped in the empty corridors by Turkish merchants. First off after we swept the floors we had to stuff the empty mattresses that had mostly been sewn up somewhere else—did she know ahead of time about this too? Could Miss Nightingale see into the future like a gypsy? Did she buy empty mattresses and ship them over with us from France? I was too busy to do anything but wonder. Too busy to talk. My hands were quickly scraped raw by the straw, but the women who were sewing up the mattresses had it harder, their fingers pricked and bleeding trying to get the needles through the tough ticking.
“Soon enough be so much blood on these no one’ll notice a drop or two of mine,” said Mrs. Drake, making everyone laugh, as was her way.
As soon as we stuffed the mattresses, orderlies took them and piled them up on the floor below.
“Fraser, Bigelow, Hawkins, and Drake, come with me.” I had got quite used to Miss Nightingale’s commands. They didn’t seem so harsh now that I saw what we were faced with. She led us down to the ward. One end of it was not yet filled with men. “You’ll start cleaning here. As soon as you’re done, we’ll spread fresh straw and mattresses, then move the first of that lot over, working our way down as we go.”
I was already shaking from the hard work. Even my first day as a parlormaid was nothing compared to this. At times I thought I wouldn’t be able to continue, and felt a lump rise up in my chest, squeezing my breath out, making me feel as though I would cry. Don’t, don’t, I told myself. I just thought about the horrible condition of the men and realized how lucky I was to be just tired, not waiting for a limb to be cut off or for my life to float away.
That first day all we did was put two hundred men on clean mattresses. I felt as if I’d climbed a mountain and hauled a ton of coal. I was almost in too much of a daze to hear my name called out as we ate our dinner in the common room.
“ ’Ere, Moll, you got a letter,” Emma said, jolting me out of my thoughts.
“A letter?” I couldn’t imagine how. I’d never had a letter before. I hoped I’d be able to read it. I stood—it took so much effort to do just that—and got my letter from Mrs. Bracebridge.
It came from England, of course. And it said my name plain as day on the envelope. Miss Molly Fraser. I put it aside and finished my dinner, right then more hungry than curious.
“Well come on,” Emma said, plopping herself down next to me. “Open it!”
Having become used to doing exactly what I was told to all day long, I put my fork down and picked up the letter, sliding my finger under the seal to pop it open. The paper still felt crisp though it was dirty from its long trip from England in the hold of a pa
cket boat.
The letter wasn’t long. But I’ll never forget a single word of it.
Dear Molly,
Things got bad at the Abington-Smythes after you left. I decided service wasn’t for me after all. It seems they need good men to fight the Russians, and so I joined up with a regiment of foot.
That’s not the only reason I did it, though. I can’t stop thinking about you, wondering if you got there and are all right. If I see you again, I was wondering if you’d walk out with me, so we could talk like we used to.
I expect you’ve met people more interesting than me probably. But I wanted you to know. Take care of yourself.
Your friend,
Will Parker
Will was coming to the Crimea. I might see him! A familiar face. A familiar face that was very dear to me. I thought suddenly of that kiss, the one on the lips when I last saw him, at Lucy’s. Would he kiss me again? I didn’t know, couldn’t guess, but it was enough just to imagine it. I read the letter again, this time faster since I’d already made out all the words.
Will. Coming to fight. The men in the hospital, wounded and broken, had got that way because they’d been fighting. Others were killed. If I’d not come, it seemed Will wouldn’t have either. If he got hurt, or worse—would it be my fault?
“Well, aren’t you going to tell me the news?”
I had completely forgot Emma was sitting there. “It’s from a friend,” I said, too tired to face everything and explain it to her. I wanted to write back to Will, to let him know how much I wished I could see him, but what use would there be? He might’ve left even before my first letter got to him.
I don’t think I dreamed at all that night. I had too many wonderful and terrible thoughts in my head.
Chapter 13
In the Shadow of the Lamp Page 8
