by Jane Smith
‘What?’ Carly butted in. ‘Are you telling me the city’s waste goes straight into the river?’
Florence turned to Carly in surprise. ‘Oh, hello Carly! And Simone! How nice to see you again. Yes, of course the sewage goes into the river. Where else could it go?’
‘How about a treatment plant—’ Simone started to say, but Florence interrupted her with a squeal.
‘I know why you’re here! You’re coming with me, aren’t you? Oh, I knew it! I knew from the moment I met you that you would make fine nurses! Come along, we don’t have much time. Come on board with me.’
‘What?’ said Carly, but Florence rattled on.
‘Quickly; the boat’s leaving soon. I see you don’t have uniforms. Luckily, I have spares. You can change on the boat. Hurry along now, we’re boarding!’
Confused, Carly, Dora and Simone followed Florence down the pier. That was when they noticed thirty or more young women, all dressed in grey uniforms and nurses caps, crowding upon the dock. As Florence marched towards the boat at the end of the pier, they flocked after her.
With racing hearts, the girls followed. Where were they going?
They crossed a wobbling gangplank onto the deck of a boat that was puffing steam into the morning air. Following the nurses, they lined up along the boat’s railing to look back at the river bank. A crowd of people stood upon the bank, waving hankies in farewell.
‘Where are we going?’ Carly asked.
‘My dear girl,’ Florence replied. ‘We are going to Scutari Hospital to nurse the wounded soldiers. We are going to war.’
‘What war?’ Carly demanded. Florence had left to fetch their uniforms and it had taken Carly a few minutes to get over the shock.
‘In the Crimea,’ Simone replied.
Dora whimpered. ‘Where’s that?’
‘In Turkey. It’s some fight with the Russians over land.’ Simone paused and turned away. When she spoke again, her voice was small. ‘I think it’s going to get ugly.’
‘I can’t believe you got us into this,’ Carly said.
‘That’s not fair,’ Simone snapped. ‘You wanted to come.’
‘It’s true,’ Dora admitted, and Carly turned away to sulk. Why did Dora always have to be so reasonable? ‘Anyway, we can always leave if it gets too dangerous – all we need to do is take our shawls off.’
Florence bustled towards them with an armful of uniforms. ‘I’m so grateful to you girls,’ she said. ‘Your help will save lives – I’m sure of it.’ She dumped the uniforms in their arms and hurried off before the girls could tell her they were not nurses.
‘Did you hear that?’ Dora said. ‘We’re going to save lives.’
Carly gripped the railing. ‘What about saving our own lives?’ But it would be amazing, she admitted to herself, to save someone’s life.
‘Cheer up,’ Simone said. She was in a weirdly good mood for once. ‘It’ll be an adventure.’
They steamed down the river to the English Channel. Carly, Simone and Dora went below decks to change, taking care not to dislodge their shawls or lace ribbon as they wriggled out of their gowns and into the starchy grey uniforms. They put white aprons over their dresses and little white caps on their heads.
Suddenly, they looked like real nurses.
The journey took a long time. First they crossed the English Channel to France, and Dora threw up the last of her bacon and eggs into the choppy sea on the way. At nightfall they arrived in France, and Florence herded them straight onto a train. There was no time for rest. The train was noisy and rattly and belched huge clouds of steam, but Carly was so tired that she fell instantly asleep. It was a good thing, for the journey was long and uncomfortable.
By the time they reached the busy port town of Marseille, Carly was longing for a shower and fresh clothes, but there was no hope of that. Florence ushered them off the train and into a hotel, which was nothing like any hotel Carly had seen before. The women — all thirty-eight of them plus Florence, or ‘Miss Nightingale’, as they now had to call her – crowded in together in a poky little room lined with straw mattresses. Carly, Dora and Simone had to share a bed. There was no ensuite ... in fact, there was no bathroom at all! A shower would be out of the question. And the toilet ... well, it was nothing but a chamber pot. Carly had seen one of them before, and the thought of using it made her ill. None of their travelling companions seemed to mind the lack of facilities.
I suppose I’ll have to get used to it, Carly thought glumly.
During their four days in Marseille, Florence bought supplies. One day she came back to the hotel with bags of items for Carly and her friends.
‘Here you go,’ she said. ‘A cloak. Galoshes. Six aprons, six collars, caps, a white straw bonnet and a dark straw bonnet, five gowns, a woollen jacket, a flannel wrapper. Simone, here’s a shawl for you. Carly and Dora, I see you
already have shawls so I didn’t buy any for you. You were supposed to bring your own stays, petticoats, shifts, handkerchiefs, night caps, stockings, combs, tooth brushes and umbrellas – but since you didn’t, I bought some for you. Look after them!’
‘What are “stays”?’ Dora whispered when Florence had turned away.
‘I think they’re the bony bits that make a corset stiff,’ Simone replied.
‘Oh, great,’ said Carly. ‘Just what every girl needs when she’s going to war.’
When she wasn’t getting supplies, Florence was busy preparing her helpers. She told them all about their mission. The British, French and Turkish were fighting the Russians in a place called Crimea, which was a piece of land that jutted out into the Black Sea. Many British soldiers had been wounded in battle, but even more were dying from disease. The Times newspaper had reported that the soldiers weren’t being looked after properly in the hospitals, and the British people were angry. The government had decided to send Florence Nightingale to fix the problem.
‘We’re going to work at Scutari,’ she told them. ‘Don’t worry – it’s a long way from the fighting.’
‘But, Miss Nightingale, we told you: we don’t know the first thing about nursing,’ Carly said, not for the first time since they began the journey. ‘Do you really think we can help?’
Florence smiled kindly. ‘And as I told you a dozen times, you’re not the only one. None of my nurses are trained yet. I’m going to teach you all myself!’
There were two groups of nurses: the nuns and the regular nurses like Carly and her friends. Florence taught them everything. She showed them how to apply bandages and slings. She taught them how to feed patients who couldn’t get out of bed, and how to wash them. She taught them that the wounded soldiers depended on them for kindness and care.
The time passed quickly. Before long, Florence was leading them down the cobbled streets to the docks and across the gangplank onto another ship.
The ship was called the Vectis.
The girls climbed down the ladder into their sleeping quarters below.
And Carly knew at once that the voyage wasn’t going to be fun.
They boarded on 27 October 1854. Carly knew the date because Florence kept such careful records of everything they did.
The Vectis was a big wooden paddlesteamer. It didn’t look too bad on the outside, but below decks it was a different story. The sleeping quarters were dark, cramped and stinky. The air was stale and foul. The beds were nothing but narrow wooden boards topped with thin straw mattresses.
The girls stared into the darkness, waiting for their eyes to get used to the gloom.
‘It’s only a week,’ Dora said bravely.
‘It’ll be like school camp...’ Carly added. ‘Only worse.’
At that moment something small scuttled over Dora’s foot and up her leg, and she screamed as she sprang onto the nearest bed. ‘COCKROACH!’
Carly squealed and joined her on the bed, though there was barely room for one. Simone tiptoed around her new surroundings. ‘I suppose we’d better get used to it,’ she said gloomi
ly. ‘It’s probably worse where we’re headed.’
That didn’t help.
Cockroaches weren’t the only problem. After the first night, they discovered there were also bedbugs and rats. In the morning, the girls were covered in itchy bites.
Even worse was the seasickness.
If the English Channel had been rough, the Mediterranean was violent. On the second day, a storm took hold of the ship, lifting the ocean and hurling it against the creaking timbers. They couldn’t stand up without being tossed about like damp towels in a dryer. Carly’s stomach heaved and swam. She spent most of the day retching into a bucket. Fortunately, the food wasn’t worth keeping down anyway.
Everyone was sick – even Florence. The whole seven-day voyage was a nightmare.
‘Should we leave?’ Carly asked weakly. ‘Go back to the present?’
‘And leave Miss Nightingale short of three nurses?’ Simone said with an eye-roll. ‘I thought you were supposed to be the responsible one. Toughen up, princess.’
‘You’ve got a chunk of spew on your chin,’ Carly muttered. But she didn’t argue, for Simone had a point. Besides, the journey would surely be over soon.
Finally, on 3 November, they spied land.
‘There it is, girls,’ Florence said in a shaky voice. ‘Constantinople.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Dora whimpered. ‘We’re here at last.’
‘Actually, we’re not,’ Florence admitted, biting her lip.
Carly groaned. There was more!
They filed off the Vectis on wobbling legs and, for a brief moment, stood upon land. But within an hour, Florence had herded them all into a fleet of small boats. They were to cross the channel to Scutari, where the hospital awaited them.
Luckily, this time it was a short trip. At last they arrived and stumbled out of their boats at the foot of a steep hill. Carly looked up and saw on top of the cliff a vast, tall building with a British flag flying from a tower on each corner. This was where they would live and work. This was the hospital: the Barrack Hospital of Scutari.
The stink hit like a blow to the face. It was so much worse even than olden-day London!
Carly had never smelt anything so vile in all her life. The stink took the breath right out of her lungs. She couldn’t help it; her stomach clenched up and emptied itself all over the ground. It didn’t matter that her vomit was pooling all over the hospital floor. There were much worse things already there.
The hospital was a giant square, with all four sides wrapped around a big courtyard. Carly stood in that courtyard now with her friends, Florence Nightingale, and the other nurses. Rain was bucketing down now - pouring into the yard, turning all the muck in it into a disgusting soup of mud, vomit, rubbish, rats and – judging by the smell of it – probably toilet waste too.
Florence gazed about in horror. ‘It’s even worse than I expected.’
‘What on earth—?’ A man’s voice boomed at them. ‘Who are YOU?’
They turned. A straight-backed man in a long coat, with long sideburns and angry eyes, was glaring at Florence.
‘I, sir, am Miss Nightingale,’ Florence replied in an icy voice. ‘And who are you?’
‘I am Dr Menzies, Chief Medical Officer of this hospital. What on EARTH are you doing here?’
Florence’s mouth fell open in shock. ‘No one told you we were coming?’
Oh, great, thought Carly. He’ll send us away. All that seasickness for nothing.
‘We’ve been sent by the government,’ Florence went on, her voice firm. ‘To help nurse the sick.’
‘We don’t need help!’ Dr Menzies shouted. ‘We’re doing perfectly well here! We don’t need help from a bunch of useless women!’
‘I think it’s pretty clear that you do,’ Florence said coolly, waving a hand at the dreadful mess before her. ‘In any case, it’s not up to you. I have government orders. Come along, girls.’ Florence turned and marched from the courtyard into the hospital.
The soggy nurses followed, their shoes squelching in the filthy mud. So this is what the galoshes are for, Carly thought grimly.
The building was three storeys high, with hospital wards on every floor. They squelched their way onto the ground floor and stood in a wide corridor paved with dirty, broken tiles. The smell inside was just as bad as outside. Worse, if that was possible. Carly stood and trembled, from dread and from the cold. The rain had seeped through her uniform and right down to her bones, or so it seemed. Her feet were frozen. She edged closer to Dora, seeking comfort and warmth. Dora put an arm around her waist.
All along the corridor were doors leading off to one side. ‘They lead to the hospital wards,’ Florence explained. ‘It’s like this on every floor, on all four wings of the building.’
‘So ... how many patients are here?’ Simone asked slowly, as if she was afraid to hear the answer.
‘Oh ...’ Florence hesitated. ‘Maybe a thousand ... or more.’
Carly felt faint. A thousand patients — or more! ‘But—’ she protested, ‘there’s only thirtyeight of us—’
‘Thirty-nine,’ Florence interrupted firmly. ‘Including me.’ She marched through the door to the closest ward.
Carly, Simone, Dora and all the other nurses trailed after her like a flock of bedraggled penguin chicks after their mother. They gathered silently in the room and looked around.
They were in a room about the size of a classroom. All along the far wall, beds were lined up side by side, with barely room to stand between them. A wounded soldier lay in every bed. Their bandaged heads and arms stuck out from beneath dirty grey blankets.
The windows were small, and someone had stuffed filthy rags in the cracked panes to keep out the cold. A wood stove pumped heat into the stuffy room. Through the windows, Carly could see small glimpses of the sea. How fresh and clean it looked out there! Carly longed to open the windows and let in the sea air, even if it meant also letting in the bitter cold.
‘Carly,’ Dora whispered, pointing. Her face was white and her eyes behind her glasses were huge. ‘Look at the chamber pot,’ Dora said.
Carly felt her stomach rise up again. Luckily, there was nothing left in it to spew up. She’d almost got used to using a chamber pot in France. The problem with this old-fashioned type of toilet was that it didn’t flush away; it had to be emptied by someone – like a maid ... or a nurse. And this one was full – very full.
Dora stepped back in horror, and – whoosh! - she slipped on something slimy (Carly didn’t want to know what it was) and nosedived towards the floor. Simone sprang forward and caught her just before she face-planted in the muck. ‘Phew!’ Dora said. They looked down; under the slime, the wooden floor was rotten.
Dr Menzies stormed in. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here,’ he barked. ‘But I refuse to employ you!’
‘Fine,’ Florence replied. ‘We’ll make ourselves at home and wait until you come to your senses. Ladies, follow me!’ She led the nurses to their dormitory. ‘This is where you will live,’ she announced, standing at the door.
Carly gulped. Could things get any worse?
The room was almost bare, and it was filthy. The beds weren’t really beds, but hard-looking couches. There were no chairs, no tables, and no wardrobes. The windows were broken and rain dripped through. It was awful.
‘This will do,’ said Florence.
Carly, Simone and Dora gazed at her in dismay.
‘Well, what were you expecting?’ Florence snapped. ‘Luxury? Come on, stop sulking and get to work. We’ll clean this place up.’
So they did. They all rolled up their sleeves and scrubbed. They washed walls and floors, and pounded the dust out of the ‘beds’. They put buckets under the drips. They washed and wrung out blankets and hung them to dry in the corridor. They found boxes to use as tables.
By the end of the day, they were worn out. The room was still terrible – they couldn’t get rid of the fleas or the smell – but it would do.
Over the next fe
w days, while they waited ‘for the doctors to come to their senses’, as Florence put it, they got ready for work.
‘There’s much to be done,’ Florence told them. ‘The doctors will realise it soon enough. In the meantime, you have a lot to learn. The soldiers are dying at a rate of seventy a day!’
Seventy a day! ‘But why?’ Carly stammered.
‘It’s obvious,’ Simone muttered. ‘Look around you. It’s filthy here. It’s like a magnet for germs.’
‘Germs? What are you talking about?’ Florence asked. ‘Talk sense, girl.’
Simone blushed.
Dora whispered in her ear, ‘I don’t think they’ve discovered germs yet.’
‘Well, someone should tell them,’ Simone shot back at her.
‘I doubt they’d believe it.’
‘Anyway,’ Florence continued, ‘most of the solders are dying from disease, not from their wounds. And by the time they get here from the battlefield, they’re weak from starvation.’
‘Why? Doesn’t the Army feed them?’ Carly asked.
‘Not enough,’ Florence replied. ‘I’ve heard terrible reports about that. The British Government is sending food and clothing and medicines, but for some reason, they’re not getting to the soldiers. I intend to fix that.’
‘OK,’ Carly said. For the first time, she felt a tiny bit of hope. In spite of the filth and the smell and the cold and the rats and the fleas, and in spite of the angry doctors and the fear of death and disease – in spite of all that, Carly felt, well, not happy exactly, but full of something else good.
She felt full of purpose.
And that kept her cheerful – until she went to bed and was eaten alive all night by the lice.
They didn’t have to wait long for the doctors to come to their senses.
On the fourth day, new patients arrived in droves. There had been a battle and hundreds of soldiers were wounded. If they weren’t wounded, they were sick. If they weren’t sick, they were starving or frostbitten. Some were wounded, sick, starving and frostbitten.
