Where Love Shines (3 page)

As she began arranging her mats in neat rows eighteen inches apart, Jennifer decided she preferred the sharply acrid charcoal smell to the putrid, sulphurous stench of the other rooms. They had not finished laying down their pallets when the first of the wounded arrived.

Miss Nightingale kept Jennifer and four other nurses to take care of the new arrivals while the others returned to the tower for more mats. Mrs. Watson took several of the soldiers’ wives and camp followers, who had finished cleaning the room, to get fresh basins of water and clean rags so the nurses could wash the wounded soldiers. One of the first things Florence Nightingale had done when she arrived in Scutari more than a month ago had been to set up wash houses so the men could have clean clothes and blankets and the women of the camp could be provided with jobs. Before that the men had been left in their blood-and-mud-caked uniforms just as they were carried from the field.

But the nurses could do nothing more than wash the soldiers and give them drinks. Florence Nightingale was absolutely adamant—no nurse was to administer anything to a patient without specific orders from a doctor. Nurses worked under doctors’ orders. And there were no exceptions. Even when Florence had first arrived and the doctors had refused to allow the women into the wards for any purpose other than scrubbing the floors, she had curbed her impatience and obeyed. Only the desperate pressure of hundreds of wounded pouring in upon them from the Battle of Inkerman had made Dr. Menzies give way and shout, “Miss Nightingale, where are your nurses?”

Jennifer took a pan of water and knelt by the pallet nearest her. The soldier couldn’t have been much more than fifteen years old, and his left arm had been shattered at the elbow. The hastily applied battlefield dressing would have fallen off long ago if it hadn’t stuck to the dried blood. Jennifer forced herself to give the lad a brave smile as she began washing his face. “What’s your name?”

“Colin, miss,” he answered in a broad Midlands accent.

“Oh, my cousin was named Colin—about your age, too.” Jenny bit her lip, hoping the soldier hadn’t noticed her use of the past tense. She tried to engage her patients in conversation in hopes of taking their minds off the pain, but mentioning her cousin who was killed at Alma would be of little comfort.

She was washing her fifth patient when Dr. Pannier arrived, followed by two orderlies carrying boards to set up a trestle table. Colin was the first to be moved to the table. Jennifer turned all her attention to removing the blood-stiffened jacket of a soldier with a shoulder injury. She couldn’t bear to watch—or listen. She knew what would come next. The hospital was so short of space that amputations had to be performed in the wards in front of the very men who would be operated on next. And performed without anesthetic. Dr. Hall, principal medical officer of the army, had cautioned regimental surgeons against using chloroform, although it was rumored that the Scottish surgeon Munro used it regularly for field amputations with good results. But the question was irrelevant—no chloroform was available at Scutari.

Florence Nightingale had determined, however, to spare the men awaiting amputation at least the horror of watching those before them go under the surgeon’s saw. She entered now carrying a set of screens, which she set up around the operating table. Jennifer was thankful that at least Colin could have this small privacy. She felt a tightness in her throat as she glanced around the room, remembering Miss Nightingale’s words:
In a whole wing of the hospital the men do not average three limbs apiece.
It was clear from the blood-soaked rags in this room that the statistics would not be improved. Jennifer returned to her washing with determined energy. It was the one thing she could do to help the men, and the harder she worked, the less time she had to think.

By eight o’clock that night all the new arrivals were washed and resting with clean blankets on clean pallets. Some were even sleeping, some talking to their neighbors. Some were drinking mugs of arrowroot laced with generous portions of port wine—Florence Nightingale’s own recipe—which the nurses were able to serve reasonably warm since Miss Nightingale had established two new kitchens in the barracks. None of the day’s arrivals had died. It was a victory as hard-won as any on the battlefield.

“Time for quarters, Miss Neville.” Florence approached Jennifer, who was holding an empty milk pail and ladle after serving the last of her arrowroot.

Jennifer nodded. The rule was inviolable: no nurse was to be in the wards after eight o’clock. It would not be proper. Florence Nightingale always made the final night round herself. And Jennifer understood. Part of Florence’s careful attention was motivated by her deep love for the soldiers—caring for each one as if he were her own son or brother. Part of it was Florence’s determination to see personally that everything was done right as far as was possible. And part of it must have been the fact that after the hectic crises of each day, a quiet walk through the wards was restful and reassuring. Jennifer felt the need for that herself tonight. “Miss Nightingale, may I be permitted to accompany you on your rounds?”

“Wouldn’t you rather rest? I’ve observed how hard you have worked today.”

“No harder than you, Miss Nightingale. And I don’t think I could settle to resting just yet. I believe I would find a walk soothing.”

Florence smiled and nodded. “I should be glad of your company, Miss Neville.”

They made their way back to the crowded tower quarters where the other nurses were writing letters, reading, and chatting. Florence took her whale oil lamp off a shelf and turned once again to the seemingly endless corridors of the barracks. “You are a good nurse, Miss Neville. What is your background? You aren’t trained in nursing, are you?”

Jennifer’s reply was delayed as Florence stopped to help a man with one arm arrange his blanket more comfortably. She spoke a few soft words to him, brushed his forehead with her hand, and then turned to adjust a stump rest for the man on the next pallet.

Jennifer smiled and shook her head. “Hardly. You know how impossible that would be. My family would never allow such a thing. Charity work in London—that was acceptable, of course. I assisted a bit at one of Lord Shaftesbury’s ragged schools. That was how I met Mary Stanley.” Jennifer could see by the shadow flicking across Florence’s face that Mary Stanley was not a happy subject. She changed courses quickly. “I had a cousin killed in the battle of Alma, so my family agreed to my coming to the Crimea to try to help other young men—after those awful stories appeared in the
Times
about the suffering here.” Jennifer fleetingly considered telling Florence Nightingale about her other reason for wanting to get away from London, but then thought better of it.

Florence stopped again to speak to a restless soldier. Several times their progress was interrupted by men who offered a quiet greeting or merely a smile or wave. Florence helped several men who were unable to drink unaided from the canteens resting by their pallets.

Then she picked up her lamp and resumed her walk, continuing their conversation in a hushed voice so as not to disturb the sleeping men. “I daresay. Mr. William Howard Russell is the greatest hero of the Crimea for his war dispatches informing the British public of the true state of matters here. I would not be here myself had he not made the truth known.”

Jennifer had judged correctly. There was no need to tell Florence Nightingale about the persistent Mr. Merriott. To her a passion for doing good was explanation enough. Jenny sighed. If only she could be so single-minded.

They had now reached the end of the corridor and turned into one of the large wards. Already the walk seemed endless, and they had covered less than one-fourth of the hospital. The passages that appeared merely long during the day went on forever in the hush of the night. The very shadows muffled the sounds of men turning on straw-stuffed mats, the quiet moans or sharp cries from fevered sleepers, and the ever-present rustle and squeak of rats.

In the high-ceilinged ward the noises sounded further away yet, the silence profound. A few dim lights flickered from window sills and wall brackets. Even the sleeping men appeared to become more peaceful when the light of Florence Nightingale’s lantern passed over them. She set the light down and bent over another patient. Jennifer admired her manner—her touch was so tender and kind. Then Florence picked up her lamp, and they resumed their progress.

It was in one of the upstairs corridors that Miss Nightingale paused before entering a ward. “These poor men have been here since a few days after I arrived. They are from the terrible battle of Balaclava.” She shook her head. “One hears such horrible stories of military blunders. I don’t know—when there is so much unavoidable pain and suffering in the world—that which is inflicted by sheer stupidity seems to me the most evil. I try not to waste my time on futile anger—and yet sometimes…” Florence led the way into the room.

Somehow the silence in this room was deader than in any of the others, as if the men, having been here so long were resigned to their suffering being endless. Or perhaps Jennifer was just being fanciful. Perhaps they were simply able to sleep more soundly in quarters to which they had become accustomed. Or perhaps some of them were nearer to recovery. One could at least hope, although it seemed unlikely. Always there were the inexplicable deaths from hospital fever among patients well past the danger of wound fever. Men nearly ready to be released were known to sicken and die suddenly, as if the hospital itself made them sick.

Florence Nightingale set her lamp down to help a man with no legs find a more comfortable position on his cot. This ward was furnished with actual army beds rather than the improvised straw pallets. Jennifer looked at the soldier in the next bed. He lay half-sitting, propped against the wall, his forehead and eyes swathed in bandages. He seemed to be sleeping, yet his right hand moved restlessly as if groping for something that wasn’t there.

Without stopping to think that she should seek permission, Jennifer knelt and slipped her hand into his. The restless motion stopped instantly. The sleeping man sighed. But Jennifer looked up sharply. “Miss Nightingale, this man has fever. His hand is burning.”

Jennifer felt desperate as she looked at his high cheekbones, well-formed mouth, and squared chin beneath the bandages. Not yet another sacrifice to hospital fever.
Please, Lord, not this one, too.
In just the few days she had been here she had seen too many apparently recovering men go this way. Even with all the horrors of battle, far more men died of fever and disease than of wounds.

She looked at her supervisor. “Have we nothing we can give him?” Jennifer felt the fine, long fingers that gripped hers. This one wouldn’t die if she could help it.

Florence Nightingale shook her head. “I shall ask Dr. Menzies tomorrow if we can give him some loxa quinine and theriac drops. Until then you may bathe him with vinegar water and give him sips of cool liquid.”

Jennifer nodded. She knew the rules—nothing to be administered without doctor’s orders. She managed to remove the cap from his canteen with her free hand. The water inside felt tepid and smelled stale. If only she had something better for him.

Then she knew. She had not taken her own allotment of wine that day. That would calm him. Florence agreed. Army ration wine would not be beyond the scope of her authority to administer. “I will complete my rounds and then return here for you.” The light of the lamp moved on, leaving Jennifer in semidarkness.

Carefully she slipped her hand from the soldier’s. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered to the ear left exposed by his bandages. Perhaps he heard. She hurried through the dim corridors filled with silent men to the kitchen Florence Nightingale had established in the nurses’ tower.

In a few minutes she was back kneeling by the soldier. She removed the ragged blue jacket of his 17th Lancers’ uniform—he did not need the added warmth now—and unbuttoned his shirt. She bathed his arms and chest with a rag dipped in cool vinegar water. She could feel his hot body cooling under her hands. Every few minutes she slipped a spoonful of wine between his chapped lips.

When he had taken it all, she held his hand again. This time his sleep was less restless, deeper and more natural. Could the fever have broken? She prayed that it had.

Her legs were beginning to cramp by the time Florence Nightingale returned, yet she didn’t want to go. Reluctantly, she got to her feet and joined her supervisor. “There are so many—it seems hopeless.”

Jennifer sighed as they left the ward. “Yet if I can save just one, my time here will seem worthwhile.” She paused to sort out her thoughts. “Miss Nightingale, our vicar says Christ died for the whole world, but that if there had been just one person, He would have done the same thing. I hope you won’t think it sacrilegious of me—but I feel I’m following His example in a small way.”

Florence gave a tired smile. “Yes. I know.”

In the dark and quiet of the night, Jennifer felt freer to speak to this woman who was already becoming a legend in London. “Miss Nightingale, how do you
know
if something is right—if it’s what God wants you to do? You always seem so sure. We are told to obey our parents—and yet…”

Florence nodded. “And yet it’s not always so simple, is it? Perhaps you have heard rumors of how sadly I disappointed my parents by not choosing the brilliant social marriage offered me. But it was an easy decision in my case.”

“Easy?”
How could such a decision ever be easy?

“I was not quite seventeen when God spoke to me.” Florence slowed her step, as if reliving the moment. “I do not mean through the Scripture or with an inward impression as He most often speaks. I heard an actual voice speaking to me in human words. From that moment I knew God had called me to His service. I did not know what form that service was to take, but I knew He would show me. When the way opened for nursing, then I knew.”

Jenny could only shake her head.

The two women ascended the steep stone stairs to their tower rooms without further talking. In the small space filled with twenty other women, Jennifer all but fell on her pallet. She felt as if every bone in her body ached from weariness. Yet she could not sleep. A dim light shone under the door. Florence Nightingale was still up writing letters and reports.