by Gill Paul
Wounded men trickled in. Most injuries were as a result of recoil from the big guns or accidental fire from their own side. Dorothea was nervous assisting at her first operation with Mr Crawford. She hoped she would not let him down by becoming nauseous or faint when his knife cut into flesh, but in fact she found she could stay clear-headed by focusing on what needed to be done. She thought about the instruments rather than the incision, about the patient rather than what was being done to them.
Mr Crawford’s instructions were clear and precise. Three patients needed shell fragments or bullets removed from their flesh, and Dorothea held out a basin to receive them, then threaded the needle with silkworm suture for Mr Crawford to close the wounds again. His freckled hands were quick and skilful. At their first leg amputation, she poured two drops of chloroform onto a rag and held it over the terrified soldier’s mouth, murmuring words of comfort as he drifted into unconsciousness. At Mr Crawford’s request, she passed him his long, thin knife, which he used to slice through the flesh below the knee, then his bone saw so he could cut through the tibia and fibula. The grinding noise was rather grim but Dorothea focused on soaking up the blood that was pumping from the femoral artery and soon the lower limb was detached. Mr Crawford had left a long flap of skin to fold over the wound and finished it with neat, sure stitches, checking his handiwork from all sides before calling for porters to carry the man to a ward. Dorothea breathed a sigh of relief: she had got through an amputation without faltering, and now she was sure she would do fine as a surgical nurse.
She was by the soldier’s side when he came round later, queasy from the chloroform but anxious to know how the operation had gone.
‘Am I going to make it, Sister?’ he asked.
It was always a difficult question to answer because she didn’t like to give false hope, but in this instance she answered, ‘Don’t worry, you’re in good hands. And the leg is only lost below the knee so it will be easier for you to walk again.’ She gave him some opium for the pain, mopped his brow with a cool cloth and tucked the blanket round him.
As the opium took effect, he became a little delirious, asking, ‘Can’t I have a kiss, Maude? Go on, just a little one on the lips,’ before drifting off to sleep.
Next morning, as Dorothea changed his dressing, she couldn’t resist teasing him: ‘So who is this Maude? And is she often so forward as to kiss you?’
The poor lad blushed crimson to the roots of his hair and mumbled apologies.
Dorothea was pleased to note that Mr Crawford’s handiwork had been successful: the stump had stopped oozing and there was no sign of infection. It would have been hard to work so intensively with a surgeon whose work she did not respect.
*
Towards the end of April, Dorothea was working in one of the Castle Hospital huts when the door opened and a party of three fashionably dressed ladies in riding gear entered. Dorothea blinked, wondering if she was hallucinating. They wore tight-fitting velvet jackets with peplums, full silk-taffeta riding skirts and plumed hats in sprigged maroon, forest green and golden bronze, as if on a day trip to Royal Ascot.
Dorothea approached the party and a man, who appeared to be some kind of tour guide, stepped forwards. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said, bowing slightly. ‘I’m showing these ladies some of the sights of the Crimean War and wondered if you would mind us looking round your hospital?’
Before she could reply, one of the ladies interrupted: ‘We’ve just ridden along the valley where the valiant Light Brigade charged and it’s full of the most beautiful wildflowers, as if they’ve sprung from the blood of the men killed there. It was most moving.’
‘And we walked along a redoubt and looked over into Sevastopol,’ another joined in gaily. ‘It was such fun, but shortly after we passed the Russians started firing. They only just missed us!’
‘You don’t mind if we look around the wards and chat to some of the patients, do you?’ the man asked again.
Mr Crawford had entered the hut and overheard their exchange. ‘I’d appreciate it if you would stick with Nurse Gray,’ he said. ‘She will direct you to patients who are sufficiently well for a visit. Some are too poorly for any …’ – he hesitated, choosing his words carefully – ‘additional excitement.’
Dorothea was disgusted by the festive air of the group and would have banned their visit entirely, left to her own devices. Did they not realise there were men in the room who were dying? Was death to become a spectator sport? But Mr Crawford had said she must guide them around, and so she did, with veiled resentment.
First she introduced the ladies to a gunner who’d had eleven shards of shrapnel removed from his back, so he had to lie on his stomach while the wounds healed; he twisted his head to smile up at them. Next they met an infantryman who had lost a hand while cleaning his Minié rifle. And then she took them to a patient with a deep thigh wound that had succumbed to gangrene. She removed the dressing so they could see the blackish-green putrefying flesh and experience the rotting smell of the thick, oozing pus; they had said they wanted to see the sights of the war, after all.
There was a shriek and one of the ladies fainted, fortunately being caught by their guide before hitting the floor. Dorothea fetched a chair and some smelling salts to revive her and as she administered them, she caught a glint of amusement in Mr Crawford’s eyes. The touring party hurried out soon afterwards, and he came over for a word.
‘Of all the patients on the ward, it was interesting you should choose to introduce them to our gangrene patient. I imagine, like me, that you were finding the frivolity of the lady tourist rather hard to stomach.’
‘It was my first experience. I didn’t know that such a thing existed. Had you encountered them before?’
‘I’ve met several parties of lady tourists, who have sailed out here on their yachts to view the sights. Did you hear there is now a racetrack behind the British camp where you can bet on your horse of choice, or enjoy a lavish picnic? I think it might require one of the lady tourists to be shot for them to show more respect for the fact that this is a war. Perhaps I shall arrange it.’
His expression was resigned as he turned away, but Dorothea was in a bad temper about the lady tourists all morning.
One evening in early May, Dorothea’s heart leapt when a messenger brought her a letter from her father. She skimmed the first page in which he whined about the pain in his back, saying that Henderson was quite incapable of administering a poultice correctly and asking if Dorothea would please hurry home. Poor Papa; she missed him. Now they were so far apart she even sympathised with his hypochondria. He gave her Adelaide Cresswell’s address, as she had requested, and only mentioned in a postscript that Lucy had still not arrived in London. It was clear he did not appreciate the situation as he wrote, ‘Please ask her to hurry up, because I require her company.’
It was now more than four months since Lucy had last been seen and Dorothea felt sick with anxiety every time she thought of her. She could picture her so clearly – laughing at the antics of the squirrels in Russell Square, or singing a beautiful melody – and it seemed impossible she could be dead. Lucy was too young, too full of vigour. But if not, had she been taken prisoner by the Russians? How would they treat their captives? If she was being held inside the besieged town of Sevastopol, she must be starving. Did they have hospitals in the city? Fresh water? Was she being abused by her captors? Dorothea lay awake at night, endlessly going over the possibilities and trying to come up with a plan to find her, but there seemed little she could do except wait till the war’s end then renew her search.
She got up at first light and wrote to Adelaide Cresswell, introducing herself and asking if she could think of anyone to whom Lucy had become attached during her time overseas, someone to whom she might have fled after Charlie’s death. It seemed a long shot, but for the time being it was the only one she had left.
Chapter Twenty-seven
5th May 1855
An important visitor arrived i
n Balaklava that spring: Miss Florence Nightingale, no less, had decided to visit the battlefield outposts and try to impose the rigorous standards she had introduced in Scutari. Elizabeth Davis told Dorothea that a Sanitary Commission had been sent to Scutari by the new Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, to investigate the extremely high fatality rate in the hospital. They had found the barracks building was sited on top of a festering cesspit, that excrement was seeping into the water supply and that one of the drains was blocked by a decomposing horse carcass. Miss Nightingale had sought to keep the wards clean and fresh, but every time she opened a window poisonous vapours were creeping in. Suddenly Dorothea had a vivid recollection of the vile smell of the cellars at the Barracks Hospital, and she shuddered.
‘And now Miss Nightingale has come to Crimea to impose the Sanitary Commission’s recommendations on us,’ Elizabeth continued. ‘I’ve already had her poking around in my kitchen asking questions about the provisions. She brought a French chef to advise us on providing a more varied diet for the men. Ridiculous! The menu is as varied as it could possibly be, given the ingredients we have to work with.’ She snorted and clattered the poker she was using to stir the embers in the stove in their room.
Later that day, Miss Nightingale breezed into Dorothea’s ward at the Castle Hospital, a brief nod her only acknowledgement they had met before, and there was no mention of the letter Dorothea had written to her about Lucy. She was followed by Mrs Roberts, who was making notes in a little book. Dorothea watched, annoyed, as Miss Nightingale began her own ward round without so much as a by your leave. At each bed she bent to ask the occupant how he was feeling, to check the wound dressing and the cleanliness of the bedding. She called Dorothea across to one bed where a smear of fresh blood had oozed through a dressing onto the sheet and insisted that the sheet be changed straight away. Dorothea bit her tongue and complied, although as far as she was aware Miss Nightingale had no official jurisdiction in Crimea.
‘How do you manage without a proper kitchen at this hospital?’ she asked. ‘Surely meals are cold before they are served to these poor men?’
Dorothea assured her that porters were capable of bringing up food from the General Hospital very quickly, while still perfectly warm, but Miss Nightingale was looking for areas she could improve and decided this was one. A new kitchen must be built at the Castle Hospital. Dorothea knew Elizabeth would be furious. Miss Nightingale also visited their medicine supply cupboard along with Mr Fitzgerald and reeled off a list of remedies she felt were missing. ‘There’s no sulphuric acid! How on earth do you manage without it? And I don’t see any senna pods.’
Mr Fitzgerald meekly wrote a list, promising to see what he could do.
‘No, don’t see, Mr Fitzgerald. Just do!’
She turned her piercing gaze on Dorothea. ‘Nurse Gray, do you write to the mothers of the men who die?’
‘I try,’ Dorothea faltered. ‘But it’s not always possible. Some are without identification and never regain consciousness, while others pass through quickly on their way elsewhere. But I was much taken with the example you set in Scutari and have endeavoured when I can to write a letter for the soldier, if he is able to dictate one, or to contact his family directly when he is not. We have very little time …’ She tailed off, realising that Miss Nightingale’s attention had already shifted to the organisation of the linen cupboard.
‘Miss Nightingale, before you go … I wonder if you were able to ask if anyone has seen my sister in Scutari? She has been missing for almost six months and I’m most anxious about her.’
The dark eyes turned on her and Dorothea thought she saw a flash of compassion, just for an instant, but the words were formal: ‘I’m surprised at you, Nurse Gray. You must surely realise the impossibility of me taking time to find one individual in the midst of all this suffering.’
Dorothea nodded, downcast, and Miss Nightingale strode out to the corridor, followed by her entourage. Mr Crawford and another surgeon were hiding round a corner but they fled as the party advanced, keen to avoid an introduction to the irksome visitor. The patients were anxious to meet her, though, and beamed after a visit as if it had been Queen Victoria herself at their bedside. Dorothea eavesdropped on a few conversations and was impressed by the way Miss Nightingale listened carefully to each soldier’s story, asking questions about his family and how he came to be in the army. She had the talent of making each one feel as though he mattered.
She may have been popular with the patients, but the same certainly could not be said for the staff. Dorothea and Elizabeth now slept in a newly built hut on the hillside and every night when Dorothea returned, she had fresh complaints about Miss Nightingale, who had completely changed the kitchen arrangements and rearranged the stores so that nothing could be found any more. She complained that Miss Nightingale had made an almighty fuss after spotting a rat outside a pantry, and Elizabeth had remarked that it was by design she kept the rats outside rather than inside the food store.
‘If she had seen all the rats when I arrived here, nesting in the pantry they were. Their babes were being born in the vats of flour that were used to make the men’s bread. Since I set up my traps and barricades there has not been a single instance of a rat found in our store cupboards, not one, and she makes a huge hurly-burly about seeing one in the corridor outside. Pah!’ She was shaking with rage. ‘Someone had better get that woman out of here or I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
It wasn’t someone but something that incapacitated Miss Nightingale: eight days after her arrival in Balaklava she succumbed to a fever and collapsed. She was carried in a litter to one of the huts at the Castle Hospital and attended by the Principal Medical Officer, Dr Arthur Anderson, who said it was among the worst cases of Crimean fever he had come across. This was a strange illness they had encountered on the peninsula in which normal fever symptoms were accompanied by nosebleeds, black stools and a painfully swollen liver. Mrs Roberts took charge of nursing the famous patient but Dorothea offered to relieve her for a few hours at a time when she wanted to rest. Mrs Roberts was reluctant to leave the hut so they had another bed delivered, in which she could sleep while Dorothea sat cooling Miss Nightingale’s skin with damp cloths and dripping water through her lips to keep her hydrated. Her hair had been shaved to cool the brain but still her skin was burning to the touch and she moaned and raved like one demented.
‘There is a phantom, a Persian phantom,’ she mumbled, tossing her head from side to side. ‘It’s too much money. Tell them not to do it.’ She suddenly gripped Dorothea’s hand in a fierce hold. ‘You must stop them.’
Dorothea agreed she would stop them.
‘There are three principles. Three. Are you sure you know what you are doing?’ Miss Nightingale raised her head from the pillow and glared at her, still gripping her hand.
‘I understand. Three principles,’ Dorothea repeated. ‘Now please try to rest.’
It was alarming to see this titan quite so gravely ill. The soldiers idolised her and the British public had more or less sanctified her; it would be a massive blow to morale if she should die.
Word of Miss Nightingale’s illness spread. One day Mary Seacole came trundling into Dorothea’s ward, bringing with her the aroma of sweetmeats and freshly baked bread that seemed to hang around her person.
‘I’ve brought Miss Nightingale a bottle of my fever potion. They won’t take it from the likes of me but p’rhaps you can give it to her?’ She smiled broadly, showing off her pearly teeth.
‘I doubt Mrs Roberts will give it to her unless you are able to tell me what it contains,’ Dorothea said, peering at the reddish-brown liquid. ‘She is very protective, as if Miss Nightingale is her own child.’
‘It’s a remedy I’ve taken myself on many occasions and prescribed to hundreds. It has never failed to cure fever.’
‘Even so, she will want more reassurance.’
Mary was reluctant but at last she gave Dorothea a list of her ingredients: pomegr
anate rind boiled with powdered cinnamon, guava fruit and shavings of bitter bark from the dogwood tree. ‘I can’t get the dogwood bark or guava here so this precious elixir is a bottle I brought with me from Jamaica. Give Miss Nightingale half a glass every four hours and I guarantee the fever will break within a day.’
Dorothea decided had it been her she would have taken the potion, which sounded innocuous at least, but Mrs Roberts refused outright.
‘Miss Nightingale did not visit the British Hotel as she heard of its reputation for rowdiness. Fresh pies and cakes for the troops is one thing, but too much ruby wine is quite another. Mrs Seacole is a bartender, not a physician, although I hear she tries to masquerade as a healer. I know I speak for Miss Nightingale in refusing her remedy.’
Mrs Roberts proved a formidable door-keeper and Dorothea was delighted when Fanny Duberly, who had come to offer her best wishes, was refused admittance. Mrs Roberts also tried to refuse Lord Raglan but was forced to admit him when his rank and position was emphasised. By that stage, Dorothea knew that Miss Nightingale had turned the corner. The fever had passed, as had the hallucinations, but she was still so weak she couldn’t have summoned the strength to get out of bed. It was going to be some time before she was capable of returning to work.
On the 5th June, a litter carried Britain’s national heroine down to the harbour and she set sail for Scutari, where she promised to rest as much as possible until her health fully returned. The date of her departure was not chosen at random: the 6th June marked the commencement of the next major British and French attack on Sevastopol, so Miss Nightingale’s ship pulled out of Balaklava just in time to avoid the onslaught.