“My dear Herbert,—I have now had near a week’s opportunity of closely observing the details of the hospitals at Scutari. First, as to Miss Nightingale and her company, nothing can be said too strong in their praise; she works them wonderfully, and they are so useful that I have no hesitation in saying some twenty more of the same sort would be a very great blessing to the establishment. Her nerve is equal to her good sense; she, with one of her nurses and myself, gave efficient aid at an amputation of the thigh yesterday. She was just as cool as if she had had to do it herself. We are close allies, and through Macdonald and the funds at my own command, I get her everything for which she asks, and this is saying a great deal.
“My honest view of the matter is this: I found but too great evidence of the staff and means being unequal to the emergency; the requirements have almost doubled through the last two unhappy actions at Balaclava. Still, day by day I see manifest improvement; no government, no nation could have provided, on a sudden, staff and appliances for accident wards miles in length, and for such sickness as that horrid Varna dysentery. To manage more than three thousand casualties of the worst nature is indeed a task to be met in an entirely satisfactory way by nothing short of a miraculous energy with the means it would require. The men are landed necessarily in a most pitiable state, and have to be carried up steep ground for considerable distance, either by those beasts of Turks, who are as stupid as callous, or by our invalids, who are not equal to the task. Still, it is done, and as this is war, not peace, and Scutari is really a battlefield, I am more disposed to lament than to blame.
“There seems now, so far as I can see, no lack of lint and plaister; there is a lack of linen,—we have sent home for it. The surgeons are working their utmost, and serious cases seem treated with great humanity and skill. There was and is an awful want of shirts for the men, and socks, and such matters; we have already let Miss Nightingale have all she applies for, and this morning I, with Macdonald’s sanction, or, rather, in concert with him, have sent to the Crimea a large stock of shirts of warm serge, socks, flannel, tea, etc., etc. I spend the best part of every day there acting, at one time as priest to the dying, at another helping the surgeons or the men to dress their wounds; again, I go to the landing-place and try to work them into method for an hour or two, etc., etc. One and all are now most kind and civil to me, meet my wishes in every way they can. Alas! I fear, with every possible effort of the existing establishment, the crisis is still too great; there are wanting hundreds of beds—that is, many hundreds have only matting between the beds and the stone floor. I slept here Sunday night, and walked the wards late and early in the morning; I fear the cold weather in these passages will produce on men so crippled and so maimed much supplementary evil in the way of coughs and chest diseases. The wounded do better than the sick. I scarce pray with one of the latter one day but I hear he is dead on the morrow.... I am glad to say the authorities have left off swearing they had everything and wanted nothing; they are now grateful for the help which, with the fund at command, we liberally meet. The wounds are, many of them, of the most fearful character, and yet I have not heard a murmur, even from those who, from the pressing urgency of the case, are often left with most obvious grounds of complaint. Stafford O’Brien is here; he, at my suggestion, aids my son and self in letter writing for the poor creatures. My room is a post office; I pay the post of every letter from every hospital patient, and we write masses every day. They show one what the British soldier really is; I only wish to God the people of England, who regard the red coat as a mere guise of a roystering rake in the private and a dandified exclusive in the officer, could see the patience, true modesty, and courageous endurance of all ranks.
“Understand me clearly. I could pick many a hole; I could show where head has been wanting, truth perverted, duty neglected, etc.; but I feel that the pressure was such and of so frightful, so severe (in one way) a character, there is such an effort at what we desire, that I for one cry out of the past ‘non mi ricordo;’ of the present, ‘If the cart is in the rut, there is every shoulder at the wheel.’ The things wanted we cannot wait for you to supply, in England; if the slaughter is to go on as it has done the last fortnight, the need must be met at once. Macdonald is doing his work most sensibly, steadily, and I believe not only with no offence to any, but is earning the goodwill of all.”
Truth is a two-edged sword, and for purposes of rebuke or reform Miss Nightingale used it at times with keenness and daring. In that sense this glowing, loving-hearted woman knew how on occasions to be stern. Her salt never lost its savour. She was swift, efficient, capable to the last degree, and she was also high-spirited and sometimes sharp-tongued. Perhaps we love her all the more for being so human. A person outwardly all perfection, if not altogether divine, is apt to give the idea that there are faults hidden up somewhere. It was not so with Miss Nightingale. Her determination to carry at all costs the purpose she had in hand laid her often open to criticism, for, just as she was ready on occasion to override her own feelings, so also she was ready sometimes to override the feelings of others. Mr. Herbert judged from her letters that an addition to her staff of nurses would be welcome, but we saw that when the new band of forty-six arrived, under the escort of Miss Nightingale’s old friend Miss Stanley, they were not admitted to the hospital at Scutari, and to tell the truth, Miss Nightingale was very angry at their being thrust upon her, just when she was finding her own staff rather a “handful.” In point of fact, she not only wrote a very warm letter to her old friend Mr. Herbert, but she also formally gave in her resignation.
This was not accepted. Mr. Herbert’s generous sweetness of nature, his love for the writer, and his belief that she was the one person needed in the hospitals, and was doing wonders there, led him to write a very noble and humble reply, saying that he had made a mistake—which, indeed, was true enough—in taking his well-meant step without consulting her. She yielded her point in so far as to remain at her post, now that Miss Stanley and her staff had moved on to Therapia and Smyrna, and were doing real good there, Miss Stanley having given up all her own plans, to remain and look after the nurses who had come under her escort.
But, apart from the fact that it would have been a great hindrance to discipline to have forty-six women on her hands who had not promised obedience to her, as had her own nurses, a little sidelight is thrown upon it all by these words in one of Miss Stanley’s own letters, speaking of the nurses under her guardianship:—