“‘And who is to take care of you from this to Turkey?’ asked one of their amazed well-wishers. To which the Sisters only replied that ‘they hoped their guardian angels would kindly do so.’”
Needless to say, the little party did reach its destination safely, and “at last,” writes Sister Aloysius, “a despatch came[14] to say that five Sisters were to proceed to Scutari, to the General Hospital; while arrangements were made for the other ten Sisters to proceed to a house on the Bosphorus, to await further orders. At once the five Sisters started for Scutari: Reverend Mother, Sister M. Agnes, Sister M. Elizabeth, Sister M. Winifred, and myself. When we reached Scutari we were shown to our quarters consisting of one little room, not in a very agreeable locality. However, we were quite satisfied none better could be found, and for this little nook we were thankful.
“Of course, we expected to be sent to the wards at once. Sister M. Agnes and the writer were sent to a store to sort clothes that had been eaten by the rats; Rev. Mother and Sister M. Elizabeth either to the kitchen or to another store. In a dark, damp, gloomy shed we set to work and did the best we could; but, indeed, the destruction accomplished by the rats was something wonderful. On the woollen goods they had feasted sumptuously. They were running about us in all directions; we begged of the sergeant to leave the door open that we might make our escape if they attacked us. Our home rats would run if you ‘hushed’ them; but you might ‘hush’ away, and the Scutari rats would not take the least notice.
“During my stay in the stores I saw numberless funerals pass by the window. Cholera was raging, and how I did wish to be in the wards amongst the poor dying soldiers! Before I leave the stores I must mention that Sister M. Agnes and myself thought the English nobility must have emptied their wardrobes and linen stores to send out bandages for the wounded—the most beautiful underclothing, the finest cambric sheets, with merely a scissors run here and there through them to ensure their being used for no other purpose. And such large bales, too; some from the Queen’s Palace, with the Royal monogram beautifully worked. Whoever sent out these immense bales thought nothing too good for the poor soldiers. And they were right—nothing was too good for them. And now good-bye stores and good-bye rats; for I was to be in the cholera wards in the morning.
“Where shall I begin, or how can I ever describe my first day in the hospital at Scutari? Vessels were arriving, and the orderlies carrying the poor fellows, who, with their wounds and frost-bites, had been tossing about on the Black Sea for two or three days, and sometimes more. Where were they to go? Not an available bed. They were laid on the floor one after another, till the beds were emptied of those dying of cholera and every other disease. Many died immediately after being brought in—their moans would pierce the heart—the taking of them in and out of the vessels must have increased their pain.
“The look of agony in those poor dying faces will never leave my heart.
“Week in, week out, the cholera went on. The same remedies were continued, though almost always to fail. However, while there was life there was hope, and we kept on the warm applications to the last. When it came near the end the patients got into a sort of collapse, out of which they did not rally.
“We begged the orderlies, waiting to take them to the dead-house, to wait a little lest they might not be dead; and with great difficulty we prevailed on them to make the least delay. As a rule the orderlies drank freely—‘to drown their grief,’ they said. I must say that their position was a very hard one—their work always increasing—and such work; death around them on every side; their own lives in continual danger—it was almost for them a continuation of the field of battle.
“The poor wounded men brought in out of the vessels were in a dreadful state of dirt, and so weak that whatever cleaning they got had to be done cautiously. Oh, the state of those fine fellows, so worn out with fatigue, so full of vermin! Most, or all, of them required spoon-feeding. We had wine, sago, arrowroot. Indeed, I think there was everything in the stores, but it was so hard to get them.... An orderly officer took the rounds of the wards every night to see that all was right. He was expected by the orderlies, and the moment he raised the latch one cried out, ‘All right, your honour.’ Many a time I said, ‘All wrong.’ The poor officer, of course, went his way; and one could scarcely blame him for not entering those wards, so filled with pestilence, the air so dreadful that to breathe it might cost him his life. And then, what could he do even if he did come? I remember one day an officer’s orderly being brought in—a dreadful case of cholera; and so devoted was his master that he came in every half-hour to see him, and stood over him in the bed as if it was only a cold he had; the poor fellow died after a few hours’ illness. I hope his devoted master escaped. I never heard.