“Each Sister had charge of two wards, and there was just at this time a fresh outbreak of cholera. The Sisters were up every night; and the cases, as in Scutari and Kullali, were nearly all fatal. Reverend Mother did not allow the Sisters to remain up all night, except in cases of cholera, without a written order from the doctor.
“In passing to the wards at night we used to meet the rats in droves. They would not even move out of our way. They were there before us, and were determined to keep possession. As for our hut, they evidently wanted to make it theirs, scraping under the boards, jumping up on the shelf where our little tin utensils were kept, rattling everything. One night dear Sister M. Paula found one licking her forehead—she had a real horror of them. Sleep was out of the question. Our third day in Balaclava was a very sad one for us. One of our dear band, Sister Winifred, got very ill during the night with cholera. She was a most angelic Sister, and we were all deeply grieved.
“She, the first to go of all our little band, had been full of life and energy the day before. We were all very sad, and we wondered who would be the next.
“Miss Nightingale was at the funeral, and even joined in the prayers. The soldiers, doctors, officers, and officials followed. When all was over we returned to our hut, very sad; but we had no further time to think. Patients were pouring in, and we should be out again to the cholera wards. Besides cholera there were cases of fever—in fact, of every disease. Others had been nearly killed by the blasting of rocks, and they came in fearfully disfigured.
“Father Woolett brought us one day a present of a Russian cat; he bought it, he told us, from an old Russian woman for the small sum of seven shillings. It made a particularly handsome captive in the land of its fathers, for we were obliged to keep it tied to a chair to prevent its escape. But the very sight of this powerful champion soon relieved us of some of our unwelcome and voracious visitors.
“Early in 1856 rumours of peace reached us from all sides. But our Heavenly Father demanded another sacrifice from our devoted little band. Dear Sister Mary Elizabeth was called to a martyrs’ crown.
“She was specially beloved for her extraordinary sweetness of disposition. The doctor, when called, pronounced her illness to be fever; she had caught typhus in her ward. Every loving care was bestowed on her by our dearest Mother, who scarcely ever left her bedside. Death seemed to have no sting.... She had no wish to live or die, feeling she was in the arms of her Heavenly Father. ‘He will do for me what is best,’ she whispered, ‘and His will is all I desire.’”
At Scutari Miss Nightingale’s work of reorganization was bearing swift fruit. The wives of the soldiers were daily employed in the laundry she had established, so that they had a decent livelihood, and the soldiers themselves had clean linen. But, of course, a great many of the soldiers had left their wives and children at home.
A money office also had been formed by the Lady-in-Chief, which helped them in sending home their pay. It was she too who arranged for the safe return of the widows to England, and it was she who provided stamps and stationery for the men, that they might be able to write to those dear to them. No one had had a moment, it seemed, to give thought to anything but the actual warfare with all its horrors, until her womanly sympathy and splendid capacity came on the scene. With her there was always little time lost between planning and achieving, and happily she had power of every kind in her hand. Besides her own means, which she poured forth like water, the people of England had, as we saw, subscribed magnificently through the Times Fund, and with one so practical as the Lady-in-Chief in daily consultation with Mr. Macdonald, there was no longer any fear of giving to church walls what was intended to save the lives of ill-clad and dying soldiers.