There is little doubt that the fund would have reached the £50,000 which the Committee had set itself to obtain if Miss Nightingale, after her return home, had not herself brought the subscription list to a close in order that public benevolence might be diverted to the fund raised to help the victims of the devastating inundations in France in 1857. Miss Nightingale had seen with great admiration the self-sacrificing work of French ladies and sisters amongst the soldiers in the Crimea, and had been supported in her own efforts by the sympathy of commanding officers of the French troops, so that it gave her peculiar pleasure to promote a fund for helping our late allies when distress came upon their country.
Meantime, the heroine whose work had evoked the great outburst of national gratitude of which the Nightingale Fund was the expression, still remained in the East, to complete her work, for though the fall of Sebastopol had brought the war to an end, the sick and wounded soldiers still lay in the hospitals, and there was an army of occupation in the Crimea pending the conclusion of the peace negotiations. None knew better than Miss Nightingale the evils which beset soldiers in camp when the exigencies of active warfare no longer occupy them, and she now divided her attention between administering to the sick and providing recreation and instruction for the convalescents and the soldiers in camp.
As soon as her health was sufficiently established after the attack of fever, she again left Scutari for the Crimea. Two new camp hospitals, known as the “Left Wing” and the “Right Wing,” consisting of huts, had been put up on the heights above Balaclava, not far from the Sanatorium, and Miss Nightingale established a staff of nurses there, and took the superintendence of the nursing department. She lived in a hut consisting of three rooms with a medical store attached, situated by the Sanatorium and conveniently near the new camp hospitals.
Three of the Roman Catholic sisters who had been working at Scutari accompanied Miss Nightingale to the Crimea, and writing from the hut encampment there to some of the sisters who remained at Scutari, she says: “I want my ‘Cardinal’ (a name bestowed on a valued sister) very much up here. The sisters are all quite well and cheerful, thank God for it! They have made their hut look quite tidy, and put up with the cold and inconveniences with the utmost self-abnegation. Everything, even the ink, freezes in our hut every night.”
The sisters and their Chief had a rough experience on these Balaclava heights. One relates that their hut was far from weather-proof, and on awakening one morning they found themselves covered with snow, which had fallen heavily all night. They were consoled for those little discomforts by the arrival of a gentleman on horseback “bearing the princely present of some eggs, tied up in a handkerchief.” The benefactor was the Protestant chaplain, and the sisters returned his kindness by washing his neckties. But alas! there was no flat iron available, and the sisters, not to be beaten, smoothed out the clerical lawn with a teapot filled with boiling water!
One of the sisters was stricken by fever, and Miss Nightingale insisted on nursing her herself. While watching over the sick bed one night, she saw a rat upon the rafters over the sister’s head, and taking an umbrella, knocked it down and killed it without disturbing her patient.
Strict Protestant as Miss Nightingale was, she maintained the most cordial relations with the Roman Catholic nurses, and was deeply grateful for the loyal way in which they worked under her. When the Rev. Mother who had come out with the sisters to Scutari returned in ill-health to England, Miss Nightingale sent her a letter of farewell in which she said: “You know that I shall do everything I can for the sisters whom you have left me. I will care for them as if they were my own children. But it will not be like you. I do not presume to express praise or gratitude to you, Rev. Mother, because it would look as though I thought you had done this work, not unto God, but unto me. You were far above me in fitness for the general superintendency in worldly talent of administration, and far more in the spiritual qualifications which God values in a superior; my being placed over you was a misfortune, not my fault. What you have done for the work no one can ever say. I do not presume to give you any other tribute but my tears. But I should be glad that the Bishop of Southwark should know, and Dr. Manning [afterwards Cardinal], that you were valued here as you deserve, and that the gratitude of the army is yours.”
The roads over this mountain district where Miss Nightingale was located in the Crimea were very uneven and dangerous, and one day while driving to the hospitals she met with an accident. Her carriage was drawn by a mule, and being carelessly driven by the attendant over a large stone, was upset. Miss Nightingale suffered some injury, and one of the Sisters accompanying her was severely wounded.
To prevent the repetition of such an accident, Colonel Macmurdo presented Miss Nightingale with a specially constructed carriage for her use. It is described as “being composed of wood battens framed on the outside and basket-work. In the interior it is lined with a sort of waterproof canvas. It has a fixed head on the hind part and a canopy running the full length, with curtains at the side to enclose the interior. The front driving seat removes, and thus the whole forms a sort of small tilted waggon with a welted frame, suspended on the back part, on which to recline, and well padded round the sides. It is fitted with patent breaks to the hind wheels so as to let it go gently down the steep hills of the Turkish roads.” This is the carriage which after many vicissitudes is now preserved at Lea Hurst.
The carriage was one of the most interesting exhibits in the Nursing Section of the Victorian Era Exhibition at Earl’s Court. Its preservation and removal to this country are due to the excellent M. Soyer, who on the eve of his departure from the Crimea rescued it from the hands of some Tartar Jews. Miss Nightingale had left it behind, doubtless thinking that it had served its purpose, and being too modest to imagine that it would be of special interest to her fellow-countrymen. M. Soyer, however, saw in that old battered vehicle a precious relic for future generations, and hearing that some Jews were going to purchase it next day, along with a lot of common carts and harness, he obtained permission from Colonel Evans of the Light Infantry to buy the carriage. He afterwards sent it to England by the Argo. The sketch reproduced was taken by Mr. Landells, the artist representing The Illustrated London News in the Crimea. The carriage was an object of great public interest when it arrived at Southampton on the Argo. The Mayor took charge of it until the arrival of M. Soyer, who had the extreme pleasure of restoring it to its famous owner.