The life of Florence Nightingale

Throughout the spring of 1855 disease continued its ravages amongst the soldiers in the Crimea without abatement, and there was an increase of typhus fever in its worst form. The constitutions of the men were so undermined by the privations through which they had passed that they were unable to fight against the disease.

The “men with the spades” had no cessation from their melancholy toil at Scutari. Deaths occurred daily in the hospitals, and the stricken took the places of the dead only themselves to die before another day had dawned.

The fever also attacked the hospital staff. Eight of the surgeons were prostrated, and of these seven died. Miss Nightingale herself tended Dr. Newton and Dr. Struthers in their last moments, a matter of inexpressible comfort to their friends. For a time there was only one medical attendant in a fit state of health to wait on the sick in the Barrack Hospital, and his services were needed in twenty-four wards. Three of the nurses were also attacked by the fever. With the medical staff prostrated and fever threatening her own band, the duties and responsibilities of the Lady-in-Chief became more formidable. She bore the strain in a marvellous manner, and there is no record that throughout this terrible winter at Scutari she was once unable to discharge her duties. An inflexible will and iron nerve carried her over all difficulties, and it seemed as though Florence Nightingale led a charmed life.

Hitherto she had been spared the sorrow of seeing any of her own band stricken by death, but just when the sweet spring-time was lifting the gloom of this winter of terrible experiences the call came to one of the best beloved of her nurses, Miss Elizabeth Anne Smythe. She had accompanied Miss Nightingale to Scutari, was a personal friend, and had been trained by her. Miss Smythe’s beautiful character and her capabilities as a nurse made her very valuable to her chief, who with great regret consented that she should go from Scutari to the hospital at Kullali, where help seemed more urgently needed. Miss Nightingale had hoped that they might have continued to work side by side until the end of the campaign, but the young sister felt a call to go to Kullali, where help was needed.

Shortly after her arrival she wrote to her friends in excellent spirits with every indication of being in good health, and said how glad she was to have had the courage to come. The presence of such a bright, well-qualified nurse was a great acquisition to the hospital staff, and she soon became a favourite with the patients. In a few days, however, she was stricken with the malignant fever. It was hoped against hope that her youth and good constitution would enable her to resist the attack, and for eight days she lay between life and death, anxiously watched by doctors and nurses. Then peacefully she fell asleep and passed to her martyr’s crown.

She was the first of the “Angel Band” to be stricken by death, and her loss cast a gloom over those that remained, but as Miss Nightingale has herself said, “Martyrs there must be in every cause.”

The funeral of the beloved young sister took place at Easter-time under bright azure skies, when Nature was decking that Eastern land in a fresh garb of loveliness. The simple coffin, covered with a white pall, emblematic of the youthful purity of her who slept beneath, was conveyed through the streets of Smyrna to the English burying-ground, a route of two miles, through crowds of sympathetic spectators. The coffin was preceded by a detachment of fifty soldiers, marching sorrowfully with arms reversed. Immediately in front of the coffin walked two chaplains, and on either side were sisters and nurses. Military and medical officers followed the cortège, which passed through the silent streets, a touching and pathetic spectacle. Christian and Moslem alike joined in paying a tribute of homage to one whose deeds of mercy lifted her above the strife of creeds.

Before many weeks had passed by, Miss Nightingale was again called to mourn the loss of another of her helpers. The next claimed by death was Sister Winifred, a Sister of Charity, who, with other nuns from Ireland, was tending the Irish soldiers in the hospital at Balaclava, to which they had recently come from Scutari and Kullali. Only a few days after her arrival Sister Winifred was attacked by cholera, which had broken out afresh at Balaclava.

Very touching is the account which Sister Mary Aloysius gives of the death of her comrade: “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 was attacked at about three o’clock in the morning with the symptoms which were now so well known to us; every remedy was applied; our beloved Rev. Mother never left her. She was attended by Father Unsworth, from whom she received the last rites of our holy religion; and she calmly breathed her last on the evening of the same day. A hut was arranged in which to place the remains; and so alarming were the rats—and such huge animals were they—that we had to watch during the night so that they should not touch her. She, the first to go of our little band (viz. the Roman Catholic sisters), had been full of life and energy the day before. We were all very sad, and we wondered who would be the next.”

A burial-place was found for Sister Winifred on a piece of ground between two rocks, on the hills of Balaclava, where her remains could repose without fear of desecration. The funeral formed a contrast to that of the Protestant sister at Smyrna, but was equally impressive. We can picture the sad cavalcade, distinguished by the symbols of the Roman Catholic faith, wending its way up the hillside to the lonely spot in the rocks above the Black Sea. Two priests preceded the coffin, chanting the prayers, and the black-robed nuns came closely behind, while soldiers and military and medical officers followed.

Amongst the mourning band walked one tall, slight figure dressed simply in black whose presence arrested attention. It was Florence Nightingale, who had come to pay her tribute of love and honour to the sister who, if divided by faith, had been united with her in holy work and deeds of mercy.

A tribute was paid to the memory of Sister Winifred in a poem by a friend, from which we quote the following verses:—

The grave of Sister Winifred was, unhappily, not destined to remain solitary. In the early spring of 1856—to anticipate the sequence of our narrative a little—another funeral was seen wending its way, to the chanting of priests, up the hills of Balaclava. It was the body of Sister Mary Elizabeth, who had died of fever, caught amongst the patients of her ward. Our informant, Sister Mary Aloysius, thus describes the death scene as it occurred amid a storm which threatened to unroof the wooden hut where the dying sister lay: “It was a wild, wild night. The storm and wind penetrated the chinks so as to extinguish the lights, and evoked many a prayer that the death-bed might not be left roofless. It was awful beyond description to kneel beside her during these hours of her passage and to hear the solemn prayers for the dead and dying mingling with the howling of the winds and the creaking of the frail wooden hut. Oh, never, never can any of us forget that night: the storm disturbed all but her, that happy being for whom earth’s joys and sorrows were at an end, and whose summons home had not cost her one pang or one regret.”

They buried Sister Mary Elizabeth beside Sister Winifred, and the 89th Regiment requested the honour of carrying the coffin. Hundreds of soldiers lined the way in triple lines from the hospital to the hut where the body lay, and a procession of various nationalities and differing faiths followed the body to its lonely resting place on the rocky ledge of Balaclava heights.

Later, when the graves of the two sisters were visited, it was found that flowers and evergreens were growing in that lonely spot, planted by the hands of the soldiers they had tended. On the white cross of Sister Winifred’s grave was found a paper, on which were written the following lines:—

It was discovered that these lines had been composed and placed there by one of Sister Winifred’s orderlies.