'She put before us,' wrote the Prince in his diary, 'all the
defects of our present military hospital system, and the reforms that
are needed.
defects of our present military hospital system, and the reforms that
are needed.
Strachey - Eminent Victorians
Owing to military
exigencies, the greater number of the men had abandoned their kit; their
knapsacks were lost forever; they possessed nothing but what was on
their persons, and that was usually only fit for speedy destruction. The
'Purveyor', of course, pointed out that, according to the regulations,
all soldiers should bring with them into hospital an adequate supply of
clothing, and he declared that it was no business of his to make good
their deficiencies. Apparently, it was the business of Miss Nightingale.
She procured socks, boots, and shirts in enormous quantities; she had
trousers made, she rigged up dressing-gowns. 'The fact is,' she told
Sidney Herbert, I am now clothing the British Army. '
All at once, word came from the Crimea that a great new contingent of
sick and wounded might shortly be expected. Where were they to go? Every
available inch in the wards was occupied; the affair was serious and
pressing, and the authorities stood aghast. There were some dilapidated
rooms in the Barrack Hospital, unfit for human habitation, but Miss
Nightingale believed that if measures were promptly taken they might be
made capable of accommodating several hundred beds. One of the doctors
agreed with her; the rest of the officials were irresolute--it would be
a very expensive job, they said; it would involve building; and who
could take the responsibility? The proper course was that a
representation should be made to the Director-General of the Army
Medical Department in London; then the Director-General would apply to
the Horse Guards, the Horse Guards would move the Ordnance, the Ordnance
would lay the matter before the Treasury, and, if the Treasury gave its
consent, the work might be correctly carried through, several months
after the necessity for it had disappeared. Miss Nightingale, however,
had made up her mind, and she persuaded Lord Stratford--or thought she
had persuaded him--to give his sanction to the required expenditure. One
hundred and twenty-five workmen were immediately engaged, and the work
was begun. The workmen struck; whereupon Lord Stratford washed his hands
of the whole business. Miss Nightingale engaged 200 other workmen on her
own authority, and paid the bill out of her own resources. The wards
were ready by the required date; 500 sick men were received in them; and
all the utensils, including knives, forks, spoons, cans and towels, were
supplied by Miss Nightingale.
This remarkable woman was in truth performing the function of an
administrative chief. How had this come about? Was she not in reality
merely a nurse? Was it not her duty simply to tend the sick? And indeed,
was it not as a ministering angel, a gentle 'lady with a lamp', that she
actually impressed the minds of her contemporaries? No doubt that was
so; and yet it is no less certain that, as she herself said, the
specific business of nursing was 'the least important of the functions
into which she had been forced'. It was clear that in the state of
disorganisation into which the hospitals at Scutari had fallen, the most
pressing, the really vital, need was for something more than nursing; it
was for the necessary elements of civilised life--the commonest material
objects, the most ordinary cleanliness, the rudimentary habits of order
and authority. 'Oh, dear Miss Nightingale,' said one of her party as
they were approaching Constantinople, 'when we land, let there be no
delays, let us get straight to nursing the poor fellows! ' 'The strongest
will be wanted at the wash-tub,' was Miss Nightingale's answer. And it
was upon the wash-tub, and all that the wash-tub stood for, that she
expended her greatest energies. Yet to say that, is perhaps to say too
much. For to those who watched her at work among the sick, moving day
and night from bed to bed, with that unflinching courage, with that
indefatigable vigilance, it seemed as if the concentrated force of an
undivided and unparalleled devotion could hardly suffice for that
portion of her task alone.
Wherever, in those vast wards, suffering was at its worst and the need
for help was greatest, there, as if by magic, was Miss Nightingale. Her
superhuman equanimity would, at the moment of some ghastly operation,
nerve the victim to endure, and almost to hope. Her sympathy would
assuage the pangs of dying and bring back to those still living
something of the forgotten charm of life. Over and over again her
untiring efforts rescued those whom the surgeons had abandoned as beyond
the possibility of cure. Her mere presence brought with it a strange
influence. A passionate idolatry spread among the men--they kissed her
shadow as it passed. They did more. 'Before she came,' said a soldier,
'there was cussin' and swearin' but after that it was as 'oly as a
church. ' The most cherished privilege of the fighting man was abandoned
for the sake of Miss Nightingale. In those 'lowest sinks of human
misery', as she herself put it, she never heard the use of one
expression 'which could distress a gentlewoman'.
She was heroic; and these were the humble tributes paid by those of
grosser mould to that high quality. Certainly, she was heroic. Yet her
heroism was not of that simple sort so dear to the readers of novels and
the compilers of hagiologies--the romantic sentimental heroism with
which mankind loves to invest its chosen darlings: it was made of
sterner stuff. To the wounded soldier on his couch of agony, she might
well appear in the guise of a gracious angel of mercy; but the military
surgeons, and the orderlies, and her own nurses, and the 'Purveyor', and
Dr. Hall, and, even Lord Stratford himself, could tell a different
story. It was not by gentle sweetness and womanly self-abnegation that
she had brought order out of chaos in the Scutari hospitals, that, from
her own resources, she had clothed the British Army, that she had spread
her dominion over the serried and reluctant powers of the official
world; it was by strict method, by stern discipline, by rigid attention
to detail, by ceaseless labour, and by the fixed determination of an
indomitable will.
Beneath her cool and calm demeanour lurked fierce and passionate fires.
As she passed through the wards in her plain dress, so quiet, so
unassuming, she struck the casual observer simply as the pattern of a
perfect lady; but the keener eye perceived something more than that--the
serenity of high deliberation in the scope of the capacious brow, the
sign of power in the dominating curve of the thin nose, and the traces
of a harsh and dangerous temper--something peevish, something mocking,
and yet something precise--in the small and delicate mouth. There was
humour in the face; but the curious watcher might wonder whether it was
humour of a very pleasant kind; might ask himself, even as he heard the
laughter and marked the jokes with which she cheered the spirits of her
patients, what sort of sardonic merriment this same lady might not give
vent to, in the privacy of her chamber. As for her voice, it was true of
it, even more than of her countenance, that it 'had that in it one must
fain call master'. Those clear tones were in no need of emphasis: 'I
never heard her raise her voice', said one of her companions. 'Only when
she had spoken, it seemed as if nothing could follow but obedience. '
Once, when she had given some direction, a doctor ventured to remark
that the thing could not be done. 'But it must be done,' said Miss
Nightingale. A chance bystander, who heard the words, never forgot
through all his life the irresistible authority of them. And they were
spoken quietly--very quietly indeed.
Late at night, when the long miles of beds lay wrapped in darkness, Miss
Nightingale would sit at work in her little room, over her
correspondence. It was one of the most formidable of all her duties.
There were hundreds of letters to be written to the friends and
relations of soldiers; there was the enormous mass of official documents
to be dealt with; there were her own private letters to be answered;
and, most important of all, there was the composition of her long and
confidential reports to Sidney Herbert. These were by no means official
communications. Her soul, pent up all day in the restraint and reserve
of a vast responsibility, now at last poured itself out in these letters
with all its natural vehemence, like a swollen torrent through an open
sluice. Here, at least, she did not mince matters. Here she painted in
her darkest colours the hideous scenes which surrounded her; here she
tore away remorselessly the last veils still shrouding the abominable
truth. Then she would fill pages with recommendations and suggestions,
with criticisms of the minutest details of organisation, with elaborate
calculations of contingencies, with exhaustive analyses and statistical
statements piled up in breathless eagerness one on the top of the other.
And then her pen, in the virulence of its volubility, would rush on to
the discussion of individuals, to the denunciation of an incompetent
surgeon or the ridicule of a self-sufficient nurse. Her sarcasm searched
the ranks of the officials with the deadly and unsparing precision of a
machine-gun. Her nicknames were terrible. She respected no one: Lord
Stratford, Lord Raglan, Lady Stratford, Dr. Andrew Smith, Dr. Hall, the
Commissary-General, the Purveyor--she fulminated against them all. The
intolerable futility of mankind obsessed her like a nightmare, and she
gnashed her teeth against it. 'I do well to be angry,' was the burden of
her cry. 'How many just men were there at Scutari? How many who cared at
all for the sick, or had done anything for their relief? Were there ten?
Were there five? Was there even one? ' She could not be sure.
At one time, during several weeks, her vituperations descended upon the
head of Sidney Herbert himself. He had misinterpreted her wishes, he had
traversed her positive instructions, and it was not until he had
admitted his error and apologised in abject terms that he was allowed
again into favour. While this misunderstanding was at its height, an
aristocratic young gentleman arrived at Scutari with a recommendation
from the Minister. He had come out from England filled with a romantic
desire to render homage to the angelic heroine of his dreams. He had, he
said, cast aside his life of ease and luxury; he would devote his days
and nights to the service of that gentle lady; he would perform the most
menial offices, he would 'fag' for her, he would be her footman--and
feel requited by a single smile. A single smile, indeed, he had, but it
was of an unexpected kind. Miss Nightingale at first refused to see him,
and then, when she consented, believing that he was an emissary sent by
Sidney Herbert to put her in the wrong over their dispute, she took
notes of her conversation with him, and insisted on his signing them at
the end of it. The young gentleman returned to England by the next ship.
This quarrel with Sidney Herbert was, however, an exceptional incident.
Alike by him, and by Lord Panmure, his successor at the War Office, she
was firmly supported; and the fact that during the whole of her stay at
Scutari she had the Home Government at her back, was her trump card in
her dealings with the hospital authorities. Nor was it only the
Government that was behind her: public opinion in England early
recognised the high importance of her mission, and its enthusiastic
appreciation of her work soon reached an extraordinary height. The Queen
herself was deeply moved. She made repeated inquiries as to the welfare
of Miss Nightingale; she asked to see her accounts of the wounded, and
made her the intermediary between the throne and the troops.
'Let Mrs. Herbert know,' she wrote to the War Minister, 'that I wish
Miss Nightingale and the ladies would tell these poor noble, wounded,
and sick men that NO ONE takes a warmer interest or feels MORE for their
sufferings or admires their courage and heroism MORE than their Queen.
Day and night she thinks of her beloved troops. So does the Prince. Beg
Mrs. Herbert to communicate these my words to those ladies, as I know
that our sympathy is much valued by these noble fellows. '
The letter was read aloud in the wards by the Chaplain. 'It is a very
feeling letter,' said the men.
And so the months passed, and that fell winter which had begun with
Inkerman and had dragged itself out through the long agony of the
investment of Sebastopol, at last was over. In May, 1855, after six
months of labour, Miss Nightingale could look with something like
satisfaction at the condition of the Scutari hospitals. Had they done
nothing more than survive the terrible strain which had been put upon
them, it would have been a matter for congratulation; but they had done
much more than that--they had marvellously improved. The confusion and
the pressure in the wards had come to an end; order reigned in them, and
cleanliness; the supplies were bountiful and prompt; important sanitary
works had been carried out. One simple comparison of figures was enough
to reveal the extraordinary change: the rate of mortality among the
cases treated had fallen from forty-two percent to twenty-two per 1,000.
But still, the indefatigable lady was not satisfied. The main problem
had been solved--the physical needs of the men had been provided for;
their mental and spiritual needs remained. She set up and furnished
reading-rooms and recreation rooms. She started classes and lectures.
Officers were amazed to see her treating their men as if they were human
beings, and assured her that she would only end by 'spoiling the
brutes'. But that was not Miss Nightingale's opinion, and she was
justified. The private soldier began to drink less and even--though that
seemed impossible--to save his pay. Miss Nightingale became a banker for
the Army, receiving and sending home large sums of money every month. At
last, reluctantly, the Government followed suit, and established
machinery of its own for the remission of money. Lord Panmure, however,
remained sceptical; 'it will do no good,' he pronounced; 'the British
soldier is not a remitting animal. ' But, in fact during the next six
months L71,000 was sent home.
Amid all these activities, Miss Nightingale took up the further task of
inspecting the hospitals in the Crimea itself. The labour was extreme,
and the conditions of life were almost intolerable. She spent whole days
in the saddle, or was driven over those bleak and rocky heights in a
baggage cart. Sometimes she stood for hours in the heavily failing snow,
and would only reach her hut at dead of night after walking for miles
through perilous ravines. Her powers of resistance seemed incredible,
but at last they were exhausted. She was attacked by fever, and for a
moment came very near to death. Yet she worked on; if she could not
move, she could at least write, and write she did until her mind had
left her; and after it had left her, in what seemed the delirious trance
of death itself, she still wrote. When, after many weeks, she was strong
enough to travel, she was implored to return to England, but she utterly
refused. She would not go back, she said, before the last of the
soldiers had left Scutari.
This happy moment had almost arrived, when suddenly the smouldering
hostilities of the medical authorities burst out into a flame. Dr.
Hall's labours had been rewarded by a K. C. B--letters which, as Miss
Nightingale told Sidney Herbert, she could only suppose to mean 'Knight
of the Crimean Burial-Grounds'--and the honour had turned his head. He
was Sir John, and he would be thwarted no longer. Disputes had lately
arisen between Miss Nightingale and some of the nurses in the Crimean
hospitals. The situation had been embittered by rumours of religious
dissensions, while the Crimean nurses were Roman Catholics, many of
those at Scutari were suspected of a regrettable propensity towards the
tenets of Dr. Pusey. Miss Nightingale was by no means disturbed by these
sectarian differences, but any suggestion that her supreme authority
over all the nurses with the Army was, no doubt, enough to rouse her to
fury; and it appeared that Mrs. Bridgeman, the Reverend Mother in the
Crimea, had ventured to call that authority in question. Sir John Hall
thought that his opportunity had come, and strongly supported Mrs.
Bridgeman--or, as Miss Nightingale preferred to call her, the 'Reverend
Brickbat'.
There was a violent struggle; Miss Nightingale's rage was terrible. Dr.
Hall, she declared, was doing his best to 'root her out of the Crimea'.
She would bear it no longer; the War Office was playing her false; there
was only one thing to be done--Sidney Herbert must move for the
production of papers in the House of Commons, so that the public might
be able to judge between her and her enemies. Sidney Herbert, with great
difficulty, calmed her down. Orders were immediately dispatched putting
her supremacy beyond doubt, and the Reverend Brickbat withdrew from the
scene. Sir John, however, was more tenacious. A few weeks later, Miss
Nightingale and her nurses visited the Crimea for the last time, and the
brilliant idea occurred to him that he could crush her by a very simple
expedient--he would starve her into submission; and he actually ordered
that no rations of any kind should be supplied to her. He had already
tried this plan with great effect upon an unfortunate medical man whose
presence in the Crimea he had considered an intrusion; but he was now to
learn that such tricks were thrown away upon Miss Nightingale. With
extraordinary foresight, she had brought with her a great supply of
food; she succeeded in obtaining more at her own expense and by her own
exertions; and thus for ten days, in that inhospitable country, she was
able to feed herself and twenty-four nurses. Eventually, the military
authorities intervened in her favour, and Sir John had to confess that
he was beaten.
It was not until July, 1856--four months after the Declaration of
Peace--that Miss Nightingale left Scutari for England. Her reputation
was now enormous, and the enthusiasm of the public was unbounded. The
royal approbation was expressed by the gift of a brooch, accompanied by
a private letter.
'You are, I know, well aware,' wrote Her Majesty, 'of the high sense I
entertain of the Christian devotion which you have displayed during this
great and bloody war, and I need hardly repeat to you how warm my
admiration is for your services, which are fully equal to those of my
dear and brave soldiers, whose sufferings you have had the privilege of
alleviating in so merciful a manner. I am, however, anxious of marking
my feelings in a manner which I trust will be agreeable to you, and
therefore, send you with this letter a brooch, the form and emblems of
which commemorate your great and blessed work, and which I hope you will
wear as a mark of the high approbation of your Sovereign!
'It will be a very great satisfaction to me,' Her Majesty added, 'to
make the acquaintance of one who has set so bright an example to our
sex. '
The brooch, which was designed by the Prince Consort, bore a St.
George's cross in red enamel, and the Royal cipher surmounted by
diamonds. The whole was encircled by the inscription 'Blessed are the
Merciful'.
III
THE name of Florence Nightingale lives in the memory of the world by
virtue of the lurid and heroic adventure of the Crimea. Had she died--as
she nearly did--upon her return to England, her reputation would hardly
have been different; her legend would have come down to us almost as we
know it today--that gentle vision of female virtue which first took
shape before the adoring eyes of the sick soldiers at Scutari. Yet, as a
matter of fact, she lived for more than half a century after the Crimean
War; and during the greater part of that long period, all the energy and
all the devotion of her extraordinary nature were working at their
highest pitch. What she accomplished in those years of unknown labour
could, indeed, hardly have been more glorious than her Crimean triumphs,
but it was certainly more important. The true history was far stranger
even than the myth. In Miss Nightingale's own eyes the adventure of the
Crimea was a mere incident--scarcely more than a useful stepping-stone
in her career. It was the fulcrum with which she hoped to move the
world; but it was only the fulcrum. For more than a generation she was
to sit in secret, working her lever: and her real "life" began at the
very moment when, in the popular imagination, it had ended.
She arrived in England in a shattered state of health. The hardships and
the ceaseless effort of the last two years had undermined her nervous
system; her heart was pronounced to be affected; she suffered constantly
from fainting-fits and terrible attacks of utter physical prostration.
The doctors declared that one thing alone would save her--a complete and
prolonged rest. But that was also the one thing with which she would
have nothing to do. She had never been in the habit of resting; why
should she begin now? Now, when her opportunity had come at last; now,
when the iron was hot, and it was time to strike? No; she had work to
do; and, come what might, she would do it. The doctors protested in
vain; in vain her family lamented and entreated; in vain her friends
pointed out to her the madness of such a course. Madness?
Mad--possessed--perhaps she was. A demoniac frenzy had seized upon her.
As she lay upon her sofa, gasping, she devoured blue-books, dictated
letters, and, in the intervals of her palpitations, cracked her febrile
jokes. For months at a stretch she never left her bed. For years she was
in daily expectation of death. But she would not rest. At this rate, the
doctors assured her, even if she did not die, she would, become an
invalid for life. She could not help that; there was the work to be
done; and, as for rest, very likely she might rest . . . when she had done
it.
Wherever she went, in London or in the country, in the hills of
Derbyshire, or among the rhododendrons at Embley, she was haunted by a
ghost. It was the spectre of Scutari--the hideous vision of the
organisation of a military hospital. She would lay that phantom, or she
would perish. The whole system of the Army Medical Department, the
education of the Medical Officer, the regulations of hospital procedure
. . . REST? How could she rest while these things were as they were,
while, if the like necessity were to arise again, the like results would
follow? And, even in peace and at home, what was the sanitary condition
of the Army? The mortality in the barracks was, she found, nearly double
the mortality in civil life. 'You might as well take 1,100 men every
year out upon Salisbury Plain and shoot them,' she said. After
inspecting the hospitals at Chatham, she smiled grimly. 'Yes, this is
one more symptom of the system which, in the Crimea, put to death 16,000
men. ' Scutari had given her knowledge; and it had given her power too:
her enormous reputation was at her back--an incalculable force. Other
work, other duties, might lie before her; but the most urgent, the most
obvious of all, was to look to the health of the Army.
One of her very first steps was to take advantage of the invitation
which Queen Victoria had sent her to the Crimea, together with the
commemorative brooch. Within a few weeks of her return she visited
Balmoral, and had several interviews with both the Queen and the Prince,
Consort.
'She put before us,' wrote the Prince in his diary, 'all the
defects of our present military hospital system, and the reforms that
are needed. ' She related 'the whole story' of her experiences in the
East; and, in addition, she managed to have some long and confidential
talks with His Royal Highness on metaphysics and religion. The
impression which she created was excellent. 'Sie gefallt uns sehr,'
noted the Prince, 'ist sehr bescheiden. ' Her Majesty's comment was
different--'Such a HEAD! I wish we had her at the War Office. '
But Miss Nightingale was not at the War Office, and for a very simple
reason: she was a woman. Lord Panmure, however, was (though indeed the
reason for that was not quite so simple); and it was upon Lord Panmure
that the issue of Miss Nightingale's efforts for reform must primarily
depend. That burly Scottish nobleman had not, in spite of his most
earnest endeavours, had a very easy time of it as Secretary of State for
War. He had come into office in the middle of the Sebastopol Campaign,
and had felt himself very well fitted for the position, since he had
acquired in former days an inside knowledge of the Army--as a Captain of
Hussars. It was this inside knowledge which had enabled him to inform
Miss Nightingale with such authority that 'the British soldier is not a
remitting animal'. And perhaps it was this same consciousness of a
command of his subject which had impelled him to write a dispatch to
Lord Raglan, blandly informing the Commander-in-Chief in the Field just
how he was neglecting his duties, and pointing out to him that if he
would only try he really might do a little better next time.
Lord Raglan's reply, calculated as it was to make its recipient sink
into the earth, did not quite have that effect upon Lord Panmure, who,
whatever might have been his faults, had never been accused of being
supersensitive. However, he allowed the matter to drop; and a little
later Lord Raglan died--worn out, some people said, by work and anxiety.
He was succeeded by an excellent red-nosed old gentleman, General
Simpson, whom nobody has ever heard of, and who took Sebastopol. But
Lord Panmure's relations with him were hardly more satisfactory than his
relations with Lord Raglan; for, while Lord Raglan had been too
independent, poor General Simpson erred in the opposite direction,
perpetually asked advice, suffered from lumbago, doubted (his nose
growingredder and redder daily) whether he was fit for his post, and, by
alternate mails, sent in and withdrew his resignation. Then, too, both
the General and the Minister suffered acutely from that distressingly
useful new invention, the electric telegraph. On one occasion General
Simpson felt obliged actually to expostulate. 'I think, my Lord,' he
wrote, 'that some telegraphic messages reach us that cannot be sent
under due authority, and are perhaps unknown to you, although under the
protection of your Lordship's name.
For instance, I was called up last night, a dragoon having come express
with a telegraphic message in these words, "Lord Panmure to General
Simpson--Captain Jarvis has been bitten by a centipede. How is he now? "'
General Simpson might have put up with this, though to be sure it did
seem 'rather too trifling an affair to call for a dragoon to ride a
couple of miles in the dark that he may knock up the Commander of the
Army out of the very small allowance of sleep permitted; but what was
really more than he could bear was to find 'upon sending in the morning
another mounted dragoon to inquire after Captain Jarvis, four miles off,
that he never has been bitten at all, but has had a boil, from which he
is fast recovering'. But Lord Panmure had troubles of his own. His
favourite nephew, Captain Dowbiggin, was at the front, and to one of his
telegrams to the Commander-in-Chief the Minister had taken occasion to
append the following carefully qualified sentence--'I recommend
Dowbiggin to your notice, should you have a vacancy, and if he is fit'.
Unfortunately, in those early days, it was left to the discretion of the
telegraphist to compress the messages which passed through his hands; so
that the result was that Lord Panmure's delicate appeal reached its
destination in the laconic form of 'Look after Dowb'. The Headquarters
Staff were at first extremely puzzled; they were at last extremely
amused. The story spread; and 'Look after Dowb' remained for many years
the familiar formula for describing official hints in favour of
deserving nephews.
And now that all this was over, now that Sebastopol had been, somehow or
another, taken; now that peace was, somehow or another, made; now that
the troubles of office might surely be expected to be at an end at
last--here was Miss Nightingale breaking in upon the scene with her talk
about the state of the hospitals and the necessity for sanitary reform.
It was most irksome; and Lord Panmure almost began to wish that he was
engaged upon some more congenial occupation--discussing, perhaps, the
constitution of the Free Church of Scotland--a question in which he was
profoundly interested. But no; duty was paramount; and he set himself,
with a sigh of resignation, to the task of doing as little of it as he
possibly could.
'The Bison' his friends called him; and the name fitted both his
physical demeanour and his habit of mind. That large low head seemed to
have been created for butting rather than for anything else. There he
stood, four-square and menacing in the doorway of reform; and it
remained to be seen whether, the bulky mass, upon whose solid hide even
the barbed arrows of Lord Raglan's scorn had made no mark, would prove
amenable to the pressure of Miss Nightingale. Nor was he alone in the
doorway. There loomed behind him the whole phalanx of professional
conservatism, the stubborn supporters of the out-of-date, the
worshippers and the victims of War Office routine. Among these it was
only natural that Dr. Andrew Smith, the head of the Army Medical
Department, should have been pre-eminent--Dr. Andrew Smith, who had
assured Miss Nightingale before she left England that 'nothing was
wanted at Scutari'. Such were her opponents; but she too was not without
allies. She had gained the ear of Royalty--which was something; at any
moment that she pleased she could gain the ear of the public--which was
a great deal. She had a host of admirers and friends; and--to say
nothing of her personal qualities--her knowledge, her tenacity, her
tact--she possessed, too, one advantage which then, far more even than
now, carried an immense weight--she belonged to the highest circle of
society. She moved naturally among Peers and Cabinet Ministers--she was
one of their own set; and in those days their set was a very narrow one.
What kind of attention would such persons have paid to some middle-class
woman with whom they were not acquainted, who possessed great experience
of Army nursing and had decided views upon hospital reform? They would
have politely ignored her; but it was impossible to ignore Flo
Nightingale. When she spoke, they were obliged to listen; and, when they
had once begun to do that--what might not follow? She knew her power,
and she used it. She supported her weightiest minutes with familiar
witty little notes. The Bison began to look grave. It might be
difficult--it might be damned difficult--to put down one's head against
the white hand of a lady . . .
Of Miss Nightingale's friends, the most important was Sidney Herbert. He
was a man upon whom the good fairies seemed to have showered, as he lay
in his cradle, all their most enviable goods. Well born, handsome, rich,
the master of Wilton--one of those great country-houses, clothed with
the glamour of a historic past, which are the peculiar glory of
England--he possessed--besides all these advantages: so charming, so
lively, so gentle a disposition that no one who had once come near him
could ever be his enemy.
He was, in fact, a man of whom it was difficult not to say that he was a
perfect English gentleman. For his virtues were equal even to his good
fortune. He was religious, deeply religious. 'I am more and more
convinced every day,' he wrote, when he had been for some years a
Cabinet Minister, 'that in politics, as in everything else, nothing can
be right which is not in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel. ' No
one was more unselfish; he was charitable and benevolent to a remarkable
degree; and he devoted the whole of his life, with an unwavering
conscientiousness, to the public service. With such a character, with
such opportunities, what high hopes must have danced before him, what
radiant visions of accomplished duties, of ever-increasing usefulness,
of beneficent power, of the consciousness of disinterested success! Some
of those hopes and visions were, indeed, realised; but, in the end, the
career of Sidney Herbert seemed to show that, with all their generosity,
there was some gift or other--what was it? --some essential gift--which
the good fairies had withheld, and that even the qualities of a perfect
English gentleman may be no safeguard against anguish, humiliation, and
defeat.
That career would certainly have been very different if he had never
known Miss Nightingale. The alliance between them which had begun with
her appointment to Scutari, which had grown closer and closer while the
war lasted, developed, after her return, into one of the most
extraordinary friendships. It was the friendship of a man and a woman
intimately bound together by their devotion to a public cause; mutual
affection, of course, played a part in it, but it was an incidental
part; the whole soul of the relationship was a community of work.
Perhaps out of England such an intimacy could hardly have existed--an
intimacy so utterly untinctured not only by passion itself but by the
suspicion of it. For years Sidney Herbert saw Miss Nightingale almost
daily, for long hours together, corresponding with her incessantly when
they were apart; and the tongue of scandal was silent; and one of the
most devoted of her admirers was his wife. But what made the connection
still more remarkable was the way in which the parts that were played in
it were divided between the two. The man who acts, decides, and
achieves; the woman who encourages, applauds, and--from a
distance--inspires: the combination is common enough; but Miss
Nightingale was neither an Aspasia nor an Egeria. In her case it is
almost true to say that the roles were reversed; the qualities of
pliancy and sympathy fell to the man, those of command and initiative to
the woman.
There was one thing only which Miss Nightingale lacked in her equipment
for public life; she had not--she never could have--the public power and
authority which belonged to the successful politician. That power and
authority Sidney Herbert possessed; that fact was obvious, and the
conclusions no less so: it was through the man that the woman must work
her will. She took hold of him, taught him, shaped him, absorbed him,
dominated him through and through. He did not resist--he did not wish to
resist; his natural inclination lay along the same path as hers; only
that terrific personality swept him forward at her own fierce pace and
with her own relentless stride. Swept him--where to? Ah! Why had he ever
known Miss Nightingale? If Lord Panmure was a bison, Sidney Herbert, no
doubt, was a stag--a comely, gallant creature springing through the
forest; but the forest is a dangerous place. One has the image of those
wide eyes fascinated suddenly by something feline, something strong;
there is a pause; and then the tigress has her claws in the quivering
haunches; and then--!
Besides Sidney Herbert, she had other friends who, in a more restricted
sphere, were hardly less essential to her. If, in her condition of
bodily collapse, she were to accomplish what she was determined that she
should accomplish, the attentions and the services of others would be
absolutely indispensable. Helpers and servers she must have; and
accordingly there was soon formed about her a little group of devoted
disciples upon whose affections and energies she could implicitly rely.
Devoted, indeed, these disciples were, in no ordinary sense of the term;
for certainly she was no light taskmistress, and he who set out to be of
use to Miss Nightingale was apt to find, before he had gone very far,
that he was in truth being made use of in good earnest to the very limit
of his endurance and his capacity. Perhaps, even beyond those limits;
why not? Was she asking of others more than she was giving herself? Let
them look at her lying there pale and breathless on the couch; could it
be said that she spared herself? Why, then, should she spare others? And
it was not for her own sake that she made these claims. For her own
sake, indeed! No! They all knew it! it was for the sake of the work. And
so the little band, bound body and soul in that strange servitude,
laboured on ungrudgingly.
Among the most faithful was her 'Aunt Mai', her father's sister, who
from the earliest days had stood beside her, who had helped her to
escape from the thraldom of family life, who had been with her at
Scutari, and who now acted almost the part of a mother to her, watching
over her with infinite care in all the movements and uncertainties which
her state of health involved. Another constant attendant was her
brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney, whom she found particularly valuable
in parliamentary affairs. Arthur Clough, the poet, also a connection by
marriage, she used in other ways. Ever since he had lost his faith at
the time of the Oxford Movement, Clough had passed his life in a
condition of considerable uneasiness, which was increased rather than
diminished by the practice of poetry. Unable to decide upon the purpose
of an existence whose savour had fled together with his belief in the
Resurrection, his spirits lowered still further by ill-health, and his
income not all that it should be, he had determined to seek the solution
of his difficulties in the United States of America. But, even there,
the solution was not forthcoming; and, when, a little later, he was
offered a post in a government department at home, he accepted it, came
to live in London, and immediately fell under the influence of Miss
Nightingale. Though the purpose of existence might be still uncertain
and its nature still unsavoury, here, at any rate, under the eye of this
inspired woman, was something real, something earnest: his only doubt
was--could he be of any use? Certainly he could. There were a great
number of miscellaneous little jobs which there was nobody handy to do.
For instance, when Miss Nightingale was travelling, there were the
railway-tickets to be taken; and there were proof-sheets to be
corrected; and then there were parcels to be done up in brown paper, and
carried to the post. Certainly he could be useful. And so, upon such
occupations as these, Arthur Clough was set to work. 'This that I see,
is not all,' he comforted himself by reflecting, 'and this that I do is
but little; nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it. ' As
time went on, her 'Cabinet', as she called it, grew larger. Officials
with whom her work brought her into touch and who sympathised with her
objects, were pressed into her service; and old friends of the Crimean
days gathered around her when they returned to England. Among these the
most indefatigable was Dr. Sutherland, a sanitary expert, who for more
than thirty years acted as her confidential private secretary, and
surrendered to her purposes literally the whole of his life. Thus
sustained and assisted, thus slaved for and adored, she prepared to
beard the Bison.
Two facts soon emerged, and all that followed turned upon them. It
became clear, in the first place, that that imposing mass was not
immovable, and, in the second, that its movement, when it did move,
would be exceeding slow. The Bison was no match for the Lady. It was in
vain that he put down his head and planted his feet in the earth; he
could not withstand her; the white hand forced him back. But the process
was an extraordinarily gradual one. Dr. Andrew Smith and all his War
Office phalanx stood behind, blocking the way; the poor Bison groaned
inwardly, and cast a wistful eye towards the happy pastures of the Free
Church of Scotland; then slowly, with infinite reluctance, step by step,
he retreated, disputing every inch of the ground.
The first great measure, which, supported as it was by the Queen, the
Cabinet, and the united opinion of the country, it was impossible to
resist, was the appointment of a Royal Commission to report upon the
health of the Army. The question of the composition of the Commission
then immediately arose; and it was over this matter that the first
hand-to-hand encounter between Lord Panmure and Miss Nightingale took
place. They met, and Miss Nightingale was victorious; Sidney Herbert was
appointed Chairman; and, in the end, the only member of the Commission
opposed to her views was Dr. Andrew Smith. During the interview, Miss
Nightingale made an important discovery: she found that 'the Bison was
bullyable'--the hide was the hide of a Mexican buffalo, but the spirit
was the spirit of an Alderney calf. And there was one thing above all
others which the huge creature dreaded--an appeal to public opinion. The
faintest hint of such a terrible eventuality made his heart dissolve
within him; he would agree to anything he would cut short his
grouse-shooting--he would make a speech in the House of Lords, he would
even overrule Dr. Andrew Smith--rather than that. Miss Nightingale held
the fearful threat in reserve--she would speak out what she knew; she
would publish the truth to the whole world, and let the whole world
judge between them. With supreme skill, she kept this sword of Damocles
poised above the Bison's head, and more than once she was actually on
the point of really dropping it--for his recalcitrancy grew and grew.
The personnel of the Commission once determined upon, there was a
struggle, which lasted for six months, over the nature of its powers.
Was it to be an efficient body, armed with the right of full inquiry and
wide examination, or was it to be a polite official contrivance for
exonerating Dr. Andrew Smith? The War Office phalanx closed its ranks,
and fought tooth and nail; but it was defeated: the Bison was bullyable.
'Three months from this day,' Miss Nightingale had written at last, 'I
publish my experience of the Crimean Campaign, and my suggestions for
improvement, unless there has been a fair and tangible pledge by that
time for reform. '
Who could face that?
And, if the need came, she meant to be as good as her word. For she had
now determined, whatever might be the fate of the Commission, to draw up
her own report upon the questions at issue. The labour involved was
enormous; her health was almost desperate; but she did not flinch, and
after six months of incredible industry she had put together and written
with her own hand her Notes affecting the Health, Efficiency, and
Hospital Administration of the British Army. This extraordinary
composition, filling more than 800 closely printed pages, laying down
vast principles of far-reaching reform, discussing the minutest details
of a multitude of controversial subjects, containing an enormous mass of
information of the most varied kinds--military, statistical, sanitary,
architectural--was never given to the public, for the need never came;
but it formed the basis of the Report of the Royal Commission; and it
remains to this day the leading authority on the medical administration
of armies.
Before it had been completed, the struggle over the powers of the
Commission had been brought to a victorious close. Lord Panmure had
given way once more; he had immediately hurried to the Queen to obtain
her consent; and only then, when Her Majesty's initials had been
irrevocably affixed to the fatal document, did he dare to tell Dr.
Andrew Smith what he had done. The Commission met, and another immense
load fell upon Miss Nightingale's shoulders. Today she would, of course,
have been one of the Commission herself; but at that time the idea of a
woman appearing in such a capacity was unheard of; and no one even
suggested the possibility of Miss Nightingale's doing so. The result was
that she was obliged to remain behind the scenes throughout, to coach
Sidney Herbert in private at every important juncture, and to convey to
him and to her other friends upon the Commission the vast funds of her
expert knowledge--so essential in the examination of witnesses--by means
of innumerable consultations, letters, and memoranda. It was even
doubtful whether the proprieties would admit of her giving evidence; and
at last, as a compromise, her modesty only allowed her to do so in the
form of written answers to written questions. At length, the grand
affair was finished. The Commission's Report, embodying almost word for
word the suggestions of Miss Nightingale, was drawn up by Sidney
Herbert. Only one question remained to be answered--would anything,
after all, be done? Or would the Royal Commission, like so many other
Royal Commissions before and since, turn out to have achieved nothing
but the concoction of a very fat bluebook on a very high shelf?
And so the last and the deadliest struggle with the Bison began. Six
months had been spent in coercing him into granting the Commission
effective powers; six more months were occupied by the work of the
Commission; and now yet another six were to pass in extorting from him
the means whereby the recommendations of the Commission might be
actually carried out. But, in the end, the thing was done. Miss
Nightingale seemed, indeed, during these months, to be upon the very
brink of death. Accompanied by the faithful Aunt Mai, she moved from
place to place--to Hampstead, to Highgate, to Derbyshire, to Malvern--in
what appeared to be a last desperate effort to find health somewhere;
but she carried that with her which made health impossible. Her desire
for work could now scarcely be distinguished from mania. At one moment
she was writing a 'last letter' to Sidney Herbert; at the next she was
offering to go out to India to nurse the sufferers in the Mutiny. When
Dr. Sutherland wrote, imploring her to take a holiday, she raved.
Rest! --
'I am lying without my head, without my claws, and you all peck at me.
It is de rigueur, d'obligation, like the saying something to one's hat,
when one goes into church, to say to me all that has been said to me 110
times a day during the last three months. It is the obbligato on the
violin, and the twelve violins all practise it together, like the clocks
striking twelve o'clock at night all over London, till I say like Xavier
de Maistre, Assez, je sais, je ne le sais que trop. I am not a penitent;
but you are like the R. C. confessor, who says what is de rigueur. . . . '
Her wits began to turn, and there was no holding her. She worked like a
slave in a mine. She began to believe, as she had begun to believe at
Scutari, that none of her fellow-workers had their hearts in the
business; if they had, why did they not work as she did? She could only
see slackness and stupidity around her. Dr. Sutherland, of course, was
grotesquely muddle-headed; and Arthur Clough incurably lazy. Even Sidney
Herbert . . . oh yes, he had simplicity and candour and quickness of
perception, no doubt; but he was an eclectic; and what could one hope
for from a man who went away to fish in Ireland just when the Bison most
needed bullying? As for the Bison himself, he had fled to Scotland where
he remained buried for many months. The fate of the vital recommendation
in the Commission's Report--the appointment of four Sub-Commissions
charged with the duty of determining upon the details of the proposed
reforms and of putting them into execution--still hung in the balance.
The Bison consented to everything; and then, on a flying visit to
London, withdrew his consent and hastily returned to Scotland. Then for
many weeks all business was suspended; he had gout--gout in the
hands--so that he could not write. 'His gout was always handy,' remarked
Miss Nightingale. But eventually it was clear even to the Bison that the
game was up, and the inevitable surrender came.
There was, however, one point in which he triumphed over Miss
Nightingale: the building of Netley Hospital had been begun under his
orders, before her return to England. Soon after her arrival she
examined the plans, and found that they reproduced all the worst faults
of an out-of-date and mischievous system of hospital construction. She
therefore urged that the matter should be reconsidered, and in the
meantime the building stopped. But the Bison was obdurate; it would be
very expensive, and in any case it was too late. Unable to make any
impression on him, and convinced of the extreme importance of the
question, she determined to appeal to a higher authority. Lord
Palmerston was Prime Minister; she had known him from her childhood; he
was a near neighbour of her father's in the New Forest. She went down to
the New Forest, armed with the plan of the proposed hospital and all the
relevant information, stayed the night at Lord Palmerston's house, and
convinced him of the necessity of rebuilding Netley.
'It seems to me,' Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Panmure, 'that at Netley
all consideration of what would best tend to the comfort and recovery of
the patients has been sacrificed to the vanity of the architect, whose
sole object has been to make a building which should cut a dash when
looked at from the Southampton river . . . Pray, therefore, stop all
further progress in the work until the matter can be duly considered. '
But the Bison was not to be moved by one peremptory letter, even if it
was from the Prime Minister. He put forth all his powers of
procrastination, Lord Palmerston lost interest in the subject, and so
the chief military hospital in England was triumphantly completed on
insanitary principles, with unventilated rooms, and with all the
patients' windows facing northeast.
But now the time had come when the Bison was to trouble and to be
troubled no more. A vote in the House of Commons brought about the fall
of Lord Palmerston's Government, and, Lord Panmure found himself at
liberty to devote the rest of his life to the Free Church of Scotland.
After a brief interval, Sidney Herbert became Secretary of State for
War. Great was the jubilation in the Nightingale Cabinet: the day of
achievement had dawned at last.
exigencies, the greater number of the men had abandoned their kit; their
knapsacks were lost forever; they possessed nothing but what was on
their persons, and that was usually only fit for speedy destruction. The
'Purveyor', of course, pointed out that, according to the regulations,
all soldiers should bring with them into hospital an adequate supply of
clothing, and he declared that it was no business of his to make good
their deficiencies. Apparently, it was the business of Miss Nightingale.
She procured socks, boots, and shirts in enormous quantities; she had
trousers made, she rigged up dressing-gowns. 'The fact is,' she told
Sidney Herbert, I am now clothing the British Army. '
All at once, word came from the Crimea that a great new contingent of
sick and wounded might shortly be expected. Where were they to go? Every
available inch in the wards was occupied; the affair was serious and
pressing, and the authorities stood aghast. There were some dilapidated
rooms in the Barrack Hospital, unfit for human habitation, but Miss
Nightingale believed that if measures were promptly taken they might be
made capable of accommodating several hundred beds. One of the doctors
agreed with her; the rest of the officials were irresolute--it would be
a very expensive job, they said; it would involve building; and who
could take the responsibility? The proper course was that a
representation should be made to the Director-General of the Army
Medical Department in London; then the Director-General would apply to
the Horse Guards, the Horse Guards would move the Ordnance, the Ordnance
would lay the matter before the Treasury, and, if the Treasury gave its
consent, the work might be correctly carried through, several months
after the necessity for it had disappeared. Miss Nightingale, however,
had made up her mind, and she persuaded Lord Stratford--or thought she
had persuaded him--to give his sanction to the required expenditure. One
hundred and twenty-five workmen were immediately engaged, and the work
was begun. The workmen struck; whereupon Lord Stratford washed his hands
of the whole business. Miss Nightingale engaged 200 other workmen on her
own authority, and paid the bill out of her own resources. The wards
were ready by the required date; 500 sick men were received in them; and
all the utensils, including knives, forks, spoons, cans and towels, were
supplied by Miss Nightingale.
This remarkable woman was in truth performing the function of an
administrative chief. How had this come about? Was she not in reality
merely a nurse? Was it not her duty simply to tend the sick? And indeed,
was it not as a ministering angel, a gentle 'lady with a lamp', that she
actually impressed the minds of her contemporaries? No doubt that was
so; and yet it is no less certain that, as she herself said, the
specific business of nursing was 'the least important of the functions
into which she had been forced'. It was clear that in the state of
disorganisation into which the hospitals at Scutari had fallen, the most
pressing, the really vital, need was for something more than nursing; it
was for the necessary elements of civilised life--the commonest material
objects, the most ordinary cleanliness, the rudimentary habits of order
and authority. 'Oh, dear Miss Nightingale,' said one of her party as
they were approaching Constantinople, 'when we land, let there be no
delays, let us get straight to nursing the poor fellows! ' 'The strongest
will be wanted at the wash-tub,' was Miss Nightingale's answer. And it
was upon the wash-tub, and all that the wash-tub stood for, that she
expended her greatest energies. Yet to say that, is perhaps to say too
much. For to those who watched her at work among the sick, moving day
and night from bed to bed, with that unflinching courage, with that
indefatigable vigilance, it seemed as if the concentrated force of an
undivided and unparalleled devotion could hardly suffice for that
portion of her task alone.
Wherever, in those vast wards, suffering was at its worst and the need
for help was greatest, there, as if by magic, was Miss Nightingale. Her
superhuman equanimity would, at the moment of some ghastly operation,
nerve the victim to endure, and almost to hope. Her sympathy would
assuage the pangs of dying and bring back to those still living
something of the forgotten charm of life. Over and over again her
untiring efforts rescued those whom the surgeons had abandoned as beyond
the possibility of cure. Her mere presence brought with it a strange
influence. A passionate idolatry spread among the men--they kissed her
shadow as it passed. They did more. 'Before she came,' said a soldier,
'there was cussin' and swearin' but after that it was as 'oly as a
church. ' The most cherished privilege of the fighting man was abandoned
for the sake of Miss Nightingale. In those 'lowest sinks of human
misery', as she herself put it, she never heard the use of one
expression 'which could distress a gentlewoman'.
She was heroic; and these were the humble tributes paid by those of
grosser mould to that high quality. Certainly, she was heroic. Yet her
heroism was not of that simple sort so dear to the readers of novels and
the compilers of hagiologies--the romantic sentimental heroism with
which mankind loves to invest its chosen darlings: it was made of
sterner stuff. To the wounded soldier on his couch of agony, she might
well appear in the guise of a gracious angel of mercy; but the military
surgeons, and the orderlies, and her own nurses, and the 'Purveyor', and
Dr. Hall, and, even Lord Stratford himself, could tell a different
story. It was not by gentle sweetness and womanly self-abnegation that
she had brought order out of chaos in the Scutari hospitals, that, from
her own resources, she had clothed the British Army, that she had spread
her dominion over the serried and reluctant powers of the official
world; it was by strict method, by stern discipline, by rigid attention
to detail, by ceaseless labour, and by the fixed determination of an
indomitable will.
Beneath her cool and calm demeanour lurked fierce and passionate fires.
As she passed through the wards in her plain dress, so quiet, so
unassuming, she struck the casual observer simply as the pattern of a
perfect lady; but the keener eye perceived something more than that--the
serenity of high deliberation in the scope of the capacious brow, the
sign of power in the dominating curve of the thin nose, and the traces
of a harsh and dangerous temper--something peevish, something mocking,
and yet something precise--in the small and delicate mouth. There was
humour in the face; but the curious watcher might wonder whether it was
humour of a very pleasant kind; might ask himself, even as he heard the
laughter and marked the jokes with which she cheered the spirits of her
patients, what sort of sardonic merriment this same lady might not give
vent to, in the privacy of her chamber. As for her voice, it was true of
it, even more than of her countenance, that it 'had that in it one must
fain call master'. Those clear tones were in no need of emphasis: 'I
never heard her raise her voice', said one of her companions. 'Only when
she had spoken, it seemed as if nothing could follow but obedience. '
Once, when she had given some direction, a doctor ventured to remark
that the thing could not be done. 'But it must be done,' said Miss
Nightingale. A chance bystander, who heard the words, never forgot
through all his life the irresistible authority of them. And they were
spoken quietly--very quietly indeed.
Late at night, when the long miles of beds lay wrapped in darkness, Miss
Nightingale would sit at work in her little room, over her
correspondence. It was one of the most formidable of all her duties.
There were hundreds of letters to be written to the friends and
relations of soldiers; there was the enormous mass of official documents
to be dealt with; there were her own private letters to be answered;
and, most important of all, there was the composition of her long and
confidential reports to Sidney Herbert. These were by no means official
communications. Her soul, pent up all day in the restraint and reserve
of a vast responsibility, now at last poured itself out in these letters
with all its natural vehemence, like a swollen torrent through an open
sluice. Here, at least, she did not mince matters. Here she painted in
her darkest colours the hideous scenes which surrounded her; here she
tore away remorselessly the last veils still shrouding the abominable
truth. Then she would fill pages with recommendations and suggestions,
with criticisms of the minutest details of organisation, with elaborate
calculations of contingencies, with exhaustive analyses and statistical
statements piled up in breathless eagerness one on the top of the other.
And then her pen, in the virulence of its volubility, would rush on to
the discussion of individuals, to the denunciation of an incompetent
surgeon or the ridicule of a self-sufficient nurse. Her sarcasm searched
the ranks of the officials with the deadly and unsparing precision of a
machine-gun. Her nicknames were terrible. She respected no one: Lord
Stratford, Lord Raglan, Lady Stratford, Dr. Andrew Smith, Dr. Hall, the
Commissary-General, the Purveyor--she fulminated against them all. The
intolerable futility of mankind obsessed her like a nightmare, and she
gnashed her teeth against it. 'I do well to be angry,' was the burden of
her cry. 'How many just men were there at Scutari? How many who cared at
all for the sick, or had done anything for their relief? Were there ten?
Were there five? Was there even one? ' She could not be sure.
At one time, during several weeks, her vituperations descended upon the
head of Sidney Herbert himself. He had misinterpreted her wishes, he had
traversed her positive instructions, and it was not until he had
admitted his error and apologised in abject terms that he was allowed
again into favour. While this misunderstanding was at its height, an
aristocratic young gentleman arrived at Scutari with a recommendation
from the Minister. He had come out from England filled with a romantic
desire to render homage to the angelic heroine of his dreams. He had, he
said, cast aside his life of ease and luxury; he would devote his days
and nights to the service of that gentle lady; he would perform the most
menial offices, he would 'fag' for her, he would be her footman--and
feel requited by a single smile. A single smile, indeed, he had, but it
was of an unexpected kind. Miss Nightingale at first refused to see him,
and then, when she consented, believing that he was an emissary sent by
Sidney Herbert to put her in the wrong over their dispute, she took
notes of her conversation with him, and insisted on his signing them at
the end of it. The young gentleman returned to England by the next ship.
This quarrel with Sidney Herbert was, however, an exceptional incident.
Alike by him, and by Lord Panmure, his successor at the War Office, she
was firmly supported; and the fact that during the whole of her stay at
Scutari she had the Home Government at her back, was her trump card in
her dealings with the hospital authorities. Nor was it only the
Government that was behind her: public opinion in England early
recognised the high importance of her mission, and its enthusiastic
appreciation of her work soon reached an extraordinary height. The Queen
herself was deeply moved. She made repeated inquiries as to the welfare
of Miss Nightingale; she asked to see her accounts of the wounded, and
made her the intermediary between the throne and the troops.
'Let Mrs. Herbert know,' she wrote to the War Minister, 'that I wish
Miss Nightingale and the ladies would tell these poor noble, wounded,
and sick men that NO ONE takes a warmer interest or feels MORE for their
sufferings or admires their courage and heroism MORE than their Queen.
Day and night she thinks of her beloved troops. So does the Prince. Beg
Mrs. Herbert to communicate these my words to those ladies, as I know
that our sympathy is much valued by these noble fellows. '
The letter was read aloud in the wards by the Chaplain. 'It is a very
feeling letter,' said the men.
And so the months passed, and that fell winter which had begun with
Inkerman and had dragged itself out through the long agony of the
investment of Sebastopol, at last was over. In May, 1855, after six
months of labour, Miss Nightingale could look with something like
satisfaction at the condition of the Scutari hospitals. Had they done
nothing more than survive the terrible strain which had been put upon
them, it would have been a matter for congratulation; but they had done
much more than that--they had marvellously improved. The confusion and
the pressure in the wards had come to an end; order reigned in them, and
cleanliness; the supplies were bountiful and prompt; important sanitary
works had been carried out. One simple comparison of figures was enough
to reveal the extraordinary change: the rate of mortality among the
cases treated had fallen from forty-two percent to twenty-two per 1,000.
But still, the indefatigable lady was not satisfied. The main problem
had been solved--the physical needs of the men had been provided for;
their mental and spiritual needs remained. She set up and furnished
reading-rooms and recreation rooms. She started classes and lectures.
Officers were amazed to see her treating their men as if they were human
beings, and assured her that she would only end by 'spoiling the
brutes'. But that was not Miss Nightingale's opinion, and she was
justified. The private soldier began to drink less and even--though that
seemed impossible--to save his pay. Miss Nightingale became a banker for
the Army, receiving and sending home large sums of money every month. At
last, reluctantly, the Government followed suit, and established
machinery of its own for the remission of money. Lord Panmure, however,
remained sceptical; 'it will do no good,' he pronounced; 'the British
soldier is not a remitting animal. ' But, in fact during the next six
months L71,000 was sent home.
Amid all these activities, Miss Nightingale took up the further task of
inspecting the hospitals in the Crimea itself. The labour was extreme,
and the conditions of life were almost intolerable. She spent whole days
in the saddle, or was driven over those bleak and rocky heights in a
baggage cart. Sometimes she stood for hours in the heavily failing snow,
and would only reach her hut at dead of night after walking for miles
through perilous ravines. Her powers of resistance seemed incredible,
but at last they were exhausted. She was attacked by fever, and for a
moment came very near to death. Yet she worked on; if she could not
move, she could at least write, and write she did until her mind had
left her; and after it had left her, in what seemed the delirious trance
of death itself, she still wrote. When, after many weeks, she was strong
enough to travel, she was implored to return to England, but she utterly
refused. She would not go back, she said, before the last of the
soldiers had left Scutari.
This happy moment had almost arrived, when suddenly the smouldering
hostilities of the medical authorities burst out into a flame. Dr.
Hall's labours had been rewarded by a K. C. B--letters which, as Miss
Nightingale told Sidney Herbert, she could only suppose to mean 'Knight
of the Crimean Burial-Grounds'--and the honour had turned his head. He
was Sir John, and he would be thwarted no longer. Disputes had lately
arisen between Miss Nightingale and some of the nurses in the Crimean
hospitals. The situation had been embittered by rumours of religious
dissensions, while the Crimean nurses were Roman Catholics, many of
those at Scutari were suspected of a regrettable propensity towards the
tenets of Dr. Pusey. Miss Nightingale was by no means disturbed by these
sectarian differences, but any suggestion that her supreme authority
over all the nurses with the Army was, no doubt, enough to rouse her to
fury; and it appeared that Mrs. Bridgeman, the Reverend Mother in the
Crimea, had ventured to call that authority in question. Sir John Hall
thought that his opportunity had come, and strongly supported Mrs.
Bridgeman--or, as Miss Nightingale preferred to call her, the 'Reverend
Brickbat'.
There was a violent struggle; Miss Nightingale's rage was terrible. Dr.
Hall, she declared, was doing his best to 'root her out of the Crimea'.
She would bear it no longer; the War Office was playing her false; there
was only one thing to be done--Sidney Herbert must move for the
production of papers in the House of Commons, so that the public might
be able to judge between her and her enemies. Sidney Herbert, with great
difficulty, calmed her down. Orders were immediately dispatched putting
her supremacy beyond doubt, and the Reverend Brickbat withdrew from the
scene. Sir John, however, was more tenacious. A few weeks later, Miss
Nightingale and her nurses visited the Crimea for the last time, and the
brilliant idea occurred to him that he could crush her by a very simple
expedient--he would starve her into submission; and he actually ordered
that no rations of any kind should be supplied to her. He had already
tried this plan with great effect upon an unfortunate medical man whose
presence in the Crimea he had considered an intrusion; but he was now to
learn that such tricks were thrown away upon Miss Nightingale. With
extraordinary foresight, she had brought with her a great supply of
food; she succeeded in obtaining more at her own expense and by her own
exertions; and thus for ten days, in that inhospitable country, she was
able to feed herself and twenty-four nurses. Eventually, the military
authorities intervened in her favour, and Sir John had to confess that
he was beaten.
It was not until July, 1856--four months after the Declaration of
Peace--that Miss Nightingale left Scutari for England. Her reputation
was now enormous, and the enthusiasm of the public was unbounded. The
royal approbation was expressed by the gift of a brooch, accompanied by
a private letter.
'You are, I know, well aware,' wrote Her Majesty, 'of the high sense I
entertain of the Christian devotion which you have displayed during this
great and bloody war, and I need hardly repeat to you how warm my
admiration is for your services, which are fully equal to those of my
dear and brave soldiers, whose sufferings you have had the privilege of
alleviating in so merciful a manner. I am, however, anxious of marking
my feelings in a manner which I trust will be agreeable to you, and
therefore, send you with this letter a brooch, the form and emblems of
which commemorate your great and blessed work, and which I hope you will
wear as a mark of the high approbation of your Sovereign!
'It will be a very great satisfaction to me,' Her Majesty added, 'to
make the acquaintance of one who has set so bright an example to our
sex. '
The brooch, which was designed by the Prince Consort, bore a St.
George's cross in red enamel, and the Royal cipher surmounted by
diamonds. The whole was encircled by the inscription 'Blessed are the
Merciful'.
III
THE name of Florence Nightingale lives in the memory of the world by
virtue of the lurid and heroic adventure of the Crimea. Had she died--as
she nearly did--upon her return to England, her reputation would hardly
have been different; her legend would have come down to us almost as we
know it today--that gentle vision of female virtue which first took
shape before the adoring eyes of the sick soldiers at Scutari. Yet, as a
matter of fact, she lived for more than half a century after the Crimean
War; and during the greater part of that long period, all the energy and
all the devotion of her extraordinary nature were working at their
highest pitch. What she accomplished in those years of unknown labour
could, indeed, hardly have been more glorious than her Crimean triumphs,
but it was certainly more important. The true history was far stranger
even than the myth. In Miss Nightingale's own eyes the adventure of the
Crimea was a mere incident--scarcely more than a useful stepping-stone
in her career. It was the fulcrum with which she hoped to move the
world; but it was only the fulcrum. For more than a generation she was
to sit in secret, working her lever: and her real "life" began at the
very moment when, in the popular imagination, it had ended.
She arrived in England in a shattered state of health. The hardships and
the ceaseless effort of the last two years had undermined her nervous
system; her heart was pronounced to be affected; she suffered constantly
from fainting-fits and terrible attacks of utter physical prostration.
The doctors declared that one thing alone would save her--a complete and
prolonged rest. But that was also the one thing with which she would
have nothing to do. She had never been in the habit of resting; why
should she begin now? Now, when her opportunity had come at last; now,
when the iron was hot, and it was time to strike? No; she had work to
do; and, come what might, she would do it. The doctors protested in
vain; in vain her family lamented and entreated; in vain her friends
pointed out to her the madness of such a course. Madness?
Mad--possessed--perhaps she was. A demoniac frenzy had seized upon her.
As she lay upon her sofa, gasping, she devoured blue-books, dictated
letters, and, in the intervals of her palpitations, cracked her febrile
jokes. For months at a stretch she never left her bed. For years she was
in daily expectation of death. But she would not rest. At this rate, the
doctors assured her, even if she did not die, she would, become an
invalid for life. She could not help that; there was the work to be
done; and, as for rest, very likely she might rest . . . when she had done
it.
Wherever she went, in London or in the country, in the hills of
Derbyshire, or among the rhododendrons at Embley, she was haunted by a
ghost. It was the spectre of Scutari--the hideous vision of the
organisation of a military hospital. She would lay that phantom, or she
would perish. The whole system of the Army Medical Department, the
education of the Medical Officer, the regulations of hospital procedure
. . . REST? How could she rest while these things were as they were,
while, if the like necessity were to arise again, the like results would
follow? And, even in peace and at home, what was the sanitary condition
of the Army? The mortality in the barracks was, she found, nearly double
the mortality in civil life. 'You might as well take 1,100 men every
year out upon Salisbury Plain and shoot them,' she said. After
inspecting the hospitals at Chatham, she smiled grimly. 'Yes, this is
one more symptom of the system which, in the Crimea, put to death 16,000
men. ' Scutari had given her knowledge; and it had given her power too:
her enormous reputation was at her back--an incalculable force. Other
work, other duties, might lie before her; but the most urgent, the most
obvious of all, was to look to the health of the Army.
One of her very first steps was to take advantage of the invitation
which Queen Victoria had sent her to the Crimea, together with the
commemorative brooch. Within a few weeks of her return she visited
Balmoral, and had several interviews with both the Queen and the Prince,
Consort.
'She put before us,' wrote the Prince in his diary, 'all the
defects of our present military hospital system, and the reforms that
are needed. ' She related 'the whole story' of her experiences in the
East; and, in addition, she managed to have some long and confidential
talks with His Royal Highness on metaphysics and religion. The
impression which she created was excellent. 'Sie gefallt uns sehr,'
noted the Prince, 'ist sehr bescheiden. ' Her Majesty's comment was
different--'Such a HEAD! I wish we had her at the War Office. '
But Miss Nightingale was not at the War Office, and for a very simple
reason: she was a woman. Lord Panmure, however, was (though indeed the
reason for that was not quite so simple); and it was upon Lord Panmure
that the issue of Miss Nightingale's efforts for reform must primarily
depend. That burly Scottish nobleman had not, in spite of his most
earnest endeavours, had a very easy time of it as Secretary of State for
War. He had come into office in the middle of the Sebastopol Campaign,
and had felt himself very well fitted for the position, since he had
acquired in former days an inside knowledge of the Army--as a Captain of
Hussars. It was this inside knowledge which had enabled him to inform
Miss Nightingale with such authority that 'the British soldier is not a
remitting animal'. And perhaps it was this same consciousness of a
command of his subject which had impelled him to write a dispatch to
Lord Raglan, blandly informing the Commander-in-Chief in the Field just
how he was neglecting his duties, and pointing out to him that if he
would only try he really might do a little better next time.
Lord Raglan's reply, calculated as it was to make its recipient sink
into the earth, did not quite have that effect upon Lord Panmure, who,
whatever might have been his faults, had never been accused of being
supersensitive. However, he allowed the matter to drop; and a little
later Lord Raglan died--worn out, some people said, by work and anxiety.
He was succeeded by an excellent red-nosed old gentleman, General
Simpson, whom nobody has ever heard of, and who took Sebastopol. But
Lord Panmure's relations with him were hardly more satisfactory than his
relations with Lord Raglan; for, while Lord Raglan had been too
independent, poor General Simpson erred in the opposite direction,
perpetually asked advice, suffered from lumbago, doubted (his nose
growingredder and redder daily) whether he was fit for his post, and, by
alternate mails, sent in and withdrew his resignation. Then, too, both
the General and the Minister suffered acutely from that distressingly
useful new invention, the electric telegraph. On one occasion General
Simpson felt obliged actually to expostulate. 'I think, my Lord,' he
wrote, 'that some telegraphic messages reach us that cannot be sent
under due authority, and are perhaps unknown to you, although under the
protection of your Lordship's name.
For instance, I was called up last night, a dragoon having come express
with a telegraphic message in these words, "Lord Panmure to General
Simpson--Captain Jarvis has been bitten by a centipede. How is he now? "'
General Simpson might have put up with this, though to be sure it did
seem 'rather too trifling an affair to call for a dragoon to ride a
couple of miles in the dark that he may knock up the Commander of the
Army out of the very small allowance of sleep permitted; but what was
really more than he could bear was to find 'upon sending in the morning
another mounted dragoon to inquire after Captain Jarvis, four miles off,
that he never has been bitten at all, but has had a boil, from which he
is fast recovering'. But Lord Panmure had troubles of his own. His
favourite nephew, Captain Dowbiggin, was at the front, and to one of his
telegrams to the Commander-in-Chief the Minister had taken occasion to
append the following carefully qualified sentence--'I recommend
Dowbiggin to your notice, should you have a vacancy, and if he is fit'.
Unfortunately, in those early days, it was left to the discretion of the
telegraphist to compress the messages which passed through his hands; so
that the result was that Lord Panmure's delicate appeal reached its
destination in the laconic form of 'Look after Dowb'. The Headquarters
Staff were at first extremely puzzled; they were at last extremely
amused. The story spread; and 'Look after Dowb' remained for many years
the familiar formula for describing official hints in favour of
deserving nephews.
And now that all this was over, now that Sebastopol had been, somehow or
another, taken; now that peace was, somehow or another, made; now that
the troubles of office might surely be expected to be at an end at
last--here was Miss Nightingale breaking in upon the scene with her talk
about the state of the hospitals and the necessity for sanitary reform.
It was most irksome; and Lord Panmure almost began to wish that he was
engaged upon some more congenial occupation--discussing, perhaps, the
constitution of the Free Church of Scotland--a question in which he was
profoundly interested. But no; duty was paramount; and he set himself,
with a sigh of resignation, to the task of doing as little of it as he
possibly could.
'The Bison' his friends called him; and the name fitted both his
physical demeanour and his habit of mind. That large low head seemed to
have been created for butting rather than for anything else. There he
stood, four-square and menacing in the doorway of reform; and it
remained to be seen whether, the bulky mass, upon whose solid hide even
the barbed arrows of Lord Raglan's scorn had made no mark, would prove
amenable to the pressure of Miss Nightingale. Nor was he alone in the
doorway. There loomed behind him the whole phalanx of professional
conservatism, the stubborn supporters of the out-of-date, the
worshippers and the victims of War Office routine. Among these it was
only natural that Dr. Andrew Smith, the head of the Army Medical
Department, should have been pre-eminent--Dr. Andrew Smith, who had
assured Miss Nightingale before she left England that 'nothing was
wanted at Scutari'. Such were her opponents; but she too was not without
allies. She had gained the ear of Royalty--which was something; at any
moment that she pleased she could gain the ear of the public--which was
a great deal. She had a host of admirers and friends; and--to say
nothing of her personal qualities--her knowledge, her tenacity, her
tact--she possessed, too, one advantage which then, far more even than
now, carried an immense weight--she belonged to the highest circle of
society. She moved naturally among Peers and Cabinet Ministers--she was
one of their own set; and in those days their set was a very narrow one.
What kind of attention would such persons have paid to some middle-class
woman with whom they were not acquainted, who possessed great experience
of Army nursing and had decided views upon hospital reform? They would
have politely ignored her; but it was impossible to ignore Flo
Nightingale. When she spoke, they were obliged to listen; and, when they
had once begun to do that--what might not follow? She knew her power,
and she used it. She supported her weightiest minutes with familiar
witty little notes. The Bison began to look grave. It might be
difficult--it might be damned difficult--to put down one's head against
the white hand of a lady . . .
Of Miss Nightingale's friends, the most important was Sidney Herbert. He
was a man upon whom the good fairies seemed to have showered, as he lay
in his cradle, all their most enviable goods. Well born, handsome, rich,
the master of Wilton--one of those great country-houses, clothed with
the glamour of a historic past, which are the peculiar glory of
England--he possessed--besides all these advantages: so charming, so
lively, so gentle a disposition that no one who had once come near him
could ever be his enemy.
He was, in fact, a man of whom it was difficult not to say that he was a
perfect English gentleman. For his virtues were equal even to his good
fortune. He was religious, deeply religious. 'I am more and more
convinced every day,' he wrote, when he had been for some years a
Cabinet Minister, 'that in politics, as in everything else, nothing can
be right which is not in accordance with the spirit of the Gospel. ' No
one was more unselfish; he was charitable and benevolent to a remarkable
degree; and he devoted the whole of his life, with an unwavering
conscientiousness, to the public service. With such a character, with
such opportunities, what high hopes must have danced before him, what
radiant visions of accomplished duties, of ever-increasing usefulness,
of beneficent power, of the consciousness of disinterested success! Some
of those hopes and visions were, indeed, realised; but, in the end, the
career of Sidney Herbert seemed to show that, with all their generosity,
there was some gift or other--what was it? --some essential gift--which
the good fairies had withheld, and that even the qualities of a perfect
English gentleman may be no safeguard against anguish, humiliation, and
defeat.
That career would certainly have been very different if he had never
known Miss Nightingale. The alliance between them which had begun with
her appointment to Scutari, which had grown closer and closer while the
war lasted, developed, after her return, into one of the most
extraordinary friendships. It was the friendship of a man and a woman
intimately bound together by their devotion to a public cause; mutual
affection, of course, played a part in it, but it was an incidental
part; the whole soul of the relationship was a community of work.
Perhaps out of England such an intimacy could hardly have existed--an
intimacy so utterly untinctured not only by passion itself but by the
suspicion of it. For years Sidney Herbert saw Miss Nightingale almost
daily, for long hours together, corresponding with her incessantly when
they were apart; and the tongue of scandal was silent; and one of the
most devoted of her admirers was his wife. But what made the connection
still more remarkable was the way in which the parts that were played in
it were divided between the two. The man who acts, decides, and
achieves; the woman who encourages, applauds, and--from a
distance--inspires: the combination is common enough; but Miss
Nightingale was neither an Aspasia nor an Egeria. In her case it is
almost true to say that the roles were reversed; the qualities of
pliancy and sympathy fell to the man, those of command and initiative to
the woman.
There was one thing only which Miss Nightingale lacked in her equipment
for public life; she had not--she never could have--the public power and
authority which belonged to the successful politician. That power and
authority Sidney Herbert possessed; that fact was obvious, and the
conclusions no less so: it was through the man that the woman must work
her will. She took hold of him, taught him, shaped him, absorbed him,
dominated him through and through. He did not resist--he did not wish to
resist; his natural inclination lay along the same path as hers; only
that terrific personality swept him forward at her own fierce pace and
with her own relentless stride. Swept him--where to? Ah! Why had he ever
known Miss Nightingale? If Lord Panmure was a bison, Sidney Herbert, no
doubt, was a stag--a comely, gallant creature springing through the
forest; but the forest is a dangerous place. One has the image of those
wide eyes fascinated suddenly by something feline, something strong;
there is a pause; and then the tigress has her claws in the quivering
haunches; and then--!
Besides Sidney Herbert, she had other friends who, in a more restricted
sphere, were hardly less essential to her. If, in her condition of
bodily collapse, she were to accomplish what she was determined that she
should accomplish, the attentions and the services of others would be
absolutely indispensable. Helpers and servers she must have; and
accordingly there was soon formed about her a little group of devoted
disciples upon whose affections and energies she could implicitly rely.
Devoted, indeed, these disciples were, in no ordinary sense of the term;
for certainly she was no light taskmistress, and he who set out to be of
use to Miss Nightingale was apt to find, before he had gone very far,
that he was in truth being made use of in good earnest to the very limit
of his endurance and his capacity. Perhaps, even beyond those limits;
why not? Was she asking of others more than she was giving herself? Let
them look at her lying there pale and breathless on the couch; could it
be said that she spared herself? Why, then, should she spare others? And
it was not for her own sake that she made these claims. For her own
sake, indeed! No! They all knew it! it was for the sake of the work. And
so the little band, bound body and soul in that strange servitude,
laboured on ungrudgingly.
Among the most faithful was her 'Aunt Mai', her father's sister, who
from the earliest days had stood beside her, who had helped her to
escape from the thraldom of family life, who had been with her at
Scutari, and who now acted almost the part of a mother to her, watching
over her with infinite care in all the movements and uncertainties which
her state of health involved. Another constant attendant was her
brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney, whom she found particularly valuable
in parliamentary affairs. Arthur Clough, the poet, also a connection by
marriage, she used in other ways. Ever since he had lost his faith at
the time of the Oxford Movement, Clough had passed his life in a
condition of considerable uneasiness, which was increased rather than
diminished by the practice of poetry. Unable to decide upon the purpose
of an existence whose savour had fled together with his belief in the
Resurrection, his spirits lowered still further by ill-health, and his
income not all that it should be, he had determined to seek the solution
of his difficulties in the United States of America. But, even there,
the solution was not forthcoming; and, when, a little later, he was
offered a post in a government department at home, he accepted it, came
to live in London, and immediately fell under the influence of Miss
Nightingale. Though the purpose of existence might be still uncertain
and its nature still unsavoury, here, at any rate, under the eye of this
inspired woman, was something real, something earnest: his only doubt
was--could he be of any use? Certainly he could. There were a great
number of miscellaneous little jobs which there was nobody handy to do.
For instance, when Miss Nightingale was travelling, there were the
railway-tickets to be taken; and there were proof-sheets to be
corrected; and then there were parcels to be done up in brown paper, and
carried to the post. Certainly he could be useful. And so, upon such
occupations as these, Arthur Clough was set to work. 'This that I see,
is not all,' he comforted himself by reflecting, 'and this that I do is
but little; nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it. ' As
time went on, her 'Cabinet', as she called it, grew larger. Officials
with whom her work brought her into touch and who sympathised with her
objects, were pressed into her service; and old friends of the Crimean
days gathered around her when they returned to England. Among these the
most indefatigable was Dr. Sutherland, a sanitary expert, who for more
than thirty years acted as her confidential private secretary, and
surrendered to her purposes literally the whole of his life. Thus
sustained and assisted, thus slaved for and adored, she prepared to
beard the Bison.
Two facts soon emerged, and all that followed turned upon them. It
became clear, in the first place, that that imposing mass was not
immovable, and, in the second, that its movement, when it did move,
would be exceeding slow. The Bison was no match for the Lady. It was in
vain that he put down his head and planted his feet in the earth; he
could not withstand her; the white hand forced him back. But the process
was an extraordinarily gradual one. Dr. Andrew Smith and all his War
Office phalanx stood behind, blocking the way; the poor Bison groaned
inwardly, and cast a wistful eye towards the happy pastures of the Free
Church of Scotland; then slowly, with infinite reluctance, step by step,
he retreated, disputing every inch of the ground.
The first great measure, which, supported as it was by the Queen, the
Cabinet, and the united opinion of the country, it was impossible to
resist, was the appointment of a Royal Commission to report upon the
health of the Army. The question of the composition of the Commission
then immediately arose; and it was over this matter that the first
hand-to-hand encounter between Lord Panmure and Miss Nightingale took
place. They met, and Miss Nightingale was victorious; Sidney Herbert was
appointed Chairman; and, in the end, the only member of the Commission
opposed to her views was Dr. Andrew Smith. During the interview, Miss
Nightingale made an important discovery: she found that 'the Bison was
bullyable'--the hide was the hide of a Mexican buffalo, but the spirit
was the spirit of an Alderney calf. And there was one thing above all
others which the huge creature dreaded--an appeal to public opinion. The
faintest hint of such a terrible eventuality made his heart dissolve
within him; he would agree to anything he would cut short his
grouse-shooting--he would make a speech in the House of Lords, he would
even overrule Dr. Andrew Smith--rather than that. Miss Nightingale held
the fearful threat in reserve--she would speak out what she knew; she
would publish the truth to the whole world, and let the whole world
judge between them. With supreme skill, she kept this sword of Damocles
poised above the Bison's head, and more than once she was actually on
the point of really dropping it--for his recalcitrancy grew and grew.
The personnel of the Commission once determined upon, there was a
struggle, which lasted for six months, over the nature of its powers.
Was it to be an efficient body, armed with the right of full inquiry and
wide examination, or was it to be a polite official contrivance for
exonerating Dr. Andrew Smith? The War Office phalanx closed its ranks,
and fought tooth and nail; but it was defeated: the Bison was bullyable.
'Three months from this day,' Miss Nightingale had written at last, 'I
publish my experience of the Crimean Campaign, and my suggestions for
improvement, unless there has been a fair and tangible pledge by that
time for reform. '
Who could face that?
And, if the need came, she meant to be as good as her word. For she had
now determined, whatever might be the fate of the Commission, to draw up
her own report upon the questions at issue. The labour involved was
enormous; her health was almost desperate; but she did not flinch, and
after six months of incredible industry she had put together and written
with her own hand her Notes affecting the Health, Efficiency, and
Hospital Administration of the British Army. This extraordinary
composition, filling more than 800 closely printed pages, laying down
vast principles of far-reaching reform, discussing the minutest details
of a multitude of controversial subjects, containing an enormous mass of
information of the most varied kinds--military, statistical, sanitary,
architectural--was never given to the public, for the need never came;
but it formed the basis of the Report of the Royal Commission; and it
remains to this day the leading authority on the medical administration
of armies.
Before it had been completed, the struggle over the powers of the
Commission had been brought to a victorious close. Lord Panmure had
given way once more; he had immediately hurried to the Queen to obtain
her consent; and only then, when Her Majesty's initials had been
irrevocably affixed to the fatal document, did he dare to tell Dr.
Andrew Smith what he had done. The Commission met, and another immense
load fell upon Miss Nightingale's shoulders. Today she would, of course,
have been one of the Commission herself; but at that time the idea of a
woman appearing in such a capacity was unheard of; and no one even
suggested the possibility of Miss Nightingale's doing so. The result was
that she was obliged to remain behind the scenes throughout, to coach
Sidney Herbert in private at every important juncture, and to convey to
him and to her other friends upon the Commission the vast funds of her
expert knowledge--so essential in the examination of witnesses--by means
of innumerable consultations, letters, and memoranda. It was even
doubtful whether the proprieties would admit of her giving evidence; and
at last, as a compromise, her modesty only allowed her to do so in the
form of written answers to written questions. At length, the grand
affair was finished. The Commission's Report, embodying almost word for
word the suggestions of Miss Nightingale, was drawn up by Sidney
Herbert. Only one question remained to be answered--would anything,
after all, be done? Or would the Royal Commission, like so many other
Royal Commissions before and since, turn out to have achieved nothing
but the concoction of a very fat bluebook on a very high shelf?
And so the last and the deadliest struggle with the Bison began. Six
months had been spent in coercing him into granting the Commission
effective powers; six more months were occupied by the work of the
Commission; and now yet another six were to pass in extorting from him
the means whereby the recommendations of the Commission might be
actually carried out. But, in the end, the thing was done. Miss
Nightingale seemed, indeed, during these months, to be upon the very
brink of death. Accompanied by the faithful Aunt Mai, she moved from
place to place--to Hampstead, to Highgate, to Derbyshire, to Malvern--in
what appeared to be a last desperate effort to find health somewhere;
but she carried that with her which made health impossible. Her desire
for work could now scarcely be distinguished from mania. At one moment
she was writing a 'last letter' to Sidney Herbert; at the next she was
offering to go out to India to nurse the sufferers in the Mutiny. When
Dr. Sutherland wrote, imploring her to take a holiday, she raved.
Rest! --
'I am lying without my head, without my claws, and you all peck at me.
It is de rigueur, d'obligation, like the saying something to one's hat,
when one goes into church, to say to me all that has been said to me 110
times a day during the last three months. It is the obbligato on the
violin, and the twelve violins all practise it together, like the clocks
striking twelve o'clock at night all over London, till I say like Xavier
de Maistre, Assez, je sais, je ne le sais que trop. I am not a penitent;
but you are like the R. C. confessor, who says what is de rigueur. . . . '
Her wits began to turn, and there was no holding her. She worked like a
slave in a mine. She began to believe, as she had begun to believe at
Scutari, that none of her fellow-workers had their hearts in the
business; if they had, why did they not work as she did? She could only
see slackness and stupidity around her. Dr. Sutherland, of course, was
grotesquely muddle-headed; and Arthur Clough incurably lazy. Even Sidney
Herbert . . . oh yes, he had simplicity and candour and quickness of
perception, no doubt; but he was an eclectic; and what could one hope
for from a man who went away to fish in Ireland just when the Bison most
needed bullying? As for the Bison himself, he had fled to Scotland where
he remained buried for many months. The fate of the vital recommendation
in the Commission's Report--the appointment of four Sub-Commissions
charged with the duty of determining upon the details of the proposed
reforms and of putting them into execution--still hung in the balance.
The Bison consented to everything; and then, on a flying visit to
London, withdrew his consent and hastily returned to Scotland. Then for
many weeks all business was suspended; he had gout--gout in the
hands--so that he could not write. 'His gout was always handy,' remarked
Miss Nightingale. But eventually it was clear even to the Bison that the
game was up, and the inevitable surrender came.
There was, however, one point in which he triumphed over Miss
Nightingale: the building of Netley Hospital had been begun under his
orders, before her return to England. Soon after her arrival she
examined the plans, and found that they reproduced all the worst faults
of an out-of-date and mischievous system of hospital construction. She
therefore urged that the matter should be reconsidered, and in the
meantime the building stopped. But the Bison was obdurate; it would be
very expensive, and in any case it was too late. Unable to make any
impression on him, and convinced of the extreme importance of the
question, she determined to appeal to a higher authority. Lord
Palmerston was Prime Minister; she had known him from her childhood; he
was a near neighbour of her father's in the New Forest. She went down to
the New Forest, armed with the plan of the proposed hospital and all the
relevant information, stayed the night at Lord Palmerston's house, and
convinced him of the necessity of rebuilding Netley.
'It seems to me,' Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord Panmure, 'that at Netley
all consideration of what would best tend to the comfort and recovery of
the patients has been sacrificed to the vanity of the architect, whose
sole object has been to make a building which should cut a dash when
looked at from the Southampton river . . . Pray, therefore, stop all
further progress in the work until the matter can be duly considered. '
But the Bison was not to be moved by one peremptory letter, even if it
was from the Prime Minister. He put forth all his powers of
procrastination, Lord Palmerston lost interest in the subject, and so
the chief military hospital in England was triumphantly completed on
insanitary principles, with unventilated rooms, and with all the
patients' windows facing northeast.
But now the time had come when the Bison was to trouble and to be
troubled no more. A vote in the House of Commons brought about the fall
of Lord Palmerston's Government, and, Lord Panmure found himself at
liberty to devote the rest of his life to the Free Church of Scotland.
After a brief interval, Sidney Herbert became Secretary of State for
War. Great was the jubilation in the Nightingale Cabinet: the day of
achievement had dawned at last.
