Всего за 5.99 руб. Купить полную версию
He added that the snow was three feet deep on a level, and the cold so intense that many soldiers were frozen in their tents.
No one meant to be cruel or neglectful; but there were not half enough doctors, and think of it, children! there were no nurses .
How did this happen? Well, when the war broke out the military authorities did not want female nurses. The matter was talked over, and it was decided that things would go better without them. This was put on the ground that the class of nurses, as I have told you, was at that time in England a very poor one. They were often drunken, generally unfeeling, and always ignorant. The War Department decided that this kind of nurse would do more harm than good; they did not realize that "The old order changeth, yielding place to new," and that the time was come when the new nurse must replace the old.
But now the need was come, immediate and terrible, and there was no one to meet it. When the people of England realized this; when they learned that the hospital at Scutari was filled with sick and wounded and dying men, and no one to care for them save a few male orderlies, wholly untrained for the task; when they heard that in the hospitals of the French army the Sisters of Mercy were doing their blessed work, tending the wounded, healing the sick and comforting the dying, and realized that the English soldiers, their own sons, brothers and husbands, had no such help and no such comfort, the sound of bell and trumpet was lost in a great cry of anger and sorrow that went up from the whole country.
And matters grew worse and worse, as one great battle after another sent its dreadful fruits to the already overflowing hospital at Scutari. On October 25th came Balaklava; on November 5th, Inkerman.
You have all read "The Charge of the Light Brigade"; yet I ask you to read it again here, so that it may fit into its place in the story of this terrible war. Remember, it is only one incident of that great battle of Balaklava, in which both sides claimed the victory, while neither gained any signal advantage.
I have already spoken of William Howard Russell. He was the war correspondent of the Times , the great English newspaper, and a man of intelligence, heart and feeling. He was on the spot, and saw the horrors of the war at first-hand. His heart was filled with sorrow and pity for the suffering around him, and with indignation that so little was done to relieve it; and he wrote day after day home to England, telling what he saw and what was needed. Soon after Balaklava he wrote:
"Are there no devoted women amongst us, able and willing to go forth to minister to the sick and suffering soldiers of the East in the hospitals at Scutari? Are there none of the daughters of England, at this extreme hour of need, ready for such a work of mercy? France has sent forth her Sisters of Mercy unsparingly, and they are even now by the bedsides of the wounded and the dying, giving what woman's hand alone can give of comfort and relief. Must we fall so far below the French in self-sacrifice and devotedness, in a work which Christ so signally blesses as done unto Himself? 'I was sick and ye visited me.'"
This was the trumpet call that rang in the ears of the women of England, sounding a clearer note than all the clarions of victory. We shall see how it was answered.
CHAPTER VII. THE RESPONSE
He knew Miss Nightingale well; she was a dear friend of himself and his beautiful wife, and had again and again given them help and counsel in planning and managing their many charities, hospitals, homes for sick children, and so forth. He knew that she possessed all the qualities needed for this work, and he wrote to her, asking if she would undertake it. Would she, he asked, go out to Scutari, taking with her a band of nurses who would be under her orders, and take charge of the hospital nursing?