The Healing Hand Read online

  Six hundred hospital dresses had been sent before they left England, so Florence had been told, but they were never seen again.

  Florence found out as soon as they arrived that the doctors had no intention of allowing her to have anything to do with the sick and wounded.

  She did not make a scene or point out that so many men who were suffering from dysentery and cholera were dying unattended.

  Obeying her orders that the nurses were not to go near the wounded men, she started to clean up the Hospital.

  Florence herself stood over the tubs and helped to scrub in a forlorn attempt to reduce infections.

  A number of sick and wounded men were brought to the Hospital every day from the battlefield on the other side of the Black Sea.

  Men who had suffered acutely for days in the slow and ill-equipped ships bringing them from the Crimea were dying before they could be carried into the Hospital. After rolling about on the open decks without drugs, dressings or even blankets, many were taken straight to the graveyard.

  Ignored by the doctors, Florence soon realised that she was to be frozen out, as not one doctor would use her nurses or her supplies.

  Although the men were in desperate need and she could give them what was required from her purchases in London, her stores were refused.

  According to Army regulations, Hospital orderlies were the only assistants to be used by the doctors and they were usually weak, stupid and clumsy – and, as the work of tending the sick was forced on them, they naturally disliked it and did as little as possible.

  Florence was clever enough to realise that before she could achieve anything she had to win the confidence of the doctors.

  She was determined not to offer her nurses or her stores again, but to wait until the doctors asked for help.

  It was a policy that demanded huge self-control and she had to stand back, see men suffer and do nothing until officially instructed.

  Several days passed and more stores did arrive. Florence made her nurses sort out the old linen and count packages of provisions.

  The endless cries of men in pain were unanswered while the nurses did not dare to go to them.

  They all criticised Florence, but she remained silent and some of the nurses formed the impression that she was indifferent to the suffering of the wounded.

  One thing Florence did note as soon as she arrived was that the Hospital food was virtually inedible even for healthy men, and as a diet for cholera and dysentery cases it produced agony.

  On the very day of her arrival, Florence began to cook. She had brought arrowroot, wine and beer and other potable stores in Marseilles.

  She provided pails of hot arrowroot and port wine for those who needed it and within only a week the kitchen belonging to her quarters had become an extra diet kitchen for the Hospital.

  Food was cooked under the direction of two nurses. Tania, who had learned to cook at her school in France, was particularly good at it.

  This kitchen was the only means of supplying food in the whole Hospital, but still no nurse was permitted to give a patient any nourishment without a doctor’s written consent.

  Then on November 9th ships bringing the wounded from the battle of Inkerman, fought four days before, began to arrive and unload at Scutari.

  The men had suffered frightfully on the journey and several soldiers died before they even reached the Hospital.

  The situation now completely changed as a flood of sick and wounded men poured into Scutari on such a scale that a crisis of urgency arose and prejudice against nursing women was forgotten for the moment.

  Tania now helped the nurses in the wards as if she was one of them.

  She had found herself attending to the wounded leg of a young Corporal who she realised from what remained of his uniform was a Grenadier.

  This she knew was Rupert’s Regiment in the First Division.

  “That be better, missie,” he sighed after Tania had washed his leg thoroughly and put bandages over a healing cream supplied by Florence.

  “You are not really very seriously wounded,” Tania said with a smile. “But it must have been a terrible battle.”

  “Aye, that it were,” he replied. “Yet I thinks us won it.”

  Then somewhat tentatively she asked him,

  “Did you happen by any chance see Captain Rupert More – before or during the battle?”

  “I sees him right enough,” the Corporal answered, “and he were ridin’ a fine horse. But when he gallops against them Russian guns, I sees the Captain fall.”

  Tania drew in her breath, horrified.

  Then she managed to ask in a voice that did not sound like her own,

  “Do you mean he was killed?”

  “No. I thinks it be his horse them Ruskies got, not him. I did see him fall, but he must have been wounded, ’cos they carries him away afore they takes me down the hill and puts me on the ship as brings me here.”

  “Where was he taken?” Tania demanded.

  “To a big yacht that were in the harbour.”

  Tania gathered up her bandages and cream.

  Then, because she could not help herself, she ran out of the ward to look for Selina.

  She was cutting up bandages in the small office where her husband slept. Charles was sitting near the window reading a newspaper.

  Tania rushed into the room.

  “I have just heard from one of the wounded men,” she cried breathlessly, “that Rupert has been wounded. He is not dead, but has been taken to a yacht in the harbour.”

  Selina stared at her and then she gasped,

  “I think Rupert must be on Lord Cardigan’s yacht. A doctor told me that everyone was talking about it.”

  “You think that perhaps Rupert is a friend of Lord Cardigan?” asked Tania.

  Charles turned round and commented,

  “I suppose what you are really saying is that you want to go and see him, Tania?”

  “Oh, please, please, if it is possible for me to do so. You cannot imagine how frightened I have been ever since all these men arrived from Inkerman. If Rupert is wounded I must see him – just in case – ”

  Her voice failed and she could not say the words. Charles and Selina knew that she was thinking,

  “Leave it to me,” Charles offered. “In the meantime go on with your good work. You know that Florence has been waiting for this moment and we must now prove how cruel and idiotic those doctors have been in keeping her out of the wards until now.”

  “I know – but please promise me you will try to see if anyone can take me to – Lord Cardigan’s yacht.”

  Despite her every effort the tears ran down her face as she spoke.

  Charles recognised just how much she must have suffered in keeping silent for so long.

  He and Selina had very deliberately not mentioned Rupert, just in case they were making a mistake and there was no real feeling between them.

  Now they were convinced without being told that Tania was deeply in love with him.

  Selina hurried out of the room with her bandages and Charles could only hope that if Tania did go to visit Rupert, he would not, like so many men who had fought at Inkerman, be dead or dying.

  Tania did not go back to the ward where she had been working.

  Instead she went to find Florence.

  It was now late and she thought it too dark to see very clearly.

  There were four miles of corridors in the hospital and with the new wounded soldiers arriving, every corridor was crammed with patients lying on stuffed sacks with only just enough room to pass between them.

  Every single night, even when Florence had not been permitted to do anything for the wounded, Tania had done the rounds.

  She spoke to the patients and gave them at least some idea that someone cared.

  To light her way in the wards she carried a Turkish lantern of a single candle inside a circular shade.

  It was this practise, although neither Florence nor Tania could have known,
which was to give Florence the name, ‘The Lady with the Lamp’.

  This image was so strong in those dank and desperate corridors that it inspired the historic poem that was written later by Longfellow,

  “Lo! In that hour of misery

  A Lady with a lamp I see

  Pass through the glimmering gloom,

  And flit from room to room.

  And slow, as in a dream of bliss,

  The speechless sufferer turns to kiss

  Her shadow, as it falls

  Upon the darkening walls.”

  After Tania had left, Charles went to call on Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who was virtually a dictator that the Turks called him ‘The Great Elchi’, the Great Ambassador.

  Physically he was extremely handsome and prided himself on his looks.

  He lived in a magnificent Palace in Constantinople and travelled with twenty-five servants and seven tons of plate.

  Unfortunately he had done little to help the Barrack Hospital and Florence had somewhat unkindly described him as ‘bad-tempered, heartless, pompous and lazy’.

  He enjoyed associating with Kings and Emperors, and was certainly not a man to interest himself in a hospital for common soldiers.

  ‘For two years,’ Florence wrote, ‘he has had the British Army perishing within sight of his window and has done nothing about it.’

  At the same time Charles knew that Lord Stratford was the one person who could make it possible for Tania to visit Rupert.

  He reckoned with a sarcastic smile that as Rupert came from a most distinguished family and his father was an Earl, Lord Stratford would be pleased to oblige!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When Charles called in at Lord Stratford’s opulent Palace, he gave his name and said that his business with his Lordship was ‘important and urgent’.

  He was, however, somewhat surprised when a few minutes later he was escorted into a large beautiful room overlooking the Bosporus.

  Lord Stratford, who was reading a newspaper put it on one side, stood up and shook hands.

  “I am delighted to see you, Mr. Bracebridge, and I do apologise for not calling on you when you first arrived. But I know you have been very busy and so indeed have I.”

  “I have come to see you, my Lord, on an errand of mercy,” replied Charles, “but first I must tell you a secret that is known to no one else since we left England.”

  He saw Lord Stratford was intrigued and he then sat down and told him who Tania was.

  And why they had brought her away on this most difficult assignment with Florence Nightingale.

  Lord Stratford listened to him without speaking and then he exclaimed,

  “I have never heard anything so appalling as Lady Amesly’s behaviour. Of course you were right to bring the poor girl away with you.”

  “She had already lost her heart before we left home to Captain Rupert More,” Charles went on. “I expect you know he is a son of the Earl of Grantmore and we have just learnt that he has been wounded at Inkerman.”

  “He is sadly one of many. You may not know that he has just lost his elder brother.”

  Charles looked at him in surprise.

  “His brother! Do you mean Viscount Grant?”

  “I was reading in the English newspapers just two days ago, which take more than a week coming here, that Viscount Grant has died in India of a rare fever that none of the doctors could cure.”

  “I had no idea!” exclaimed Charles. “Our English newspapers have not arrived now for nearly ten days.”

  “It was explained at some length that the Viscount who has been an equerry to the Governor, would be a great loss to India and naturally to his father the Earl.”

  “This will mean,” said Charles slowly, “that Rupert More now takes on his brother’s title. You will understand, my Lord, that Tania Amesly, who knows nothing of what you have just told me, is most anxious to be with him.”

  “Of course I understand and I will give you every possible assistance. Have you any idea where he is?”

  “The young soldier Tania was treating this morning had just come from Inkerman. He said that he saw Rupert being carried onto a yacht. I gather the only private yacht in Balaclava Harbour belongs to Lord Cardigan.”

  “Indeed that is where Cardigan is! I must make it my business to call on him, which I have not done for the simple reason that they were anticipating a violent battle.”

  There was a pause in the conversation.

  “I tell you what I’ll do,” suggested Lord Stratford. “I will lend you my yacht early tomorrow morning to take you and Miss Amesly to Balaclava Harbour.”

  “That is exceedingly kind of you, my Lord, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am.”

  “I am quite certain that if the wounded Rupert is at present with Lord Cardigan, he will be only too pleased to accommodate Miss Amesly – and then you can return in my yacht.”

  “I will be waiting for it at eight o’clock,” Charles said, “and thank you, my Lord, for your great kindness and understanding, which I deeply appreciate.”

  Lord Stratford offered him some refreshment, but Charles said it would be a mistake to waste any more time. So he thanked him again and returned to the Hospital.

  Tania was waiting for him.

  As he stepped out of the caique that had rowed him from Lord Stratford’s Palace, she ran down to the water’s edge and threw herself against him.

  “What did he say? Will he help me?”

  “Everything is arranged, Tania, and we are to leave at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. I am going to take you to Lord Cardigan’s yacht in Balaclava Harbour.”

  “Oh, you are wonderful! Wonderful!” cried Tania.

  *

  She slept very little that night and started dressing before six o’clock.

  She put on one of the pretty dresses she had bought in London and then she packed her clothes, saying a prayer as she did so that she would not be sent away before she had seen Rupert.

  Later Selina came and helped her as Tania was still putting her last things into boxes on the floor outside the cupboard she slept in.

  “I do hope Lord Cardigan will let you stay with Rupert,” said Selina. “But if you have to come back here, you know Charles and I will be very happy to go on looking after you.”

  “I am only afraid they may refuse to let me go on Lord Cardigan’s yacht and Rupert might be too ill to see me.”

  “I am sure you will see him and you will be able to find out if the letters you wrote ever reached him.”

  “I am sure the letters I wrote to him from here did not. Otherwise he would have replied to me.”

  That morning Tania had breakfast at seven o’clock with Selina and later Charles joined them.

  “I think that the earlier we set off for Balaclava the better,” he said. “I can see ships heading in this direction which means that more wounded are likely to arrive at any moment. I had better get Tania away before she is given a dozen things to do that would delay our departure.”

  Tania kissed Selina.

  “I think it is a bit over-optimistic of me to take my clothes with me. Lord Cardigan may not have me to stay.”

  She drew in her breath before she added,

  “At the same time if Rupert is to be sent home because he is wounded, I am determined to go with him.”

  “Of course you must,” agreed Selina, “and as you have been taught by Florence what to do, no one else will be able to look after him as well as you could.”

  “I hope you are right,” sighed Tania, “but they may make it very difficult for me.”

  Selina realised that she was referring to the doctors and she thought it best not to discuss any of the difficulties.

  It was not until they were aboard the elegant yacht owned by Lord Stratford that Charles told Tania what he had learnt about Rupert’s brother.

  “I never thought, as he was in India, that he would be in danger,” commented Tania. “Actually Rupert did not say very mu
ch about him at all.”

  “I am not surprised. I understand the two brothers did not get on and the late Viscount was not a popular man in London.”

  “He didn't see eye to eye with his father either, who had no wish for him to go to India with their large estate in the country to manage. He thought that one son as a soldier was more than enough.”

  Tania did not say anything as she was thinking with a sudden fear she could not describe that if Rupert died too the Earl would be childless.

  Lord Stratford’s yacht was waiting just below them and it was fortunate there was no other ship unloading the wounded at that moment.

  Charles made one of the orderlies carry her cases down to the yacht and then he kissed his wife goodbye and Tania did the same.

  “Thank you, thank you for all you have done for me,” she said to Charles and Selina, “you have been so wonderful and please do explain to Miss Nightingale how grateful I am to her. I will not say goodbye to her because she might be supervising a delicate operation and praying that the suffering soldier will survive.”

  “You are right, my dear,” sighed Selina. “Florence would hate you to interfere at such a time, but I will tell her what you have said.”

  Tania kissed Selina goodbye again and then hurried down to Charles who was already boarding the yacht.

  *

  It took them two days to cross the Black Sea and reach Balaclava Harbour.

  There were two ships in the port waiting to convey more wounded from the Battle of Inkerman to the Hospital and The Dryad, Lord Cardigan’s yacht, looked, because it was so smart and elegant, completely out of place.

  Many felt that it was a fairytale vessel. It had been sailed from England, Tania was to discover later, by Lord Cardigan’s French chef.

  Lord Cardigan himself lived a life of luxury on his yacht while his men suffered endless privations in tents on the cold and windy Russian plain.

  The Cavalry he commanded were stationed several miles from the Harbour and the Regimental Brigadier was obliged to come to the yacht every evening to receive his orders for the next day.

  By what had seemed a miracle Lord Cardigan had survived unscathed when he had ridden with the Charge of the Light Brigade.

  His Cavalrymen endured what was described as the most appalling slaughter of riders and horses ever seen in the history of warfare.