Part 5 (1/2)
I was fortunate enough to find an old acquaintance, who accompanied me through the wards, and rendered it unnecessary for me to trouble the busy nurses. This was an old 97th man--a Sergeant T----, whom I had known in Kingston, and who was slowly recovering from an attack of dysentery, and making himself of use here until the doctors should let him go back and have another ”shy at the Roos.h.i.+ans.” He is very glad to meet me, and tells me his history very socially, and takes me to the bedsides of some comrades, who had also known me at Up-Park Camp.
My poor fellows! how their eyes glisten when they light upon an old friend's face in these Turkish barracks--put to so sad a use, three thousand miles from home. Here is one of them--”hurt in the trenches,”
says the Sergeant, with shaven bandaged head, and bright, restless, Irish eyes, who hallooes out, ”Mother Seacole! Mother Seacole!” in such an excited tone of voice; and when he has shaken hands a score of times, falls back upon his pillow very wearily. But I sit by his side, and try to cheer him with talk about the future, when he shall grow well, and see home, and hear them all thank him for what he has been helping to do, so that he grows all right in a few minutes; but, hearing that I am on the way to the front, gets excited again; for, you see, illness and weakness make these strong men as children, not least in the patient unmurmuring resignation with which they suffer. I think my Irish friend had an indistinct idea of a ”muddle” somewhere, which had kept him for weeks on salt meat and biscuit, until it gave him the ”scurvy,” for he is very anxious that I should take over plenty of vegetables, of every sort. ”And, oh! mother!”--and it is strange to hear his almost plaintive tone as he urges this--”take them plenty of eggs, mother; we never saw eggs over there.”
At some slight risk of giving offence, I cannot resist the temptation of lending a helping hand here and there--replacing a slipped bandage, or easing a stiff one. But I do not think any one was offended; and one doctor, who had with some surprise and, at first, alarm on his face, watched me replace a bandage, which was giving pain, said, very kindly, when I had finished, ”Thank you, ma'am.”
One thought never left my mind as I walked through the fearful miles of suffering in that great hospital. If it is so here, what must it not be at the scene of war--on the spot where the poor fellows are stricken down by pestilence or Russian bullets, and days and nights of agony must be pa.s.sed before a woman's hand can dress their wounds. And I felt happy in the conviction that _I must_ be useful three or four days nearer to their pressing wants than this.
It was growing late before I felt tired, or thought of leaving Scutari, and Dr. S----, another Jamaica friend, who had kindly borne me company for the last half-hour agreed with me that the caicque was not the safest conveyance by night on the Bosphorus, and recommended me to present my letter to Miss Nightingale, and perhaps a lodging for the night could be found for me. So, still under the Sergeant's patient guidance, we thread our way through pa.s.sages and corridors, all used as sick-wards, until we reach the corner tower of the building, in which are the nurses' quarters.
I think Mrs. B----, who saw me, felt more surprise than she could politely show (I never found women so quick to understand me as the men) when I handed her Dr. F----'s kind letter respecting me, and apologized for troubling Miss Nightingale. There is that in the Doctor's letter (he had been much at Scutari) which prevents my request being refused, and I am asked to wait until Miss Nightingale, whose every moment is valuable, can see me. Meanwhile Mrs. B.
questions me very kindly, but with the same look of curiosity and surprise.
What object has Mrs. Seacole in coming out? This is the purport of her questions. And I say, frankly, to be of use somewhere; for other considerations I had not, until necessity forced them upon me.
Willingly, had they accepted me, I would have worked for the wounded, in return for bread and water. I fancy Mrs. B---- thought that I sought for employment at Scutari, for she said, very kindly--
”Miss Nightingale has the entire management of our hospital staff, but I do not think that any vacancy--”
”Excuse me, ma'am,” I interrupt her with, ”but I am bound for the front in a few days;” and my questioner leaves me, more surprised than ever. The room I waited in was used as a kitchen. Upon the stoves were cans of soup, broth, and arrow-root, while nurses pa.s.sed in and out with noiseless tread and subdued manner. I thought many of them had that strange expression of the eyes which those who have gazed long on scenes of woe or horror seldom lose.
In half an hour's time I am admitted to Miss Nightingale's presence. A slight figure, in the nurses' dress; with a pale, gentle, and withal firm face, resting lightly in the palm of one white hand, while the other supports the elbow--a position which gives to her countenance a keen inquiring expression, which is rather marked. Standing thus in repose, and yet keenly observant--the greatest sign of impatience at any time[B] a slight, perhaps unwitting motion of the firmly planted right foot--was Florence Nightingale--that Englishwoman whose name shall never die, but sound like music on the lips of British men until the hour of doom.
She has read Dr. F----'s letter, which lies on the table by her side, and asks, in her gentle but eminently practical and business-like way, ”What do you want, Mrs. Seacole--anything that we can do for you? If it lies in my power, I shall be very happy.”
So I tell her of my dread of the night journey by caicque, and the improbability of my finding the ”Hollander” in the dark; and, with some diffidence, threw myself upon the hospitality of Scutari, offering to nurse the sick for the night. Now unfortunately, for many reasons, room even for one in Scutari Hospital was at that time no easy matter to find; but at last a bed was discovered to be unoccupied at the hospital washerwomen's quarters.
My experience of washerwomen, all the world over, is the same--that they are kind soft-hearted folks. Possibly the soap-suds they almost live in find their way into their hearts and tempers, and soften them.
This Scutari washerwoman is no exception to the rule, and welcomes me most heartily. With her, also, are some invalid nurses; and after they have gone to bed, we spend some hours of the night talking over our adventures, and giving one another sc.r.a.ps of our respective biographies. I hadn't long retired to my couch before I wished most heartily that we had continued our chat; for unbidden and most unwelcome companions took the washerwoman's place, and persisted not only in dividing my bed, but my plump person also. Upon my word, I believe the fleas are the only industrious creatures in all Turkey.
Some of their relatives would seem to have migrated into Russia; for I found them in the Crimea equally prosperous and ubiquitous.
In the morning, a breakfast is sent to my mangled remains, and a kind message from Mrs. B----, having reference to how I spent the night.
And, after an interview with some other medical men, whose acquaintance I had made in Jamaica, I shake hands with the soft-hearted washerwoman, up to her shoulders in soap-suds already, and start for the ”Hollander.”
FOOTNOTE:
[B] Subsequently I saw much of Miss Nightingale, at Balaclava.
CHAPTER X.
”JEW JOHNNY”--I START FOR BALACLAVA--KINDNESS OF MY OLD FRIENDS--ON BOARD THE ”MEDORA”--MY LIFE ON Sh.o.r.e--THE SICK WHARF.
During my stay in Constantinople, I was accustomed to employ, as a guide, a young Greek Jew, whose name it is no use my attempting to spell, but whom I called by the one common name there--”Johnny.”
Wis.h.i.+ng, however, to distinguish my Johnny from the legion of other Johnnies, I prefixed the term Jew to his other name, and addressed him as Jew Johnny. How he had picked up his knowledge I cannot tell, but he could talk a little broken English, besides French, which, had I been qualified to criticise it, I should have found, perhaps, as broken as his English. He attached himself very closely to me, and seemed very anxious to share my fortunes; and after he had pleaded hard, many times, to be taken to the Crimea, I gave in, and formally hired him. He was the best and faithfullest servant I had in the Crimea, and, so far from regretting having picked up Jew Johnny from the streets of Pera, I should have been very badly off without him.
More letters come from Mr. Day, giving even worse accounts of the state of things at Balaclava; but it is too late for hesitation now.
My plans are perfected, my purchases made, and pa.s.sage secured in the ”Albatross”--a transport laden with cattle and commissariat officers for Balaclava. I thought I should never have transported my things from the ”Hollander” to the ”Albatross.” It was a terrible day, and against the strong current and hurricane of wind Turkish and Greek arms seemed of little avail; but at last, after an hour or more of terrible anxiety and fear, the ”Albatross's” side was reached, and I clambered on deck, drenched and wretched.