Florence Nightingale Page #4

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We leave in a week.

How many can you bring?

- (Cheering)

- Bravo!

(Booing and hissing)

War ain't no place for a woman

lt's only a place for a man

This foe we fight from morn till night

and beat him when we can

So don't come near to interfere

with the British battle plan

War ain't no place for a woman

lt's only a place for a man

Quite clear

lt's only a place for a man

lf war's no place for a woman

lt's hardly a place for a man

We'll ride the wave and try to save

as many as we can

We're Nightingale

And nurses

You'll thank us and not curse us

We'll rescue you from pain and fear

We'll bring you comfort and good cheer

We've come to hold your hand

War ain't no place for a woman

lt's really a masculine game

So when some females move in,

it's simply not the same

Just when the fun is starting,

you come with your ribbons and curls

Our only need's to do great deeds

and not be hobbled but utterly freed

From a gaggle of twittering,

dithering, simpering, whimpering...

Girls!

We landed in Turkey

just as autumn gave way to winter.

My final choice of nurses were a mixed brigade,

requiring much drilling.

Some experienced, some less so.

Some happy just to be paid,

some there out of pure charity and love of God.

Follow me. Step lively.

Mind where you put your feet.

We had expected chaos

but nothing had prepared us

for those barracks at Scutari.

(Coughing)

(Man screams)

Here, just across

a narrow strip of water from Constantinople,

the British High Command had established

the nearest thing l'd ever seen to hell on Earth.

lt was, in fact, the main hospital

for receiving the casualties from the Crimea.

lt was there l met Sir John Hall,

Chief Medical Officer for

the British Army in the East.

No chloroform for the lower ranks, Mr Davis.

Let us hear the man bawl lustily.

At least then we'll know he's still alive.

Fine. Carry on.

Sir?

Ah, Miss Nightingale.

l'd heard you were coming.

And from what l've seen so far,

not a moment too soon.

Maybe so, and maybe not.

As l read the instructions from your friend,

the Right Honourable Sidney Herbert,

you are under the clear direction

of the medical staff here.

That means neither you nor any of your...''ladies''

will do anything without the express

written permission of a military doctor.

ln other words, Miss Nightingale,

here, in my hospital,

you are in charge of nothing,

with the exception of your personal laundry.

Am l clear?

But do let us know when you need help.

See to them.

- Do we have to give them rations, sir?

- Certainly not.

This way.

The quarters we were herded into

were squalid and cramped,

alive with vermin,

the air heavy with the stench of fever and death.

(Nurse cries out)

Oh, so that's where he went.

Been missing for a day or two.

Sorry about that, ladies.

We'll have it removed forthwith.

First, the strongest of you to the wash tubs.

Everyone else, let us have these floors swept,

the windows cleaned, that stove working.

- Where are the brooms?

- Brooms? That's a joke.

Find brooms.

lf you can't find them, make them.

That night we went to bed in the dark.

The next day we cleaned out our new home

and then...

nothing.

lt was as if we had been sealed up

in our dingy little corner,

frozen out by Sir John Hall and his doctors.

Deliberately forgotten.

Was this why we had travelled

all across Europe?

We knew how much we were needed

and we knew the difference we could make.

This was the cruellest trial of all.

To wait, to have to listen to the screams of

the sick and dying was almost past endurance.

But l knew those gentlemen officers.

They saw us as twittering society do-gooders

in search of a fevered brow to mop

or a manly hand to hold

as a brave soldier slipped off to his maker.

Bless our dear little hearts.

They certainly did not want

some well connected female nuisance

giving instructions to their orderlies.

But l'd grown up with ministers of the realm

and titled bigwigs sitting at our dinner table.

l knew the little games. l knew the rules.

And l knew how to win.

So...we waited.

(Coughing and spluttering)

- Yes, what is it?

- Big battle.

lnkerman. Casualties, they're coming in. A lot!

- Sir John says can you...?

- Ladies! Follow me.

(Soldier screaming)

The three of you...

That was the moment of ''victory''.

We were liberated, set free to do

what we had trained for and had come to do.

But after victory comes counterattack,

in the shape of a system

seemingly designed to create confusion.

The officials in charge of supplies,

l soon discovered, were masters of red tape,

experts in obfuscation and delay.

l was clearly marked out as the enemy.

l needed allies,

and l knew of only two sources l could rely on.

the Good Lord,

who never left me through all my trials,

and his chief angel of mercy,

my old friend Sidney Herbert.

Dear Mr Herbert, the supply officers

fix their attention on the correctness of their

book-keeping as the primary object of life.

Last week we had run out of bread, soap,

carrots, poultices and many other necessities.

l went to the supply officer and asked him,

was he expecting these things from England?

''No, '' he said.

''Are you doing anything

about purchasing them?''

''No, '' he said.

''Can they be had in the local town?''

''lf they can, l don't know how to get them, ''

was his answer.

So, Mr Herbert, l went out myself

and l bought them with my own money.

ln short, l am now a general dealer

in socks, shirts, knives and forks, tin baths...

The meat is not cooked, the water is not boiled.

The cooking is done by drunken soldiers.

l must refer again

to the deficiency of knives and forks here.

The men tear their food like animals.

Will you send us 1,000 mops, 3,000 tin plates...

l go about making the orderlies

empty huge tubs of human waste.

The mortality is frightful. 30 in the last 24 hours.

Christmas Day, 1 854.

The state of the troops

who return here is frost-bitten, starved, ragged.

No wonder they die in their hundreds.

No washing has been performed for the men,

neither of body linen nor of bed linen

except by ourselves.

The consequences of this are fever, cholera.

l shall endure.

l shall not break my heart of disappointment

at the total inefficiency

of the hospital system here.

l shall bear it willingly.

l was called to do this work

and l will fight on for God and for the right,

for they are worth fighting for.

l now see clearly what must be done.

lf these conditions are happening here,

they are happening elsewhere.

l have written a plan for the systematic

re-organisation of these hospitals.

Please make sure, Mr Herbert, that

it reaches the highest levels of the government.

l have more and more reason to believe

that these hospitals are the kingdom of hell,

but l fervently believe they can be made into...

The kingdom of heaven.

Get some sleep.

l don't know how your body keeps going.

- Why doesn't this silly thing...?

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