Nursing Grudges
Our last sight of poor Florence Nightingale was in a hut at the Castle Hospital, delirious with a high fever. The news of her serious illness was received with almost universal dismay by the Army throughout the war zone, and by the public back home. But by the third week her mental and spiritual strength had helped her doctors pull her through the critical period - they had almost certainly used heated suction cups on her back to draw the inflammation from her lungs, as she later wrote of 'their blisters'; the treatment had evolved to a more sophisticated and less painful form than depicted in the play/film' The Madness of King George (III)'. But most importantly, the crisis was over. Lord Raglan came to see her and was able to telegraph to London that she was out of danger; the Queen publicly expressed her relief and thankfulness.
Florence's immediate reaction was to want to pick up from where she left off in her review of the Balaklava hospitals, but her Doctors, Dr Sutherland from the Sanitary Commission and Dr Hadley, the Senior Medical Officer at the Castle, wanted her to convalesce in a temperate climate, ideally England or perhaps Switzerland.. Mrs Bracebridge had arrived with her husband to look after her during her evacuation, and she briefed the doctors on how bad a sailor Flo was; in her current condition - she could not talk above a whisper and had to be helped to lift her cutlery at mealtimes - a long sea voyage would almost certainly bring on a recurrence of illness, with possible fatal results. It was finally universally agreed that she would be evacuated back to Scutari, initially to the Chaplain, Rev Sabin's house - he was home on leave - and subsequently to the Embassy Villa at Therapia.
Lord Ward had generously put his yacht at Flo's disposal, but the doctors had assigned her to the transport ship 'Jura' and she was as anxious as ever not to circumvent official military channels. However the ship had just unloaded a cargo of horses and the powerful stench still pervaded when she boarded, causing her to lose consciousness - she was hastily transferred to a Naval vessel where she revived before her party belatedly accepted Lord Ward's offer. Subsequently Mr Bracebridge was to allege that the 'Jura' was not scheduled to stop at Scutari, and that Drs Hall and Hadley had knowingly plotted to get her away from the War and out of their lives; but then Bracebridge was to make various other wild and unfounded allegations when he got home. Florence was later to write to Aunt Mai that she believed the claims to be true; but there again, the letter was written from Balaklava at the height of her struggle with Dr Hall when she would have been susceptible to believe any report of skullduggery on his part.
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