M. C. A. with its homely comfort. The men had had
to shift for themselves. Nursing the sick and wounded was almost
unknown, until the white-clad figure of Florence Nightingale showed the
world its dereliction. Listen to what this devoted pioneer among
nurses has to say:
"Fancy working five nights out of seven in the trenches. Fancy being
thirty-six hours in them at a stretch, as they sometimes were, lying
down, or half-lying down often forty-eight hours with no food but raw
salt pork, sprinkled with sugar, rum, and biscuit; nothing hot, because
the exhausted soldier could not collect his own fuel, as he was
expected to do, to cook his own rations; and fancy through all this,
the army preserving their courage and patience, as they have done, and
being now eager (the old ones as well as the young ones) to be led into
the trenches. There was something sublime in the spectacle."
Sublime? Granted. But no soldier fights well on an empty stomach.
Despite their hardships and reverses, however, the Allies were at last
successful in the capture of Sebastopol. But it was a barren victory,
as the Russians had set fire to the town and destroyed practically
everything of value. The war soon afterwards ceased, and with it the
first hard lesson in Charles Gordon's military training.
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