Stores were left decaying in the holds
of transports, and the doctors were forced to see men dying before
their eyes without the means of helping them. The loss of life from
the actual fighting was considerable, but more particularly so from
the insanitary condition of the camp and the wretched hospital
arrangements.
The actual figures of our losses in the war speak for themselves.
Out of a total loss of 20,656, only 2598 fell in battle; 18,058 died
from other causes in hospital. Several regiments lost nearly all
their men, and during the first seven months of the siege men died
so fast that in a year and a half no army would have been left at
all.
William Russell, the special correspondent of _The Times_, first
brought this appalling state of affairs to the notice of the public,
and the nation at last woke up. A universal outburst of indignation
forced ministers to act, and to act quickly.
Stores were hurried to the front; fresh troops were sent out to
relieve the almost exhausted remnants of the army, and on the 21st
October Florence Nightingale, with a band of nurses, set sail; she
arrived on the very eve of the Battle of Inkerman.
Within a few months of her arrival it is estimated that she had no
fewer than ten thousand sick men in her charge, and the rows of beds
in one hospital alone measured two and one-third miles in length.
Her influence over the rough soldiers was extraordinary; one of them
said of her: "She would speak to one and another, and nod and smile
to many more; but she could not do it to all, you know--we lay there
in hundreds--but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our
heads on the pillow again, content.
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