Where
were they to go? Every available inch in the wards was occupied;
the affair was serious and pressing, and the authorities stood
aghast. There were some dilapidated rooms in the Barrack
Hospital, unfit for human habitation, but Miss Nightingale
believed that if measures were promptly taken they might be made
capable of accommodating several hundred beds. One of the doctors
agreed with her; the rest of the officials were irresolute-- it
would be a very expensive job, they said; it would involve
building; and who could take the responsibility? The proper
course was that a representation should be made to the Director-
General of the Army Medical Department in London; then the
Director-General would apply to the Horse Guards, the Horse
Guards would move the Ordnance, the Ordnance would lay the matter
before the Treasury, and, if the Treasury gave its consent, the
work might be correctly carried through, several months after the
necessity for it had disappeared. Miss Nightingale, however, had
made up her mind, and she persuaded Lord Stratford-- or thought
she had persuaded him-- to give his sanction to the required
expenditure. One hundred and twenty-five workmen were immediately
engaged, and the work was begun. The workmen struck; whereupon
Lord Stratford washed his hands of the whole business. Miss
Nightingale engaged 200 other workmen on her own authority, and
paid the bill out of her own resources.
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