Vol.2 Ch.5: The Lady With the Lamp

[Back to the Present, Alnus Hill]

It is midnight at the frontline fortress of Alnus Hill, guards are patrolling the walls, infantries resting in the trenches, and the residents of the refugee town are asleep. Besides the slight breeze, the base is quite as usual. However, apart from the military hospital.

The hallways in the hospital are swollen by the pitch darkness, you can't see, nor touch, or feel. With small. light footsteps, darkness cracks open as a pure light shines through the way. A young lady in black Victorian attire patrolling around the hospital from room to room, hall to hall with a small oil lamp. Soon, she stops by a patient's room. She slowly opens the door and enters with the door shut behind.

The lady puts the lamp aside as it flickers, lighting up the whole room. Despite the dimness of the light, the patient wakes up anyway.

"Oh, you are awake King Duran," the young lady replies as she cleans his forehead with a new towel. Duran is in confusion as he tried to sit up, but the lady insists, "Please don't move too much, your wounds are not in good condition."

As he slowly gains his consciousness, he looks at the lady with a familiar sight, "You... You are the Germanian soldier who treated my wounds during the battle."

She smiles and says, "I am not a soldier, just a common nurse."

Then, she holds Duran's right wrist as she takes out a pocket watch and looks at it. In a moment, he asks the nurse, "Am I going to die, lady?" With these words, she replies, "Of course not my lord, I am just checking your pulse."

After a minute, the nurse put Duran's right arm back into the warm blanket. "Your pulse is normal, luckily you didn't lose lots of blood. If I didn't stop the bleeding in time, your life would've been in grave danger." The nurse fills a glass of clean water and reaches for a small clay bottle, she opens it and takes out a small object. She gives them to Duran and says, "This is a sleeping pill, a medicine that can help you get a better sleep." Then she instructs the king how to take it by swallowing the pill first then with a glass of water.

After the treatment, Duran goes back to bed as the nurse ready to take her leave. "If you need any help, press this bell button next to you and I will come to you in a short minute," she points to the button and takes her lamp towards the door.

The moment she touches the handle, Duran stops her and calls out, "Wait, can you please tell me your name?"

The nurse turns and does a small curtsy, "If it is your wish, I will come to your support at any time. I am the Head Nurse of the Imperial Germania Military Hospital, my name is... Florence Nightingale."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am Florence Nightingale, born from an upper household in the Kingdom of Letzebureg. My father is a wealthy merchant as my mother is the daughter of a lord from Baden-Wurttemburg. Although I only have an older sister we still get close to each other.

Most of my childhood was experiencing the life of a noble lady and studying by a governess in the mansion. Shocking is I am more intelligent and clever than my older sister, Frances herself, with my outstanding achievement on education, my father taught me languages of the whole continent including the ancient language of Berlium. Maybe that's the reason she gets more jealous of me.

On my tenth birthday, my father gave me a surprising present.

-^-^-^-

[Florence's birthday, when she was 10]

"Here you go Florence, Happy Birthday," my father visits my room as he shows me a beautifully wrapped box in front of my sight.

"What is it, father?" I asked while I tried to carry the box, but he insisted.

"This is quite a bit heavy for you, but I'll show you in a minute," he slowly laid down the box on my desk.

I am so curious with excitement, I unwrapped the box and open the lid, and then my father pull out a strange black object, It looked like a box but with lots of "silvery hands" with alphabets letters on it along with a weird looking iron scroll on top of the "box."

I asked my father, "Father, what is it?"

"This is the typewriter, a new invention from Preussen, I bought it from a merchant guild." He said.

He taught me how to operate this mysterious machine as I follow and learn. I remember the first time I typed my own name with the typewriter. My love with it has expanded my curiosity for writing.

_^_^_^_

The dream of being a nurse starts when I am 13, while I am walking down the public park, I hear a strange voice from the sky, what I believe is a call from God, prompting a strong desire to devote my life to the service of others. From that very moment, I began to research and look into books about medical and house care. Although my family very strongly opposed my decision to become a nurse, I still respected their opposition.

Years later, I made my decision to take on as a field nurse rather than be the expected role for a woman of my current status to become a wife and mother. My mother is very furious as she knows, so is my sister.

"I won't allow you to do that," my mother shouted. "You are a high society noble and you can't do things from the lower classes, it is a terrible disgrace to yourself and our family!"

"Mother, all I want is to inherit into the public society to help the poor and the grassroots." I try to explain but my sister rejects. "Why do you need to abandon your current state?" She asks. "You can still live as a noble and marry the man you love for eternity."

"But I feel nothing like a noble," I reply. "I can't just sit and do nothing!"

_^_^_^_

During the age of 17, I rejected the man's proposal to me, a proposal that was arranged by my parents. I decided to leave home and travel to Preussen where I can start my new life. I pack up my typewriter and essential luggage, then I ride a morning coach towards the capital city. Arriving at Berlium is another view of the site, grand housing architects, people from different races walking across the streets, and fast mobile transports make the city busy and lively.

Walking down the main streets, I stop by a shop selling food and snacks that I haven't seen in Letzebureg. I enter the shop and the shopkeeper greets me, "Welcome, what would you like to try?" he asks. Looking from the shelves, a cute looking snack with the appearance of a bunny catches my attention. I bought one and tried it for myself.

As I took my first bite, a splendid sweetness flowed into my mouth as I tasted a particular fruit. "It tastes sweet and refreshes, what is it?" I ask the shopkeeper. "This is called Wagashi, a traditional sweet from the Eastern Chrysanthemum Empire." He stated. "The fruit inside it isn't strawberry?" I ask. "Yes indeed, the strawberry pastry is Oriental-made and grows from their farms in the southern regions," he said. I bought a box of these sweets and think, this would be a better souvenir to send back home. Continuing my walk, a street poster caught my attention, it is a medical recruitment poster! With their exception, I began to enrol as a nursing student at the Royal Hospital of Preussen.

After 5 years for training, I return to Letzebureg and start my career in a local hospital for ailing governesses. My performance has been so impressed by my employer that I am promoted to the superintendent within just a year of being hired. However, new challenges made my position almost unstable.

Months later, people are suffering from a terrible disease that makes them suddenly fall sick, this makes it my first mission to improve hygiene practices. I give the nurses extensive training on how to lecture the patients to keep themselves clean by regular wash from day and night, significantly lowering the death rate at the hospital in the process. Fortunately, the hard work took a toll on my health as I had just barely recovered when the biggest challenge of her nursing career presented itself, the Fransco-Preussen War.

-^-^-^-

The war begins after the shocking assassination attempt on the former Grand Duke of Letzebureg, Ancus Priscus during the ball in the Imperial Grand Palace of Preussen. From the National Intelligence what have found, this action is made by the Empire Francais. That time the Heir, Numa Priscus immediately took his place and declared war on Francais, despite the small force of our army, the newly formed Federal Kingdoms of Germania joined in.

I received a letter from Secretary of War Soum La'herpret, asking me to organize a corps of nurses to tend to the sick and fallen soldiers in Gravelotte. I quickly assembled a team of 34 nurses from a variety of religious orders and races to travel with them just a few days later.

Although we had been warned of the horrid conditions there, nothing could have prepared me for what we saw when we arrived at the military stronghold. The hospital sat on top of a large cesspool, which contaminated the water and the hospital building itself. Patients lay on in their own excrement on stretchers strewn throughout the hallways. Rodents and bugs scurried past them. The most basic supplies, such as bandages and soap, grew increasingly scarce as the number of ill and wounded steadily increased. Even the water needed to be rationed. More soldiers were dying from infectious diseases than from injuries incurred in battle.

With such a horrifying scene, I quickly set to work with no-nonsenses. I ordered my nurses to procure hundreds of scrub brushes and asked the least infirm patients to scrub the inside of the hospital from floor to ceiling. I spend every waking minute caring for the soldiers. In the evenings I move through the dark hallways carrying a lamp while making my rounds, ministering to patient after patient. The soldiers, who were both moved and comforted by my endless supply of compassion, took to calling me as "the Lady with the Lamp." Others simply called me "the Angel of Gravelotte." With such results, my work has reduced the hospital's death rate by two-thirds.

In addition to vastly improving the sanitary conditions of the hospital, I created a number of patient services that contributed to improving the quality of their hospital stay. I instituted the creation of an "invalid's kitchen," built by the pioneers under my supervision where appealing food for patients with special dietary requirements was cooked. Laundry was also established so that patients would have clean linens. With a classroom and a library instituted for the patients' intellectual stimulation and entertainment, they would no longer be bored.

Based on my observations in Gracelotte, I wrote an 830-page report with my typewriter analyzing my experience and proposing reforms for other military hospitals operating under poor conditions. The book has sparked a total restructuring of the War Office's administrative department, including the establishment of a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in Letzebureg and Germania.

As the war went on, I remained at Gravelotte for a year and a half. I returned to Letzebureg once the war was over. To my surprise, I was met with a hero's welcome, which the humble nurse within me did best to avoid. The new Grand Duke of Letzebureg and the Kaiserin of Germania rewarded my work by presenting with an engraved brooch that came to be known as the "Nightingale Jewel'' and by granting me with a prize of ℳ250,000 (ℳ for Mark currency symbol) from the government.

The next day I am summoned to the Kaiserin as she awards me the Order of Louise - Grand cross Star with the highest distinction. My legacy continues as the war with the Saderan Empire rages on.