Where Love Shines Read Online Free

London, but then thought better of it.
    Florence stopped again to speak to a restless soldier. Several times their progress was interrupted by men who offered a quiet greeting or merely a smile or wave. Florence helped several men who were unable to drink unaided from the canteens resting by their pallets.
    Then she picked up her lamp and resumed her walk, continuing their conversation in a hushed voice so as not to disturb the sleeping men. “I daresay. Mr. William Howard Russell is the greatest hero of the Crimea for his war dispatches informing the British public of the true state of matters here. I would not be here myself had he not made the truth known.”
    Jennifer had judged correctly. There was no need to tell Florence Nightingale about the persistent Mr. Merriott. To her a passion for doing good was explanation enough. Jenny sighed. If only she could be so single-minded.
    They had now reached the end of the corridor and turned into one of the large wards. Already the walk seemed endless, and they had covered less than one-fourth of the hospital. The passages that appeared merely long during the day went on forever in the hush of the night. The very shadows muffled the sounds of men turning on straw-stuffed mats, the quiet moans or sharp cries from fevered sleepers, and the ever-present rustle and squeak of rats.
    In the high-ceilinged ward the noises sounded further away yet, the silence profound. A few dim lights flickered from window sills and wall brackets. Even the sleeping men appeared to become more peaceful when the light of Florence Nightingale’s lantern passed over them. She set the light down and bent over another patient. Jennifer admired her manner—her touch was so tender and kind. Then Florence picked up her lamp, and they resumed their progress.
    It was in one of the upstairs corridors that Miss Nightingale paused before entering a ward. “These poor men have been here since a few days after I arrived. They are from the terrible battle of Balaclava.” She shook her head. “One hears such horrible stories of military blunders. I don’t know—when there is so much unavoidable pain and suffering in the world—that which is inflicted by sheer stupidity seems to me the most evil. I try not to waste my time on futile anger—and yet sometimes…” Florence led the way into the room.
    Somehow the silence in this room was deader than in any of the others, as if the men, having been here so long were resigned to their suffering being endless. Or perhaps Jennifer was just being fanciful. Perhaps they were simply able to sleep more soundly in quarters to which they had become accustomed. Or perhaps some of them were nearer to recovery. One could at least hope, although it seemed unlikely. Always there were the inexplicable deaths from hospital fever among patients well past the danger of wound fever. Men nearly ready to be released were known to sicken and die suddenly, as if the hospital itself made them sick.
    Florence Nightingale set her lamp down to help a man with no legs find a more comfortable position on his cot. This ward was furnished with actual army beds rather than the improvised straw pallets. Jennifer looked at the soldier in the next bed. He lay half-sitting, propped against the wall, his forehead and eyes swathed in bandages. He seemed to be sleeping, yet his right hand moved restlessly as if groping for something that wasn’t there.
    Without stopping to think that she should seek permission, Jennifer knelt and slipped her hand into his. The restless motion stopped instantly. The sleeping man sighed. But Jennifer looked up sharply. “Miss Nightingale, this man has fever. His hand is burning.”
    Jennifer felt desperate as she looked at his high cheekbones, well-formed mouth, and squared chin beneath the bandages. Not yet another sacrifice to hospital fever.
Please, Lord, not this one, too.
In just the few days she had been here she had seen too many apparently recovering men go this