Where Love Shines Read Online Free Page A

way. Even with all the horrors of battle, far more men died of fever and disease than of wounds.
    She looked at her supervisor. “Have we nothing we can give him?” Jennifer felt the fine, long fingers that gripped hers. This one wouldn’t die if she could help it.
    Florence Nightingale shook her head. “I shall ask Dr. Menzies tomorrow if we can give him some loxa quinine and theriac drops. Until then you may bathe him with vinegar water and give him sips of cool liquid.”
    Jennifer nodded. She knew the rules—nothing to be administered without doctor’s orders. She managed to remove the cap from his canteen with her free hand. The water inside felt tepid and smelled stale. If only she had something better for him.
    Then she knew. She had not taken her own allotment of wine that day. That would calm him. Florence agreed. Army ration wine would not be beyond the scope of her authority to administer. “I will complete my rounds and then return here for you.” The light of the lamp moved on, leaving Jennifer in semidarkness.
    Carefully she slipped her hand from the soldier’s. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered to the ear left exposed by his bandages. Perhaps he heard. She hurried through the dim corridors filled with silent men to the kitchen Florence Nightingale had established in the nurses’ tower.
    In a few minutes she was back kneeling by the soldier. She removed the ragged blue jacket of his 17th Lancers’ uniform—he did not need the added warmth now—and unbuttoned his shirt. She bathed his arms and chest with a rag dipped in cool vinegar water. She could feel his hot body cooling under her hands. Every few minutes she slipped a spoonful of wine between his chapped lips.
    When he had taken it all, she held his hand again. This time his sleep was less restless, deeper and more natural. Could the fever have broken? She prayed that it had.
    Her legs were beginning to cramp by the time Florence Nightingale returned, yet she didn’t want to go. Reluctantly, she got to her feet and joined her supervisor. “There are so many—it seems hopeless.”
    Jennifer sighed as they left the ward. “Yet if I can save just one, my time here will seem worthwhile.” She paused to sort out her thoughts. “Miss Nightingale, our vicar says Christ died for the whole world, but that if there had been just one person, He would have done the same thing. I hope you won’t think it sacrilegious of me—but I feel I’m following His example in a small way.”
    Florence gave a tired smile. “Yes. I know.”
    In the dark and quiet of the night, Jennifer felt freer to speak to this woman who was already becoming a legend in London. “Miss Nightingale, how do you
know
if something is right—if it’s what God wants you to do? You always seem so sure. We are told to obey our parents—and yet…”
    Florence nodded. “And yet it’s not always so simple, is it? Perhaps you have heard rumors of how sadly I disappointed my parents by not choosing the brilliant social marriage offered me. But it was an easy decision in my case.”
    “Easy?”
How could such a decision ever be easy?
    “I was not quite seventeen when God spoke to me.” Florence slowed her step, as if reliving the moment. “I do not mean through the Scripture or with an inward impression as He most often speaks. I heard an actual voice speaking to me in human words. From that moment I knew God had called me to His service. I did not know what form that service was to take, but I knew He would show me. When the way opened for nursing, then I knew.”
    Jenny could only shake her head.
    The two women ascended the steep stone stairs to their tower rooms without further talking. In the small space filled with twenty other women, Jennifer all but fell on her pallet. She felt as if every bone in her body ached from weariness. Yet she could not sleep. A dim light shone under the door. Florence Nightingale was still up writing letters and reports.
    Jennifer prayed