Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/408

 364 THE WINTEK TKOUBLES CHAP, bevond the grave. 'Oh!' said one to the lady XI. he saw bending over his pallet, ' you are taking ' me on the way to heaven ; don't forsake me ' now ! ' (^) When a man was under delirium, its magic force almost always transported him to the home of his childhood, and made liim indeed a child — a child crying, 'Mother! mother !'(^) Amongst the men generally, notwithstanding their moments of fitful piety, there still glowed a savage desire for the fall of Sebastopol.(^*^) More than once — wafted up from Constantinople — the sound of great guns was believed to an- nounce a victory, and sometimes there came into the wards fresh tidings of combat brought down from our army in front of the long besieged stronghold. When this happened, almost all of the sufferers who had not yet lost their consciousness used to show that, however disabled, they still were soldiers, true soldiers. At such times, on many a pallet, the dying man used to raise himself by unwonted effort, and seem to yearn after the strife, as though he would answer once more the appeal of the bugles and drums.(i^) Amongst our Levantine hospitals, the one cipie^at"' formed at Smyrna exhibited the success of a Smyrna. ^.^.^^^ innovation on which Mr Sidney Herbert had ventured ; for the medical officers to whom lie entrusted its wards were, all of them, civilians, and these, aided by a well chosen band of ladies and salaried nurses, made the new institution a model of what can be done for the care of troops sick or wounded. {^^) So early as the month of January, when the Uie one on a