The Mayor of Troy | Page 8

mouths of our guns. But, gentlemen"--here
the Mayor sank his voice impressively-- "we cannot have omelets
without the breaking of eggs, nor victories without effusion of blood.
He may leave prisoners in our hands: he will assuredly leave us with
dead to bury, with wounded to care for. As masters of the field, we
shall discharge these offices of common humanity, not discriminating
between friend and foe. But in what position are we to fulfil them?"
The fact was (when we came to consider it) our prevision had extended
no farther than the actual combat: for its most ordinary results we had
made no preparation at all.
But in Troy we are nothing if not thorough. The meeting appointed an
Emergency Committee then and there; and the Committee, having
retired to reassemble ten minutes later at the "General Wolfe," within
an hour sketched out the following proposals:
1.--An Ambulance Corps to be formed of youths under sixteen (not
being bandsmen) and adults variously unfit for military service.
2.--A Corps of Female Nurses. Miss Pescod to be asked to organise.
3.--The Town lock-up to be enlarged by taking down the partition
between it and a chamber formerly used by the Constable as a potato
store. It was also resolved to strengthen the door and provide it with
two new bolts and padlocks.
4.--The question of enlarging the Churchyard was deferred to the next
(Easter) vestry.
5.--Subscriptions to be invited for providing a War Hospital. The
Mayor, with Lawyer Chinn (Town Clerk) and Alderman Hansombody,

to seek for suitable premises, and report.
Of Dr. Hansombody I shall have more to tell anon. For the present let it
suffice that before entering public life he had earned our confidence as
an apothecary, and especially by his skill and delicacy in maternity
cases.
These proposals were duly announced: and only if you know Troy can
you conceive with what spirit the town flung itself into the task of
making them effective. "Task," did I say? When I tell you that at our
next drill a parade of thirty-two stretchers followed us up to the Old
Fort (still to the tune of "Come, Cheer Up, My Lads!") you may guess
how far duty and pleasure had made accord.
The project of a hospital went forward more slowly; but at length the
Mayor and his Committee were able to announce that premises had
been taken on a lease of seven years (by which time an end to the war
might reasonably be predicted) in Passage Street, as you go towards the
ferry; the exterior whitewashed and fitted with green jalousie shutters;
the interior also cleaned and whitewashed, and a ward opened with two
beds. Though few enough to meet the contingencies of invasion, and a
deal too few (especially while they remained unoccupied) to satisfy the
zeal of Miss Pescod's corps of nurses (which by the end of the second
week numbered forty-three, with sixteen probationary members), these
two beds exhausted our subscriptions for the time. A Ladies' Thursday
Evening Working Party supplied them with sheets, pillows and
pillow-cases, blankets and coverlets (twenty-two coverlets).
The Institution, as we have seen, was intended for a War Hospital; but
pending invasion, and to get our nurses accustomed to the work, there
seemed no harm in admitting as our first patient a sailor from Plymouth
Dock who, having paid a lengthy call at the "King of Prussia" and
drunk there exorbitantly, on the way to his ship had walked over the
edge of the Town Quay. The tide being low, he had escaped drowning,
but at the price of three broken ribs.
It is related of this man that early in his convalescence he sat up and
demanded of the Visiting Committee (the Mayor and Miss Pescod) a

translation of two texts which hung framed on the wall facing his bed.
They had been illuminated by Miss Sally Tregentil at the instance of
the Vicar (a Master of Arts of the University of Oxford) --the one,
"Parcere Subjectis," the other, "Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori"
"Ah," said the Mayor, with a rallying glance at Miss Pescod, "that's
more than any of us know. That's Latin!"
"Excuse me," put in Dr. Hansombody, who had been measuring out a
draught at the little table by the window, "I don't pretend to be a scholar;
but I have made out the gist of them; and I understand them to
recommend a gentle aperient in cases which at first baffle diagnosis."
"Ah!" was the Mayor's only comment.
"I don't profess mine to be more than a free rendering," went on the
little apothecary. "The Latin, as you would suppose, puts it more
poetically."
"Talking of texts," said the patient, leaning back wearily on his pillow,
"there was a woman somewhere in the Bible