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Finally her singleness of aim and her resolution won the day. Her mother - with tears in her eyes - agreed to Florence becoming superintendent of an "Establishment for Gentelwomen during illness" in Harley Street, the fashionable street of London's most famous doctors. She had been there a year when the Crimean War broke out. It was from there that she wrote to Sidney Herbert, whom she knew personally, offering her services. When she arrived at Scutari ahe found conditions even worse than the reports had stated. The War Office had told her "nothing was lacking at Scutari".She found that everything was lacking, furniture, clothes, towels, soap, knives, plates. There were no bandages and no linen to make bandages, few medicines and scarcely any proper food. Luckily she had brought with her large quantities of food, soups, wines, jellies and medical supplies. Everywhere she met with inefficiency and confusion, and everywhere difficulties were put in her way by the officials in charge. As the officials working "according to Army regulations" could not, or wouldnot, supply the necessary stores, she did so out of her own money. She bought boot, socks, blankets, shirts by the thousand. She spared no one, least of all herself. She often worked for twenty-four hours on day, dressing wounds, helping surgeons in their operations, easing the pain of the sick, comforting the dying. Every night, carrying a little oil-lamp to light her way, she walked by beds, four miles of them. To the soldiers she was "Lady with the Lamp", and they worshipped her. But that is only one side of the picture.She was also the hard, practical woman. She and her nurses got down on their knees and scrubbed floors and walls. She organised the cooking of the men's food and the washing of their clothes. Instead of badly-cooked, badly-served food she gave the men well-cooked, well-served meals. She wrote letters to the Goverment in England, stinging letters to waken them out of their self-satisfied dreams.

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