.1 RED TAPE V. HEALTH 35 



fever. On the 2nd December he was recommended 

 fourteen days' leave to Balaclava; the order was 

 signed by the Surgeon, but had to be sent round to 

 be countersigned by the Staff- Surgeon of the 

 Division, the Commanding Officer of the Regiment, 

 the General Commanding the Division, and the 

 Adjutant-General at Headquarters. On this round 

 the order somehow got lost, so Flower did not get 

 his leave. Meantime, with the continual cold and 

 rain, his health was getting worse, and on the 

 recommendation of a Medical Board he was given 

 "leave of absence to proceed to England for the 

 recovery of his health," and sailed on board the 

 Victoria from the Crimea on the 1 2th December. 



From his own letters we learn nothing of his 

 work under fire, but from other sources we hear 

 how that before Sebastopol he went from the shelter 

 of the camp in broad daylight across the shot-swept 

 ground to the assistance of some of the wounded 

 men in one of the forward trenches, and how, at 

 Inkerman, he and some other surgeons "made 

 themselves remarked for their coolness and devoted- 

 ness to their professional duties ; nothing deterred 

 by a hot fire, they pressed on, regardless of danger, 

 to give their services to the wounded." ^ 



On the 15th December the Victoria arrived in 

 the Bosphorus, in which neighbourhood he had to 

 pass a month before he could get a passage to 

 England. 



1 History of the 63rd West Suffolk Regiment, p. 116. 



