Victoria grew quiet. “We have come down from the Crimea where we watched our husbands fight in the battle of Balaclava. We have been with the army since it left England, sir, and no one has ever doubted our genuine wish to help. We know men are dying; we have seen them.”
He did not grow embarrassed or awkward, just apologized rather wearily. “I have seen so many ladies of the kind I mentioned, madam, that I cannot grow used to true strength and courage. I repeat, there is nothing you can do in the hospital — even Miss Nightingale will have no ladies who are not trained in nursing — but if you really want to be of some use, come with me. I know where your presence will be really welcome.”
So forceful was he that Victoria, Letty and Zarina fell in behind him without another word and picked their way over the stony slope toward the great grim Barrack Hospital. He veered away from the entrance. One side of the building had been leveled by a wall that contained a row of gratings high up in it, and the doctor walked purposefully to an archway at the end of it. His strides were so long, the young women had a job to keep up with him.
Getting closer, the ladies were forced to put their handkerchiefs to their noses, but the red-haired man seemed unaffected and strode beneath the arch into the relative darkness of a series of connecting cellars. There, he waited for his female companions to catch up, making no attempt to assist them down the slimy steps.
After the daylight, Victoria found it difficult to see anything, but the smell of urine combined with shuffling noises and whimpers told her there was something alive down in the cellars. She strained her eyes against the darkness and gradually made out human shapes. She heard Letty gasp behind her as she realized what they were seeing. The cellars were crammed full of women and children.
As her horrified gaze penetrated the murk she saw filthy faces, distinguishable only by the eyes that glowed like those of animals cornered in a dark lair. It was difficult to decide how many were there, for some were sitting, and the rags they wore merged with the rags that served as beds on floors covered with refuse of every description floating in an inch or so of water.
Silence had fallen at their arrival. It was so nightmarish a sight Victoria could not accept that the things crawling in the filth littering the floor could be infants, nor that the bundle of cloth rolled into a ball in one woman’s arms could cry like a newborn child. Every nerve jumped when a cackling voice from the darkness suddenly cried, “It’s a penny to come and gawk, lidy. For tuppence, me pretty sir, you’d get a lot more.” Her shriek of laughter was immediately augmented by bawdy invitations to the doctor.
The ladies could stand no more and fled up the steps, followed phlegmatically by the doctor. Victoria stood in the air fighting down waves of nausea. Judging by Letty’s face, her friend was doing the same. Zarina had lost the struggle and retreated to a quiet corner where she sat on the ground with her head hanging down.
The doctor stood before Victoria with a grim smile. “Still full of good intentions, madam?” Do you feel any responsibility toward them?”
She forced herself to ask, “Who are they?”
“Women of the regiments,” was the crushing answer. “A lot are wives of the men in hospital. They cannot be accommodated there, and no provision has been made for them by the army authorities. A great number are widows of those who died from cholera in Varna or were killed at the Alma. A small number are deserters — women who quit their husbands and regiments when they landed here on their way out from England. It is they who first occupied these cellars and have attracted the others. They roam the place at night and entice the soldiers from the unit stationed here, but the money they earn is spent on hard liquor made locally. I would not go down there when they have been drinking for fear of my life.”
“What do you think we could do with such creatures?” It burst out of her like a swarm of angry bees.
He remained cool. “Putting your mind to the problem might stop you interfering with my patients.” He sketched a salute and began walking away. “I do not give a damn for these trollops, madam. I just want an end to their activities, since they spread disease and fever among men that are fit. Otherwise we shall have no army left.”
*
That night the weather turned bitterly cold, and frost lay upon the ground in the early morning, with a severe wind keeping temperatures low. All through her breakfast Victoria thought about the wounded who would be left lying out in such weather, and she thought about her vow to give Hugo’s life to someone who still had a chance to live it. That doctor had told her she must not give the men food, but he could not prevent her from making them more comfortable — he could not prevent her from caring.
In a trice she was at her writing table making lists, and very soon Letty and Zarina were being swept along in her wake. By mid-morning the little party was crossing the choppy Bosporus with parcels and baskets filled with their purchases. Victoria led them straight to the landing stage where she knew there would be men in a pitiful condition. When Letty and Zarina hung back with strange reluctance, Victoria urged them on, and soon they were following her.
There, exposed to a punishing wind off the sea, victims of the Crimea were trying to struggle unaided up the steep incline from the pier, on weak emaciated legs, protected only by thin uniforms torn and falling apart at the seams — stiff with mud and blood. No man had a cloak or greatcoat — some had no jackets — and nearly all were wearing boots held together with strips of rag over bare feet. There were those with no boots at all, yet they trod over the frost-hard ground, so sunk in their own wretchedness that one pain was lost beneath all the others. Those who could not walk were unloaded from the caiques and laid upon the ground to await their turn for a stretcher, but anyone with two feet was expected to make his own way, leaning on his comrades, stumbling, clawing and often falling with a scream of pain. The Turkish navvies and boatmen did not care, but Victoria suffered with them.
Seeing an infantryman go down on his knees from exhaustion, she dropped her basket and ran to his aid, gathering her woolen skirts in one hand as she ran and calling to Letty. Her friend did not go, and it was Zarina who took the man’s other arm to raise him up and help, him across the stony approach to the hospital. The smell of his body was revolting, and his face was blank with the horror he had been through. Any lady should have shrunk from him, but Victoria had seen so much in that valley at Kadikoi, the man could have been Hugo, so tenderly did she move with him.
It was natural to return to aid another, and, with the help of her maid, Victoria went back and forth with men leaning gratefully and heavily upon her slender shoulders. Letty, who could not bring herself to have such close contact with the filthy creatures, went around distributing socks they had bought, finding it as much as she could do to put them over the mud-caked feet of the wounded as they lay shivering on their stretchers.
As time passed Victoria became more and more possessed by the need to lessen the degradation of those she helped, and her brain was so busy with plans as she tramped back and forth, she did not notice her tiredness. When Letty departed to visit Jack, she and Zarina worked together, kneeling beside the helpless until someone fetched them and talking in quiet voices that occasionally broke through the blankness of their resignation.
Their efforts had at least one small reward, when Victoria came to a young officer who knew her and smiled through his beard. She had been busily putting a sock on his left foot, and then found her hands frozen as a closer look revealed a right leg that ended at the ankle.
“There is certain to be another like me who needs only one, Mrs. Stanford,” he said faintly.
Looking closely at him for any recognizable signs, Victoria said, “You have the advantage of me, sir.”
“Beneath this beard, ma’am, is the honest face of William Carpenter. I had the honor of dining with you in Captain Jenson’s tent on the night you arrived in Varna without equipment or dinner.”
Immediately, the memory of a laughing young lieutenant who c
laimed to read palms leaped into her mind to present a harsh, unbelievable contrast with the man before her.
He told her of the fearful storm at Balaclava and how the hospital tents had been blown away, so that all the sick and wounded had to be sent down to Scutari. He told of the state of the army and the general feeling of hopelessness among the men condemned to spend the winter in front of Sebastopol. He told her, in effect, that anything anyone could do for the Army of the Crimea was desperately needed, and her resolution strengthened.
During the following ten days she went to the pier, laden with boxes and baskets. The Turks grew used to seeing her and even allowed themselves to give a little more assistance to the soldiers who were fighting a war on their behalf. She distributed socks, put rugs over those who were left lying in the December cold, cleaned their faces with warmed rosewater, gave them news of comrades who had come down several days before and told them of great loads of supplies that would be on their way from England shortly. She did not mention the horrors inside the hospital, the mass burials each sunset and the complete breakdown of the commissariat department which could no longer supply anything for the sick and wounded. The situation inside the Barrack Hospital was completely out of control.
Every night she sat writing letters — dozens of them — to the relatives of those who could give her addresses. Each one was individual, referring to the man she remembered quite clearly as belonging to each name and address on her list and assuring his relations that he was receiving attention. She passed on personal messages from the patients and gave the address to which to reply, although she doubted letters would ever reach the patients in time. She had heard that men lay in wards for a fortnight before anyone had time to come near them, and half were so ill they could not give their names. Mass burials saved the necessity for uninscribed wooden crosses.
Letty knew her friend was urged on by some powerful drive that could not supply her with super-strength forever but made no attempt to curb the daily activities. Victoria was amazingly immune to dirt and blood, Letty noted, and felt a little ashamed of her own sensitivity. However, she had enough to worry her. Jack’s thigh wound, which had only just started to heal, had broken open again and started festering. Medical attention was spasmodic, and she knew her husband was in constant pain. Apart from that, a new fatal fever had broken out in the Barrack Hospital due to the breakdown of all sanity arrangements, and patients suffering from other complaints were dying at the rate of sixty or seventy a day as the fever spread. Letty lived in fear of it spreading to the smaller hospital before Jack was discharged.
*
Three weeks after arriving in Scutari, Charles was declared fit for duty again and assigned to one of the transports plying to and from Balaclava. He arrived at the hotel in Constantinople one evening unexpectedly while Victoria was engaged in a pile of letters and went up to the room she occupied. Entering without knocking, he stood watching his wife, who was too absorbed to hear his entrance.
Her hair was drawn back into a severe style, and the harsh light from the oil lamp on her writing desk made her look older as she bent over the paper. The dress she wore was hardly suitable for dining in the select hotel restaurant — it even looked muddy around the hem — and she had no shawl around her shoulders, despite the chill of early December. He sighed. Had this woman ever danced down the stairs of Wychbourne in a silver-green dress that turned her into a dark desirable rose to be crushed against him until the heady perfume overwhelmed him with desire?
“Good evening, Victoria.”
She spun around, dropping her pen as her hands flew to her throat. “Charles!” There was dismay in the utterance of his name. She made no attempt to go to him.
“I am sorry to have alarmed you,” he said.
“No…no, it was just that I thought you were still in the hospital.” With a glance at her desk she said, “Have you dined?”
He twisted his mouth. “We do not ‘dine’ in hospital, Victoria. I have nothing to eat since this morning. Will you kindly dress in something suitable so that we may go down to the dining room?”
She rose immediately. “I have been in the habit of taking a tray in my room at night. I will not keep you long.”
He walked across to the writing table and sifted through what appeared to be letters of condolence and medical bulletins on a host of soldiers. Here and there was one concerning an officer, but the wording suggested the writer had personal knowledge of each subject. He frowned. What had his wife been doing that had prevented her from visiting him even once?
They went downstairs, exchanging generalities rather stiffly until they were seated.
“You have no idea how it feels to be in a civilized room again with carpets beneath one’s feet, furniture and curtains…and even a small orchestra to soothe one’s ear. There were times when I believed I would never breathe pure air again.”
“There are many who will not” was her sharp answer.
He overlooked it. “I must thank you for the things you sent in to me.”
Her lovely sad eyes fixed themselves on him. “I would have done the same for many others, but the authorities would have none of it. It is very hard to know the men are starving and be refused the chance to help.”
“There are people especially trained to do that,” he told her, and she closed her lips on any reply she had been about to make. After a moment or two he said, “I sail on tomorrow’s transport for Balaclava. Will you have your things packed and ready by nine o’clock?”
“I cannot go with you, Charles.”
The cold finality she used tightened his mouth and put him on his mettle. “Cannot?”
Quietly she told him what had occupied her time in Constantinople, as though she saw nothing degrading in a woman of quality mingling with lice-ridden malodorous soldiers who were well used to dirt and squalor from childhood. She made no mention of her neglect of him in comparison. He grew angry as she spoke and full of self-disgust. There had been plenty of time for thinking in hospital, and such thoughts returned to him now.
What a tragic mistake it had all been! A naïve child-woman had promised him something she was incapable of giving, then turned to a man who had called himself his brother. Together, they had robbed him of his rightful future — nothing would persuade him they had not — and betrayed his pride. What kind of weak fool was he that, after all that had happened, these past months had beguiled him into a new kind of admiration and dependence on the woman sitting across the table? Since she had fulfilled the regimental duties of a wife so admirably, it had been easy to slip into a belief that she had also valued the bond that kept them together.
Just how wrong he had been hit him now. Hugo was gone, as he predicted — probably by a rash disregard for discipline, since his body had been found by French troops operating way out on the left flank of that valley — but, even in death, he had dragged Victoria away from him. Alive, Hugo could eventually have been blotted from her mind; dead, he had assumed a heroic quality he did not deserve. To be betrayed once should have been enough for any man; to receive a hysterical outburst of rejection from his wife over a man who no longer lived was the ultimate insult.
All that remained intact was the outward image of their marriage. Not a soul knew of the curse of her childlessness; not a soul would believe Victoria was not a devoted wife. She was highly regarded in the best circles — even Lord Cardigan had expressed his admiration for her. She could be useful to him, and he had every intention that she should be. Charles knew he held the trump card. Now he produced it.
“Praiseworthy though your motives undoubtedly are, I cannot have my wife behaving like a camp follower,” he said smoothly, watching for her change of expression. There was none. “Your duty lies with me, in Balaclava.”
“I am sorry, Charles, but I shall not go.” It was said quietly but with absolute firmness.
“You will do as you are told, madam,” he snapped, conscious that she was using the safety of a public room to her ad
vantage.
There was undisguised loathing in her study of him. “What an overbearing phrase that is! Little Victoria Castledon would have obeyed you, but she had a lot to learn. It has all been learned now. When I am no longer needed here, I shall come back to Balaclava. You claimed to have no further use for me, Charles. I have found many who have.”
“You refuse to do as I say?”
“For the moment, yes.”
“Very well.” He dipped into the pack and came out with his ace. “I shall make arrangements for you to return to England, where you will do your best to comfort my father at Wychbourne.” Ah, he knew that would hit her hard, and his chin went up triumphantly. “You have no choice, Victoria. I shall issue instructions to the bank not to meet any hotel expenses or bills from tradespeople incurred by my wife, and I can have your luggage sent on in advance. You could hardly remain here in those circumstances.”
She resorted to pleading, which was more to his taste. “For once, will you not put selfishness aside? Is it beyond your humanity to see that what I am doing is in the interest of this army and our country? Charles, from what I hear daily from these men we have lost this war if the Russians attack us. There are but a handful of men in the Crimea fit to hold a gun or ride a horse. Do you truly hold your own gratification above the pride of your heritage? Of what use will it be to have me as a dog at your heels when the Russians take you prisoner? Lieutenant-Colonel the Honorable Charles Stanford, heir to the Blythe title and second-in-command of the famous Hussars, having to bow the knee to some Russian princeling — that is what you will be doing if this appalling death rate is not stopped.”
He did not like the picture. Amazed that she could know so much of what was happening in the Crimea and here in the hospital, he had to concede there was truth in what she said. Still he said, “Washing a man’s face and putting socks on his feet is not going to cure him of cholera, nor prevent the loss of a limb. You are merely playing nursery games, Victoria.”
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