by Jane Jackson
‘A wise suggestion,’ Soeur Jeanne nodded. ‘The unrest was violent. At least fifty Europeans were killed. The injured were brought here. But with so few doctors ... Where is your husband?’
‘The assistant British consul ordered him to carry some people to Port Said. He is a shipowner and master. I cannot simply sit and wait for his return. So I came here.’
‘Do you have experience of caring for the sick?’
Caseley swallowed. ‘I nursed my father and my two sons through their final illnesses.’
Jeanne’s nod held sympathy. ‘You are a gift from God. Come with me.’ She led Caseley along a wide corridor, through doors that swung shut behind them then down a short passage. Ahead, another set of doors was propped open. ‘This is one of the men’s wards. Usually, there are six but because we have only two physicians and two surgeons we have had to close two.’
The ward was large with tall windows that opened at the top along one wall, a row of beds beneath, and another row on the inside wall. Every bed was occupied. Some men were propped up on pillows, with limbs or heads swathed in bandages. Others lay on their backs, eyes closed, faces as white as the sheets.
‘Wait here.’ Jeanne went into the ward. She returned a few moments later with a short, plump woman also wearing the grey habit and white apron. ‘This is Soeur Marie. She will show you where everything is. You are to assist her. You realise many of the tasks will be unpleasant?’
‘Even more so for the patients,’ Marie said, her sharp gaze assessing.
‘I understand.’ Beneath Caseley’s calm façade, trepidation writhed and churned. She pushed doubts aside. The swift acceptance of her offer showed how desperately help was needed. She could not back out now. Nor could she bear to spend the coming days waiting in the Consulate with nothing to do while Antonia was occupied in her darkroom.
‘I’ll leave you in Marie’s capable hands.’
‘Thank you.’
As the tall nun hurried away, Marie clicked her tongue. ‘Soeur Jeanne has a heart of gold and a head like a colander. What’s your name?’
‘Mrs Barata, Caseley Barata.’
With a brisk nod she led the way to a supply closet and gave Caseley a white apron to cover her thobe and a white cloth to replace her black scarf. ‘Fold it into a triangle and tie it at the back over the pointed end. The other staff will recognise you as an aide.’
From that moment on, Caseley didn’t stop. She helped Marie change beds and carried the dirty linen to the large hamper by the door to be collected by a laundrymaid. She emptied various receptacles and washed them in a special room, where piped water fed through a boiler came out steaming from one tap and cold from another over a vast metal sink.
After a few hours another sister shepherded her away to a small rest room equipped with a couch, a table and some chairs. Telling her to sit down she left, returning a few minutes later with a bowl of rice and chicken and a cup of mint tea. Instantly Caseley thought back to the journey into the desert and the Bedouin wedding.
The sister left and Caseley sat at the table to eat. Was Jago making good time? Were sea conditions good? She pictured him in shirtsleeves in the day cabin, wearing his salt-stained and sun-bleached jacket, taking his turn at the wheel.
After her meal she returned to the ward to assist Marie as she changed dressings. She carried basins of disinfectant and took covered buckets of bloodstained cotton to the boiler room to be burned. Darkness fell. Lamps were lit. Another sister arrived to take over for the night. Dark circles under her eyes and pale skin spoke of exhaustion.
‘Come,’ Marie said as they left the ward. ‘You have done enough. Go home.’
Caseley smiled wearily. ‘I wish I could. But Cornwall is a long way. I can’t leave without my husband, and he won’t be back from Port Said for several days.’
‘I meant home to where you are living in the city.’
‘I’m a guest at the British Consulate. Please, I would prefer to stay here. After a few hours’ sleep I will be fine again. You need me, and I want to be useful.’ Keeping busy allowed her no time to worry.
‘I’m glad to have you. You aren’t afraid of hard work. I will go and ask Soeur Jeanne.’ Taking Caseley to the sisters’ quiet room she gave her a gentle push. ‘Sit down before you fall down.’ The door closed behind her and Caseley was alone.
She sank onto the couch. Images of Jago floated through her mind: standing at Cygnet’s helm; seated at the table in his day cabin, his dark head propped on one hand as he completed the log; leaning against a camel saddle beside the campfire, at ease in his Bedouin robes. She had not prayed since the night the boys died. But as she closed her eyes her last conscious thought was a plea: please let me see him again.
An explosion jolted her upright, her heart hammering. Where was she? As salvo after salvo created a deafening thunder, she remembered: the hospital. The bombardment had started.
The door opened and Marie came in. She set the cup of tea and plate of fresh flatbread on the table and laid the clean apron hanging over her arm on the couch. ‘I looked in on you during the night.’
‘You should have woken me,’ Caseley rubbed her face to banish the fog of sleep, then untied the stained and creased apron she had slept in.
Marie shook her head, wincing at the roar and crump as a shell landed. ‘You are awake now.’
‘Soeur Jeanne –?’
‘Is grateful for your offer. Come to the ward when you are ready.’ She pointed to the plate. ‘Eat. You will need all your strength.’
After visiting the bathroom, washing her face and hands, and swallowing her breakfast, Caseley put on her clean apron, refolded and tied her white headscarf and hurried to the ward.
Two hours later she no longer flinched at the gunfire. But her jaw ached from clenching her teeth. Quickly she stripped damp and bloodstained sheets from a bed. The previous occupant had died twenty minutes ago. A new patient slumped semi-conscious in a chair, waiting. Marie hurried over, concern furrowing her forehead.
‘There’s a Mr Blaine in the foyer asking to speak to you. He says the gunfire is hitting buildings in the city.’
Horror was a dark void inside her. Antonia, Sir Douglas. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘Don’t run,’ Marie whispered. ‘The patients have been frightened enough.’
As Caseley entered the crowded foyer, the smell of blood, sweat and fear triggered a surge of panic that squeezed her heart and tightened her throat.
She dug her fingernails hard into her thumbs and made herself take a slow, deep breath. The noise was deafening. Terrified people shouted for help, the wounded groaned or screamed in pain and the thunder of heavy guns was relentless.
She saw a man in shirtsleeves flanked by two nursing sisters moving slowly among the injured slumped on benches against the wall or laying on the tiled floor. The apron that covered him from chest to shin was as bloody as a butcher’s.
Caseley realised he must be one of the doctors. She had not seen him on the ward. But by the time the sick or injured reached a bed, their care was in the hands of the nursing sisters. He crouched, rose, bent and straightened with the ease of a young man. But, as he glanced round, she saw his face was lined and haggard with exhaustion.
Pausing at each person, he gave quick instructions regarding those who needed immediate treatment and who could wait. People beyond help were identified by a reassuring touch, a glance at the nurse and an infinitesimal headshake.
She spotted Spencer Blaine. His cream linen suit was streaked with dust, dirt and blood. One hand shook as he mopped his face with a crumpled handkerchief. In the other he held a small suitcase.
‘Mr Blaine?’ Caseley had to raise her voice above the thundering guns. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Me? No. The Consulate – I was at the telegraph office. When I got back – It’s gone –’
‘What do you mean, gone?’
‘It’s not there any more. The building is just a pile of rubble. I can’t believe –’
‘Antonia? Sir Douglas?’
He shook his head. ‘They must be – no one could have survived. I saw one of the clerks – his legs – crushed.’ Nausea tightened his face and he recoiled as weeping dust-shrouded relatives carried in more wounded. ‘I have to go.’
‘Go? Where?’
‘Cairo. I can’t stay here. Our wonderful British navy is destroying the city.’ He turned away.
Caseley caught his arm. ‘Please stay. We need help. And you’re as safe here as anywhere.’
He backed away, shaking his head. ‘I can’t – I don’t know what to –’
‘You could show people where to wait, offer reassurance or a drink of water. ’
‘No – I –’
Caseley’s patience snapped. ‘How would you feel if you were injured and no one would help?’
‘How dare –’ he spluttered. ‘You have no right –’
Caseley saw two men stagger in. Their suits, dust-caked and torn, marked them as businessmen or bankers. The younger man half-carried the elder who swayed, one arm hanging useless in a saturated sleeve, blood dripping from his fingers.
‘Please, tell them to wait over there,’ she pointed. ‘I’ll fetch some water.’ She hurried to the kitchen, filled a jug, grabbed a cup from the cupboard and returned to the foyer. Spencer Blaine had gone. She crossed to the waiting people. One woman had looked up as she approached.
‘Are you hurt?’ Caseley asked in French, then English. From the woman’s modest garments and covered head Caseley guessed she was Jewish. Her eyes were huge and dazed but she shook her head. ‘My m-mother. She – I was told to wait.’
Caseley held out the jug and cup. ‘Please will you help? A sister will find you when – when you can see your mother.’
After a moment’s hesitation the woman nodded.
‘They will be so grateful. When you need more water the kitchen is through there.’ Caseley pointed.
She raced back to the ward. Marie and Jeanne had laid mattresses down the centre of the floor. Unconscious men occupied three of them. Two had truncated limbs swathed in fresh bandages. Caseley’s gorge rose and she swallowed hard.
The doors swung open as two orderlies carried in a stretcher.
‘Come,’ Marie touched her arm. ‘We must open another ward.’
As Marie opened the windows, revealing bare mattresses on basic bedframes Caseley gritted her teeth. Over the guns’ roar she heard the scream of shells passing overhead, the crump as they landed. The floor vibrated with the crash of falling masonry.
Caseley jumped. ‘How can you be so calm? Aren’t you scared?’
The nun raised her eyebrows. ‘Would it help? I hope I am spared to tend those poor souls outside. But if I should die –’ she crossed herself and her smile was luminous. ‘I will be safe in the arms of my Lord. So what have I to fear?’
For weeks after the boys died Caseley had wanted oblivion. Each time she woke she dreaded the pain of facing another day. Now as shells supposedly directed at the forts were overshooting and destroying the homes and lives of ordinary people, she knew she wasn’t ready to give up. She wanted to live. She wanted to see Jago again.
While she mopped the dusty floor with a solution of chloride of lime to disinfect it, Marie threw blankets onto the beds. Before they had finished, patients were being carried in. Relatives came too, some willing to help, others too afraid to leave.
Back on the main ward time flew as Caseley fetched and carried whatever was needed. She jumped as Jeanne tapped her shoulder. ‘You need food and a rest.’
‘What about you?’
‘We are used to this. You are not. Go to the women’s ward across the foyer, down the corridor and turn right. Ask Soeur Marie-Claude if she can spare me one of her nurses.’ She made shooing motions with her hands.
‘I can stay –’
‘You will do as I ask,’ Jeanne said gently, ‘or you must leave.’
‘I beg your pardon. I only –’
‘I know. And I appreciate it. Now go.’
Torn between reluctance and relief, Caseley left the ward. She was tired out, yet every nerve vibrated like an overstretched wire.
Where was Jago? How close to Port Said? How long would it take him to get back?
Short, choppy waves and a strong current had made Cygnet’s departure from Alexandria uncomfortable. But after Jago had manoeuvred the schooner between the British ironclads and out into deep water, the voyage to Port Said was swift and uneventful.
When he heard the first salvo of gunfire he had nearly turned the ship around. But with British guns hurling barrage after barrage of shells at the forts, and the Egyptians firing back, it would have been impossible to get near the harbour. He must keep going. He had no choice. The Consulate was in the centre of the city, nowhere near the forts that spread along the shoreline like beads on a necklace. Caseley would be safe.
Maud Williamson quickly revealed her true character through her selfish disregard for those left behind in Alexandria. She also tested the crew’s courtesy to the limit.
‘Asking for table linen she was,’ Nathan told Jago in a private moment below. ‘All clicking tongue and frowns when Mart told her we didn’t have no call for nothing like that.’
‘Surely a little sociability at the table isn’t too much to ask?’ she demanded of Jago as he bolted his dinner, anxious to get back on deck and wring every last knot of speed from the schooner. He glanced up.
‘This is not a pleasure cruise, Mrs Williamson.’
‘Indeed it is not.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I have to say I would have expected a little more –’
‘Madam, your expectations are not my concern. As for conversation, let the gentlemen oblige you. I have more pressing concerns,’ Jago snapped and abruptly left the saloon. It was their fault he was not with his beloved wife. Returning to the deck, he looked into the galley shack.
‘Until we reach Port Said I want my meals in my day cabin.’
‘Aye, sir. Cap’n?’
‘Yes?’
Martin’s throat worked. ‘Missus all right, is she?’
Jago rubbed the back of his neck. Tension had pulled the muscles tight and a dull ache throbbed at the base of his skull. Hammer and Jimbo would have told him to ask. Nathan would have backed them. They all thought the world of Caseley.
‘She was when I left. But I’ll be glad to get back.’
A strong north-west wind filled every sail. He drove Cygnet hard. The crew, knew without a word spoken, that this was to be the fastest turnaround possible.
They moved crab-like around the canting deck, ignoring foam-streaked water that kissed the lee rail, going about their tasks with a determination that matched his. The passengers were allowed on deck but politely asked to stay out of the way. Remarks or questions regarding the captain were ignored.
After delivering the message and receiving a promise that a nurse would be sent directly, Caseley reentered the foyer.
‘Mrs Barata!’
Robert Pawlyn had one arm around Antonia who leaned against him, barely conscious. In his other hand he carried her camera case. Blood from a head wound covered half her face and neck and had soaked into the shoulder of her thobe.
Hurrying to them, Caseley put an arm around Antonia’s waist to help support her. ‘Thank God you’re safe. I was afraid – What happened?’
‘We were on the roof of the Reuters building. Antonia was taking photographs when the bombardment started.’ His face was tight with anger and anxiety. ‘From the moment the guns opened fire, shells were landing in the city.’
‘Do you think it’s deliberate?’
He moved a shoulder. ‘The British guns are supposed to be shelling the forts along the shoreline. Are we really supposed to believe they are simply guilty of poor marksmanship? But only Admiral Seymour knows whether he is acting on his own initiative or following orders from back home. Will you take care of her?’
‘Of course. What of her camera? She’s
sure to ask.’
He held up the case. ‘Probably smashed to bits, but knowing how much it means to her I couldn’t leave it.’
‘Spencer Blaine came in earlier. The Consulate’s been hit. He said it’s just a pile of rubble.’
‘Oh, God.’ Pawlyn passed his hand over his face. ‘Sir Douglas?’
Caseley shook her head.
‘Where is Blaine now?’
‘If the trains are running he will be on his way to Cairo. I pleaded with him to stay and help but he refused.’
‘He’d be as useful as a headache. Maybe I should stay.’
‘No. When this is over and each side is blaming the other, your account of today’s events will be vitally important. Who else cares enough to describe the devastating effects of all the political manipulation and deceit on ordinary people?’
‘Thank you.’ It was heartfelt. ‘I’ll come back later.’
Taking Antonia’s weight, Caseley half-dragged, half-carried her to a corner space at the end of a bench and propped her up. Her closed eyes were screwed tightly against pain and the blood-free side of her face was ash-pale.
Caseley pushed the camera box underneath the bench and left to fetch a basin of warm water. She saw Soeur Jeanne, who frowned. ‘Why are you not –?’
‘Miss Collingwood is the daughter of the assistant British Consul. The Consulate was hit this morning. She was injured and a friend brought her here.’
Jeanne looked at Antonia’s forehead. ‘It needs stitches. Clean it with warm water and a pinch of chloride of lime. Then take her to the benches down there.’ She pointed down the corridor. ‘They are close to the operating theatre so the doctor will see her waiting.’ She glided away, moving quickly without seeming to hurry.
Fetching water, cotton wool and a bandage Caseley began to clean the wound. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. Panic stirred like mud in a pond.
Wincing, Antonia tried to push Caseley’s hand away. ‘Don’t – hurts.’
‘Antonia? It’s Caseley. You’re at the hospital.’ Setting the basin and bloody cotton wool under the bench so they wouldn’t get kicked over before she had time to take them back to the sluice room, Caseley hauled Antonia up and supported her along the corridor. Her heart sank. The benches here were almost as crowded as the foyer. Lowered to the bench, Antonia folded her arms across her middle and curled forward over them, head bowed. Knowing there was nothing more she could do, Caseley returned to the foyer as a young woman holding a baby ran in, sobbing.