by M. C. Muir
Seated with their backs against the wall of one of the apartment houses were three men, chins resting on their chests, mouths hanging open as if asleep. But they were not sleeping. They were three of the Malignant Fever’s recent victims, dragged from their houses, waiting in line for collection by the scavenger when he made his next pass through the square.
Oliver indicated to the far corner of the square where
Main Street entered. ‘This way,’ he said to his lieutenant. It was a little more than an alley with three-storey houses on either side but it led directly to Rosia Bay and Windmill Hill. As they entered the street, the sound of a horn and rumble of wheels could be heard.
‘Wait a moment.’ Oliver said, nudging Mr Tully aside.
Heading towards the square, was an urchin of little more than five or six years of age. Held in his hand was a tarnished horn which he blew into occasionally, not to attract business, but to advise the citizens the dead cart was passing. It offered both an invitation for them to bring out their dead and a warning for them to get out of the way.
How different this was to a London funeral, Oliver thought. The glass-panelled hearses trimmed with black bows. An elegant carriage drawn by four black Shire horses. A polished elm coffin. Tall hats, worn by the undertakers, streaming with ribbons. The cortège comprising a host of black-clad mourners.
Here in Gibraltar, the funerary party consisted of a wizened old muleteer leading a mangy-haired animal harnessed to a flat cart previously used for conveying barrels of night soil to the neutral zone. Now, piled high with stinking human corpses, the wheels creaked under the load.
There were no mourners accompanying it, apart from the flies.
The dead cart’s arrival in the square disturbed only the pigeons pecking at the cracks in the paving in search of grain or maggots. An opportunity they never had in the past. When one took flight the others followed, two dozen wings threshing the air in unison. But their flight was soon aborted and the birds fluttered down a few yards away to resume their search.
The few citizens in the square with business to conduct turned their backs when they heard the horn and ignored the procession. The dead cart was a regular visitor, rolling through to the ditch on the neutral zone several times a day.
As it rumbled across the market square, one wheel dug into a gap between the paving slabs. Fortunately, the load didn’t topple but it swayed perilously from side to side causing one of the bodies to slip from it. Sliding, almost gracefully to the ground, the corpse landed at the feet of the guards walking five yards behind. The pair of untidy young soldiers, short in stature, whose chins had never felt the scrape of a razor, were members of the De Rolls Regiment.
The unlucky pair had been given the garrison’s most odious task – to visit every house along the way, knock on every door and ensure all the cadavers had been dragged out to the street for collection. If a house was vacant, it was their duty to inspect all its floors and remove any bodies that had been left behind. Once the cart was fully loaded, they escorted it to the north ditch where the bodies were dumped. Then they returned to the town and began the process all over again.
Guarding the dead cart was the garrison’s most despised and distasteful duty. Every soldier hated it. They all agreed if a man was ever to walk in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the streets of Gibraltar led directly to it. And repeating the words of The Lord’s Prayer proved no antidote to the epidemic. Thou shall fear no evil – was balderdash. The Evil was here for everyone to see.
‘Halt!’ one of the soldiers shouted, but the scavenger either didn’t hear or chose to ignore the order.
‘Stop! Pare!’ the other yelled. ‘You lost one!’ With very limited Spanish, and an accent, which would have been more acceptable on the streets of Dublin than in a colonial town on the Mediterranean, it was surprising he was understood at all.
The driver turned his head. ‘Next time!’ the man murmured in reply. ‘Pick it up next time.’
‘No, now!’ the young guard ordered. ‘Pick it up, I say!
Reluctantly, the driver pulled on the reins and brought his mule and cart to a standstill. Shuffling back to see what had happened, he stood over the body, took out a grubby rag, and wiped his brow. A pair of long-legged dogs showed more interested.
‘Toss it back on,’ the youngest member of the regiment ordered, keeping his distance. The scavenger scratched his groin while he contemplated the nearby wall as a likely place to leave the body until his next pass.
‘Throw it up,’ the guard repeated, his timid voice hardly audible.
Grabbing the cadaver by the hands, the scavenger dragged it back to the side of the cart but only managed to raise it to the height of the tray. It needed to be lifted another three feet to reach the top of the pile.
‘You do it,’ the old Spaniard said bluntly to the pair. Dropping it and stepping back, he stuck a fat cigar in his mouth and started chewing on it, paper and all.
Oliver was appalled. The body was that of a female victim, clothed only in a nightshirt. She was a matronly woman, probably of Spanish blood, who, in life, would have never revealed even an inch of pale skin beneath her petticoats to anyone other than her husband.
‘Lend the driver a hand,’ Oliver ordered the troopers, who stood little taller than the muzzles of the muskets they were carrying.
In response, the pair shuffled backwards rather than forwards.
‘That is a direct order!’ Captain Quintrell called. ‘I think General Trigge will not take kindly to learn his men do not obey orders!’
The pair edged forward side by side, clutching their muskets hard to their shoulders, their mouths contorted as if sucking on lemons.
Running out of patience, Oliver turned to his lieutenant. ‘Mr Tully, step up here. Take this woman’s hands. I shall take her feet. Let us return her to her conveyance.’
With the dogs snapping at their heels, it took less than a minute and the job was accomplished, the woman’s body coming to rest across the legs of the other corpses. As it settled, the head of the cadaver beneath it turned to face the naval officer. Despite the blood-stained face hanging upside down, the captain and his lieutenant immediately recognised the red hair, crooked nose and chipped teeth in the open jaw.
Oliver glanced at Mr Tully to see if he had also recognised the face.
Such was the fate of Benjamin Styles, the second pressed man to have run from Perpetual soon after it arrived in Gibraltar. Coerced by his mate, Lompa, he had foolishly lied, saying he had spent time in a London jail. That untruth had cost him dearly.
After noting the names of the two guards, nothing more needed to be said. The scavenger took up the mule’s reins. The boy blew on his horn. And the two soldiers walked on. Casting their eyes to the ground, they dare not exchange glances with the Royal Navy captain they had failed to take a direct order from. With their muskets wavering on their shoulders, their minds were racked with fear. Fear of reprisals. Fear of contracting the deadly contagion. Fear of death itself.
‘I had heard that the discipline at the garrison was lax,’ Oliver observed, as he wiped his hands on his handkerchief. ‘Such insolent behaviour would never be tolerated on one of His Majesty’s ships.’
Continuing along the main street in the direction of Rosia Bay they passed the gothic-styled Roman Catholic Cathedral which still bore marks of the hot shot fired at the city during the Great Siege. It seemed strange, to Oliver, in a British colony to find Catholic churches, Moorish mosques and Jewish synagogues but to find only one Protestant church. It was also strange to discover that apart from the military and their families, there were very few British residents on the peninsula. The population was made up of people of all colours and creeds.
‘Captain! Captain Quintrell!’ The cry was urgent.’
Oliver spun around. Zachary Irons, the pressed sailor who had volunteered to accompany Dr Whipple several days earlier, was haring along the street.
‘What is it, man?’ Oliver called.
Irons had to catch his breath. ‘The doctor sent me to find you.’
Oliver feared the doctor had succumbed to the fever. ‘Is he ill?’
‘No, sir. He sent me to fetch you. But I couldn’t find you. I went down to the mole and found your boat. Froyle told me where you were heading. Dr Whipple said I was to bring you to him as quickly as possible.’
‘Where is he?’ Oliver asked.
‘At a house in Gunner’s Parade.’
‘Then we shall hurry,’ Oliver said, turning and heading back the way they had come.
‘It’s not a good place, Captain,’ Irons warned. ‘So many have died near there. Whole families. It’s terrible.’
The sailor’s anguish was etched across on his face.
‘Are you all right?’ the captain asked, as they strode out.
‘I’m well enough, Captain, but I feel for the infants. They fall like flies.’
‘Do you have children of your own?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Iron replied. ‘A boy of nine, a girl of seven and, if all went well, a child I’ve never seen. Must be nigh on a year old.’
‘And when you were taken by the press-gang, were you heading home?’
Irons nodded. ‘Aye, Captain. It’s all I’d planned for many a month.’
Oliver glanced at him sympathetically. ‘When we return to England, if the war with France is still being fought, your services will still be required and it may be impossible for you to leave the navy.’
Iron shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’d thought of that, Captain. I’d even wondered how I could sneak off the ship and avoid the press-gang.’
‘Perhaps you should keep those thoughts to yourself,’ Oliver suggested. ‘War is not pleasant and it is unkind in many ways. It brings certain rewards and satisfactions but because we are in the King’s Service, we cannot chart our own course.’
‘And if you try to make your own way—’ Mr Tully noted.
‘—you must pay the consequences,’ Oliver added.
‘This way,’ Irons indicated, turning right up a narrow lane.
The garrison’s new library stood at the top of the road. It was a grand double-storey white stone building surrounded by gardens which were ablaze with red geraniums. Oliver wondered if any other bodies, other than the beggar’s, had been buried there. Despite that, it was his intention to peruse the bookcases when he had time. For the present, however, that indulgence would have to wait.
‘Tell me, what of the Doctor? Is he able to assist the victims?’
‘He does the best he can,’ Irons said. ‘But it’s painfully little. The garrison has plenty of powders and potions, and I have replenished the surgeon’s chest twice already. But the medicines he gives seem to do no good. Often when he administers a dose, the patient can’t swallow it, coughs it up and spits it back in the doctor’s face. Not meaning to, of course.
‘But Dr Whipple has got a certain way about him. He sooths his patients and tells the family how best to tend to those who are dying. Oft times, only a wife or mother is left after the rest of the family is gone. As for those who die, he treats them with dignity even when we carry them out onto the street to be carted away. It’s a sorrowful scene. So much wailing. It’s a wonder the gutters aren’t running with tears.’
Suddenly, a voice shouted a belated warning from the balcony above them as a body was tossed down to the street. It landed at their feet with a dull thud, a stream of yellow fluid leaking from it.
Oliver stopped, looked up and shook his head.
‘We must hurry, Captain,’ Irons said. ‘Dr Whipple said it was urgent, and the glass would have almost emptied since I left him.’
They extended their stride, passing the Town Range Barracks on the right where 700 men were usually housed, and the Royal Artillery Barracks on the left where the soldiers remained as a third of the corps had been struck down with the Fever the previous month. Ahead was a shambles of small dwellings – single-storey huts with canvas roofs, dilapidated and dirty with hardly enough space to squeeze between them. They were in far worse condition that the buildings off
Casemates Square. On the right was the Boyd’s building. Once gracious, it was now old and rather grubby. Adjoining it were several private houses and a grocer’s shop. On the end of the row was a tavern.
‘This is where the epidemic began,’ Mr Tully said, pointing to the Boyd’s building.
Oliver had heard differently.
Zachary Irons led them around the corner to another row of adjoining houses. Their condition was somewhat better. A sign nailed on the wall read:
ACCOMMODATION
Clean rooms let by the day or week
Fresh linen and feather mattresses
Merchants welcome
‘The doctor is on the top floor.’
‘Thank you,’ Oliver said. ‘Kindly wait here with Mr Tully. I will call if I need you.’
From the bright sunlight of the street, the narrow staircase inside the building was dark with only a candle burning on each landing. The stairs creaked beneath his feet. The handrail rattled to his touch.
When he reached the second floor, a dark-robed figure stepped aside to let him pass. Oliver paid little heed to the man and continued to climb taking two steps at a time. On the top landing, the dying flame of the candle stub flickered in a lantern. Two doors lay ahead. One was open.
‘Captain, thank the Lord.’ The surgeon’s voice was hushed. ‘I am relieved Zac found you. I was getting anxious. Please come in.’
With his eyes not yet accustomed to the gloom, Oliver glanced to the open window framing the old Moorish Castle on the side of the hill. There was no breeze and the air was dank and heavy. Then he turned and looked to the bed, and his heart sank.
With her long black hair draped across the white pillow, he hardly recognised her face.’
‘Oh, dear God. No!’
CHAPTER 15
Susanna
Susanna’s eyelids flickered when she heard his voice.
The doctor leaned over her and gently wiped the pink saliva escaping from the corner of her lips.
The freshly laundered sheets were white.
Her face was yellow.
She mouthed his name but no sound came out.
‘For pity sake, this cannot be,’ he cried.
‘Please, Captain. I beg you not to raise your voice. The lady is very ill.’
‘Is she—?’ he whispered.
‘I fear so,’ the surgeon said. ‘I have done all I can.’
Tears welled in Oliver’s eyes. ‘But what is she doing here? She was supposed to leave two weeks ago. She should have been safely home by now? This cannot be. It is not fair.’
‘Much in life is not fair, Captain, but we must accept it as God’s will.’
‘But she was due to sail on the Portuguese brig.’
‘But she didn’t,’ Dr Whipple said firmly. ‘She chose to stay here and lend a hand with the sick. She wanted to help.’
Then he realized. ‘She’s been here, all this time. All these weeks. Why didn’t she tell me?’
‘Perhaps she thought you already had enough problems without her presence adding to them.’
Oliver was distraught. ‘What can I do, Doctor? Tell me what to do? Should she be taken to the hospital? Should Dr Pym attend her? Perhaps he can help.’
‘I am afraid the hospitals are all full, and Dr Pym would only confirm she bears the signs and symptoms of the contagion. He can do nothing more than I have already done.’
‘Then, tell me, what help can I be? I want to stay with her but I cannot. I must return to the ship. Who will nurse her? Who will stay with her? Where is her maid?’
‘Her maid, Isabella, died two days ago but I have secured the services of an English lady, the widow of an army captain who served at the garrison for many years. She will give your friend all the attention that is possible.’
‘I will pay whatever it costs.’
‘I thought that would be the case,’
he said sagely. ‘You must pardon me for admitting, but I understand your relationship with this lady. She revealed to me how deep her feelings are for you, that is why I saw the urgency to advise you.’
‘But why didn’t she contact me sooner?’
The Doctor spoke gently. ‘Perhaps she feared you would be angry with her for failing to do as you had instructed.’
There was nothing Oliver could say. He pleaded, ‘She cannot die.’
‘Have some faith, Captain. Not everyone who contracts the fever dies.’
‘You must not let her die.’
‘I am afraid, that is out of my hands. Until her nurse arrives, Zachary will stay with her, and I will return as soon as I can. Unfortunately, there are many more victims who need my help.’ He paused. ‘I took the liberty of calling the priest. Were you aware the lady is a Roman Catholic?’
Did he know or not? Oliver couldn’t remember. And what did it matter anyway?
‘She begged me to call for him.’
‘Oliver,’ Susanna murmured, ‘is that you?’
As he moved to the bed, lifted her hand and sat down beside her, Dr Whipple collected his bag and stood at the door.
‘I will leave you together for a little while, and return in an hour. Good-bye Captain. May God be with you both.’
Very early the following morning, soon after the garrison’s morning gun, a message was rowed to the frigate from the North Mole. It was for Perpetual’s captain.
Having dozed only briefly in his chair overnight, Oliver was fully clothed when Casson handed it to him. It bore the news he did not want to hear. He read only the first line – Susanna was dead.
Closing his eyes, he pictured her face on the pillow, her black hair, her parched face, the blood on the sheet. Then, he remembered her face as she had appeared at their last meeting. Her smooth glowing skin. Her rich lips. Dark eyes. He remembered the sun glistening on her smooth neck. Her comforting voice. Her smile. And the touch of her fingers as she stroked his damaged hand. He would never see her again. Feel her touch. Hold her. Love her.