Horrified, he realised that the same must be true of his own costume, sodden and clinging to him. It was almost like wearing nothing at all.
He was dazed from the sensations coursing through him. He knew that he had to kiss her. There was no choice. He drew her closer and closer.
But at the last minute he was stopped by a thunderous noise. It came again and again and now they could hear that it came from outside, as though somebody was hitting the wooden side of the bathing machine with a heavy object. On and on it rumbled and beneath it they could just hear the voice of Sir Stewart, bellowing with rage. No words were discernable, just a furious continuous roar.
“He’s here,” Cecilia cried in anguish. “Oh, John, what shall we do? Help me.”
“Yes –” he said slowly. “Yes – protect you –”
Something strange in his voice made her glance at him quickly and she saw a look in his face that she had never seen before on anyone. It was dark inside the bathing machine and she could see him only dimly. Even so she could see that his face was haggard and strained and his eyes tortured.
“What is it?” she asked urgently. “Tell me, please. Why do you look so terrible?”
But he did not seem to hear her. He was staring into the distance, while the thunderous battering continued on and on, close to them, just outside.
“A man can only do what is in his power,” he grated, in a voice that spoke of ghastly inner torment. “But he must do that, even when the world seems full of terror – he must do the best he can.”
With a sense of shock, Cecilia realised that he had withdrawn from her into another place where she could not follow. She did not know that place, but she could see his agony. He had vowed to protect her, but now her heart reached out to him and it was she who longed to take care of him.
“What is it?” she begged. “Can’t you tell me?”
He turned his terrible eyes onto her.
“It cannot be told,” he said hoarsely. “You think you are prepared beforehand, but nothing can prepare you for the noise and the smoke – worst of all is that you know it is all useless. You are there on a fool’s errand but you cannot turn back. You have to see it through to the bitter end – only there is no end and there never will be because you will carry the horror with you forever.”
“No!” she exclaimed fiercely, seizing hold of him and giving him a little shake. “It won’t be with you forever, because I will be there and I will drive it away for you!”
“Get out of my way!”
Sir Stewart’s bawling voice reached them from outside, increasing their tension. John passed a hand over his eyes.
“I am going out,” he murmured.
“You can’t,” she said frantically.
“I must – protect you – leave it to me.”
But she could see that he still was not himself. Anything could happen to him out there.
“No,” she begged as he rose to his feet.
“There is no other way – duty – duty –”
Moving vaguely, he made his way to the door. He was going out of the bathing machine, but she knew also that he was going somewhere else. If only she knew where.
As John pushed open the door, Sir Stewart had resumed banging the side of the machine with his stick, but he whirled at the sight of John.
“There you are!” he screamed. “Where is she?”
“I have told him the lady is not present, sir,” Frank said. “But he will not believe me.”
“Because you are lying,” Sir Stewart bellowed in a mad voice. “She’s in there. I know it. Let me pass.”
He tried to thrust his way past John, who planted himself in Sir Stewart’s path.
“Get back,” he said. “The lady you seek is not here.”
“I will see that for myself. Get out of my way.”
“No!” John cried out stoutly.
As his answer Sir Stewart drew a pistol from inside his coat and pointed it straight at John.
“Get out of my way,” he yelled.
“No!” John repeated.
Watching him, Roseanne and Frank could see that something strange was happening to him. It was as though he did not realise that the gun was dangerous. He took a step down, then another, his eyes fixed, not on the gun, but on Sir Stewart’s face.
“Don’t come any closer,” Sir Stewart shrieked. “Get back.”
John shook his head.
“Towards the guns,” he muttered. “Always towards the guns. That is how it has to be.”
He came down another step. Thinking he saw his chance, Sir Stewart tried to dodge round him but John stopped him with one hand. His eyes still held a blank stare, but his grip was like steel.
“Get back,” he ordered. “Take warning, I will not let you pass.”
Sir Stewart tried to break free. When he found John’s grip was unbreakable he began to howl with rage. All around them people on the beach were staring at them. Some of them rose to their feet in consternation, but they kept well back, mindful of the gun.
Frank made a lunge at the pistol but Sir Stewart retaliated by aiming it straight at him. But before he could pull the trigger, John uttered a cry that chilled the blood of all who heard it and launched himself on to Sir Stewart, carrying him down to the ground.
For a moment the two men rolled fiercely in the sand while everyone stared, aghast.
Suddenly there was a roar as the gun went off. For a moment they were both still. Then Sir Stewart began to wriggle frantically away, leaving John lying there alone, blood pouring from him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“John! John! Oh, no – please God, no!”
It was madness to run out of the bathing machine, but when Cecilia heard the shot and the screams from the crowd, nothing could have stopped her. In a moment she was outside, rushing down the steps to fall on her knees beside John and seize him up into her arms.
“No,” she wept. “Don’t let him die! John! John!”
Everything seemed to swirl around her. Vaguely she heard Frank, calling for a doctor and for help to carry the wounded man back to the hotel.
By a miracle there was a doctor nearby, who had just arrived at the beach, ready to enjoy an afternoon in the sun, but abandoned it when he saw the crisis. He moved Cecilia gently aside and studied John.
“He is losing blood fast,” he said curtly. “Where is the hotel?”
“Just over there,” Frank informed him, pointing.
“Not too far. Good. Then let’s get him inside at once.”
He helped Frank lift the patient and the two of them carried John off the beach.
Cecilia followed behind, her whole heart and mind concentrating on John, and how she might be about to lose him just when she was realising that she loved him. Everything vanished from her mind, including propriety, so that Frank had to turn her back at John’s bedroom door.
“We are going to have to undress him, miss,” he said, blushing as he spoke and firmly barring her way.
“Come and change out of that wet costume,” Roseanne said, guiding Cecilia firmly towards her room.
Roseanne was a tower of strength. She had had the forethought to collect all the clothes from the machine before she left the beach. Now the two girls dried off and helped each other to dress.
“I must go back to him,” Cecilia cried frantically. “Oh, if only he is still alive!”
“Of course he is,” Roseanne soothed her. “I saw what happened. The wound is only in his shoulder.”
“Did Sir Stewart do it?” Cecilia asked bitterly.
“That he did, miss. First of all he banged on the machine with his stick. He was being very nasty, but you should have seen how Frank stood up to him. When Mr. Milton opened the door, Sir Stewart pulled out a gun and waved it at him.
“I heard him shout ‘don’t come any closer,’“ Cecilia said.
“That’s right, miss. But Mr. Milton was not afraid of him. He said something – I hardly caught it, he spoke so quietly, but
it sounded like, ‘towards the guns’. Then he came down the steps, heading straight for Sir Stewart, even though the gun was pointed straight at his chest.
“Sir Stewart tried to push past. Mr. Milton seized him, but he could only reach his free arm, not the one with the gun. Frank made a lunge for it, but that devil pointed the gun at him. I think he would have fired, but Mr. Milton hurled himself onto him. He is a brave man, miss.”
“Yes, yes” Cecilia sobbed through her tears.
“Mind you, Frank is a brave man as well.”
Cecilia barely heard her. One thought was torturing her.
“He did it all for me. If John dies, it is I who will have killed him.”
“But you shouldn’t have come running out as you did, miss. That was dangerous.”
“I never thought about it,” Cecilia replied, in a daze. “I could only think of – him. But it was very foolish of me, I can see that.”
“If Sir Stewart had kept his wits about him he could have dragged you off there and then. Luckily he panicked. When he saw what he had done, he made a run for it,” Roseanne added with grim satisfaction. “He couldn’t get away fast enough, so he never saw you. Let us hope that’s the last of him.”
“Oh, yes. If only he’s too scared to come back. And if only John – oh, Roseanne, let’s go quickly and find out how he is.”
Together they hurried to John’s room, where the doctor was just finishing. Frank let them in, standing back so that Cecilia could see the bed where John lay.
They had removed his bathing costume and now his bare chest was heavily bandaged. He was unconscious and lay very still, his face dreadfully pale, his eyes sunken.
“I have done what I can for him,” the doctor announced.
“He will be all right, won’t he?” Cecilia pleaded.
“I do hope so. He was lucky in that the bullet just missed his lung, but he has lost a lot of blood. It is best if he remains sedated as far as possible. I have sent one of your servants to the apothecary for something that will keep him quiet – ah, here he is.”
Responding to a knock at the door, the doctor took the medicine from the servant outside, saying,
“I am returning home tomorrow morning, so you had better send for the local doctor. The patient is going to need constant care.”
“I will show you out and see to your fee,” Frank said.
“Thank you for everything,” Cecilia breathed fervently.
“My pleasure, madam. And there is no need for a fee. This was an emergency.”
When they had left and Roseanne with them, Cecilia crept closer to the bed and dropped to her knees beside John.
“I am here, my love,” she whispered. “And I am going to stay here, looking after you until you are well. You are not going to die, because I will not allow it. Do you understand? I am going to keep you safe.”
He did not stir. Nor did he give any sign of hearing her. Scarcely daring to breathe, Cecilia leaned closer and softly touched his face with her fingers.
Then she lay down her head and sobbed.
But she only allowed herself a brief moment of indulgence. She raised her head and straightened her shoulders. She was going to need all her strength for John’s sake. And she would not fail him.
*
Towards the guns – towards the guns.
John tried to think clearly, but he was surrounded by heat and smoke. It had been madness to charge the guns, but a soldier could not disobey an order and so they all had ridden forward into hell.
The noise inside his head was deafening, but worse than the noise, the heat and the smoke, was the sense of despair and terrifying futility.
His body was racked with pain. He was dying. He knew it and prepared to descend into blackness, but at the last moment a woman’s voice had murmured soft words of comfort and her gentle hand seemed to hold him back from the brink.
Now he knew who she was, Florence Nightingale, who had travelled to the Crimea, bringing hope and succour to so many soldiers dying of neglect.
But when he opened his eyes it was not Florence Nightingale whose face hung over him, but Cecilia’s. She was pale and he thought he saw tears on her cheeks. Then the night engulfed him again and he closed his eyes. At the last moment he thought he felt a pair of soft lips pressed to his forehead, before he lost consciousness.
This time his sleep was peaceful, as though her presence could drive his nightmares away. He did not know how long he lay there, drifting through dreams, but it seemed like an endless journey.
Sometimes he seemed to be back at home, wandering through the gardens, returning to the place where he had often sat with his mother before she died. Or he would be running through a maze, hearing the voices of his father and brother calling from some other part that he could never find. He had always known that he was excluded from their charmed circle.
Next he was a soldier again, splendid in the uniform of the Light Brigade, brave and cheerful as a new life opened to him. But the new life ended in the smoke and despair of a fruitless charge down the valley to the Russian guns.
Again and again he would reach this point and every time his horror would be driven away by a gentle voice, and an even gentler touch. And once more he would be lulled back to sleep.
*
At last he awoke once more. This time the world was cool and peaceful.
And she was there.
For a long time he looked up into her beautiful eyes, smiling down at him with love and joy.
“Hallo,” he said weakly.
“Hallo.” Her voice was as soft and sweet as an angel’s.
“Have you been here all the time?”
“Yes, I have.”
“I thought so. Every time I opened my eyes you were with me and I felt better and fell asleep.”
Slowly he raised his hand to his chin, frowning at what he found.
“I have grown a beard. How long have I been here?”
“Four days. We did not want to disturb you by shaving you.”
“We?”
“Frank and Roseanne have been wonderful. He is now running the hotel with her help. And she is also helping me to nurse you. She is a tower of strength. They both are.”
“What has been happening?” John asked. “I remember nothing after he shot me. What happened to him?”
“He ran away.”
At that moment Frank put his head round the door, beaming when he saw that John was awake. Roseanne was just behind him and the three of them told John everything that had happened after he lost consciousness.
“And now I am going to fetch you some nice strong broth,” Roseanne said, bustling away.
“How is the hotel doing, Frank?”
“Tip-top, sir. Mr. Dale would be proud of us.”
“Proud of you, you mean,” John said. He saw that Cecilia was looking puzzled and added, “Robert Dale is a friend of mine and the son of the Mr. Dale you knew. We met in the Crimea. He owns this place.”
Roseanne returned with the broth and a message to say that the doctor would be here soon.
“He has been to see you every day since the first doctor left,” Frank explained. “He was rather worried when you took so long to recover consciousness – in fact we all were. But all is now well.”
The doctor arrived soon after lunch and confirmed Frank’s view. Plenty to eat, plenty of rest and plenty of good nursing were his recommendations.
For a couple of days John allowed himself to drift comfortably between sleeping and waking. He gave himself up to this routine, having no strength to do otherwise, but he was also enjoying being cared for by Cecilia. Once he said,
“Did I say anything while I was unconscious?”
“You muttered a good deal, but I didn’t understand much. You spoke of guns and smoke and once you cried out. What were you dreaming of?”
“The charge,” he replied. “I was in the Light Brigade.”
“You were part of the glorious charge?” she gasped.
&
nbsp; But at once she knew she had made the wrong comment, for John’s face darkened.
“It was not glorious,” he scolded her. “It was stupid and pointless. It was not even meant to happen the way it did. The commander who gave the order didn’t mean us to charge the guns, but take a different direction entirely, only we could not see the way to go.”
He began to laugh harshly.
“Isn’t that funny? The ‘heroic’ charge was a mistake all the time. Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous?”
“Oh, my dear John,” she said, gathering him into her arms.
“There is nobody I can tell,” he choked, “because nobody wants to know the truth.”
“You can tell me anything. I am sorry I reacted in that stupid way.”
“It is how everyone feels. Six hundred and seventy-three men set out, a quarter of them died, and everyone says how splendid. If they only knew.
“Since then I think I have been angry every moment of my life. I lay in the Barrack Hospital full of fury, I left the army and came home and I was angry all the time. Only Robert Dale understood. He once said, ‘nothing was ever the same after the Crimea,’ and he was right.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. You told me that he owns the Paradise Hotel and that he gave you the job.”
“Which was very trusting of him, since I have no previous experience of hotels.”
“Perhaps you need to talk to him rather than me, if he fought though the war with you.”
“He is in London now, being ‘mine host’ at the White Elephant in the East End. In truth I would rather talk to you.”
But even as he said it, he knew that he no longer needed to talk. It was enough to lie here, resting against Cecilia in the peace that only she could give him.
Their peace was untroubled until the following day, and then it was rudely disturbed.
Frank, working in the bar downstairs, looked up to find a tall, youngish policeman, with a large moustache, advancing on him.
“I am Constable Jenkins,” he said. “I understand there was an incident on the beach in which a man was shot.”
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