Captain Nemo

by Kevin J. Anderson

  For two days he bedded down on the plain with the British Light Brigade: six hundred mounted troops that could move quickly, unencumbered by heavy artillery. They could be ready at a moment’s notice to charge against an enemy. As the siege dragged on, the proud brigadiers had grown restless for action.

  Though the Earl of Cardigan was ostensibly their commander, friction among the British officers had thrown leadership of the Light Brigade into question. Often, conflicting orders were issued, either by or against Cardigan, just to spite him or to plunge the troops into confusion. Morale had reached its lowest point, and nothing in Nemo’s engineering repertoire could fix that. After crawling out of his tent, he ate a meager breakfast, refreshed himself, and went to check his horse. For now, Nemo had spent enough time studying the Light Brigade’s encampment to the north of Sevastopol, and he intended to move on that morning.

  Before he could leave, however, an alarm sounded, and the brigadiers sprang out of their white tents. They blinked in surprise and confusion—then excitement. “The Russians are moving! They’re trying to break free from the north.”

  Bugles shrilled, and members of the Light Brigade rushed to saddle their horses and gather their weapons. “They’re heading toward Balaclava,” one of the commanders yelled.

  Remembering his terrain maps, Nemo realized the military significance of Balaclava, a small fortified village not far from Sevastopol. The Russian troops had lost Balaclava early in the siege—but if they could retake it, they would expand their foothold on the Crimea and gain desperately needed supplies.

  Earl Cardigan stepped out of the officer’s tent in full commander’s uniform and raised his ponderous voice. “Upon our honor, men, the brigade shall be the first to meet them.” Cardigan lifted his ceremonial sword in the air and sawed the reins of his horse. The heavy mare reared up, making the earl look every inch the commanding military figure. “Light Brigade, prepare to charge!”

  Nemo climbed into the saddle of his horse and looked across to where the fortress gates had been thrown down. The frantic Russian army poured forth with all their forces, cannon, rifles, and infantrymen.

  Observing the enemy troop strength, though, he saw the folly of Cardigan’s maneuver—as did some of the British soldiers. A second commander rode up to Cardigan, and the two exchanged quick, harsh words. The Earl shook his head, his face clouded with anger, and he rode his mare around in circles as his men formed up on their mounts.

  The second commander said, “Stand down, men! We must wait for our other divisions. The Russians are closing in a pincer formation.”

  “Belay that order!” Cardigan said with a huff. “We shall strike first and hard.”

  A third commander approached from the side. He hadn’t heard Earl Cardigan’s orders or the confrontation with the other officer. As if it were his perfect right to give orders, he shouted, “Light Brigade, follow me! We must head south and meet up with the British divisions. We’ll lead the vanguard, and all attack at once.”

  Cardigan wheeled his horse and turned to his men. “All of you, follow me. I am your commander. We shall charge now—and be victorious this day.” Before the soldiers could think, the Earl launched off on his confused but energetic mare. For a moment it looked as if he would be all alone in his charge, then those behind him urged their horses into a gallop. All the men drew their swords.

  Nemo shook his head, appalled. The Brigade was a mere six hundred men against ten thousand heavily armed and desperate Russian troops. The brigadiers would be slaughtered.

  One of the second lieutenants rode up to Nemo and thrashed him on the shoulder with a quirt. “What are you waiting for, man? We’re charging! Back with the group.”

  Nemo flinched and looked at the Second Lieutenant in angry surprise. “I am not part of the Light Brigade, sir,” he said in careful English.

  The flushed man lashed him again with the whip, then tore a pistol from his belt. “You’re a bloody deserter and a coward. If you don’t ride right now, by God, I’ll shoot you where you sit on your horse.”

  Nemo wanted to fling himself upon this blustering idiot and pull him from his horse. He cursed himself for his error. He should have spoken in French, pretended not to understand the lieutenant’s commands. But the glowering man leveled the barrel of his pistol, and Nemo had to decide in an instant.

  “You are making a mistake,” he said in a low growl. But he could not argue with the lieutenant, not while the Light Brigade advanced into battle, however misguided they might be. So he turned his horse, grabbed his sword—a dull ceremonial one, since his primary weapons had been pen and blueprint—and rode with the Light Brigade to meet the ever-swelling horde of Russians trying to escape Sevastopol.

  Enemy troops flowed out, pulling cannons and mounting rifle squadrons.

  On the hills surrounding the fortress, British infantry and French reinforcements moved in at a fast march, hauling heavy weaponry to arrive at the town of Balaclava before the enemy did. Unfortunately, the Light Brigade, a pathetically small David against the well-armed Russian Goliath, would reach the enemy much sooner.

  Nemo galloped beside a fresh-faced young cavalrymen who had asked him about his African balloon adventure just the night before. The man’s blue eyes were wide and sparkling, and if he felt any fear, he did not let it show. His innocent optimism exasperated Nemo, who said, “Can’t you see this is madness?”

  “We’re following orders, mate,” the cavalryman said. “We’ve been instructed to charge. We are the Light Brigade, and we’ll bloody well strike a mortal blow against our foes.”

  Nemo looked at the size of the enemy army and choked back his fury. “But this brigade doesn’t even know what it’s doing.”

  “Aww, you’re only an engineer from France,” the man snapped back, pride adding derision to his voice. “In England, a bloke doesn’t question orders. Our duty is to do as we are told, and die if we must.”

  Nemo checked his weapons, knew that if he continued to argue against this insane charge, he would be executed by his supposed allies. So, fuming at the foolishness, he determined to survive.

  The Light Brigade crashed into the Russian army like a blacksmith’s hammer into an anvil.

  The enemy troops were taken by surprise, unable to believe that this gnat of an opposing force would attack them. Russian gunfire rang out. Cannons blasted, and invading infantry troops marched toward the British horsemen.

  The acrid smell of black powder and raw blood filled the air, mingled with dust from explosions. The scattered troops stumbled onto leftover land mines, which exploded, harming both sides. A sleet storm of lead bullets rained down. British brigadiers began falling like stalks of wheat under a scythe.

  Nemo saw the brash young officer beside him thrown from his horse, a red wound in his throat. Nemo could barely hold on to his own charging horse, which had been a mere riding animal, not a trained war mount. The clash and thunder of war deafened him, crushing his terror, crushing thought itself.

  British and French reinforcements were approaching. From a distance, their cannons fired—but they were too far away and traveling too slowly. Much too slowly.

  The Russians continued to fire upon the Light Brigade as if for sport. Few of their own number died, but the Light Brigade riders, blindly following Earl Cardigan to a slaughter, fell one after another after another.

  Something slammed into Nemo’s lower left rib cage with the force of a club, and he clung to the reins of his horse. He couldn’t breathe. His vision turned dark for a moment, filled with clouds.

  He touched his side to find a heavy flow of blood seeping from a burned hole in his jacket. His horse ran in blind panic.

  A cannon blast erupted at ground-level beside him. Nemo tried to hold onto the saddle and reins, but his fingers had turned to water. The world spun around him. More blood stained his hands and his chest. Soon all of his vision turned the same color of red, then black.

  By the time he dropped onto the churned and war-t
orn battlefield, he couldn’t even feel his body strike the ground.

  IV

  When Nemo awoke from a crimson haze of pain, he smelled blood and chemicals and sharp tobacco smoke. He instantly tried to assess his surroundings, to snatch at recent recollection that fled like the tattered remnants of dreams. He heard the moans of injured men, the snores of the blissfully unconscious, the deep silence of the comatose. The uncertain light around him seemed grimy, tainted with shadows.

  Nemo gradually understood that he was no longer on the battlefield, but inside a building that must be an army hospital. He lay without sheets on a pallet made of hard wood. Only a little starlight seeped through the narrow windows that lined the walls.

  He reached out with stiff fingers, following the nerve lines to sketch the extent of his pain. His left side was bandaged with ragged swaths of red-stained cloth. After touching the soaked and crusted dressing, he determined that he must have been here for at least a full day. The smells of vomit, urine, and blood made the close air as fetid as the oppressive marshes around Lake Tchad.

  The large room held only a few actual beds occupied by wounded soldiers, some so bandaged that they looked mummified. Other injured men lay on the bare floor without even a pallet like his own. A few groaned and stirred in the restless night; others huddled in a pain-fogged sleep. Some did not move at all, unconscious . . . or perhaps dead and not yet taken away.

  Lying motionless, Nemo reached out with his precise memories of the landscape and soon determined where he must be. He recalled a huge old Turkish barracks outside of Sevastopol, unfurnished and dirty. Considering the crowded conditions, the hospital must be full of casualties. He wondered how many of those brave but foolish British cavalrymen had survived Cardigan’s ill-advised attack. The ineptitude of the commanders and the blind compliance of the Light Brigade made him distraught.

  The war, the suffering, the sheer waste disgusted him. How could he ever have wanted to come here? How could a battleground ever seem preferable to Paris, even with the sweet torture of Caroline’s presence always nearby?

  He propped himself on one arm and winced as the gunshot wound caught fire and singed the already ragged nerves. When he tried to take a deep breath, his lungs hitched. Fresh blood soaked through his untended bandage. He used the pain as a crutch to keep himself conscious through a wave of clammy nausea.

  When he remembered the horrific battlefield, he was amazed to have survived at all. He caught his breath and then sat forward a little more. No matter how long it took, he had to see more of where he was. He thought of all the things he had already survived, and promised himself he would survive this, too. Now, he had Caroline to live for.

  None of the other soldiers responded to Nemo’s gradual, pain-wracked movement. The crowded and smelly room held too many wounded soldiers, each wrapped in agony and despair. He heard two men talking to each other, lying side by side on the cold floor. By starlight, Nemo made out that one man’s leg had been amputated; both of the other man’s arms were wrapped in wide splints held together by meager strips of bandages.

  “We drove the Russians back, aye,” the man with broken arms said in a cocky British accent. “At least we done that much. Our forces kept the buggers from getting to Balaclava.”

  The man with the amputated leg coughed, then hissed as it sent a burst of pain through his system. “Gor! But at what bloody cost? Goddamn that arse Earl Cardigan! Not one of the bloody officers knew what he was doing. They just chose opposite paths to spite each other.” He propped himself on one elbow, while the man with splinted arms watched with a twinge of envy.

  “Damn! Half an hour was all it took. Half a bloody hour, an’ twothirds of the Light Brigade were killed or wounded. What’s the goddamned sense in that?”

  “History will remember us as heroes, aye,” said the man with the splinted arms, though he didn’t sound as if he believed it himself.

  “They’ll remember us as bloody fools, ” said the other soldier.

  From down the corridor a pale yellow light appeared, like a will o’ the wisp.

  As the wounded men noticed it, they stirred and came awake. “It’s the lady with the lamp.” They seemed to hold their breath.

  When the woman finally arrived, Nemo was surprised to see a thin, stern-looking nurse in an ugly gray uniform. She was in her early thirties, with a weak chin and a rounded nose. Arched eyebrows graced her smooth forehead over deep-brown, intelligent eyes.

  Her dark hair, parted in the middle, was tied back severely under a bonnet. Though intensely weary, she walked with fluid movements, like a ghost carrying an eerie spectral light. Her expression softened with compassion as she looked at all the miserable soldiers. In a low voice she soothed those men who were conscious and could look at her. She promised to write a letter home for one, gave a cup of water to another.

  When she came to Nemo, she looked at him in surprise. “You’re not one of the British troops. Do you speak English? Can you understand me?”

  Nemo nodded. “I am French, but I speak English.”

  She brightened, then spoke to him in his own language. “What are you doing here, Monsieur? You were wounded on the battlefield. This hospital is full of the survivors of the British Light Brigade.”

  “I was . . . with them, at the wrong time, Mademoiselle,” Nemo said. “I didn’t have any choice. A lieutenant said he would shoot me if I didn’t ride in as part of their foolish charge.”

  A look of disgust crossed the woman’s face, making her appear much older. “All officers should be forced to spend a day here in the hospital. They would see what destruction their stupidity causes. I have written repeated requests for additional supplies.” She gestured helplessly. “There aren’t enough medicines, or beds—not even rags for bandages. How can I tend the sick under these conditions?” She took a deep breath, as if forcing back her despair. “Who is your commanding officer? We must report you to the French forces.”

  Nemo let out a bitter sigh. “Every contingent here is so confused with bureaucracy, I’m surprised they can find the latrines by themselves.”

  He explained what he had been doing to improve the conditions, and the woman raised her eyebrows appraisingly. “So you’re not just one of the killers, then? Very good, Monsieur. What is your name?” He told her, and then asked the nurse to introduce herself. The other men watched, envying his conversation with her.

  “I was born in Florence, so my father gave me that name—Florence Nightingale. I was shipped to the Crimea by the British Secretary of War to help, and not long after I arrived, that idiotic attack at Balaclava happened. Now there are more wounded than I know what to do with. I have thirty-eight nurses and, just in one day, close to five hundred wounded in a hospital that was never meant to be used as such a facility.”

  Florence Nightingale frowned again, stealing beauty from her beatific face, then she smiled in such a generous way that it struck to Nemo’s heart. “We shall tend you as best we can. Many others will die here, and I can’t help that, but I will give comfort wherever I can. I promise not to let anyone travel that long, dark road due to neglect on my part or on the part of my nurses.”

  Nemo touched his injured side. She looked at the old dressing, her face awash with despair, but she drove back the emotion. “You’ll survive, Monsieur Nemo. Your wound is serious, but not life-threatening unless it becomes infected. Of all the casualties I’ve seen in this endless war, three-quarters have died from disease or ill-treatment, rather than the wounds themselves.”

  Florence Nightingale stood straight, her face hard again. “But that will change.” She touched the bandages and shook her head. “This needs a fresh dressing, but I have no more cloth. In fact, we are boiling uniforms cut from dead soldiers just so we can tear them into strips for bandages. I will do what I can.” She gave him a wan smile, indicating the conversation was over. “Thank you for allowing me to practice my French.”

  Stern again, she pointed a finger at him. “My main comma
nd for you, André Nemo, is to get better—but not completely well, because they will send you back to the battlefield. Since your own commanding officers cannot keep track of you, I need you to heal so you can help me clean this place and tend the other soldiers.”

  He smiled back, then winced as another bolt of pain shot through his ribs. Her orders made more sense than anything he’d heard from true military commanders. “I will do my best to obey you, Mademoiselle Nightingale.”

  V

  Sitting with other wounded men in the crowded hospital, Nemo ate a thin gruel, drank copious amounts of tea, and tended his own injury. The smelly air was heavy with the sounds of coughing, groaning men. The nurses couldn’t possibly do enough to help their patients—and given few resources, supplies, materials, or even personal vigor, Nemo could think of little he could do to help.

  After his days aboard the Coralie, then living alone on the rugged island, and even during the balloon trip across Africa, Nemo had learned some first aid. As a healthy twenty-six-year-old, his stamina worked to his advantage. Most of the other injured men had lived in trenches for months during the siege of Sevastopol, and were much worse off.

  Soldiers in the infirmary rooms smoked cigarettes, a paper-wrapped form of tobacco that had recently come into fashion during the war. But the acrid smoke did little to mask the hospital’s sour stench of sickness, chemicals, and death.

  One night, the man with two splinted arms unexpectedly died from a blood clot. His one-legged companion wallowed in such deep depression that Nemo was convinced the man wanted his stump to fester with gangrene. The peripheral horrors of war continued to dismay him, and he did not understand why people had to do such things to each other.

  When Nemo attempted to walk, he could feel the bones and skin knitting in his side. Since he was more mobile than most, he gave up his hard pallet to a more seriously injured soldier. Still, he limped around like Victor Hugo’s famous hunchback. Every evening Florence Nightingale took her lamp and walked the halls of the huge barracks hospital, one floor after another, speaking softly to the wounded soldiers. She did it without complaining. Nightingale’s nurses were as devoted as she, and worked just as hard. The driven women took shifts sleeping for a few hours apiece, then continued their duties. The soldiers called them “angels.” Indeed, the dark-dressed women were the only spot of brightness in the gloomy hospital.