The Eden passion

by Harris, Marilyn, 1931-

  Struggling to hold his head erect, he heard what he thought were French accents moving among the wounded, and looked up to see a contingent of the French Foreign Legion, their overcoats flapping open in the wind as they tried to do what they could for the wounded.

  "Jack," he whispered, bending over Willmot's head. "We're going home," he promised, holding him close.

  Willmot opened his eyes. "Are you . . . hurt badly?"

  John shook his head. "Nor are you," he said sternly. "We'll lift a pint again."

  Willmot looked up. Then new pain invaded him. His hands clutched at his stomach. He twisted his head toward John's chest

  "Jack," John pleaded, not knowing precisely what he was asking except that somehow they both be made whole again. But he did not finish his request, and instead continued to focus on those about him who were beyond help.

  John lowered his head. The stain of blood was spreading, covering his right side. Would he die here, he wondered, would both of them die? Die?

  Then he heard horses' hooves, a curiously energetic sound over and above the moans of men. In his lap, Willmot stirred, breathing in hoarse gasps. Momentarily John's attention was torn between the suffering in his lap and the sounds of horses drawing nearer.

  Still not looking up, he heard a familiar voice shouting, "Donnez premiers secours a ces hommes!"

  Slowly John raised his head, his eyes falling first on an enormous white stallion, brought all the way from England for the pomp and ceremony of one man. The animal's eyes showed white, his massive head lifting against the tight rein, one hoof stamping at the earth only inches from John's foot. Astride the horse, seated erect in his saddle, hatless, his white hair blowing in the cold wind, giving him a demented look, he saw Thomas Brassey.

  "Pretez la main icil" Brassey shouted again, and at that several French soldiers ran up bearing two litters. They seemed to hesitate as they approached Willmot where he lay on his back, his hands clutching at this stomach.

  "DSpechez vousl Hurry!" Brassey ordered.

  With Willmot's weight removed from his lap, John began to feel weaker, as though it had been his friend's body that had kept him strong and anchored. His eyes blurred.

  Then he was aware of another litter close by, two French soldiers approaching him, one on his legs, pulling his boots forward, the other lifting his arms. As his body weight pulled against his wound, he cried out and momentarily lost consciousness, and revived on the litter, the pain so intense that tears filled his eyes.

  Still he managed to clear his head long enough to look up. And

  there was Brassey, still seated astride his fine horse, safely removed from the blood-soaked mud, his boots in the stirrups polished, his coat thick and dry. The only feature about him which marked the occasion as unusual was his hatless state, that, and his face as he stared down on John. A portion of the customary arrogance seemed to have left it. His mouth was open, and his lips appeared to be trembling.

  John lifted his eyes, forced them into direct contact with Brassey's. Before the Frenchmen lifted his litter, in that one brief instant when he was certain that Brassey's attention was his and his alone, he whispered, "Damn you! God damn your soul to hell!"

  His head dropped back onto the litter and he closed his eyes.

  Balaklava Harbor,

  Aboard HMS Perseverance,

  April 1855

  Captain J. M. Broadwood was standing near the top of the gangplank looking out over the grim scene, firm in his mind that after two years of transferring the sick and wounded from Balaklava to Scutari across the Black Sea, this was the worst.

  "Gawd," he muttered to his first mate, who was standing nearby. "Soldiers are bad enough, them that knew what they were letting themselves in for. But civilians . . ."

  The first mate, a good man named Margate, stirred from his position near the railing where together they had kept a vigil for over two hours as ambulance wagon followed ambulance wagon to the docks from the Highlands. "Just another blot, it is, Captain," Margate muttered. "Name me one thing that's went right with this bloody war, just one."

  Captain Broadwood heard the despairing tone and recognized it. It matched his own as well as the rest of his crew who had been pressed by the government into this grisly duty. They were all seamen, and damn good ones, at home on the high seas, their hold normally filled with tea from China or cotton from America. He'd heard no grumbling from his men on runs from Hong Kong or Savannah harbor. No, the grumbling had started when they'd had to swab the deck three, sometimes four times a day in an effort to cleanse the blood, when with every sailing they could look forward to the grim ritual of burials at sea.

  Margate had seen enough. He walked away a few steps and looked respectfully back. "With your permission, Captain," he said, "I'll

  press the crew into duty to help with the loading. I think it best if we get under way as soon as possible."

  Captain Broadwood had no intention of disagreeing with him. Men were not designed to be heaped in such a miserable mass as that on the docks. He moved back to the top of the gangplank, assuming a captain's stance, his eye falling on a strange conveyance just entering the crowded dock area, a black carriage which looked out of place among the gray of the ambulance wagons. Compounding this strange conveyance was the fact that it appeared to be dragging a small enclosed sled behind it.

  Grateful for a diversion, Captain Broadwood watched as the carriage penetrated as far as possible onto the dock, then was brought to a halt by the press of wounded lying on litters. A moment later the door opened and he saw a British soldier climb out.

  Broadwood saw the driver of the carriage hop down from his perch and run to the covered sled at the rear of the carriage. He threw open the narrow door and looked inquiringly in. Then Broadwood's attention was drawn back to the carriage as he saw the soldier reach a hand in and guide a young man forward, clearly wounded and weakened, his right arm and shoulder swathed in bandages.

  Captain Broadwood frowned at the scene. As diversion it left a great deal to be desired. It was simply the arrival of more sick and wounded. Now he saw the young man, dressed in ill-fitting civilian clothes, pull away from the support of the soldier and move rapidly toward the rear of the sled, where two litter bearers were withdrawing a man lying prone, covered with a blanket and strapped onto a litter.

  It was apparent to Captain Broadwood that the wounded young man was refusing to leave the side of the man on the litter. The soldier appeared to be begging him to do so, but in spite of his obvious weakened condition, the man stood as though a guard, his good left hand grasping his friend's.

  Finally the argument was settled by the superior will of one man over the other, and Broadwood saw the soldier step back in an attitude of resignation and start slowly through the wounded.

  A moment later the soldier stood before him. "Corporal Andrew Rhoades," the man said, "temporarily released from the Sixty-third to escort the civilian wounded to Scutari."

  Broadwood smiled. "All of them, Corporal?" he asked gently. "Quite a job that would be."

  "Two in particular, sir," the soldier admitted. "Mr. Brassey's assist-

  ant and one of his foremen." The young corporal reached inside his pocket and withdrew a crushed sheet of paper.

  Broadwood knew what it was without looking, an official order. "Were you there?" he asked, referring to the recent massacre.

  "No," Corporal Rhoades replied, a reluctance in his voice which seemed to say that he wished he had been there.

  The captain put a hand on his shoulder. "Bring your two friends aboard, Corporal. We'll be under way as soon as possible."

  At that moment Margate's voice boomed across the deck. "Stores secured, Captain. Way's cleared for the litters."

  It had not been Captain Broadwood's intention to watch the grisly procession. He'd seen quite enough from the deck of his ship. But as litter after litter passed him by, he found himself searching each face, passing judgment on who, in his opinion, would survive the voy
age and who wouldn't. The fortunate ones were half-delirious, the truly fortunate unconscious.

  As he was about to turn away, having looked his fill, he saw the young corporal starting up the gangplank, his friend leaning heavily upon him, a greatcoat swung loosely over his bandaged shoulder, his eyes lifting now and then to check on the litter which preceded them, that man's face as bloodless as any Broadwood had seen during his watch, a noticeable thickness about his middle, bespeaking bandages.

  Broadwood watched until they had disappeared through the narrow passage which led to the deck below. Then he looked back in the other direction and saw the wounded still coming, and unable to look any longer, he fled down the deck in the opposite direction.

  In the meantime there was a bottle of brandy in his cabin which offered relief, and he ran toward it, feeling as battered and bleeding as those British navvies now filling the lower deck of HMS Perseverance.

  They left Balaklava late in the afternoon with their shipload of sick and wounded—some for Scutari, some for the hospitals on the coast, a few officers for Malta. It had been reasonably good weather when they had left the harbor, but at this season of the year, the Euxine was seldom quiet for many hours together, and before they had got halfway across, a storm was raging furiously, the black waves upheaving as if they would at every moment engulf the ship with her cargo of life and half-life.

  Captain Broadwood stood on the quarterdeck speaking with the

  first mate, Margate, when the young corporal with the badge of the Sixty-third approached them, making with one hand a military salute while with the other he held on to save himself from being washed overboard. "Captain, will you be in smooth water soon?" he shouted. He lowered his head, an expression in his eyes which reflected the scene of human misery he'd just left below deck.

  What was Captain Broadwood to do but tell the truth. "Lad," he shouted, "the ship scarce makes any headway in this sea. There will be no smooth water for the next twenty-four hours anyway."

  The corporal nodded slowly, as though in resignation. As he turned away, the captain called after him, "Wait," feeling the need to offer some solace to such a despairing face. "Isn't all taut and dry below? And the doctor's with your mate, isn't he? All the ship's comforts are at his service. Does he want anything?"

  The corporal turned back. "He won't live much longer, Captain. He never could stand the sea, or so he says, even when he was the man he used to be. He wants . . . fresh air, that's all."

  In the face of such an earnest entreaty, Captain Broadwood weakened. "Go ahead," he said gruffly, "bring him up, though I can't imagine what healing powers you'll find in that sea."

  As he gestured roughly toward the swells beyond the deck, he saw the corporal hurry off; then he stepped inside the captain's bridge. Which friend? he wondered. The corporal had boarded with two.

  "Bear a hand," he shouted to several of his crew. A few minutes later, they had arranged a makeshift bed beneath one of the quarterdeck boats. And a few moments after that, the grim procession emerged from the lower deck, a doctor in the lead carrying one end of the litter, the corporal supporting the opposite end, and hovering close was the young man with the clipped right wing, his good hand tightly grasping the limp hand of his friend.

  Captain Broadwood indicated the makeshift bed, then stood away. It had been his intention to take refuge in his own cabin. But something caught his interest, some measure of devotion with which the young man knelt beside his friend. The captain noticed then that everyone else was standing away, the doctor as though to say that he'd done all that medical science could do, and even the corporal, clearly not wanting to intrude on so intimate a moment. He did linger long enough to place his own coat about the kneeling man's shoulders, then stepped back and left them alone, the young man on his knees beside the litter, the older man lying motionless, as though death

  had already descended and had somehow failed to announce its presence.

  But a few minutes later, with the wind shrieking about him, and the salt sea foam splashing on his face, he revived for a time. His eyes opened and moved directly to the young man's face. He whispered something, though Captain Broadwood couldn't hear over the wail of the wind. But whatever it was, the young man smiled, a stiff muscle spasm which did little to alleviate the desperate look of grief on his face.

  As the man revived even more, Captain Broadwood moved a step closer, drawn forward by a combination of pleasure that perhaps the harsh air was proving medicinal, and his curiosity to know the nature of the bond between the two men. Clearly they were separated by age, and something else, class perhaps. There was a roughness to the man on the litter, something about the texture of the complexion which suggested that he was a man who had worked outdoors most of his life, quite opposite from the young man bending over him, whose features, while strong, bore a refinement.

  They were not of the same fabric, these two. Yet how to account for the clear love which existed between them? In that moment the wind seemed to subside, as though nature herself saw the need for a moment's calm, and for the first time Captain Broadwood heard the young man's voice clearly. "Jack, we'll go to Eden Point when we get home. You'll be welcome there, I know. You'll see for yourself how beautiful it is, a perfect place to heal."

  But the man on the litter merely looked up into the gray churning heavens. "John," he whispered, "promise me . . . that you will . . . see Elizabeth," he begged, "and forgive her. She . . . loves you so much."

  Suddenly he pressed his head back against the litter, one hand grasping his stomach. The corporal started forward and was restrained by the doctor, who with a shake of his head sealed the man's fate. Nothing could be done.

  The young man was kneeling over him again, speaking his name. "Jack, listen to me, please . . ." Captain Broadwood heard the break in his voice, saw that left hand trembling as it moved over the man's chest, caressing, always caressing, then back to his forehead, lovingly stroking the graying hair.

  As for the man on the litter, his lips and face were as pale as wax, his eyes sunken in their blackened sockets, his features damp from the salt spray.

  Again he seemed to revive, though energy was fast going. Grasping the young man's hand, he drew him close. "Take care of yourself, John," he said. "Years from now . . . remember me." He drew the young man close and kissed him. With his eyes closed, he said softly, "I. . . had not planned on . . . loving you. But I do."

  The young man grasped the hand so feebly outstretched, and bent over him, tears streaming, mingling with the spray of sea which flew around that strange bed of death. "Jack . . ." he cried, half-raising the dead man to him.

  One by one all turned away from that intimate embrace, unable to look any longer. Above the swells and wind, the sobs of the young man could be heard, unearthly weeping, as though he'd repressed tears for too long, and now with the legitimacy of a dead man in his arms, he could weep for everyone.

  Barrack Hospital, Scutari, Mid-April 1855

  With a sense of amazement Andrew sat upon his camp stool beside John's bed, a vigil which he'd maintained for the last four days, and focused on the miraculous changes which had taken place in the British hospital since he'd last seen it over a year ago.

  It was a forced diversion. Anything to keep his eyes off that pale face on the pillow, growing paler in spite of the fact that according to the nurses his shoulder wound was healing.

  Then why the pallor? Why were the eyes sinking deeper into shadows, and why had he refused all food and drink for four days since he'd been here? And why no response to anything Andrew said, no response to anyone for that matter.

  Andrew looked closely at his friend, trying to put the horrible shipboard death of Jack Willmot out of his mind. Never had he heard a man mourn as John had mourned that day.

  Overcome with his own feeling of helplessness, Andrew left the camp stool and walked a few steps to the window, seeking momentary solace in the bright warm day, again trying to absorb and digest the incredible changes
which had taken place in the hospital. How changed it was, and in a rush of gratitude he thought of the Englishwoman who had almost single-handedly wrought these miraculous changes.

  At some point, despite British mismanagement, hope had dawned at Scutari. Everyplace he looked, Andrew saw new order, the sick and wounded in the wards using towels and soap, knives and forks, combs and toothbrushes. The walls had been whitewashed, the beds

  separated a decent distance, the sheets were clean and white, and here and there the indelible signature of a true Englishwoman was visible in the lovely bouquets of wildflowers, bringing light and color and fragrance to men who sorely needed it.

  Andrew had never seen her, that Englishwoman named Nightingale, but he'd heard about her, chatting softly with other men in the ward, soldiers who wanted news from the front. Andrew had told them what he could, and in exchange had posed questions of his own, sharing tales of the old Scutari, where men prayed for death rather than recovery, and more often than not had their prayers answered.

  "It's her," one had told him, his eyes seared by an exploding shell. "The lady," he whispered, "she makes the difference. Afore she come, they was cussin' and swearin' but now it's holy as a church."

  Over and over again during the last four days Andrew had listened to such testimony, sensing a passionate idolatry spreading among the men. One confessed to having kissed her shadow.

  Now slumped on the camp stool, Andrew brought his brief inspection to a close. Whatever her magic, Andrew's only regret was that she'd arrived too late for the thousands who had already died. Slowly he turned back to John's bed, as though his brief recess was over and now again it was time to concentrate on his friend.

  "John?" he whispered. "Please look at me. You must eat. The nurse says . . ."

  Feeling the need to touch him, Andrew reached for his left hand, which lay limp on the bed. But there was no response.

  For a moment longer he lingered in close scrutiny of the face he knew by heart, charting the many changes, so vast that at times Andrew wondered if a mask hadn't been slipped over the old features. The long fair hair was still there, though no longer brushed, now encircling his face in a snarled and oily mat. The mouth and chin were all but obscured by the full unkempt beard which had grown in darker than his hair and showed small streaks of gray. His complexion, turned rough by his constant exposure to the Crimean winter was that of a man in his middle years. And his loss of flesh was apparent in the thinness of his neck, which stood out in sharp contrast to the heavy bandages encasing his right shoulder.