The Queen at War

by K. A. S. Quinn

  DuQuelle still objected. ‘I should never have summoned her. She is not fit for battle.’

  Katie could hear Florence Nightingale moving through the room, making it homely and tidy. But her words were far from comforting. ‘Things must come to a head,’ she said. ‘Everywhere we turn, the weight of power is tipping dangerously. We need harmony in this society. It is the only way to safely harvest those words you love. And you cannot survive unless you take their communication. This meeting of the Tempus, that Lucia so desires, I am more sanguine of its outcome. Bernardo DuQuelle, I know you see far, but perhaps I see that tiny bit further. I am uniquely placed, a foot in both camps. Have faith. You must trust me,’ she told him, and then raising her voice, repeated, ‘you all must trust me.’

  Katie could barely breathe as she waited for Bernardo DuQuelle’s reply. ‘Trust! It is a word I mistrust – and faith is beyond me. But Florence, you are of me, from me. It is my hope that you are the best of me. I will try to trust you. I have little choice; I can barely rise from this sofa. I am too weak to protect Katie now. I am near to useless. I must place her in your capable hands.’

  ‘There is much you can do,’ Miss Nightingale consoled him. ‘I will leave it to you to explain the absence of Princess Alice.’

  DuQuelle groaned again. ‘Really, Florence, having saved what life I have, you now saddle me with the most monumental of headaches.’

  Scutari

  It really was happening. They were going. Katie sat on her bunk in the ship’s cabin, and stared down at her dress. ‘I hate these clothes,’ she said. They were horrible: a grey tweed gown, a grey worsted jacket and a grey wool cloak. Her bushy black hair was tucked into a plain white cap. Over her shoulders she wore a holland scarf embroidered in red with the words ‘SCUTARI HOSPITAL’. Florence Nightingale had ordered these uniforms for all the nurses, and they had not been designed to make the wearer attractive. They’d left England so quickly – there had been no time for fittings. Katie’s dress was hitched up in the back, dragged in the front and pinched her waist. It was as uncomfortable as it was unattractive.

  Princess Alice sat down next to her. ‘It is an unhappy result,’ she said to her friend, settling Katie’s cloak around her shoulders. ‘But then perhaps it is for the best. From all I hear Scutari is disorderly, with many drink-shops. The troops are quite dissolute. It is right that we are made as unattractive as possible.’ For further protection, Alice was swathed in a coarse white gown. An agreement had been reached between Florence Nightingale and her dear friend, the Reverend Mother of the Sisters of Mercy in Bermondsey. Alice would travel as one of the nursing Bermondsey nuns, no longer Princess Alice, but Sister Agnes. Katie stared at Alice’s sweet face, encased in a white wimple, her habit flowing behind her.

  ‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘Your outfit isn’t much better than mine, but it suits you. Sure you look really young to be a nun, but it seems, well, right on you.’ Alice smiled and pressed her friend’s hand. ‘I am so grateful to you and James. This is my dream, my calling, and yet you sacrifice so much to go with me.’

  Katie looked and looked at her friend. Yeah, she was young and vulnerable, but she glowed with purpose. ‘It’s not a sacrifice,’ Katie reassured her. ‘I want to go with you. And everything has turned out OK.’

  James burst through the door and heaved a large leather bag onto Katie’s bunk. ‘I need to leave this in your cabin,’ he said. ‘The Director of the Army Medical Service insisted that supplies are plentiful at the Scutari Hospital, but Miss Nightingale knows this to be untrue.’ While Alice looked even younger in her nun’s habit, James appeared almost grown up in his high leather boots and military cap. ‘Miss Nightingale is on board,’ he added. ‘She has been purchasing supplies throughout the night. The Vectis weighs anchor within the hour.’ They gave each other nervous smiles. Each, in their own way, was out of their depth.

  With a mother like Mimi, Katie was used to independence. How could it be otherwise, when your only parent was either on tour with her pop band, or off with a new boyfriend? But this was a new kind of independence. She’d never been to Europe, or Turkey, or any of these places. To be honest, she didn’t even know what or where the Crimea was. And now she was travelling across unknown seas, in a big creaky, smelly boat. Not only was it a foreign country . . . it was a foreign time.

  James too had much freedom. Katie might be, for all practical purposes, without a father; but he had lived a life without a mother. Each day the image of his mother’s merry eyes and freckles faded from his memory. Each day he was more alone, as boy turned to man. All his life he had taken responsibility for himself and provided for little Riordan as best he could. Now, though, there was a much heavier responsibility: the care of two young ladies – and one of them was a Princess of royal blood. The other, through her actions, could change the future of the world. His shoulders sagged just to think of it.

  Yet it was Princess Alice who faced the most uncertain new world. She had lived such a cosseted life. The schoolroom was just down the hall from the guards’ quarters and the nursery was locked from the outside each night – her father held the key. She had rarely been left alone without a nursemaid, a governess, a music teacher, a dancing instructor, a chaperone, or a lady-in-waiting. In such a large family, there was usually a brother or sister on hand as well. She had shared a room with the Princess Royal until the previous year, and Prince Leopold still slept in the next room. By a wrinkle in time, a quirk, the domino effect of a series of events, she had been able to escape her family. Her dream to become a nurse was at hand. Here she was, on board a ship, heading to the Crimea, dressed as a nun. Would she be able to live up to Miss Nightingale’s expectations?

  ‘The ship is full,’ James continued. ‘The other nurses are on board, along with new recruits to the army. There are even some military tourists, come along to see the battle sites.’ James looked disgusted by these last passengers.

  ‘I’ve heard there’s a theatrical troupe on board,’ Alice added. ‘Can you imagine, sailing out to entertain the regiments? I’d like to see them myself – do you think nuns are allowed to watch actors? There is so much I do not know of the Roman Catholics.’

  Katie watched a large black cockroach scuttle across the cabin’s floor. She’d lived all her life in New York City, and New York was famous for its cockroaches – but this one was enormous. ‘Well, we certainly don’t travel alone,’ she said, ‘though I could do without some of our travelling companions. Cockroaches are just so yuk! How long until we get there?’

  ‘Two days to Malta, and then a third takes us up the River Bosporus to Constantinople. Scutari is on the opposite bank,’ James told them. ‘So just three days; that is, if the weather holds.’

  But the weather did not hold. On the second day the Vectis ran into a storm. The ship had to be lightened and balanced. The crew jettisoned her guns; the steward’s cabin and the galley were washed overboard. Katie and Alice were moved into the bowels of the ship. Katie rolled from side to side on a straw mat as wave after wave washed over the ship, and wave after wave of sea-sickness overtook her. She was prostrate, weak as a baby, moving only to heave herself onto her side and be sick into a bucket. ‘I’m not much of a sailor,’ she mumbled to her friends. James didn’t ridicule her, but set to work making her as comfortable as possible.

  ‘Many people suffer from sea-sickness,’ Alice reassured her friend. ‘I hear Miss Nightingale too is confined to her bed.’ It turned out Alice was a very good sailor. She and James tended Katie daily, and did the rounds of the ship together, caring for others on board. Even through her nausea, Katie noticed what a good team they made.

  After a brief stop at Malta, the Vectis steamed up the Bosporus. As sea turned to river, the ship calmed. Katie was able to rise, and her friends led her on deck. They dropped anchor in the centre of the river, as the rain poured down. Constantinople stood on one bank, its minarets piercing the rain. On the opposite shore stood the great barrack hospital of Scutari.
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  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Alice exclaimed. A tiny fleet of gondolalike boats, the painted caiques, bobbed next to the Vectis, ready to take the nurses to their new place of work. Other small crafts followed in their wake, the boatmen shouting out the virtues of their boats. ‘I cannot wait to be of help – to nurse the poor wounded,’ Alice added.

  Florence Nightingale slowly walked across to them, her black silk dress sweeping the deck. Katie could tell by her thin pinched face, she’d had a very bad crossing. ‘Yes, Constantinople is beautiful. Even Scutari is beautiful,’ Miss Nightingale agreed with Alice. ‘They are beautiful from here. With closer inspection you will find Scutari a less than lovely site.’ She turned to Katie. ‘Sea-sickness does sap one’s energies, but do not worry, it is a short-lived illness. You will regain your strength. And trust me, we will need it. From the look of that hospital, many strong arms will be needed at the washtubs.’

  The Vectis now became a hub of activity, as it disgorged its weary, sickly passengers. The nurses were lowered into the waiting caiques with their carpet bags and umbrellas. Katie and Alice shared one, while James travelled with Miss Nightingale. The other passengers scrambled into whatever small vessels they could find. Up on deck, the Vectis’s crew both helped and hindered this exodus. From her little painted boat, Katie could hear the sailors laughing and swearing above her. With great sweating effort, they were using ropes to hoist a very large woman into a very small boat. The woman’s hair stood on end, and her skirts flew in the whipping rain, showing a length of red flannel petticoat and ragged satin boots.

  ‘Anchor ’er firm now,’ a crewman shouted as the woman swayed above the little rowboat. Her pea-green shooting jacket flipped up, exposing an expanse of stomach and she cried out.

  ‘Thar she blows, Miss Modesty,’ another crew member shouted, and the rest howled with laughter. The woman grabbed the ropes, and swinging herself upwards, threw a punch at the roaring men. She was lurching perilously. At any moment she could have toppled into the murky Bosporus.

  Still on deck, a pretty dark-haired girl held her arms out to the woman below. ‘Calm yourself, dear mother,’ she called. She turned to the sailors on deck. ‘Please help her. Show her the respect she deserves. The woman you jest at is the Countess Fidelia. In her time, she has played the finest theatres of Europe, and has been saluted by royalty. She has come to entertain our soldiers in the Crimea. You should be ashamed of yourselves.’

  The sailors might not have felt much shame, but they were struck by the girl’s fine beauty. With greater care they lowered the Countess Fidelia into the little boat, and then helped the lovely girl to join her.

  ‘It must be the theatrical troupe,’ Alice commented, watching the scene with interest. ‘Do you really believe they’ve performed before the crowned heads of Europe? They don’t strike me as mother’s type of entertainment.’ Katie felt more worry than interest. She recognized the Countess Fidelia with her green shooting jacket held together by one button and her hair like a haystack. She remembered the lovely girl, her enormous eyes ringed round with long lashes. The girl was older now, thinner and even more beautiful. It was the Little Angel. Though Katie had never spoken to her, she knew they were connected. Katie had met her on the streets of London, on her first visit to James and Princess Alice; she was somehow connected to Katie’s time travels. But even more worrying, Katie had seen the Little Angel many, many times since – in terrifying visions of battle.

  The Little Angel reached the rocking boat, and wrapping her slender arms as far as she could around the Countess Fidelia, comforted her adopted mother, soothing her indignation. Looking up, she caught Katie’s eye, and jumped, her arms tightening around the large woman.

  ‘She knows me too,’ Katie thought. ‘I wonder if I’m in her dreams. Does she have visions? Does she see the battle too?’ A shiver ran from the top of Katie’s head down her spine, like an electrical current running through her body. There were three of them, the Tempus: there was Katie, Felix, and now possibly this girl. All three in the Crimea. Katie struggled to understand, but a cold wave slapped over the little boat, soaking her feet. The here and now demanded her attention. They were nearing the shore.

  The slopes leading to the hospital at Scutari were steep and slick with mud. As the caiques approached the shore, Alice shrank back and Katie pulled her cloak over her nose and mouth. The grotesque bloated carcass of a large grey horse washed backwards and forwards on the tide. A pack of starving dogs howled from the rickety landing, desperate to get to the horse and a meal. A few drunken soldiers lay in the mud, while some wretched-looking women shivered in thin tawdry finery on the shore.

  It was a difficult end to a very testing journey. The seasickness, the stench, the shock of seeing the Little Angel; it was too much for Katie. She leaned over the edge of the brightly painted little boat and vomited, yet again.

  It was delicate Alice who maintained her composure. ‘We have to stay strong,’ she whispered to her friend; ‘just as Miss Nightingale says. The strong will be needed.’

  The nurses disembarked and struggling up the muddy slope, walked under an enormous gateway, into the hospital of Scutari. As Miss Nightingale passed through, she leaned against James. ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’ she said to him. James wasn’t certain whether she was joking.

  The hospital at Scutari was vast, built in a great quadrangle, with echoing corridors forming a square around a courtyard. ‘There must be four miles of beds in here,’ Miss Nightingale muttered as they straggled along behind her. The walls streamed with damp, the floors were filthy, and the tiles broken. Peering through a narrow window, Katie could see and smell the inner courtyard. It was a sea of mud and garbage. She remembered there had been a garbage strike in New York when she was little. No one had collected the rubbish for weeks. Rats ran everywhere and the city reeked. But it hadn’t been half as bad as this.

  They were escorted to their rooms – four rooms in all, for forty nurses. Katie counted two beds and three chairs. There were no tables, and no food. It wasn’t exactly a heroic welcome. ‘The nurses will sleep in the largest room; the nuns in the other two,’ Miss Nightingale rapped out, all vestiges of her sea-sickness vanishing in a flash. ‘The few men with us – the male medical assistant and the courier-interpreter – will take this small closet.’

  Katie watched in despair as Princess Alice was led off with the other nuns, but within minutes the nuns had returned. The Reverend Mother spoke for them. ‘Excuse me, Miss Nightingale, but there is a man in our room.’

  Miss Nightingale looked impatient. ‘Really, Reverend Mother, we are crowded enough in our quarters. Do not loiter on courtesy. I suggest you ask him to leave.’

  The barest flicker of a smile hovered around the Reverend Mother’s lips. She had seen much in her time. ‘I would, Miss Nightingale,’ she responded, ‘but I fear he is dead.’ It was the body of a general, taken ill with dysentery. He’d been given some privacy because of his status, but after his death had been forgotten by the hospital staff.

  ‘The doctors seem to have remarkably short memories.’ Miss Nightingale spoke calmly, but with a tinge of exasperation in her voice. ‘We will have the body moved in the morning. There is a sheet in my carpet bag. Take it, and cover the poor man. You will have to sleep as best you can,’ Miss Nightingale relented slightly at the tearful glances of the nuns. ‘The very youngest of your nuns may bed down with me, in the supply cupboard – goodness knows it’s bare enough. Sister Agnes, Miss Katherine Tappan, follow me.’

  They were packed tight in the storage cupboard. Katie, bone-tired, spread her woollen cloak on the floor and, lying down, rolled over to make room for Alice. ‘I think something just bit me,’ she whispered.

  ‘That will be fleas,’ Miss Nightingale replied, helping to settle the young nuns. ‘I suggest you do not complain. It could have been worse – it could have been the rats.’

  Alice was far whiter than her wimple. Between the corpse and the fleas and the stench of
the hospital, she was finally undone.

  ‘Now sleep,’ Miss Nightingale commanded. ‘Today has been easy, compared with tomorrow.’

  Princess Alice had spent her entire life sleeping on a feather bed, while Katie had the best mattress Bloomingdale’s could provide. But still, within seconds they were asleep, lying on the bare floor with the fleas and rats.

  It didn’t last nearly long enough. Katie woke in the chill of early morning. The fleas hopped high in the air and rats scurried beneath the floors. She could hear the men groaning in the dank, dark corridors outside. Her first thought was of Princess Alice, and how hard this must be for her. But Alice was already up, dressed immaculately in her nun’s habit, and deep in conversation with Florence Nightingale, James and the Reverend Mother.

  Katie sprang up and, dusting the filth from her nurse’s dress, spoke with remorse. ‘I’m such a waste of space,’ she said. ‘You’ve all been working while I’ve been sleeping. I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot.’ The little group before her was silent for a moment.

  Then James burst out. ‘No, you’re not a wasting space – whatever that means – and you’re not an idiot. It’s the doctors here that are the stupid ones.’

  Miss Nightingale put a warning hand on James’s arm. ‘The doctors have refused our help,’ she told Katie; ‘all our nursing skills, all our stores and supplies.’

  ‘And there is nothing here,’ Alice added sorrowfully. ‘We have examined the hospital, floor to floor, room to room. There are no medical supplies and no proper food or water.’

  ‘As for the nursing,’ the Reverend Mother shook her head, ‘the wounded are cared for by the soldier orderlies – uncouth, useless and clumsy, the very scum of the army. They are the worst of soldiers, so they use them here, to nurse the sick. Nurses, my eye! I have faith there’ll be better nurses in hell.’