by V. A. Stuart
Sheer, blind chance had brought her to this particular stretcher . . . from a distance, there had been nothing familiar about the face of the wounded man which, in any case, was half-hidden by a bloodstained bandage. Her brother’s pain-dimmed eyes looked up into hers as she said his name.
“Phillip . . . is it you? Oh, Phillip, Phillip!”
He managed to twist his lips into a semblance of a smile and then, so faintly that she could scarcely hear it, he whispered her name. “Emmy, it . . . it’s good to . . . see you.”
He was dying, she realized; in these last months, she had seen death too often not to sense its imminence, and she knelt there, holding tightly to his hand. The Turkish bearers made as if to resume their journey but she shook her head. “No—leave him here. I will take care of him.”
They shrugged, only half understanding, and went to squat a few yards from her. She had a flask of brandy, Emmy remembered, and she took it from her reticule, held it to his lips. He sipped it gratefully.
“Thank you . . . Emmy. That . . . helps.”
“Does it, Phillip?” She felt tears come to prick at her eyes, as she considered what to do. It was unthinkable to take him to the hospital, yet she could not attend to him here. Although perhaps Miss Nightingale . . . as if he had read her thoughts, Phillip weakly shook his head.
“It can’t be . . . much longer, Emmy. I’d like to lie still.”
“I could take you to the ambassador’s residence—” Emmy began but again he attempted to shake his head.
“No . . . time, my dear. Alex, perhaps . . . you could take him.”
“Alex?” Emmy’s heart missed a beat, then started to pound in her breast, like a wild thing, seeking release. “Is Alex—was he on board the transport with you?”
Phillip nodded. “With me . . . all the way . . . in the charge down the . . . North Valley. Came back to . . . help me, when the Cossacks attacked. I was almost . . . left for dead . . . then, Emmy. But they brought me in.” He accepted another sip of Emmy’s brandy and a little colour returned to his white face. “To die here instead,” he added sadly. “But at least . . . with you.”
“You’re not going to die, Phillip,” Emmy said, wishing that she could believe it, hoping that he might, but he only smiled up at her in mute denial of her attempt to offer consolation and then started to give her messages for Sophie, a letter which, on his instructions, she took from the tattered pocket of his mud-caked jacket.
“She’ll have a son,” he asserted, his voice a little stronger now. “She must, for my sake, to carry on the name.”
“I’m sure she will, Phillip dear.” Emmy wanted to ask him about Alex and, again as if he had sensed her unspoken question, he answered it.
“Alex is not too bad. He lost an arm but I saw him on the transport. He’ll be all right, if you take care of him.”
“I will take care of him,” Emmy promised. She offered him the flask again but he shook his head.
“No pain now,” he told her. “Thank God . . . no more pain. There was a chaplain with us, on the transport. He gave me . . . Absolution. Yesterday, I think, or perhaps the . . . day before.”
He was silent and, as she watched, forcing back the tears, the light went out of his eyes and his face began gradually to lose its taut, tormented rigidity and to relax, so that it was the face, not of a desperately wounded man but of a boy. He smiled.
“It was a splendid charge, Emmy,” he whispered. “We showed them . . . what we could do. Right up to the guns . . . with Cardigan in front of us. Ask Alex, he’ll tell you. He was there, with us, with the 11th . . . riding beside me.” And then, with a sudden change of tone, he said, “Say a . . . prayer for me, Emmy. And for my . . . son.”
Emmy did not know at what moment his soul slipped away. She knelt, his hand in hers, saying the prayer he had asked for and feeling his fingers relax their grip . . . when she opened her eyes to look at him again, his face was shuttered and at peace. Blinded by tears, she got to her feet and motioned to the Turkish bearers to resume their burden.
It was not until half an hour later, after a long search, that she found Alex. He was in one of the corridors lying, as all the others were, on a pile of reeking, verminous straw, spread out thinly over the cracked tiles of the floor. The fact that, officially, this was designated an officers’ ward made little difference to the conditions—they were no better than those of the private soldiers in the huge, barn-like rooms beyond. There were fewer officers, that was all, but to compensate for this, there were fewer orderlies to attend to their needs. Now there was only one, a wizened, unshaven old pensioner, who had found the fresh influx of patients too much for him and, after fortifying himself in the canteen, had crawled away into a corner to seek temporary oblivion in sleep.
Emmy eyed him with disgust and went to kneel at Alex’s side, heedless of Miss Nightingale’s orders, caring for nothing save the fact that she had found her husband at last and he was wounded and in pain. He recognized her and called out, attempting to raise himself on his one good arm. But the dreadful over-crowding below decks in the sick transport, the wretched discomfort and the lack of proper food had weakened him, so that the effort was too much and he sank back on the filthy straw. He managed to smile at her, as poor Phillip had and this time, try as she might, Emmy could not restrain her tears.
“Ah, Emmy . . . my love, you mustn’t cry.” His voice was husky with emotion. “I am not as bad as I look, you know.”
“Aren’t you?” She looked into his pale face, with its untidy growth of stubble, at the stump of his right arm, wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, at the torn and tarnished lace of his uniform jacket which had been cut away, in the field hospital, to expose the arm the surgeons had taken off. He was one of the many, she knew, and better off, perhaps, than most but he was Alex and it broke her heart to see him thus.
“You should not be here,” he admonished her gently. “We are all in a terrible state, after the voyage. We shall look better when they have attended to us and cleaned us up, I promise you.”
Remembering his dread of being badly wounded and helpless, Emmy could hardly speak. In any case, there was nothing to say; she could not tell him that no one would attend to him or dress his wounds or shave him, if she did not. She scrambled up, fighting back the tears. “I . . . I’ll come back, Alex,” she told him. “I’ll only be a little while.”
Close to despair, she went in search of Miss Nightingale but she was nowhere to be found. The Mother Superior of the Catholic Nursing Order listened to her story sympathetically and promised her some of their bandages and comforts, if she obtained Dr Menzie’s permission to attend to her husband. Finding him in his office, she repeated her story and he gave her grudging permission.
“It is scarcely justice that because one man has his wife here he should receive attention, when the others cannot, Mrs Sheridan. But, on the other hand, since you are his wife, I cannot find it in my heart to refuse you.You may bring him water with which to wash and a razor. But, until the surgeon on duty has examined him, you had better not attempt to dress his injuries.”
“I am a trained nurse,” Emmy pointed out.
“But you are not a doctor, are you?” he countered.
“No, alas . . . I am not,” Emmy conceded, controlling herself with difficulty.
“There are still some professions which remain sacred to the mere male, Mrs Sheridan—in spite of this invasion of our hospitals by female nurses, ordered by the Cabinet,” Dr Menzies said. “However”—he eyed her warily and added, as if he had suddenly recalled the fact—“you are a guest of Lord and Lady Stratford’s, are you not?”
“Yes, Dr Menzies. But I am about to enroll as one of Miss Nightingale’s nurses,” Emmy began. “And—”
He cut her short. “I will send Dr McGrigor with you,” he offered. “He shall dress Captain Sheridan’s wounds. And, as soon as it is possible, we will discharge your husband into your care. No doubt the ambassador will put a room in his residence at y
our disposal . . . which Captain Sheridan can occupy during his convalescence.”
Emmy did not argue; she had got what she wanted.
With Dr McGrigor and the bandages, hot water and other comforts she had been able to beg from the Mother Superior of the Bermondsey nuns, she returned to the chilly corridor where Alex lay, and together they set to work to make him comfortable. The surgeon was a kindly, conscientious young man; having once started, he showed no inclination to abandon his errand of mercy. He said diffidently, “I shall look at some of the others, since I am here, Mrs Sheridan. And I should appreciate your competent assistance, if you can spare an hour or so to help me.”
A doctor had asked for her help, Emmy thought, and, as she willingly assented to his request, her heart lifted. Miss Nightingale’s orders had been to wait until a doctor invited the nurses to work with him . . . . “There are others, Dr McGrigor,” she told him, greatly daring. “Other nurses who would gladly assist you, if you need them.”
He sighed, looking at the long rows of suffering men and then capitulated. “Find me two more as skilled as yourself, Mrs Sheridan, and I will not refuse their aid.”
It was Miss Nightingale herself who selected the two nurses and brought them, in person, to the ward—Mrs Roberts, a woman of much experience, from St Thomas’s Hospital, and Mrs Drake, from St John’s House.
By the time Emmy returned to Alex’s side, the whole ward had received attention and Dr McGrigor, with his two assistants, had gone on to the big other-ranks’ ward beyond, leaving her in charge of this one.
It was a small victory but it was the beginning of a much greater one. The nurses had proved themselves and, as she looked down at Alex’s sleeping face, Emmy felt a surge of thankfulness and relief. Her husband still looked pale and exhausted, but he was enjoying the first real sleep he had had since the retreat from the North Valley and already the lines of pain were being smoothed from his face. She thought of Phillip, as she sank down beside him, and of the others—so tragically many of them—who had died and who would die as the result of this cruel war. But at least Alex was safe and now, with the coming of Miss Nightingale, something would be done to alleviate the agony of the sick and wounded who were brought to this vast, disorganized hospital.
She would take Alex to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe’s house, she decided, and there—as Dr Menzies had suggested—she would nurse him back to health. But afterwards . . . Emmy sighed and bent to kiss his white cheek. Afterwards she would come back to work with Florence Nightingale.
Alex stirred in his sleep and, as if guided by instinct, his hand sought hers and his fingers tightened about it.
“Emmy . . .” he murmured but did not waken. “Emmy, my dearest love . . .”
Emmy sat beside him, waiting for the dawn of a new day.