by Clare Clark
Although the wounds to his chest and stomach began to heal, still William remained weak, unable to stand or to feed himself. The nightmares continued to convulse him in fits. In his tortured sleep he tore at his flesh with his nails and bit through his lips until his mouth was rough with scabs. The nurses and the other patients learned to approach him cautiously as any unexpected noise or touch could cause him to lash out. On one occasion he smashed his fist into the face of a newly commissioned private from the 2nd—, blackening his eye. Afterwards he had clutched desperately at the man and begged his forgiveness, weeping into the ragged fabric of his uniform. Reluctantly, for men were dying like flies in the glacial conditions of Balaclava and the need for replacements was acute, it was agreed that Private May was not yet fit to return to the front. Instead he was diagnosed with 'low fever' and transferred, shortly before the Commission's arrival, to one of the two convalescent hulks moored in the harbour. As Rawlinson's later report was to note, it would have been impossible to conceive of two worse places in which to attempt to restore a man's health. Both ships, ancient Turkish warships in lamentable repair, were so jammed with men that the fever and the filth raged uncontained, while the bilge water they spewed turned the water in which they floundered into an open sewer.
Doctors came rarely to the convalescent ships. Most of the time William lay motionless on his straw pallet. He was no longer violent. Instead he lapsed into a kind of petrified half-sleep which the noises and motions of the other men penetrated only in random fragments. Around him, with dry throats and quiet courage, his fellow soldiers muttered to themselves, accepting the will of the Almighty and committing themselves to his everlasting care. In his infrequent moments of lucidity William despised them for their wilful blindness. Could they not see that their loving God had abandoned them in this filthy place, had turned His face against their suffering with disregard, His attentions distracted by more pressing and glorious matters? The men of Her Majesty's Army had stared into the face of Hell and it had stripped away their souls. There was no substance to any of them now, nothing but dry bones wrapped in a shroud of lice-infested skin. There could be no forgiveness for men such as them, no possibility of Heaven. Without souls they were worth nothing. Death was a blank darkness, an eternity of nothing. Once it would have appalled William to think in this way, but no longer. Throughout the endless Scutari nights he derived from his thoughts a strange and terrible comfort. In death he might finally find rest.
And so he lay, day after day, waiting for Death's hand upon his shoulder. He would not have risen to eat had it not been for a gentle Irish subaltern called Meath who occupied the pallet next to his and who had lost his leg at Alma. The pitifully inadequate stores at Scutari, which were unable to provide necessities as basic as plates, knives and forks, and linen to the men, had run out of crutches before the fighting had begun. Since those on the convalescent ships were expected to be able to fend for themselves, what scanty rations there were available were distributed on the foremost deck. Every day Meath coaxed William to get up from his bed so that together, with Meath's arm slung around William's neck, the two of them could make their slow passage through the mass of palliasses to the eating area. Sometimes the warmth and solidity of Meath's body leaning into his made William stumble.
'The food here is almost as plentiful as it was when I was a lad,' Meath liked to joke. His family had been tenant farmers in Skibbereen; all but Meath and his brother, who'd both enlisted to escape the famine, had starved to death. 'If I'd known I'd get the same mud for coffee here as I used to get at home I'd never have come.'
At night Meath wept silently for his mother and for the unbearable cramps in his missing leg. William did not sleep either. Night after night he lay with his eyes open, his arms wrapped around his chest, motionless as the tomb of a medieval knight. He permitted himself no recollection of the horror that had brought him there. On the few occasions that a fragment of memory slipped into his conscious mind it was as unreal and indistinct as a blurred daguerreotype. It was when he slept that they came alive, the rows upon rows of the rotting dead, the black terrors of the frozen trench, the shadows and the stinks and the shrieks of accusation. One night he dreamed that he killed Polly, plunging his bayonet repeatedly into her throat. She continued to scream long after her head was quite severed from her neck. When he woke he vomited for hours, convulsed with guilt and horror. His wounds were healing but he never considered that one day he might be required to leave Scutari. The thought of returning to Polly, of stepping back into the ordinary contentment of their life together in London, was beyond imagining. That world, where meanings held solid and people reached out for one another in the darkness, that world was quite lost to him. His place was in this overcrowded dormitory where he lay packed in with the others, all of them weakened, unshaved, unwashed, shivering beneath their greatcoats. A doss-house for the half-alive, a place unburdened by affection and expectation, where yesterday and tomorrow meant nothing and passed unnoticed. This was where he belonged.
It was an overcast afternoon in the middle of March when May was sent for. Rumours of a fresh push for Sebastopol had circulated amongst the inmates of the hulks for weeks. Any man able to stand unsupported was to be sent back to the front. May staggered as he was marched by a sharp-faced officer across the frozen mud of the compound and the officer shoved him contemptuously with the butt of his rifle. There was no need for amateur theatricals, the officer informed him, his face compressed with distaste. May was not to be returned immediately to active service. Following the recommendations of the Sanitary Commission, extensive rebuilding had been mandated and all men with engineering or surveying experience were to be mobilized to execute their recommendations. As the chief engineer to the project Mr Rawlinson would remain in Scutari to supervise the work. He enjoyed the full support of the British Army at the highest levels, the captain instructed May, and his mouth twisted as though the words tasted unpleasant. While Rawlinson held no official military rank, May would be expected to understand his instructions as orders. That, the captain barked, was an order.
Rawlinson glanced over his half-moon spectacles at the private in front of him, conscious for the thousandth time of the smooth sheen of his own black coat, the starched white of his collar. He had been in Russia almost two weeks and still it shocked him, the deplorable state of the men he encountered here. This one was a particularly sorry specimen. He was so spare that the bones seemed to shine white through the skin of his face and he trailed the thin sour reek of sickness and squalor. From what Rawlinson knew of the hospital arrangements the man would have been lucky to have seen a bath more than once in his three months at Scutari. His uniform fell in rags from the knobs of his shoulders, and his sandy hair and beard stuck out in grimy tufts around his face. He had, thought Rawlinson, the appearance of a lion too long in captivity. Beside him the rigid captain in his scarlet coat made a reluctant keeper. No doubt he would prefer an animal more reflective of his impeccable military bearing, a fine Arabian stallion, perhaps, or a Bengal tiger.
'Private May,' Rawlinson continued, suppressing a private smile. 'You worked with the Ordnance in London, I understand.'
He looked expectantly at May. When the private failed to reply the captain cleared his throat sharply before thrusting an elbow into his ribs. Slowly May looked up, blinking as though the gloomy room were startlingly bright, his dirty fingers plucking and twisting at the remaining button of his coat. Rawlinson reproached himself for his reflexive shiver of distaste.
'Well?' Rawlinson demanded, more brusquely than he intended. 'Speak up, man.'
'Yes, sir,' May murmured. 'I was with the Ordnance.'
'I am told it was your section that were responsible for the survey of London's drains requested by the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers. Five feet to the mile, that's right, is it not?' Rawlinson peered at the soldier. He seemed to be swaying on his feet and the only colour in his white face came from the dark purple smudges beneath his eyes. 'A
re you quite well?'
May lifted his lion head and gazed towards his interlocutor. His sand-coloured eyes were neither friendly nor hostile. Instead they appeared to be focused not on Rawlinson or even the wall behind him but inwards, so that Rawlinson had the peculiar sensation of looking not at two coloured irises but at their raw unpainted backs.
'Private?'
'No, sir,' May murmured at last. 'I shouldn't say quite well, sir.'
Beside May the captain permitted himself a sharp intake of breath and pressed his Hps together beneath the points of his waxed moustache. Rawlinson ignored him. Instead he sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled together, and studied May gravely. The papers on his desk informed him that the soldier had been decorated for valour at Inkerman. The Times correspondent had called Inkerman the bloodiest struggle ever witnessed since war cursed the earth. Rawlinson had read the report over breakfast in Portland-square; he remembered the words precisely.
'No,' he agreed, his intelligent grey eyes not leaving the man's face. 'Not quite well. I can see that.' He paused thoughtfully. 'But you are well enough to work? I urgently require a surveyor. You would begin tomorrow.'
May's breathing quickened and his fingers tugged more frenziedly at the button on his coat. He passed the tip of his tongue over his parched lips.
'I would be of no use to you, sir,' he stuttered. 'I — I — there will be someone else. Someone better suited. Better. Sir.'
Under the pressure of his wrenching fingers the final rotten thread attaching the button to his coat gave way. May stared at the loose button in his fingers, his face twisted with distress. For a moment Rawlinson hesitated and then he leaned forward, his elbows propped on the mahogany desk.
'Do you mean to die?' he asked May very softly.
The captain's eyeballs swelled as he drew himself up almost to the tips of his toes, and his nostrils flared white. May blinked at Rawlinson. Surprise brought a faint gleam of amber into the flat wood of his eyes.
'Most men wish to live, I think,' Rawlinson continued in the same soft voice. 'It seems probable to me that, during the dark nights of the arduous voyage here from the front, sick and wounded men like you are sustained by the belief that, once safely delivered into the care of our hospitals, they will be made well. They will be safe. And yet, in the past months, tens of hundreds of men have died in Scutari. The hospitals that sought to save them have not done so, indeed not. They have killed them, more quickly and more assuredly than the enemy could ever hope to with all the power of their cannons and their rifles.'
In the early twilight the knuckles of the captain's clenched fists shone like peppermints. It seemed that further outrages to his military propriety might lift him clear of the floor altogether. Had he managed such a feat it was unlikely either of the other men would have noticed. May stood quite still, faint smudges of colour dusting his white cheeks. Like the flame of a candle the pale light in his eyes flickered and steadied. They were extraordinary eyes, Rawlinson thought, the irises almost gold and encircled by a greenish rim that looked like it had been finished in ink.
'There is nothing glorious, no honour for Queen or country, in dying from dysentery or from the cholera,' Rawlinson continued. He spoke so quietly that the captain could barely hear him above the seashell roar of indignation that filled his ears. 'I cannot undo the damage that has already been done here. But I can and I will do everything in my power to ensure that it no longer continues. From this point forward I am responsible. If men die needlessly in Scutari, I am to blame. I do not intend to have men's deaths upon my conscience, Private.'
Rawlinson paused. May stood very still, the forgotten button cupped in his hand.
'The work has already begun. But with every additional assistance it will progress more quickly. You are not quite well, I see that. But you are well enough, I think. Every day the work that we do will save lives. Perhaps it will save yours. Will you help us?'
There was a long pause. May continued to gaze at Rawlinson. He swallowed once, and then again, and his teeth chewed at his ragged mouth. And then abruptly he closed his eyes. Through his loosened fingers the button from his coat dropped silently to the floor and rolled away. The captain gained a measure of relief from crushing it beneath his boot.
'Yes,' May said at last, without opening his eyes. The words were almost lost in the effort of making them. 'Yes, sir. I will help.'
The next day May was transferred from the convalescent ship to quarters within a converted barracks half a mile from the harbour. Meath took his hand and, shaking his head and smiling, called him a secretive bugger; it had never occurred to the gentle Irishman that May could read or write. Later that day Rawlinson brought him to the General Hospital where, on cracking the pipes that provided drinking water to the hospital, the men had uncovered the decomposing remains of a horse. It explained why, in the glass, the water had always looked like barley water and tasted like mud. May was to provide sectional drawings of the current sewerage system to a depth of ten feet so that a new one could be devised as a matter of urgency. The Purveyor's Office showed none of its customary reluctance in furnishing him with the tools he required. Alone, the paper set upon his drawing board, May stared at the shiny spirit level in his hand. It felt both startlingly familiar and quite strange, and for a moment he was certain that he would never know how to use it. This made him so uneasy he hurriedly dropped the level on to the table and pushed it out of sight. Had his memory not failed him he would have remembered feeling exactly the same way a few months before, the first time that he held a rifle.
There had been dawns in the hills above Balaclava when William, relieved at last from night-long trench duty, had returned to camp so thoroughly frozen that he dare not remove his boots in case he should take his toes with them. His icy fingers would anyway have proved unequal to the knotted laces. Instead he huddled in front of whatever meagre fire the company had managed while his feet and his hands and his ears throbbed and screamed back into life. The shifts were twelve hours long; before the first hour was complete, the warm, alive parts of William's body had retreated to a place deep within him where they huddled for the remainder of the night, like children hiding out in an abandoned building. When finally they were found they were quite savage. His hands and feet swelled until the stretched, shiny skin split like overripe fruit. His fingers and toes became stiff and useless with pain, the inflammation inside his joints forcing them into white and purple bulges the size of chestnuts that maddened him with their constant burning and itching. The pencil skidded between his fingers as he completed the watch log, the marks on the page so faint and clumsy they were barely legible. His ears bled. There were times when the pain of becoming warm was so unbearable that William wished he could sleep in the snow, so that later that day he might return to his icy post without enduring the agony of thawing out.
In the days after his meeting with Rawlinson, William again knew the anguish of those mornings but not in his hands or his feet. Since his arrival in the Crimea the only certain way to be safe had been to feel nothing, to care about nothing. It had been easy. The war had frozen him. He had only to hold on to that chill, to maintain in his chest a permanent deep winter. Until the Commission came he had found it easy.
Rawlinson was not a warm man. While he was much preoccupied with the humanitarian significance of his work his interest in people was theoretical rather than particular. He treated all the men with whom he worked with the same grave and considered distance. But the work, the work was different. When he worked he shone with the pure and unconstrained passion he felt for his subject. His enthusiasm carried the men with him, presenting them daily with sensations that had become as unfamiliar to the soldiers as fresh meat: curiosity, inventiveness, conviction, optimism, purpose. William watched Rawlinson as he went about his work, memorizing the absorbed expression in the engineer's thoughtful eyes, the triumphant flare of recognition at a solution to a tricky problem. At night he practised them but, although his own face
could twist and lift just so, nothing connected those facial expressions to a point within him that made sense of them. Even when he drew his treasured botany journals from the pocket of his greatcoat and gazed on their worn pages for the first time in months he felt nothing. Nothing at all.
But despite this Rawlinson's enthusiasm worked like a warm breath on him, clearing tiny air holes in his carefully preserved ice. The holes appalled him. The searing pain of them was not the worst of it. More terrifying to William by far, they showed how much more pain would have to be endured, now that winter had set so bitterly within him. Rawlinson's arrival had changed everything. Before he came, William had been quite sure he cared little whether he lived or died. Part of him had wondered if he was dead already. Now he knew he had been wrong. He was not just alive. He wanted to live.
The cutting began almost by accident. As one of Rawlinson's working party, William was given weekly access to hot water. One morning one of the junior sanitary inspectors offered him the use of his razor. Carefully, William stropped it across its length of leather before holding the blade up to the light. Something was welling up inside him, clenching at his heart like a fist. Biting his lip he placed the razor shakily on the washstand and reached for the soap, fixing his eyes on the rising foam as the brush swirled round and round inside the cup. But the pressure inside him didn't stop. It swelled between each of the knobs of his spine, pressing out between his ribs. It felt as though he might explode at any moment. His hands jerked and his eyes burned, his eyelids scouring them as though they were lined with sand. Frightened, he gripped the edges of the porcelain basin of water, trying to force the feelings back, but on and on they came, stronger and stronger. He could not calm down. The pressure swelled in his head, forcing itself against the fragile cap of his skull. It roared in his ears, filling his throat and nostrils till he could barely breathe. William dug his fingernails hard into his wrist, leaving white half-moons in the flesh, but he felt nothing, nothing but the blackness that he could not hold back. Desperately he hurled the soap-cup across the room. He saw it smash against the wall but he heard nothing. And then distantly, as though he were suspended above his own body, he watched his hand reach out for the razor. The pressure inside him was different already, its clotted darkness streaked with a growing sense of purpose. Very slowly, his hand not quite steady, he drew the blade down his unsoaped cheek, pressing it quite deliberately into the flesh until it sliced into the skin.