Requiem in the Snow

by Catrin Collier

  ‘If I don’t we’re going to get lost out there. Ready, Richard?’ Glyn rolled up the maps and inserted them into a cardboard tube.

  ‘I will be when the carriage arrives and Mr Thomas gives me a compass.’

  ‘I forgot. Sorry, I’ll get one for you now.’ Huw disappeared into a back cupboard.

  ‘You need maps?’ Peter asked Glyn.

  ‘Richard’s going to help me check the mines Mr Hughes has leased. He’s been studying the geologist’s reports. I’ve been looking at the output. We need to close the smaller, less viable operations and concentrate on the most productive pits. Ironworks eat coal. We’ll need a stockpile before we begin production.’

  ‘And the Edwards brothers colliery?’

  ‘I won’t have time to think about that until I have the New Russia Company’s mines running at full capacity.’

  Huw returned with the compass. ‘How can I help you, Dr Edwards?’

  ‘Sarah and I would like to drive out to Father Grigor’s. We hoped you had a vehicle and driver to spare.’

  Huw shouted to his assistant in Russian. The man left his desk, lifted a flap in the counter, and went out by the front door.

  ‘It will be here as soon as the horses have been harnessed,’ Huw said. ‘None of our drivers speak English and I can’t spare an interpreter. I’ve put them all on site so the workers who arrived with Mr Hughes can communicate with the builders.’

  ‘We’ll be fine as long as you tell the driver where to go.’

  Huw tore a piece of paper from a pad and scribbled a name in Cyrillic letters. ‘What am I thinking? Hardly anyone around here can read. Repeat after me …’

  ‘My tongue will break. You sound as though you’re trying to strangle yourself,’ Peter complained.

  ‘Huw only said “Father Grigor” in Russian,’ Glyn laughed. ‘Speak slowly. The locals will think you’re an idiot, but they already assume you’re not right in the head for wanting to live here.’

  Peter tried again.

  ‘Better,’ Glyn complimented. ‘As for you, young man,’ he turned to Richard. ‘No one has the right to laugh at anyone’s efforts unless they can do better.’

  Richard repeated exactly what Huw had said, syllable for syllable.

  ‘A month and you’ll be working as my interpreter,’ Glyn predicted.

  ‘Alexei coached me in the pronunciation of Russian on the journey.’

  ‘You’re a quick learner,’ Huw complimented, ‘and a credit to the New Russia Company.’

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask,’ Peter looked at Glyn. ‘Why the New Russia Company? Was there an old one?’

  ‘In the sixteenth century a Russia Company was created with a view to exploring trade routes. A Captain Willoughby led the initial expedition. He froze to death along with his entire crew. His ship full of corpses was discovered the following spring by Russian fishermen.’

  ‘That’s a jolly tale.’ Peter looked through a crack in the door. A carriage was drawing up outside.

  ‘We’re hoping for a more auspicious outcome for this venture,’ Glyn said drily. ‘That’s our carriage, Richard.’

  ‘If Alexei comes in …’

  ‘I’ll send him to the Old Man Snoring pit. I’d love to know how it acquired that name,’ Huw cleared the surplus maps from the counter.

  ‘Let’s hope the “snores” weren’t falls or explosions. Time we were off.’ Glyn gave Richard a playful tap with his tube of maps. ‘See you tonight, Peter. Good luck with your interviewing.’

  ‘Sarah needs the luck, not me. Alexei not around?’ Peter asked Huw after Glyn and Richard left.

  ‘Not as yet. I hope his father hasn’t sent him to Siberia. The boy’s been a godsend when it comes to dealing with prickly locals.’

  ‘He certainly made things easier for us on the journey here.’ The unseen voices on the other side of the flimsy partition rose sharply. ‘Why are people queuing at the back door?’

  ‘They want jobs.’

  ‘Even women and children?’

  ‘Some of the women, but anyone who signs up is entitled to a food parcel to tide them over until their wages come in. The size of the parcel is determined by the number of people dependent on the worker’s wage.’

  ‘Mr Hughes certainly thinks of his workers.’

  ‘Which is why people fight to work for him. Alexei, good to see you. Are you here to work?’ Huw asked when he walked in.

  ‘If you haven’t sacked me for being late.’

  ‘You’re too useful to sack. You’re not thinking of handing in your notice, I hope?’

  ‘Not if you give me a pay rise.’

  ‘That’s something you discuss with Mr Hughes, not me,’ Huw pointed to the troika that had pulled up at the door. ‘Dr Edwards wants to go out to Father Grigor’s to see his patients; would you show him the way?’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  ‘We need to pick up my wife and Anna first,’ Peter warned. ‘I left them interviewing girls at the hospital.’

  ‘They were talking to them when I rode past. We’d better check that Mrs Edwards has chosen the best ones before we drive out to Alexandrovka.’

  ‘By the best, you mean the prettiest, Alexei?’ Huw commented.

  ‘Of course.’ Alexei didn’t return Huw’s smile. ‘Shall we go, Dr Edwards?’

  Chapter Six

  Hughesovka

  September 1870

  ‘There’s so many people, so many stalls. It’s busier than Spitalfields on a Saturday.’ Sarah leaned over the side of the troika to take a closer look at the crowds thronging the open-air bazaar that had sprung up next to the furnace foundations. There were a few primitive trestles but most traders – Mongols from the Eastern Steppe as well as locals and judging by the accents, natives from the Black Sea regions – had arranged their wares on tarpaulins on the ground. Most essentials were on offer; pyramids of swedes, beets, cabbages, and potatoes had been built next to slabs of meat, loaves of bread, mounds of boots, and assorted cooking pots.

  ‘Now you know where to do your shopping, although it might be better to tell Praskovia what you want. She’s an expert at haggling a good price.’ Alexei had to shout as they passed a blacksmith’s shop where men, stripped to the waist, were hammering metal rings onto carriage wheels.

  ‘I was expecting Hughesovka to be smaller with fewer people,’ Peter said.

  ‘Once word spread that a new town was being built which needed workers, people flooded in.’

  ‘There’s Mr Hughes, can you ask the driver to stop please, Alexei.’ Peter asked.

  ‘Mrs Edwards, Anna, Alexei,’ John walked over to greet them. ‘I was sorry to hear from Mrs Ignatova that the hospital isn’t finished, hopefully it shouldn’t take long. A month or so.’

  ‘More the “or so” from what we saw, sir,’ Peter commented. ‘We’re on our way to visit Father Grigor. He’s organised a makeshift hospital in his house until we can open ours.’

  ‘Offer whatever help he needs in the way of labour, medicines, and equipment, Dr Edwards, courtesy of the company.’

  ‘Hughesovka is larger and more advanced than I expected, sir,’ Sarah complimented.

  ‘Give me another six months, Mrs Edwards, and you won’t recognise the place. Please excuse me, I have labourers to galvanise.’ He joined a group of workers. Within minutes he was spreading cement on a brick and instructing them in the finer points of bricklaying.

  ‘Is there anything Mr Hughes doesn’t know about construction or industry?’ Alexei asked when they set off again.

  ‘I doubt it. Perhaps when he’s finished setting those bricklayers to rights he could visit the hospital and do the same there,’ Sarah suggested.

  ‘Glyn’s inviting him to dinner this week, you can bring it up then, sweetheart.’

  ‘Double coward.’ Sarah took his Peter’s arm and snuggled closer to him.

  Alexandrovka

  September 1870

  ‘Dear God,’ Sarah watched as a barefoot, ragged woman
surrounded by a cluster of barefoot semi-naked children climbed out of a hole. ‘People live underground here, like animals.’

  ‘Only the Mujiks, and the poor among them have lived like that for centuries, Mrs Edwards,’ Alexei helped Sarah from the troika and shook hands with Father Grigor who was leaning on his garden gate, waiting to greet them. ‘Dr and Mrs Edwards: Father Grigor, our local saint.’

  ‘Hardly, Alexei,’ the priest demurred.

  ‘There are those who venerate you as Alexander the Blessed.’

  ‘If I was Alexander the Blessed I would be ninety-three, Alexei. There may be mornings when I feel that old, but I assure you before God I haven’t been on this earth that long. I’m very glad to meet you, Dr Edwards, Mrs Edwards, and …’

  ‘Anna, sir, a relative.’ Sarah introduced Anna.

  ‘Who’s Alexander the Blessed?’ Peter asked.

  Alexei explained. ‘Tsar Alexander I died suddenly of typhus in Taganrog in 1825. He was only forty-eight. Some say he didn’t die, but disappeared to live the life of a holy man among the poor of Russia. When Father Grigor turned up here in 1855 …’

  ‘When I was forty years old.’

  ‘Forgive me, Father, but you looked older,’ Alexei continued, ‘some Cossacks and Mujiks believed the saintly Alexander had come to live among us. It didn’t help that Father Grigor could read, write, and speak French, English, and German as well as Russian, as only educated aristocrats can. He also owned books and scientific instruments. You may think you’re not the blessed Alexander, Father, but the pious want to believe otherwise. They also know that even if you’re not Alexander you are a saint for putting up with the natives here.’

  ‘We’ll continue this discussion later, Alexei. Please come into my house, you are most welcome.’ The priest opened his door.

  Father Grigor’s house, outskirts of Alexandrovka

  September 1870

  Peter and Sarah were impressed with the makeshift hospital Father Grigor had set up in his living room. Although the injured lay on straw-filled pallets on the floor, their bedding was spotless, as was everything else in sight. The patients were being cared for by volunteers under the direction of the priest’s housekeeper, Brin, a fierce, unsmiling harridan with a moustache a soldier would have been proud of.

  Peter lifted a dressing on a leg wound to find it and the surrounding skin stained bright green. ‘What are you using to treat this?’

  Alexei peered at it. ‘Moss.’

  ‘It is has something in it that promotes healing,’ Father Grigor explained.

  Peter lifted his eyebrows. ‘Really?’

  ‘You’re the first doctor to come here, Dr Edwards. Until now the sick have had to rely on folk remedies that have been handed down through generations of Babki – the peasant faith healers. Most Babki are skilled herbalists. Some of their remedies work, there are others I suspect of doing more harm than good, but I’ve seen spectacular results when coal has been used to treat food and alcohol poisoning, and mustard flour, garlic, and various plants can cure some skin, stomach, kidney, and liver ailments.’

  ‘There’s not much difference between covering a wound with moss and the oatmeal, salt, and honey compound the midwives in Merthyr use to pack the miners’ leg ulcers,’ Sarah pointed out. ‘You have to admit, the midwives’ concoction works better than the mercury salts the hospitals use, and with less pain to the patient.’

  ‘I bow to your philosophy of learning from the locals, sweetheart.’

  ‘I believe most of our patients are doing as well as can be expected, Dr Edwards,’ the priest said.

  ‘I’m beginning to understand why you don’t need a doctor here.’

  ‘Believe me, we need one, Dr Edwards, particularly now the town is growing faster than mushrooms on the steppe. Please come into my study. Brin will bring us refreshments.’ They followed him into a book-lined room, resplendent with Cossack embroideries; the gifts of his parishioners, as he explained to Sarah when she admired them.

  The floor was covered with embroidered sacking, and the furniture had been carved by the priest himself. Brin brought in trays of home-made biscuits and set them around a steaming samovar. The priest invited her to join them but she answered in a torrent of Russian. Alexei translated.

  ‘She would like nothing better than to sit and drink tea but she has to oversee the idle women who visit every day and plague the life out of the priest and patients rather than help.’

  Peter and the priest plunged into a discussion about the best way to set broken bones, while Anna admired carved wooden angels and animals arranged in front of the books. Disturbed by the living conditions of the priest’s neighbours, Sarah carried her tea to the window and looked out at the steppe. It was spattered with makeshift roofs of rough wooden planks and slabs of turf balanced over holes in the ground.

  Alexei joined her.

  ‘Those people might be used to living underground, Alexei, but they can’t be left,’ Sarah protested. ‘Glyn said it often snows in October.’

  ‘I’d say usually, not often. But every roof has a chimney. They have stoves they can use for cooking and heating, probably built from bricks they’ve filched from Mr Hughes’s stockpiles.’

  ‘I can’t abide the thought of living in the palace Glyn’s buying from your grandmother while women, children, and babies cower in the ground like animals.’

  ‘The Tsar only freed the serfs nine years ago,’ Father Grigor reminded. ‘They have nothing except their new-found freedom to walk as far from their previous masters as their legs will carry them. For them, that freedom is paramount. For the first time in their lives they can live where they choose and sell their labour to the highest bidder. Consider where they’ve come from, Mrs Edwards. If it was better than Hughesovka, they wouldn’t have walked here.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Sarah allowed reluctantly.

  ‘You want to help them?’

  ‘Anyone with a scrap of human compassion would.’

  ‘Don’t give them money. If you do, the men will use it to buy vodka. If you must give them anything, give the women food, blankets, and warm clothing for themselves and their children. Better still, give your donations to me or Brin.’

  ‘You look after them?’

  ‘We try. Brin knows which families are in greatest need and which are likely to sell what they’re given to buy drink. I leave the distribution of donated goods to her because she’s expert at sorting the deserving from the scrounging. Unfortunately some are more likely to beg at the doors of those they consider wealthy than work. Once word gets out your brother-in-law’s house is occupied they’ll be at your door.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Praskovia about them.’

  ‘I heard she was your housekeeper. A wise choice, Mrs Edwards. Like Brin, Praskovia will know who really needs help.’

  Hughesovka

  Autumn 1870

  The first few days in Hughesovka were difficult for all the emigrants. But as days became weeks and weeks months, they learned the rudiments of the language and how to cope. First with the cold, then the snow that covered the steppe.

  Richard had never worked harder. When he wasn’t underground with Glyn examining seams and talking to the miners at the coalface, he was pouring over geometry textbooks and designing new and improved methods of shoring.

  Anna spent her days being instructed in the practical side of nursing by Sarah, alongside Yulia, Ruth, Miriam, and Rivka in Father Grigor’s house, and her evenings studying Sarah’s nursing text books.

  Glyn spent most evenings with Huw and John, checking furnace plans and fretting at the delays caused by the weather. Alexei tried to make himself useful to whoever he felt needed him most. Peter fell into a routine of spending his mornings in Father Grigor’s hospital, his afternoons making home visits to patients, and any spare time haunting the hospital, which despite all the builders’ promises was only marginally nearer completion three months after their arrival than when he’d first seen it.
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br />   Even when Peter extracted a completion date of the first of January from the foreman of the hospital site, he remained unconvinced they’d be able to move in that soon.

  John did his best to boost morale by organising social evenings and hunting trips. Alexei instructed everyone, including Sarah and Anna, in the care and use of the guns in his grandmother’s extensive arsenal. Catherine organised dinners and musical concerts with Sonya’s piano playing as the main attraction but after she glanced around her reception room in the middle of one of Sonya’s recitals to see more than half of her guests asleep, she confronted John and suggested he was working his people too hard.

  His reply was a single raised eyebrow, which she had learned meant, ‘I hear you, but Hughesovka’s needs take precedence over those of its inhabitants.’

  Glyn Edwards’ house, Hughesovka

  December 1870

  A week before Christmas Sarah woke to the sound of the maids carrying trays up the stairs. She left the bed, opened the door, took the tray from the girl, set it on the washstand, and carried her tea to the window. She opened the curtains and looked out over the balcony veranda.

  ‘It’s snowing again.’

  ‘I need you to come back to bed, not give me a weather report.’ Peter snuggled further beneath the bedclothes.

  ‘It’s bad enough getting up once a day when you’re six months pregnant, twice would be too much. I can’t believe we’ve been here nearly four months.’

  ‘You would believe it if we’d had any free time since we arrived to look at our watches.’

  ‘We’ll have even less time when we move into the hospital.’

  ‘If we move into the hospital. In retrospect I think it would have been easier to have shipped an entire hospital, bricks, beds, operating tables, instruments, porters, nurses, and all, from Britain than build one here.’

  ‘Grumble, grumble, grumble.’ She finished her tea went to the bed and kissed the top of his head. ‘Think of next week. That should put a smile on your face.’