The Rose of Sebastopol (29 page)

Then, in the distance, I saw a gown the same sludge color as the one Rosa had been given and my pulse quickened. But no, the woman was at least three times the girth of Rosa and by the time we reached the end of that particular corridor, thanks to the tortuous pace of our escorts, she was gone.

Finally we met a nun wearing yards of black and a limp headdress covering all but her puffy cheeks and beady eyes. She smelt initially of camphor but when she moved, all the other, less desirable smells of the hospital flowed from her skirts. “Well?” she said in a flat voice with an Irish lilt. “Can I help you?”

How could I tell whether she was Catholic or Anglican—although she wore a large crucifix with the image of the dead Christ stuck to it, which perhaps suggested she was a papist. “I am looking for my cousin who was nursing in Skutari at one time, Rosa Barr,” I said.

Not much of the nun’s forehead was visible but one eyebrow lifted and she blinked. “Rosa Barr. I know the name. She’s not here now, for sure.”

The ward shattered into fragments and reassembled itself.
Rosa Barr. I know the name
.

“We think she went to Balaklava. The fact is we haven’t heard from her.”

“And you’ve come all this way to look for her, is it? Isn’t that a wonder? I certainly hope you won’t be disappointed. Well, you just sit yourself down and when I’ve done my errand I’ll see what I can do.”

It was a long wait. The nun, who was heavy on her feet, first had to walk the length of the corridor and disappear through one of the doors. After several minutes she came back, pausing at a couple of beds on the way, then disappeared onto the stairwell behind us. Meanwhile the business of the ward went on. Some sort of meal was being served; a huge pot was brought to the far end of the corridor, a few of the patients raised themselves on their elbows in anticipation, and a smell of broth wafted towards us. So they’re not starving and they’re not dying in droves, I thought. Perhaps the great effort of knitting and self-sacrifice back home had in fact been unnecessary.

Meantime our escorts had propped themselves on either side of Nora. “So what happened to the pair of you?” she asked in her new, forthright manner.

“Oh, you know. The usual. A touch of dysentery. Then the frost-bite.”

“Frost-bite? In this weather? It scarce seems possible.”

“The weather’s changed.”

“Did you both lose limbs through frost-bite, then?”

The more talkative one had a wiry frame and a sickening scar on his cheek where the flesh had been gouged away and healed piecemeal. “Actually, I blame Halford here and he blames me. We was on duty together in the trenches, quiet night, fell asleep, which admittedly we shouldn’t have done. The cold makes you sleep. Woke up and the soles of our feet was glued together with ice. By that time we never bothered with boots—broken and worse than useless and the devil’s own job to get on and off. Both of us was chilled to the bone so we got close, couldn’t tear us-selves apart. They had to carry us down to the hospital in a cart, both of us howling and shrieking till they tipped a bucket of rum down our throats. Next thing we know we’re side by side in a heap and there’s a doctor hanging over us and he puts his hand on my leg, higher and higher up until I can feel him pinch me and he says, you’ve both got to lose a foot because I assume neither of you will want three, two of them dead meat, so who’s going first? In the end we lay side by side and held each other’s hands like babies and Halford here lost the toss. We haven’t been apart since and we mean to go home an’ make a fortune by displaying us-selves at shows.”

Halford, lumpish and red-faced, nodded approvingly but said nothing. Nora asked why on earth the soldiers hadn’t been issued with decent boots. The men replied that their regiment expected one pair of boots to last a year and any extras were docked from pay.

At last the nun came back with a ledger. Her manner had chilled and she stood at a distance. “That’s it,” she said briskly. “We’ve found your cousin’s name. As a member of Miss Stanley’s party she wasn’t given a place here, but first went to the hospital at Koulali, a mile or so away, and then chose to go to Balaklava at the end of January. We’ve not seen her since.”

“Did you ever meet her? ”

“I may have. I can’t remember. A few of Miss Stanley’s women did come here and try to gain an interview with Miss Nightingale, but things were very over-stretched and we had no time to accommodate untrained nurses.”

“So how will we find her? ”

Her pale eyes scanned my face. “You could send a note across to the General or Castle Hospital at Balaklava. But I’ve been speaking to my sisters. They think that Miss Barr may be one of the women who would not stay put in the hospital. Not all of them do.”

“Then where would she go?”

“Who knows? You see this is the trouble. One is never quite sure, with some of these young women, what their real intentions are in coming out here.”

“Rosa Barr’s intention was to nurse,” said Nora.

“Perhaps so. I cannot speak for her. But there are other examples of those who don’t choose to accept our discipline. One of them, for instance, went off with a Highland Regiment. We think she is there still, up among the men. The reputations of us all are affected by such thoughtlessness. I hope your cousin is not in a similar condition.”

“Is there anyone else who might know more about her? ”

“Miss Nightingale would certainly have been the one to ask but Miss Nightingale is sick and cannot talk to anyone. And in any case she is still in Balaklava. You could not have come at a worse time.”

“Then what do you suggest I do?” I cried.

“Well, dear Lord above, girl, shouldn’t you have thought about that long ago, before you set out? I cannot think what you’re doing so far from home. And now you’re bound to get sick, they all do, the ones that visit from England, and we’ll be having you to look after as well.”

There was no denying, now she had drawn our attention to it, that the hospital reeked of disease. I could almost see the miasma of sickness hanging in the air, greenish, with tendrils that reached into my pores.

“Well, what about the other hospitals here? Is it possible that she came back to Constantinople? Should we enquire? ”

“You can, but you’d be wasting your time. We know exactly who is employed in hospitals in Turkey. It’s the Crimea where we have difficulty keeping an eye on things.” She gave a nunnish bow, cast a sharp eye over what was taking place in the ward behind me, and moved away, ledger tucked under her arm.

When we returned to the ship we found a note from Lady Stratford, who said she’d seen Rosa’s name on a list, may even have met her during Christmas festivities, but had no knowledge of her present whereabouts. She invited me to tea at the embassy next Tuesday but I replied regretfully that the
Royal Albert
was sailing next day. Tea at the embassy sounded like a remarkably safe proposition compared to the Crimea.

T
he Black Sea turned very choppy
and the new ship, much smaller than our last and dangerously overcrowded, smelt very unpleasant after an hour or two—of sewage belowdeck, soot, oil, and poultry above. There were so many passengers that we had to dine in shifts in the tiny saloon although the food was poor and I felt so ill that in fact I scarcely sat down to a meal throughout the voyage. I spent most of the two days’ journey first along the Bosphorus and then across the Black Sea either confined to my bunk or on deck with my bonnet blown back and my battered complexion exposed to the glare of the sun, tormented by the incessant thwack of the paddle wheels and gusts of black smoke while I strained nervously for a glimpse of the infamous Crimea.

I avoided the soldiers, some of whom were so young their complexions were greasy and whisker-less, others older than Father. Nora of course sought out the Irish contingent and before long was in the midst of a loud group, more animated than I’d ever seen her. She’d hold a man by his arm while she asked where he was from, when he’d
come across
from Ireland, what had happened to the rest of his family, and if they might have acquaintances in common either fighting in the war or back home. Names were reeled off, Mc this and O’ that, and families were picked apart to see who was related to whom and whether Paddy or Cathy or Jim or Shelagh somebody or other had been heard of since 1846.

One or two men asked me whose wife I was or if I was going out to be a nurse like those other
good ladies
of Miss Nightingale’s. I told Nora to pass the word around that I was engaged to a doctor.

“You should speak to them yourself,” she said. “How will we ever find Rosa if you don’t ask questions?”

“I have never approached a strange man in my life.”

“You wouldn’t have to approach a strange man, for goodness’ sake. One smile and they’d be like bees round a honey pot. And in any case, in what way are they strange? You know exactly who they are. They are brave men going to fight another battle in this wretched war. It would be a kindness to distract them from what lies ahead.”

“I would have no idea what to say to such people.”

“What do you mean,
such people
? Well, I have no such inhibition. I’ll be asking.” I watched as she moved back along the deck, absurdly hurt that she should prefer their company to mine.

When I later asked her what the soldiers had said she was curt. “I have learnt nothing definite.”

“What do you mean, definite? ”

“One thinks he may have been nursed by a woman of Rosa’s description when he was half dead of frost-bite and pneumonia up at the General Hospital in Balaklava, but he had been too ill then to say for sure now.”

“What about Dr. Thewell? Have they heard of him?”

She sniffed and shrugged. “You should ask them yourself. War, it seems, breeds unpleasant rumor. I’ll say no more.”

What I had expected of Russia was treacherous cliffs, barren plains,
foreignness
; what I first saw of the Crimea was green and lovely as a wooded bit of Britain, fresh-looking and tranquil across the blue water. But then we saw to the west a cloud which one of the soldiers said must be cannon-fire above Sebastopol and as we sailed closer we heard the rumble of guns. The soldiers went still and when I glanced into the face of the nearest, a square-faced country boy, I saw that the same deathly look had come into his eyes as I used to see in Nora’s when she emerged from a long night in Aunt Isabella’s room.

I went down to my cabin and wept until Nora found me.

“Good Lord,” she said. “So whatever is the matter? ”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Well, that’s a deal of fuss for nothing.”

“Leave me alone.” The trouble with Nora was that she tended to take such requests at face value and the last thing I really wanted was to be on my own. She re-tied her bonnet and made for the door. “We will die when we get there,” I said.

“I have no intention of dying.”

“Everyone is dying of cholera. The
Times
said so. Or we’ll be shot. We will be in a battlefield, undefended. We have no idea what to do when we arrive.”

“Find Rosa, of course.”

“How, exactly? We’ve never discussed what to do. We’ve no plan.”

“We will make a plan, when we’ve seen the lay of the land.”

“Did you not notice how strangely that nun looked at us in the hospital? What if something terrible has happened to Rosa? What if she’s dead? ”

We stared at each other nervously. “Then we’ll find her grave, the poor girl, but at least she won’t be left unmourned.”

“Neither of us knows a word of Russian.”

“Well, I’m hoping we’ll not be meeting many Russians. If we do, it’ll be a sure sign that the war is over and they have won, or that we’ve made a terrible blunder and got ourselves the wrong side of the lines.”

“Aren’t you afraid, Nora? ”

“Afraid? Good God, Miss Lingwood, why would I be? What can touch me these days?”

In the event we had to anchor outside Balaklava for another night while the boat tipped sickeningly up and down on the waves, its boards creaking and grinding and its fleas biting while we waited for an official to sail out and meet us. In the small hours I woke to the distant murmur of gunfire and was terrified that battalions of Cossacks would attack us from the cliffs, that the instant we stepped ashore we would be shot or taken prisoner and my life would end in chaos and carnage.

I wondered how this sad news would be received at home. Poor Father would have to abandon his business and follow me out here to ask questions and have a proper stone erected. The thought of him sifting through a heap of bodies under the violent heat of the sun, his second-best top hat perched on the grave-side, brought more tears to my eyes. Perhaps, when she’d had confirmation of the news, Mother would go up to my room and finger my embroidered cushion covers. Would the governesses be issued with black crepe bands? And of course the situation would be made worse by the fact that I had
brought it on myself
, a favorite phrase of Mrs. Hardcastle’s. In fact to die in such circumstances could be described as self-indulgent.