The Rose of Sebastopol (50 page)

THE CRIMEA , 1855

 

 

 

T
he Crimean climate was a strange beast,
sometimes British in its habits, blue skies with puffs of white cloud followed by days of drizzle or gusty wind. But this was an illusion that had caught the allied armies out time after time; the winter nights were colder, storms more violent, winds stronger, and the summer sun fiercer than anyone expected. And the weather was more fickle; a hot morning could turn into a frosty evening, a tranquil dawn be blasted away by hurricane.

Crimean winds brought salt from the sea, dust from the worn plain above Sebastopol, grass seed, bad smells, cholera (according to some), and, above all, rumor. Sometimes it seemed that I never actually heard news spoken but that it blew into my head on a gust of hot air. We knew, for instance, that the war was actually being fought on three fronts, of which we were just one. In the Baltic the allies had successfully bombarded Sveaborg in the Gulf of Finland, thereby threatening the security of Saint Petersburg. Near the border of Eastern Turkey, on the other hand, the town of Kars, which had a British garrison, was under siege by the Russians. So the prevailing state, as in the trenches above Sebastopol, was stalemate.

We knew that the famous French chef, Alexis Soyer, was reforming our regimental kitchens so that a regular soldier was no longer issued a slab of raw meat each morning and expected to find the means to dress and cook it by dinner. We knew that the French general Pelissier and our new general Simpson still rarely spoke to each other if they could avoid it. We heard that Miss Florence Nightingale was well on the road to recovery and might return to the Crimea soon in order to resume her aborted inspection of our hospitals, a prospect regarded as a dubious blessing by many of the nurses and most of the doctors. And I knew that Captain Max Stukeley, having spent six weeks at Renkioi in Turkey in a new, pre-fabricated hospital designed by Brunel, and therefore the last word in hygiene and comfort, had refused point-blank to be invalided home and was back in the Crimea.

I expected him to visit Nora at some stage, of course. It may be that I even dressed my hair more carefully in case I should bump into him. Otherwise I refused to allow myself one moment’s speculation about the state of Captain Stukeley’s injured leg or the likelihood of his paying us a call. Instead each afternoon I sat with my posse of women in the shade of the laundry store and taught them the intricacies of tucking and pleating, and the correct method of inserting a sleeve into an armhole.

But one day, as we were engaged in the delicate task of turning a cuff, I became aware that every gaze had brightened and was now directed above my head, and that I was being watched.

A voice behind me said: “Miss Lingwood, as I live and breathe.”

I pulled my thread so violently that the fabric puckered but I would not look round. “Captain Stukeley.”

“I wonder, Miss Lingwood, if you might spare me a moment of your valuable time.”

I was furious with myself for being so unnerved that I could hardly keep my voice steady or my head from jolting round, so I spent several minutes demonstrating how invisible hemming should be used to fasten the edge of the cuff to the inside of a sleeve and that no stitch should be more than a tenth of an inch in length. Then I ran my needle through the fabric and stood up, only to find that Max was deep in conversation with a besotted little woman who, despite her lack of skill, was agreeing to make him a bespoke dress shirt for an officers’ dinner next week.

We walked a few paces up the track that ran along the front of the hospital in full view of dozens of inquisitive spectators. Max was shockingly pale, with bloodshot eyes, long side whiskers, slashing furrows in his brow and cheeks, and scarcely any flexibility in his right leg. All in all, apart from the fact that he was upright, he looked little better than when I had last seen him in a hospital bed.

“Everyone thought you would be sent home,” I said.

“Did they now? I’d hardly let them pack me off for the sake of a sore knee. Too much unfinished business. And it’s just as well I insisted on coming back or I’d have missed the inspirational sight of Miss Mariella’s sewing school for wives and widows.”

“I’m sure there are more interesting things going on in the Crimean Peninsula.”

“Very few. You’d be surprised.” When I glanced at him from under the muslin shade of my hat I was relieved to note that despite the fact he had aged ten years there was still a caustic glint in his eye. “But Miss Lingwood, I believe I am much in your debt. Had it not been for you my right leg would now be rotted away in a pit.”

“Hardly my doing.”

“As I remember you were quite forceful in recommending that I insist on an alternative to amputation.”

“Nora gave me the idea and I only mentioned that Dr. Thewell...”

“Thewell. That’s it. We have him to thank.”

His tone was so sour that I changed the subject: “You mentioned unfinished business.”

“Just a little. One piece of unfinished business, the war. Second, check on the health of my dear old friend Nora McCormack, but as I have already found her in command of half a dozen orderlies I believe she must be nearly recovered. Third task: find Rosa.”

Nowhere, I noticed, had the well-being of Mariella Lingwood registered on his list. “We have been managing without you—we have asked for Rosa constantly.”

“Nora said there’d been a sighting of a woman near the River Tchernaya.”

“By a drunken Irishman. But we were at the Tchernaya after the battle and of course there was not a sign of Rosa. Although I swear a wounded Russian soldier spoke her name to me.”

“There is a connection—the River Tchernaya runs due north-west through the village of Inkerman and into the sea—but I can’t help thinking your first instincts were right and your Irishman was simply carried away by his own fairy-tales.” There was a new air of brutality under Max’s mockery, and my pleasure and relief at seeing him were fading rapidly. “I’ve decided to go back to the cave above Inkerman where Rosa was last seen.”

“Isn’t it very close to the Russian lines? She cannot be...”

“Miss Lingwood, would you care to stroll with me up to the fortress?” He held out his arm and quirked an eyebrow. The gesture, which was accompanied by an abrupt change of tone, was too emphatic to be refused and though I wouldn’t take his arm for fear of what Mrs. Shaw Stewart might think, I did walk a pace or two ahead of him until we were out of earshot of the last hut.

“Mariella, while I was in the hospital I met a soldier who had spent many months recovering from a neck wound, and who grew very excited when I happened to talk about Rosa. He told me that he had been treated for various ills by your Dr. Thewell, and had such faith in him that he was even prepared to make the trek to Inkerman, though he never reached the cave. Instead he met Thewell on a hillside, frost-bitten, half dressed, and raving about a woman called Rosa. My friend took Thewell back to the hospital where I later visited him. By then, as I told you before, he was beyond saying anything intelligible.”

“So you’ve learnt nothing new...”

“Soon after Rosa disappeared I went to the cave and there was no sign that she had been there. I glanced inside, looked around, and walked further up the hill, trying to imagine where she might have gone. That’s all. During these last weeks at the hospital I have cursed myself for not being more thorough.”

“But what would you hope to find now? You surely don’t think Rosa is still camped out there.”

“I don’t know what to think.” He was the coldest I had ever known him, made even more remote by his impeccable uniform and the pallor of his skin. “But there are things I knew of him, things he said, which make me very fearful of what might have happened.”

I stared at him for a moment, then said: “I’ll come with you,” though my voice was so uncertain he had to dip his head to hear me.

“You will not.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying happened to Rosa. I don’t understand you. But I would like to go to that cave, if only because Henry and Rosa were both there.”

“I have no intention of taking you.”

“Then why did you tell me you were going?”

“To warn you, to prepare you for the worst.”

“I shall come. You can’t stop me.”

“It’s too dangerous. You would be no use to me whatever.”

“Then you shouldn’t have said anything.” My sewing class had gathered in the distance to witness our argument and I lowered my voice. “You cannot expect me to wait here while you go off on your own, in the state you’re in.”

“And how long do you suppose you’ll be allowed to stay at this hospital if it becomes known that you have spent a day riding about the Crimea with me?”

“Nobody need find out. And anyway, I hardly care.”

“Well. Well. If Miss Lingwood wants to come, who am I to refuse? And yet I remember seeing you ride at Stukeley and it was a pitiful sight. Still, I suppose if I don’t agree to escort you there’s no telling what you might do.” He raised his cap in exasperation and limped back to our audience, who clustered around him as he made his laborious way along the path.

That evening I received a note saying that I should meet Captain Stukeley the following morning at six o’clock by the gates of the British Hotel and that I was to dress appropriately. I had braced myself for Nora to be scathing about the planned trip but to my astonishment both my hut-sharers approved of my decision. “There’s something about you,” said Nora, “that seems to have given you a charmed life in this war. Perhaps you will protect Max from harm.”

“I’d have gone,” said Mrs. Whitehead, in a surprising burst of flirtatious-ness, “but then I don’t know a woman in the Crimea who wouldn’t want to go riding with Captain Stukeley, no matter how many legs he’d lost.”

The three of us then spent half an hour considering what I should wear. In the end Mrs. Whitehead lent me a sadly faded blouse and scarf that we thought would allow me to pass as a peasant woman or camp follower. “And you must droop more at the shoulders if you wish to be truly inconspicuous.”

Nora insisted I wear a visible crucifix round my neck. “If you get taken by a Russian they’ll treat you more kindly if they think you have the faith. They’ll respect a Roman Catholic. And you’re to leave that locket and the engagement ring behind, just in case. They’ll only lead to temptation.”

“I don’t plan to be taken by a Russian.”

“You cannot be sure of anything. Max is not so nimble at present as he used to be. You keep your eye on him and don’t let him get over-tired. And don’t go burdening him with one of your headaches. Make sure you drink plenty.”

I twisted the ring from my finger and handed it over with the locket, though it left a little dent in the skin, which I kneaded self-consciously with my other hand.

D
espite these preparations the expedition began badly,
because the only sign of Max at the British Hotel was the two great horses tethered inside the gates. When he finally emerged it turned out that he had been eating a substantial breakfast provided by Mrs. Seacole, and had expected me to come to the door. So by the time we set out at six thirty we were already at odds, because each of us claimed to have been kept waiting by the other.

He had borrowed for me a black horse with a starred forehead, whose owner had been killed in the assault on the Redan. The size of the beast intimidated me but his name was Solomon and he appeared to be a far more stable character than Flight, though just as battle-worn. Even though his gummy eyes were plagued by flies—despite a shade plaited out of frayed rope—he merely swished his tail and swung his head gently from side to side. Max, meanwhile, had kitted himself out in Armenian trousers bought at the market in Kamiesh and a long shirt borrowed from an orderly, which he wore as a tunic belted in at the waist. Round his head he’d wrapped a long white scarf, like a Turk, and the overall effect was of a frail brigand. He was followed out of the British Hotel by Mrs. Seacole herself, who beamed at me as she stuffed a saddlebag with flasks and food. As we left, she gave my horse’s rump such a whack of encouragement that he danced on the spot.