Miss Nightingale's Nurses

by Kate Eastham

  3

  ‘Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.’

  Florence Nightingale

  Life at Mary’s house was strange. Ada had never lived with other people before. Yes, she had known Mary Regan her whole life but she had never slept in a house with those who weren’t her own kin and she had never shared a place with a new baby. And Mary’s son could cry. He had the gripes or something, and he howled and screamed most of the time, or so it seemed, with his small face scrunched up into a fierce ball and his tiny fists clenched. Nothing could soothe him.

  Mary was feeding him from the breast but he butted at her and messed around and never seemed to settle. Ada tried as best she could to help out but she was useless with babies. If anybody ever handed her a sleeping one, within no time at all it would be screaming or puking. But at least the ready commotion in Mary’s house took her mind off things; she didn’t have any space in her head to start dwelling on feeling sad: the baby’s screaming made sure of that.

  She’d only been there two days and she’d not had any sleep. Mary seemed to stand up to it very well – after all, she’d grown up in a house full of screaming children – but Ada could see that her new husband was walking around like a ghost, with dark circles under his eyes, and he was tetchy and sharp with Mary, telling her to settle the baby, and to do this, do that, to help him out as well. Ada felt for her friend but couldn’t warm to her husband. On the morning of the third day Ada pulled her grandfather’s pocket-watch out of one of the boxes where she’d carefully packed what was left of their possessions and put it in her pocket. Then she told Mary that she needed to go out to the pawn shop and get some more money. Mary looked a bit surprised but said of course, it was time she went for a stroll into the city.

  In fact, she had also made the decision to go down to the docks and ask about Frank. It was the only thought that had been in her head since she’d left the street and it went round and round and probably always would until she could get some answers. And the only way to try and get answers was to start asking questions. She hadn’t had the strength or the head for it before now but it’s what her grandfather would have wanted. Yes, Mary had said that her brothers were listening out and if they heard anything at all they would let her know, but she had to be sure for herself that the men down there remembered that her brother was missing.

  Also, she couldn’t stay at Mary’s, she just couldn’t. So that meant she needed to be looking for some work. She would ask at the docks. She knew Mary wouldn’t like it but beggars couldn’t be choosers and perhaps she might join one of the teams of women who cleaned out the ships.

  Another thing as well: Mary had been hinting that Martin was thinking of settling down. She’d kept nudging Ada with her elbow and whispering that he’d be looking for a wife soon. But Ada knew that the last thing she wanted right now was some red-faced boy for a husband and a house full of screaming babies. There had to be something else out there for her and now that she was feeling more like her old self she wanted to go and see if she could find it.

  Ada was surprised at how calm she felt as she made her way through the city towards the docks. Even as she walked down her old street she still felt all right. But then, as she came closer to their house, she realized that the door was wide open and somebody was moving in. The place had new tenants already. Ada’s stomach gave a lurch as she passed the open door and glanced in. She could see a woman and a child and a man in there and she met the woman’s gaze for just a few seconds as she walked past with her heart pounding.

  ‘Well, Ada, it’s like to be,’ said her grandfather’s voice in her head. ‘That young couple are like me and your grandmother moving in with our Maggie. The world continues to turn, Ada, it certainly does.’

  It felt strange. Not only could she hear his voice but as soon as she had passed the door of their house she felt as if her grandfather was walking beside her, as if he’d just come out of the front door and decided to join her. Memories came flooding back and she found herself smiling inside but at the same time feeling the sorrow of what had happened that day of the accident. She never knew that these two things could be held together at the same time. She had been grieving so hard that she had been unable to feel anything else and had begun to feel that she would never be warm or contented ever again, yet as she walked along she felt her grandfather walking beside her and it gave her strength. She felt like she was a little girl again, walking confidently beside him, holding his hand. Back then she had had no cares in the world.

  As she drew nearer to the harbour gates, the sound of the dock grew stronger: the clanking of cranes and cargo and the shouting and murmurings. A group must be disembarking from a ship, she thought. She could smell coffee in the air, and knew that coffee beans were being unloaded and would be stacked in one of the huge warehouses that were right there on the quayside.

  At the gates she saw people pouring through, new arrivals to Liverpool. She knew by the state of the poor souls, even before she could catch their accent, that they were her people, the Irish. They were ragged and thin, almost starving, with pale faces. Grandfather had told her about the plight of these people who continued to follow the route chosen by his own family, people who had suffered what was called the potato famine. He was angry in that year before he died, angry at the ships that packed the Irish people into the holds, too many of them, dying on the way over to Liverpool. They called them coffin ships.

  Ada stood still and let them flow around her, men, women and children. Some were old and looked worn down; all were thin. Some of the younger ones had a spark and she could see the light of hope in their eyes. As they passed her she silently wished them well and hoped that they would find what they were looking for. But sadly, she knew, as they all poured in one direction, that these people, fresh from the boats, were forced to live in terrible over-crowded conditions in the worst part of the city.

  Once the crowd had passed by, Ada made her way to the Dock Traffic building. She had not been back since the day of the accident and she felt again some of the tension that she’d had that day, remembering how she had clenched her jaw tight as she walked to stop her teeth chattering. She was calmer now and ready to ask her questions, but it did feel odd to go in through that door knowing that her grandfather would not be at his desk, that he would never be at his desk again.

  She saw one or two familiar faces as she made her way to her grandfather’s office. She peered in through the round window at the top of the door just as she had done before, and for a moment she almost saw him there slumped forward on his desk. But instantly he was gone and all she could see was the straight, thin back of the young clerk who must have taken his job.

  Tapping on the door she walked into the room and went straight to the desk of the senior clerk who had known her grandfather. She stood for a few moments as he finished an entry in his ledger and then he looked up and frowned at her.

  ‘Can we help you, Ada?’ he said. ‘I did tell one of the juniors to take your grandfather’s pens and such from the desk up to your house.’

  ‘Oh yes of course, that’s fine,’ said Ada. ‘I’m here for something else. I just wanted to ask you if there’d been any news of our Frank or if anybody had any idea at all what might have happened to him.’

  ‘Well, young lady,’ said the senior clerk, drawing himself up to his full sitting height, ‘I don’t think you should be troubling yourself with that. There is no information and even if there was I don’t think we would be at liberty to share it with you.’

  ‘But I am his only family,’ said Ada.

  ‘That may be so, young Ada, but this kind of thing is no issue for a young lady like you. It needs to be dealt with by a man.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Ada before she could stop herself. ‘And besides, there are no men, there is just me.’

  The clerk cleared his throat and adjusted his collar and put his head back down to make another ent
ry in the ledger. ‘There is nothing to tell you,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ said Ada, trying not to sound as furious as she felt, and she turned from the desk, strode through the office and back out to the harbour side. Glad to be out of the stuffy interior and taking deep breaths of salt air, she thought: How ridiculous, and she knew for a fact that her grandfather would never have treated a young woman like she had just been treated. Stupid, stuffy old man, she muttered to herself as she went in search of somebody who might be able to talk straight to a woman.

  Seeing a porter she recognized, someone she knew for sure had worked with Frank, she went over to where he was leaning against the base of one of the hydraulic cranes having a smoke.

  ‘All right, young lady?’ he said. ‘You’re Frank Houston’s sister, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes I am,’ she said, glad to find someone who seemed ready to talk to her on a level.

  ‘Bad business what happened with your grandfather. Sorry to hear about that. He was a good man, very fair and very honest. He’s been missed, he has for sure – some of those fellas in that Dock Traffic Office don’t know their arse from their elbow.’

  Ada couldn’t help but smile. ‘I think I’ve just met one,’ she said.

  The old docker laughed and coughed a bit on his pipe. Then, after spitting out a bit of bacca, he dropped his voice to say, ‘And that thing with your Frank, well, me and the lads, we’ve been grieving over what happened that day and we’ve been going over it nearly every day since. And to be honest … we were all expecting his body to be found somewhere in the harbour or washed up further down the estuary …’

  Ada felt her stomach lurch and she bowed her head.

  ‘Now, lass,’ he said, ‘the reason I’m tellin’ you is because it’s a bit of a mystery … We’ve been fully expecting to find your Frank so we could give him a decent burial and all that. But the thing is … there’s been nothing.’

  Ada still stood with her head bowed.

  ‘There’s been nothing and we old dockers, we sometimes get a feeling in our bones, and it doesn’t feel right that Frank’s body has never been found,’ he said, reaching out and giving her arm a bit of a shake, causing her to look up at him. ‘That means there’s still a chance that your Frank might be alive.’

  ‘Really?’ said Ada, feeling a surge go through her body. ‘Is that what you lot think?’

  ‘Yes we do, we do indeed … but of course we don’t really know … but we think that he might have been knocked on to another ship.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ada. ‘I mean, that did cross my mind as well … Is it possible? Have you known that kind of thing happen before?’

  ‘Well,’ said the man, pointing out across the harbour with the stem of his pipe, ‘see how tight those ships are packed together? Like that one over there, unloading heavy stuff right next to a ship as it is getting ready to set sail? Well, that day it was just the same, all the ships were jammed in together and then when the chains slipped on that lump of timber it all happened so quick nobody could see who went where, and what with it all landing on poor Tommy Simpson, everybody was running to him on the quayside so nobody saw what happened to the rest, and your Frank could have been knocked on to another ship, knocked out cold. And there was a ship next to them that was moving off – we all remembered that all right. The crew would have been busy and they wouldn’t have found him till they were too far out to sea to turn back. It has happened before that, once or twice, that some poor bugger’s ended up on another ship, usually dead, mind, not knocked out.’

  ‘Where was the ship going, do you know?’ asked Ada, narrowing her eyes as she looked out across the harbour.

  ‘I do know, yes. It was the army ship.’

  ‘Army ship?’ said Ada.

  ‘Yes, heading out to the Crimea.’

  ‘The Crimea?’

  ‘Yes, the Crimean War. Where they just had those big battles and that Charge of the Light Brigade. So many of our lads killed out there, so many, and for what?’

  What if Frank’s found himself out there? Ada was thinking. What if he’s got himself shot and can’t get back home?

  ‘See that ship there,’ said the docker, ‘that’s the Golden Fleece. It’s going to the same place. Think it’s called Scotari or summat. It’s where that Florence Nightingale is. Y’know, she’s that nurse.’

  Ah yes, thought Ada, I remember Grandfather coming home full of some story from the London News. It seemed so long ago but it must have been only a few months back. She remembered thinking how marvellous it was that a woman could go out there and do that work, helping so many soldiers. She recalled seeing the picture of Miss Nightingale with a lamp, tending the sick. It had moved her to tears.

  ‘So, as I say,’ continued the docker, ‘me and the lads, we just hope he might have been knocked on to that ship. It seems like the only way he could have survived that day.’

  ‘So that ship there,’ said Ada, pointing to the one he had indicated. ‘That ship, the Golden Fleece, is going to the Crimea?’

  ‘It is that,’ said the docker. ‘It’s leaving tomorrow late morning. There’ll be a hell of a commotion down here when that lot are boarding. It’ll be chaos … Yep, it’s going off tomorrow to them poor sods out in the Crimea.’ Then he spat on the ground and moved off down the quay.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, calling after him, but he was already gone.

  Ada stood for some time staring at the ship, all kinds of thoughts going through her head. Determined now that Frank must have fallen on to a ship, she couldn’t let herself consider any other explanation. Then she turned and made her way to the pawn shop with Grandfather’s pocket-watch and as she walked she began to realize exactly what she needed to do and she knew for sure that Mary would not like it one bit.

  She must have spent longer out on the docks and at the pawn shop than she thought, for as she was passing back through her old street the light was beginning to fade. She steeled herself to go by their house again but this time it felt like something had fallen into place inside her somehow and she felt stronger. As she passed by she saw a new lamp shining in the window and caught a glimpse of the couple with their child sitting at the table. She knew in that moment that she would have to follow her heart and never give up her search for Frank and that the kind of life she could see there, through that window, her window, wasn’t what she wanted right now. It wasn’t a husband, it wasn’t children, it wasn’t a small kitchen of her own, but something that would be a different life, a different story.

  4

  ‘But rather, ten times rather, die in the surf, heralding the way to that new world, than stand idly on the shore!’

  Florence Nightingale, Cassandra

  ‘Are you stark raving mad!’ shouted Mary. ‘No, you can’t go off on some wild goose chase after Frank. That thing about him ending up on a ship going out to the Crimea, it’s only a rumour that’s been going round! Nobody knows for sure.’

  ‘So you knew! You knew and you didn’t tell me!’ Ada shouted back, her face flushing red.

  Mary stared at the floor for a moment before lifting her head and saying in a much quieter voice, ‘I didn’t tell you cos I knew exactly what you’d do. And it’s the wrong thing.’

  ‘It’s not up to you to decide what’s the wrong thing or the right thing for me, Mary,’ said Ada, trying to get some control.

  There was silence for a few moments as the two women stared at each other, their breath coming quickly. Then the baby started to whimper and then to cry in its crib and Mary went over to pick him up. As she stood rocking the baby, trying to lull him back to sleep, they stood quietly, looking at his face that was beginning to contort, a sure sign that he would soon be screaming blue murder.

  ‘Have you any idea what it’s like out there?’ said Mary, rocking the baby frantically now. ‘Have you heard any of the reports? So many men dead, blown to bits or catching cholera and all sorts. It’s no place for a lass, Ada, n
o place at all. And what will you do there?’

  ‘I was thinking I might try my hand at being a nurse.’

  ‘Try your hand!’ shouted Mary above the rising wail of the baby. ‘Try your hand? You can’t even cope with the baby screeching and writhing. How will you cope out there? There’s men coming back horrible and mutilated.’

  ‘I’ve made my mind up and that’s that,’ said Ada, not wanting to lose face and trying to cover her own concerns about what Mary had just said. ‘And I might find Frank. And if I don’t I’ll come straight back.’

  ‘You might come straight back in bits,’ said Mary. ‘And what about money for the journey – have you thought about that?’

  ‘I’ve taken Grandfather’s pocket-watch to the pawn shop. They’ve given me a good price and that should be enough for the ticket and leave a bit more besides.’

  ‘I don’t think you can even buy a ticket for a ship like that. It’s an army ship; you can’t just stroll up there and buy a ticket. How are you even going to get on board?’ Mary was almost bellowing above the screaming of the baby.

  ‘I will find a way,’ said Ada, keeping her voice steady.

  ‘Oh, Ada,’ said Mary, dropping her voice, ‘you’ve no idea what you’re doing, no idea.’

  ‘I’m going, Mary, I’m going. Frank’s my only kin,’ said Ada firmly.

  Mary slumped down in the chair, the baby still howling on her lap. Looking over at Ada, she said at last, ‘All right then, all right, but you have to promise me that you’ll look after yourself and not fall in with the wrong crowd, and if you don’t find Frank you turn round and come straight back to Liverpool. Do you hear?’

  ‘I hear,’ said Ada, getting up and walking over to put an arm around her friend. ‘I’ll get going first thing, just before it gets light, give myself plenty of time to get on to the docks and work things out,’ she said, tightening her arm around Mary just a little and reaching down to stroke the baby’s head as he lay now guzzling his milk.