Scarlet Shadows

by Elizabeth Darrell

  Charles entered on a waft of cigar fumes that clung to his tight-fitting jacket. He made no attempt to be quiet in his movements, and Victoria knew why. Despite his words, he did still have some use for her and indulged it with silent dedication. Invariably, after an evening when other men had showered her with attentions, his masculine desire was at its greatest, and since the night of the ball he had been at his most demanding. After the loss of her child he had taken her with an impersonality that merely satisfied a need, and she had lain still and cold. Like counting the linen and checking the daily menus, it was one of her duties.

  He banged about the tiny cubicle used for ablutions and dropped his spurred boots carelessly upon the planks. She kept her eyes on the lantern when he came to stand beside her, the reek of spirits strong on his breath. Inside her, the hurt that had sprung up at the dinner table grew like a flame beneath the bellows of his presence.

  “How soon I have been proved right in my decision to allow you to accompany me,” he said smugly. “You have made the finest of impressions upon the captain and crew.”

  She turned to look at him with stony eyes. “What a great pity you did not.”

  His head tilted up at the complete unexpectedness of her words. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Are you sure there was not some mistake made over you and Hugo when you were children? He does not have the stomach of a sea captain’s son, as you so cuttingly pointed out to the assembled company, but then they could hardly have thought you had the good breeding of a true aristocrat. Are you quite certain it is you who is the future Lord Blythe? Nobility is more than a name, Charles.”

  He stared at her for several seconds, then walked away. She was not troubled that night.

  *

  A fresh breeze blew up in the Bay of Biscay, taking the ship badly off course and delaying their arrival at Gibraltar so that the hoped-for two or three days ashore were reduced to five hours in which to take on supplies. No one was permitted to leave the ship.

  Victoria stood on deck, looking longingly at the great gray rock. With the certainty of invitations from the British garrison there, she had looked forward to a change of company. Being the only lady among so many attentive males was an enviable position, except that she had no one in whom to confide. How she wished Jack Markham had been with the Sirocco instead of with another ship. Letty would have been the perfect companion.

  “Have we been such dull company that the sight of land brings a sigh of longing from you, Mrs. Stanford?” The forthright voice of Captain Porchester teased beside her.

  She turned with a smile. “Is it not true that that which is out of reach acquires an attraction in excess of its worth?”

  “It is also true that familiarity brings a lack of enchantment — the exception to that being yourself, ma’am,” he said with an audacious flourish. “I fear there will be a mutiny among the officers when you leave the ship.”

  “Your authority will surely bring them to heel.”

  He grinned. “I shall be leading it, ma’am.”

  It was difficult to guess his age. Silvered hair and weathered face contrasted with keen youthful eyes and the vigor found in men who lead an active life. There was a vagabond attraction in his rangy figure and manners that had a jauntiness not to be found in military men, but the intensity in his eyes when he spoke brought up a barrier in an instant. She knew to her cost what that look meant.

  “I know very little about ships, Captain Porchester, so you must not think me foolish if I ask why you do not prefer to command a steamship.”

  He laughed. “Ah, you have touched upon a very sensitive subject, ma’am. It is something over which seafaring gentlemen argue incessantly. You would not understand the finer points.”

  “How can you be sure I would not?”

  He was taken aback. “It is not a subject of interest to ladies.”

  “Well, of course it is not, until gentlemen feel moved to explain it to them,” she said crisply. “It amazes me that the simplest facts never occur to men of intellect. Women are obliged to travel in ships; do you think it never puzzles them why sails should be rigged when there is no wind and furled when it is blowing from all directions? And if the breeze is coming from the direction in which it is desired to travel, how is it that the ship ever arrives at its destination?” She paused to give him a stern look from beneath her lashes. “Would you eat a strange-looking dish put before you by your housekeeper without inquiring of the ingredients? Of course you would not! And what if the woman replied that a gentleman would not understand culinary intricacies? Am I wrong in supposing you would demand to know with what the devil she was trying to fill your stomach?”

  Byron Porchester began to rumble with laughter that turned into a hearty shout. “I concede defeat, ma’am. I hereby issue you an invitation to visit the wheelhouse when we get under way, when I will explain anything you wish to know.”

  The captain-mentioned the incident to Charles over cigars that night and admitted he had been outmaneuvered. “It gave me food for thought, and damn if she is not right. I would demand to know what the devil I was being given — have done, on more than one occasion in the Orient. Those little yellow men are experts on poisons, you know.” He laughed. “You’ve got yourself a wife in a million, Major. There cannot be many like her.”

  “Yes,” agreed Charles tautly. “So I have been told.”

  *

  The idyll of blue Mediterranean and sun-washed coastline vanished forever for Victoria. It was bitterly cold and rained incessantly between Gibraltar and Malta, where the officers went ashore to a dinner arranged by the Governor. Victoria found it brilliantly dull. It left her with the impression of having spent an evening in the company of a score of Charity Verewoods — a person she had found difficult to banish from her thoughts since the night of the farewell ball.

  It made her wish for Letty even more fervently. The only relief from the insular stuffiness was an interlude on the balcony with a French attaché, who parodied the principal guests so wickedly she could not stop laughing. Unfortunately, his Gallic nature obliged him to press kisses upon her fingers which, he seemed to think, reached to her shoulders, and she had reluctantly assumed an outraged dignity before sweeping off in a rustle of skirts. It was a pity, for he had been the most amusing guest present.

  Only later did she realize he had subtly reminded her of Hugo, who was reported as too ill to attend the dinner. Cornet McKay told her his commander was growing feverish through constant sickness and lack of food.

  “I must say it is a frightfully good thing we are not bound for Australia, ma’am,” he drawled with affected weariness. “I doubt Captain Esterly would survive the ordeal.”

  “How I agree with the first part of that statement,” she replied, “for I doubt you would survive the responsibility put upon you by his demise.”

  He watched her walk away and said to himself, “By Jove, that was extremely uncalled for!”

  Two days out from Malta they were hit by a cyclone. For a day and a night they were at the mercy of the elements that seemed bent on destroying them. The first hint Victoria had of it was shortly after breakfast, when the deep rhythmic motion to which she had grown used broke up into a pattern of heaves and jerks, long anguished shudders, plunges, tilts and breathtaking upward swoops. The ship echoed with running feet, nautical shouts and the sounds of canvas being lowered and sheets secured.

  Within minutes it was impossible to stand still. In the cabin, Zarina was attempting to shake out the folds from the dress her mistress had selected for the evening, when she was hurled to the opposite side, the trunk sliding after her and bruising her leg. Victoria sent her back to her own quarters, saying she could manage on her own until the storm abated. Lunch was brought to their cabin, but she and Charles found it a skilled art to eat with any kind of success and abandoned the meal.

  By five, they had entered the eye of the storm and sat as tranquilly on the sea as if they were in dock. Dinner was a gay af
fair prompted by the ship’s officers, who knew the worst was to come, and Victoria settled to sleep with no more thought of perilous seas. But all hell was let loose by midnight, and she awoke in a panic to find Charles pulling on a pair of trousers over his nightshirt as he tried to keep his balance.

  “Charles, what is it?” she asked quickly.

  “More bad weather,” he said with a grunt as he was thrown against the bulkhead. “I must take a look at those horses. Don’t light the lantern; it is far too dangerous. Remain where you are and hold the bars at your head for support. I shall not be long.”

  He went out, leaving her alone in the dark cabin. Now he had gone she was conscious of the eerie scream of wind as it battered taut ropes and rushed through narrow places; of the thud of water bombarding the wooden hull as it lifted in the air; of the crash of china and furniture as it shifted from side to side with every change of level; and, worst of all, the shrill scream of horses locked below-decks, in darkness and suffocating heat where they had been confined for nearly two weeks in narrow stalls.

  Although it had not seemed possible for conditions to be worse, within another hour the Sirocco was twisting around like a spinning top, apparently rudderless and listing to port. A tremendous lurch sent Victoria headlong from her bed to the floor, where she bumped her head and grazed her knee, but before she could recover her sense of direction there came an awesome groaning followed by a crash from above that suggested the entire ship had been split asunder. Icy cold and trembling, she clawed her way to the bed and pulled bedding from it to wedge herself between a locker and the bunk. Piled around with pillows and blankets, she huddled on the floor, too frightened to think what might be happening.

  In the darkness, and all alone with that infernal noise on every side, it occurred to her that Orpheus must have experienced something similar on his journey to the underworld, and her fancy put her on that same road. The note of a trumpet resounding along the gangways added to the theme, the Last Trump sounding, and the insistent call, repeated countless times, dinned into her head the message that all men must stand to their horses.

  The trumpet call became mixed with the increasing screams of the beasts and the wind outside into a whirling medley of high-pitched notes that set her teeth on edge and her courage rocking. Unable to seek out human contact, the minutes dragged through her brain that attempted to count each sixty seconds. Before long, the flat crack of pistols somewhere below told her they were shooting the horses. With a mind too vivid for composure, Victoria began to see each animal falling, its great noble head hitting the floor, never to be lifted again. Her hands went up over her ears, then the blankets, until she was curled into a tight ball with her head completely smothered.

  She was still there at dawn when Charles returned, exhausted and angry at the night’s work. Whether she was asleep or so numbed that it resembled sleep, she was not sure, but when his hands pulled the blankets from her she could not believe it was light. His face was drawn and dirty, his eyes bloodshot, and there was an air of resignation about him.

  “Victoria, how long have you been here like this?” he asked wearily.

  She shook her head, then gave a gasp as the stiffness in her neck caught her. “It was impossible to remain in one place without wedging oneself in.”

  “You are all right?” he asked, helping her to her feet. “I could not leave the horses to come to you.”

  “I knew that. How many are lost?”

  “Too many.” He led her to the bed, fetching the pillows and rugs to put around her, then gave her a glass of brandy. “This will steady you.”

  “I shall never forget this night,” she said through her shivers. “The scream of the horses and the sound of shots is still in my head.”

  He swallowed his brandy in one draught. “If you insist on becoming part of the regiment, you must accept its misfortunes. There is worse ahead.”

  “Has it occurred to you that I might have been hysterical after a night such as this, as most women would?” she asked, dark eyes snapping.

  “Not you. You have never been sensitive to deep emotion, Victoria.”

  In the morning they counted the toll. Nearly half their horses had been lost when the terrified, creatures had smashed the stalls in their frenzy. Some had kicked each other to death, others had been thrown off balance and broken legs, several went mad with fear and had to be shot there and then. One of the masts had snapped and fallen overboard. Some cables had shredded and whipped back to sever the hand of a seaman. Other human casualties were a trooper with a seriously gashed head and a broken ankle, seventeen suffering from chronic seasickness, including Hugo, who had risen from his bed in a delirium to obey the trumpet call and been thrown down a companion way. He was suffering serious contusions and had been ordered to remain permanently in the sickbay under observation and restraint until they reached Constantinople.

  *

  All they saw of Constantinople was a distant impression of minarets piercing a purple haze. Orders had been received to proceed direct to Varna, a town on the shores of the Black Sea not far from where Silestria lay besieged by the Russians. A steamship was sent to take them in tow. They were fortunate. The enormous force that had been disembarked at Constantinople, to occupy the huge barracks at Scutari loaned by the Turks, was in a state of chaos.

  The barrack building proved to be without either furniture or amenities and spread with rotting garbage and sewage from a broken pipe that disgorged into the building. The whole place was overrun with rats, lice and wild dogs. The soldiers forced to camp outside the walls found the stench indescribable, and the vermin inside immediately spread to the tents and their environs to make their life a misery. There were reports of men seeing their ration of salt pork and biscuit — the only one they had in a day — literally walking away from them and of sleepers having their fingers gnawed by rats, while lice reduced the victims’ bodies to areas of swollen red lumps.

  As if that were not enough, orders arrived in steady succession, each countermanding the previous ones, until the embarkation officers and the commissariat staff gave up in despair. Regiments were impossibly split up, with two companies at Scutari, three at Varna and the rest with headquarters at God knew where. Cavalry squadrons disembarked with all their horses and marched two miles inland to bivouac, only to be chased by a galloper with orders to get aboard again immediately and proceed to Varna. Horses that had smelled fresh air and freedom fought against returning to the purgatory of stalls between decks.

  The harbor was chaotic. Quays were covered with equipment, ammunition, harassed officers and blaspheming seamen. Horses and guns blocked every avenue, and Turkish peddlers found their fresh vegetables being inadvertently tipped into the sea to join the floating filth and swollen carcasses that already made it a cesspool.

  Those aboard the Sirocco had been spared the miasma of that place, so Victoria did not appreciate that Varna was pleasant in comparison. It was a clean enough town, but not ideal for disembarkation, as the ship had to stand offshore while small boats plied to and from the quay. The soldiers and their equipment were taken off with efficiency, but it was a different matter when it came to lowering horses into cockleshell craft; the beasts were terrified and dangerous.

  Victoria stood on deck to watch the activity in a cool dress of flowered cotton and a straw bonnet. It was a hot June morning that threw a haze over the shore, making their destination indistinct, and she strained her eyes to get a good impression of this strange land upon which she was to make a temporary home.

  Shouts and splashes drew her gaze down to the filthy water where kicking horses had upset a boat, throwing all the occupants into the sea. The animals were swimming for the shore in great glee at their freedom, while the sailors and Hussars cursed as they scrambled through the odorous flotsam surrounding them.

  To one who had no responsibilities it was a fascinating and exciting morning. The ship was alive with scurrying men and the sounds of winches squeaking, chains rattling,
rough commands, shrill neighing and sea chanteys. Everything was bustle, from the deck to the shore. Strange odors reached her from landward and mingled with those of tarred ropes, boiling stock from the galley, human sweat and horse manure — the latter being almost overpowering, now the hatches were open.

  All this sent a thrill of adventure through Victoria. The sun blazing down upon brown water that was moving with boatloads of black, bay and white horses, blue-and-gold-coated Hussars, piled equipment and one containing squabbling, drably dressed soldiers’ wives, released spirits that had first been imprisoned within her on that morning in the Mirror Room at Wychbourne. Here was life and excitement; here was something she could share with Hugo, could understand as part of his life, could see with her own eyes instead of dutifully waiting at home. Oh, she would not have missed one moment of it!

  For this she could almost feel gratitude toward Charles — if he had refused her request she might just as well have entered a nunnery. For this she was prepared to endure his hostility, his insufferable patronage, his sexual advances. He would not find her wanting in courage, strength or willingness to see to his needs, for at any time he could send her back to England. How much worse it would be then, having tasted this existence.

  Byron Porchester appeared from the wheelhouse and strolled across to stand beside her. “Ah, ma’am, ’tis a sad day indeed,” he said with real regret as he looked out at the shore. “So many brave men. How many will return?”

  “You must not be so melancholy, sir,” she said. “They go with eagerness to do their duty.”

  “Aye, mebbe,” he said heavily. “And what of you, my dear Mrs. Stanford? You surely do not intend to stay with them? It is no life for you.”

  She smiled. “Captain, I thought you knew me well enough now to realize I am no stay-at-home. Women have a particular role to play in life. We are the gentle peacemakers, the soft voice of comfort after the roar of the aggressors. In the same way that you cannot sail a ship without first learning how it is done, we cannot create peace if we have not seen war; neither can we provide comfort from something of which we have no understanding.”