Scarlet Shadows

by Elizabeth Darrell

  These returning civilities of military life were not all-male functions by any means. Spring and public emotion in England had brought about the arrival of steamers full of visitors, sight-seers and officers’ ladies who had spent the winter in Constantinople writing to their friends that they were “with the Army.” The sight of crinolines among the tents was nothing unusual, and frilly parasols were to be seen protecting delicate heads in the vicinity of the big guns in forward positions of the British trenches.

  Picnics were enthusiastically arranged for parties of ladies, who were escorted to the hills by lovelorn officers. They pointed out the principal Russian fortifications and offered their telescopes for the dear creatures to scrutinize the town of Sebastopol within its resistant walls. The favorite attraction, however, was that valley beyond Kadikoi where a brigade had galloped into a gray cloud of smoke and emerged as a handful of stumbling men. The visitors trod that same earth and gazed down the length of that sun-soaked vale, thrilling with excitement at an escapade that had taken on immortality with its bravado — so much so that it was now acclaimed as a victory, inasmuch as the Russians had been completely demoralized into instigating no further attacks on troops who displayed such discipline and heroism.

  One lady not to be found in such places was Victoria Stanford. She, who remembered so vividly the horror of the charge, deplored the idea of arranging excursions into the valley and further held in contempt those females who gushed and exclaimed in frail tones designed to quicken the heartbeats of their escorts. At dinner parties in the huts and tents she was unusually silent among the fashionable ladies who appeared in décolleté dresses of muslins and silks, who captivated the officers with their white skins, floral perfumes and round admiring eyes. Colonel Stanford’s wife, tanned by the sun, saddened by the truth and with hands that looked more like those of a kitchen maid, was too much of a comrade-in-arms now. Her stalwart friends succumbed to the general madness of spring and deserted her for a pair of innocent blue eyes beneath fluttering lashes or a white-gloved hand lying with such fragile helplessness upon their own battle-stained sleeves.

  For Victoria, it was just another lesson in life. The men needed some lightness in their routine, heaven knew. Her work at the hospital more than occupied her. Major Prescott had become a valued friend since the night they had ridden through the French lines. He treated her with an immense respect and taught her the rudiments of nursing, so that by the end of May she was dispensing medicine, tying bandages and dressing wounds with expertise. Despite the social activities, the war continued. Men were being killed and wounded in the forward trenches night and day.

  Her work was her salvation. Charles was difficult to live with, day in, day out. Changes in temperature set his wounded foot aching, and the drag in that leg was more pronounced on such days. His temper became sharper. Inconveniences he had experienced without complaint for months suddenly became intolerable. The hut became an oven in the early summer heat, and he took off all the newspaper lining the walls. Then he complained of drafts at night. Some days he ignored her completely, on others he made jibes at her lack of conversation apart from amputations and dysentery. He compared her unfavorably with the new arrivals, found fault with her clothes and the air of illness that hung around her.

  She always knew when he had been over to the French lines, for the smell of brandy was on his breath when he came in. It was then he was at his most contemptuous. Yet, strangely, there was a reverse side of the coin — times when he had an air of resignation, of hopelessness, and spoke bitterly of wasted years. Lord Cardigan had gone back to England along with other officers who used ill-health to retire from the lists, and Charles spoke of an army being abandoned to its fate when the glorious dream had faded. He spoke of his inner feelings quite frankly but almost as if Victoria were not there — lost in some faraway world of his own. She listened and said nothing — and watched the distant road whenever a ship came in.

  Fate was not to be cheated. On a breathless morning in early June, Victoria rode her new mare along the track leading to the encampment of the 3rd Division, where the major tended the regiments’ sick. She pulled to one side to allow a column to pass. They were not recruits, for their uniforms were faded to pink or gray, and, as they plodded sweating past her, a strange strong pain began to possess her every nerve.

  He was there, riding beside the column with six other officers. There was no smile between them, but his eyes said I told you how it would be. Drawing alongside, he saluted and bade her good morning. With less than three feet between their saddles she longed to put out a hand to him, but they both sat upright and impersonal beneath the watching eyes of those around them.

  “I had not heard of a ship arriving,” she told him breathlessly.

  “We did not disembark at Balaclava but at Kamiesh. We have marched from there this morning.” While his vivid glance almost consumed her with the fire it held, he spoke of ordinary things. “You will be pleased to know I saw Letty safely installed on a ship for England. I bring a letter for you from her.”

  “Thank you.” The words were automatic while she studied him in detail. The scar on his face had paled, and his hair now hid the deepest part of it high on his skull. The gold-laced jacket fitted smoothly across his chest with no bandages to swell it, and there was some return of the sturdiness he had once possessed.

  “Perhaps you would send a messenger with it to the hospital of the Third Division. I am there most days.”

  His eyes narrowed with speculation. “I see. If that is what you wish.”

  She tried to tell him by her expression that it was anything but what she wished. “I cannot expect you to play postman.”

  “But you are playing nurse.”

  She caught her breath. “Yes. News of my talent in that direction preceded me. It was already spoken of among the officers when I returned to Balaclava, and Charles was most particular to hear all details from me.”

  He stiffened. “He raised no objections, I hope?”

  “Charles never raises objections,” she said meaningfully. “As you know, he is a man of extreme opinions. That I am able to continue my useful work is due to his insistence that what I do for one should be seen to be done for others.”

  Restricted by the proximity of the trooper who accompanied Victoria, Hugo controlled himself with difficulty, rasping in a low voice, “By God, if he has…”

  “No,” she breathed quickly. “There is no need for your concern. He can only hurt me by hurting you.” Uneasy at the danger of having so private a conversation with him in public, she tried to smile and appear less intense. “The situation has changed. I believe you have a hard time ahead. Please…be on your guard.”

  His mouth tightened. “I believe I can handle it.” Then, in a softer tone: “It cannot be worse than the past three months.”

  With her bones melting she tried to think of some way to tell him that life had been suspended for her also since last February, but the column had passed and he was obliged to go.

  “The world is a different place all of a sudden, Victoria” was his soft farewell.

  “So different that I hardly recognize it,” she whispered after him and watched as he trotted off beside a major of the Highland Regiment. From this moment she would resume the sweet torture of seeing him every day while Charles stood by, watching them; would relive the anguish of a war in which he was a living target.

  All that day she saw Hugo’s face on every pillow, read his name on every card. As new patients were carried in the feeling of tension increased. Would she look up one day and see his broken body once more? A week later she did look up and find her heart missing a beat, but it was not Hugo she saw.

  Nurses had been arriving in the Crimea under the supervision of titled ladies, who became more obsessed with their own standing in relation to Miss Nightingale than in healing the sick. A great number of these were Roman Catholic nuns, and a storm broke out when the army medical authorities and a large number of polit
icians in England maintained that the Holy Sisters were going from bed to bed converting men to Catholicism when they were too weak to know what they were doing.

  Victoria had heard there was similar trouble in Scutari and, although not in a position to support the theory, did believe that the nuns of all denominations probably spent time listening to deathbed confessions they could have been better spent lessening another man’s pain. Personally, she tended the men’s bodies and left their souls to God.

  These nurses all worked in the General Hospital down in Balaclava, so Victoria saw little of them except when one of the ladies brought parties of visitors to the small regimental hospitals in the camps, to the annoyance of the medical men who were obliged to allow such things for the sake of showing British civilians that conditions were now extremely good in the Crimea. Victoria had no time for such people, feeling that they were staring at her patients as if they were exhibits at a fairground. The men, however, were very cheered by the sight of elegant ladies drifting through the dim stifling hut and saw their vague smiles as concern for them.

  A party entered the hospital one oppressive afternoon while Victoria was desperately combating a fever that seemed likely to take off her patient by nightfall. She heard a small expression of annoyance from the young doctor examining a hip wound at the next bed but did not allow the disturbance to hinder her own work until the rustle of silk skirts ceased beside her. Glancing up through a gauzy curtain of hair that had escaped its pins, she met a pair of doll-blue eyes in a face of calm purity framed with flaxen braids.

  Charity Verewood wore a gown of blue plaid taffeta that looked bright and fresh with its white bib front and cuffs. Sapphires glowed in her ears, but they were nothing to the fiery contempt with which she treated the girl in drab cotton beside the bed. Victoria saw the fractional shock sustained by the other girl before a glance swept her from head to toe. In that moment, Victoria’s cheeks turned crimson.

  The party moved on, Charity having made no sign of acknowledgment, and Victoria turned back to her patient in turmoil. The flood of color in her face had nothing to do with embarrassment; she knew just why Charity had come to the Crimea and wondered if Hugo had already entertained her.

  The fever broke at four-twenty. Victoria rose wearily from beside the bed and made her way to Major Prescott’s office, to which was attached a small washroom. It was usual for her to drink a cup of tea with her friend before leaving, and the kettle was already on the boil. Going through to the washroom, she tidied herself and buttoned her sleeves with great thoughtfulness. Her own face was browned by the sun until she looked like a woman of Turkey. The fresh supplies of gowns she had brought from Constantinople were purchased with the battlefield more in mind than picnics and ballrooms, and without the services of a maid her glossy hair had been twisted into a large chignon. She had seen others beguiled by dainty damsels from England. Would any man be proof against a lavender-scented ministering angel with clinging determination and the freedom to devote all her attention to him?

  *

  Hugo knew the new members of number-one squadron were consigning him to the devil — and worse — but the drill movements had to be learned and there was no easy way. He had been hard at his squadron since he returned, with some result, for they were improving daily. On the first day he sensed some resentment from men who had been commanded by a subaltern as newly arrived as they, but he had heard his sergeant telling the recruits, “The captain was in the Charge, see. He knows how important it is to move quick, believe me, and he can ride a horse better than you lot can walk.” After that, there had been a noticeable alertness — even in Lieutenant Selby, who had commanded rather languidly in Hugo’s absence.

  Sitting his gray stallion, Ash, which he had brought from Constantinople, Hugo felt his strength being sapped by the stifling afternoon heat and decided it was time to finish with a short resume of his own particular field movements that his men had used to such effect in Ireland. The few remaining of them were enthusiastic in encouraging the recruits to perfect them quickly, and the sergeant began giving his orders.

  One or two blunders ruined the first attempt at change of formation, but the second time it was executed well enough for Hugo to request that it be repeated at the trot. It was a little ragged, but they completed it in good order and had just trotted back to formation when Hugo heard a voice behind him saying, “Are you quite mad?”

  Charles had ridden up unnoticed and had stopped beside him. “I cannot think what Rayne would say if he knew of this. Unfortunately, he seems no better today.” His chin lifted. “What do you mean by teaching the men this damned nonsense? By what right do you decide to teach squadron maneuvers that are not in the book of cavalry drill, are practiced by no other British cavalrymen and are designed to make them appear more like a fox hunt than a military formation?”

  With determination, Hugo restrained himself. Charles had been after his blood from the moment they had come face to face the week before, but the past months had forced patience upon him and he bit back the quick retort he would once have made.

  “I am sorry to hear about the colonel. This heat does not make his condition any easier, of course.”

  “You know his views on your irregular methods. To continue them amounts to insubordination,” his brother snapped. “I suggest you now spend half an hour drilling your men in the correct manner.”

  “They have been doing so for an hour already.”

  “Really? It was not the impression I received.”

  “You have only been here a few minutes,” said Hugo pointedly, feeling his temper rise.

  “Long enough to see the whole squadron is inefficient, lazy and badly handled. Half an hour, I said.”

  “Dammit, sir, in this heat…”

  “Dammit, sir, you will do as I say!” Charles brought his riding crop down with such force it broke across the pommel, the end flying away across the head of Hugo’s horse.

  With a frown the younger man looked at his brother who was usually so controlled. “I assure you the man have had the correct instruction for one hour. Another thirty minutes in this heat will not improve them.”

  Charles, who was looking at the broken crop with absorbed irritation, murmured, “You should have thought of that before you put them through your circus tricks. Sergeant Cairns!” he called, and the man came across with a smart salute. “Captain Esterly is not satisfied with the wheeling in column, the advance at the canter and the front form. These movements will be drilled until four o’clock. Captain Esterly will remain to see that they are done to his satisfaction.”

  “Yessir.” The sergeant answered without batting an eyelid, but Hugo had known the man for seven years and could read his thoughts faultlessly. He fancied he could read those of his troopers during the next half hour. It was as well they could not read his.

  Hot and angry, he returned to his tent and called his servant to bring water. The fortunes of war had sent him up the seniority scale quite startlingly, so that he now commanded a squadron in his own right, but an incident such as this did not help bind together two troops of men and the officer commanding them. Personal persecution by Charles he could handle, but when it extended into professional matters he could not stand by and accept it without protest. When an opportunity presented itself he would tackle his brother. Kicking a box out of the way, he unhooked the tight collar of his jacket and tugged it open.

  “Jessop!” he roared until the man appeared with a water jug.

  “Yes, Cap’n, I’m jest coming.”

  “Jessop, how many times have I told you not to address me as Cap’n? I am not in command of a pirate frigate,” Hugo told him irritably.

  “Oh aye, sir,” said Jessop peaceably in his Hampshire dialect, making the whole thing sound more nautical than ever.

  “Why did you not join the Navy, Jessop?”

  The sarcasm was lost on this new recruit. “I didn’t fancy it, sir. They goes too far away from ’ome for my liking.”
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br />   Hugo gave up and missed Stokes for the hundredth time since he got back. He emptied the jug into a tin bowl.

  “What culinary delight have you prepared for me this evening, Jessop?”

  “Beg pardon, sir?”

  “Dinner, man.”

  “Oh aye…oh dinner,” he said with a slight spark of life. “You’ve ’ad an invite out for tonight, so I didn’t bother gettin’ nothing. One of them staff swells comes up — all in ’is cocked ’at and feathers — and gives me this. And ’e says in ’is grand voice this ’ere’s a hinvitation to dinnah for Captain Esterly, my good man, then ’is ’orse wets hisself all over my overalls.”

  Hugo, with his head in the bowl of water, began to laugh and came up spluttering, feeling around for the towel. “How very inconsiderate of the horse,” he said when his breath had returned. “Where is the invitation?”

  There was neither mirth nor his former anger in him when he read the note, but he had to sit on his bed and read it again before he could take it all in. That Charity Verewood was aboard a pleasure steamer anchored outside Balaclava harbor was difficult enough to believe, but that she had a letter from his father revived such a parade of memories he felt a little sick within the stifling canvas walls.

  Deeply thoughtful, he plunged his head into the bowl of water again, then looked at his pocket watch. Four forty-five already. There was not a lot of time if he was to present himself at the harbor with other officers at seven, when a small boat would take them out to the steamer.