Until the Colours Fade

by Tim Jeal

  A man near them was moaning softly, a low rhythmic plaintive sound, not unlike an exhausted child sobbing itself to sleep. The orderly bent down to adjust the loose bandages round the soldier’s hand and wrist; as he unwound the cloth, the man’s frostbitten thumb and two fingers dropped off. Calmly re-tying the bandage, the orderly told Magnus that the hand of a rifleman he had just looked at, had come away at the wrist in the same way.

  At the landing-stage itself, Magnus saw badly wounded men roughly bundled off their stretchers, lifted up under their armpits and carried down to the boats where they were laid on the bottom boards between the thwarts in several inches of slopping water. The slightest movement caused them acute pain, but when they were hauled along the quay and slung down bodily by Turkish porters, accustomed to tossing around barrels and boxes, to the seamen in the boats, they suffered unendurable agony and roared out like men under the lash. Although Magnus realised that they were taken off the stretchers because these would be needed again to carry down more men, he was outraged that they were being packed so tightly in the boats. If even a small proportion of ships’ boats from the fleet had been used, there would have been no need for such barbaric cruelty.

  The unmoved and dignified indifference of the assistant surgeon supervising, with pipe in mouth and hands in pockets, made Magnus shudder; this spectacle, which he was witnessing for the first time, had obviously been taking place several times a week on a reduced scale. The surgeon was probably no more callous than others of his calling, but hardened by familiarity, had come to look upon such torture as a regrettable but inevitable part of the medical department’s routine. As Magnus was walking away, a young officer with fair curly hair matted with blood begged him to cover his face so he would be spared seeing what was going on.

  At the commissariat wharf Magnus found a Maltese boatman prepared to take him out to the Medway in mid-harbour.

  Even on the open upper deck of the hospital ship, the putrid faecal smell emanating from the hatches made him feel sick. On the enclosed decks below, the air was so foul that he was afraid of fainting. Medway was a troop-transport and had never been converted for her present use. There were perhaps twenty cots and fifty mattresses for six hundred men and no additional lavatories beyond the ‘heads’ in the bows, which had been barely adequate for the needs of healthy soldiers but were ludicrously unsuitable for sick and wounded, most of them barely able to crawl and many suffering from dysentery. The few bed-pans in use on the middle deck had been emptied into a portable bath near the main-companion, and Magnus did not have to use his eyes to know that it had not been emptied since the day before.

  The men were lying at random all over the decks, the majority on the planks. One man who had had both his legs amputated was crying out and dashing his head against the bulwark behind him. Disgusted and furiously angry, Magnus sought out the surgeon in charge and told him that unless the man were placed on a mattress and attended to, he would do everything in his power to make Medway’s name a national byword for criminal neglect. The surgeon listened in silence; his eyelids were inflamed and swollen, and his unshaven face yellow and pinched with fatigue. When Magnus had finished, he asked quietly:

  ‘Do you suppose it makes any difference to a delirious man whether he’s on a mattress or not? The one you saw has gangrene in both stumps and won’t last the day.’

  ‘What will happen if there’s a storm on the crossing?’

  The surgeon looked at Magnus with sudden anger.

  ‘Men will be thrown across the decks. If I waited for this ship to be put in order, she wouldn’t sail for a month. The navy chartered her from a shipping company, the army are meant to equip her and the Medical Department to provide staff; who found the crew, I’ve no idea. How can you expect anybody to accept responsibility with such a system? I’ll tell you something else. There are three hundred stoves in one warehouse ashore – just three or four of them would save lives on the voyage, but the harbour master can’t spare dock labour to move the stores on top of them; he needs every man he’s got to unload food and ammunition for the men in the camps. Why not blame him? Blame who you like, but it’ll make no difference.’

  *

  Two hours later Magnus was aboard H.M.S. Retribution intent on seeing his father.

  The beautiful whiteness of the decks, achieved by the use of lime juice and constant scrubbing and holystoning, the ebony gloss of the guns, the glistening pikes and tomahawks strapped to the beams, and the polished brasswork, seemed to Magnus to belong to another world from that of the mud and ordure of Balaclava and the military camps. The sailors’ low-crowned varnished hats were immaculate, their deep turned-back collars, edged with white tape, were spotless, and their clean-shaven faces glowed with health, making them seem men of a different species from the bearded and emaciated wretches serving ashore.

  The sentry at the entry-port marched Magnus to a petty-officer, who brought him to a mate, who in turn led him up to the quarter-deck to see the commander; and every man in this meticulously ordered hierarchy seemed politely surprised that a civilian, in a tarred canvas coat and patched trousers, should have the temerity to ask to see the Admiral. It was after evening quarters and the marine band was playing on the middle deck, the music wafting up to the exalted heights of the quarter-deck and poop. Having explained to the commander who he was, and having noticed the distinct alteration in that officer’s frigid manner, Magnus was led down the after-companion and entrusted to his father’s flag-lieutenant, who finally ushered him to the admiral’s quarters, past the marine sentries and through a pair of maplewood veneered doors with china handles, into his father’s day cabin.

  Ahead of him, through a doorway in the panelled bulkhead, Magnus could see the graceful square-paned stern-windows. On a small round table were several decanters in coasters and some glasses on a silver tray. The day cabin itself was comfortably furnished with three armchairs, a long Regency sofa, and an oval mahogany table in the centre. The ports were covered by wooden blinds, and, had it not been for the curve of the beams supporting the deck above, and the white planks showing at the edge of the carpet, Magnus might have supposed himself in an ordinary low-ceilinged room ashore. The flag-lieutenant went through into the stern gallery and after some murmured words returned with Sir James, and then withdrew.

  Father and son shook hands formally, and Sir James said, with an overt jocularity that did not conceal a real grievance:

  ‘I suppose a son, who refuses two invitations to dine without giving his father a single reason, can’t be expected to send a note asking whether a casual visit will be convenient.’

  ‘Remembering your views on my profession, I thought it better not to embarrass you at your table…. I need your help, father. I want you to go aboard a hospital ship in the harbour. Lord Raglan can’t know the conditions the wounded are living in.’

  ‘If an admiral complains, everything will be put right?’

  Magnus ignored the gentle mockery in his father’s voice.

  ‘If you see for yourself, you’ll move heaven and earth to bring a change.’

  ‘While there’s a shortage of medical supplies in the camps, there’s bound to be the same in the hospital ships.’

  ‘I’m not talking about a shortage. There are three bed-pans for every hundred men, no mattresses for men who’ve lost arms and legs. Scores of them are starving because they can’t eat hard biscuit, and there’s no soft bread.’

  ‘The whole army’s starving, Magnus.’

  ‘Because of official lassitude and incompetence.’

  ‘The truth is far simpler. Nobody planned for a winter siege; everything stems from that disastrous underestimate of the enemy’s strength. All other failings are subordinate.’

  His father’s sad philosophical tone maddened Magnus.

  ‘Have you been to the port recently?’ he asked, seeing his father stiffen defensively.

  ‘I was there yesterday and everything I saw bears out what I said. Quays choked wi
th timber for huts and no chance of getting it to the camps until the railway is finished. If it could be got there, there’d still be no carpenters to put the huts together. Every plan was made two months too late and now everything has to be done at once with chaos the inevitable result. Three months will set matters right.’ Sir James frowned and swept a lock of silver-grey hair from his forehead.

  ‘In three months there’ll be no army left,’ cried Magnus.

  Sir James cleared his throat and looked down at the floor.

  ‘Large reinforcements will arrive in the New Year.’

  Magnus looked at him in disbelief and horror.

  ‘But the men in the trenches now are going to die … every man of them dead by the spring? Are you resigned to that?’

  Sir James turned away without speaking. A moment later Magnus was shaken by the emotion and anger in his voice.

  ‘I’m resigned to nothing. Charles and Humphrey are in those trenches. If you knew how I hate this cabin and my own security … yet you speak as if I have no personal stake in events ashore. Do you think we don’t hear when the batteries are in action? There are days when I’ve blocked my ears or gone down to the orlop deck to escape the noise.’

  Moved by this outburst and mortified that he had spoken harshly, Magnus said gently:

  ‘If either of them is wounded, mightn’t you wish you’d gone aboard one of the hospital ships? Even if great changes are impossible, small things can be done.’

  Sir James sighed heavily and walked away towards the doorway into the stern gallery.

  ‘Suppose I see your ship and go to Lord Raglan, there’ll be a Board of Inquiry and the wretched surgeon in charge will be censured. The Principal Medical Officer at Balaclava may be dismissed for clearing the vessel. To what purpose? Will anybody better take his place? Will the ships suddenly be transformed?’ He gazed at Magnus with sympathy and sorrow. ‘The system of supply is woeful; the confusion between departments even worse, but the whole edifice can’t be knocked down and built up again during a war.’

  Magnus sat with bowed head, knowing that his father was right. He looked up and caught Sir James’s eye.

  ‘If you do one thing, I’ll never forget it. Send half-a-dozen launches from the line-of-battle ships to ferry out the wounded.’

  ‘Gladly. If the Captain Superintendent had mentioned….’ He broke off and looked at Magnus with sudden pain. ‘Why in God’s name didn’t you stay in the army? Why, Magnus? Isn’t that what’s wrong … too many officers who think transport and supply too far beneath them to concern themselves with the most basic needs of their men? Too few men like you holding commissions. Instead like the rest of the press you’re searching for scapegoats and lowering the nation’s morale. It’s a waste; a useless waste.’

  ‘But we’ll make sure it never happens again, father. No waste in that.’

  Sir James shook his head sadly.

  ‘Every government neglects the army in peace-time and always will.’

  ‘Not after this war.’

  ‘In twenty years even the best memories fail; you’ll see, even if I don’t.’

  As Magnus rose to leave, his father took his arm and walked out to the companion ladder with him.

  ‘You won’t believe me perhaps,’ he murmured in a low voice, ‘but every hour I spend on this magnificent ship fills me with humiliation and shame at the navy’s impotence to cut short the war. I have attempted repeatedly to persuade Dundas and the First Lord to sanction another naval bombardment at close range and for my pains I have earned the reputation of an unstable hot-head. When Dundas goes home, Sir Edmund Lyons will succeed him and I shall remain second-in-command.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  His father shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Magnus before calling his flag-lieutenant to take him to the entry-port. As they were leaving, Sir James called after them:

  ‘I’ve not forgotten the launches, Magnus.’

  As the gap of water widened, and Magnus gazed back at the towering masts and rows of gun-ports, he felt an aching sadness. The war held them all captive; his father as much as any. Magnus thought of him in his splendid but solitary quarters and no longer felt resentment. Charles or Humphrey might die; the chances were that one of them would, and what consolation would his marriage be if that happened? Ignorant of his wife’s infidelity and probably doting on her, the man was to be pitied rather than envied. After witnessing such terrible suffering earlier that day, Magnus was surprised that thoughts of his father’s marriage had any power to move him; and yet as he sat back against the transom, listening to the regular squeak of the oars in the rowlocks, he felt a stirring of compassion close to forgiveness. Ahead the sea and sky were dark and grey except for a faint streak of red beyond the besieged city.

  43

  An old white-bearded man got up from the turbaned group of coffee-drinkers sitting under the plane trees and, taking his long-stemmed chibouque from his mouth, stared at the small black carriage clattering into the village square, and at the unfamiliar uniforms of the two mounted soldiers following. The women filling their earthenware jars at the marble fountain would not have abandoned their work to gaze at a richly ornamented araba or a pasha’s teleki preceded by a retinue of kavasses, but many had never seen an English brougham before and, although ignorant of the meaning of the crown on the door panels, did not doubt that the traveller was an important one. The brougham came to a halt and the Turkish coachman jumped down from the box and went across to the coffee and sherbet stall under the trees to ask directions.

  As the brougham moved off again, Helen looked out at quiet streets and verandahed wooden houses with closed lattices. Not a fashionable summer resort like Therapia, Orta-köy had a sad neglected air made worse by the greyness of the day and the blustery winds. The gaps between the houses were dotted with fig trees and choked with weeds. By the side of the uneven muddy road, a blind woman sat on the door-step of a small unkempt cemetery surrounded by a rusty iron railing. Inside, under the cypresses, some goats were browsing among the headless Janissary-stones. Helen’s head was aching with the continual rattling of the windows and the groaning of the springs. At times the roads had been so poor that she had been obliged to cling tightly to the corded strap-handles to prevent herself being thrown from the seat. She felt irritable and intensely apprehensive.

  *

  There had been many reasons for Helen’s protracted stay in Turkey: a desire to be close at hand in case any harm befell Humphrey; a horror of returning to live with Catherine at Hanley Park; and, just as pressing, a strong feeling that the longer she stayed away, the less likely it would be that Tom might try to see her again. At the time of her marriage, Helen had been terrified in case his initial grief and anger, at the cruel suddenness of her departure, might drive him to follow her, but as the months had passed, this once disturbing possibility had come to worry her less, becoming in the end little more than a memory – until she had opened his letter.

  On first reading it, Helen had been afraid. Never for a moment believing that he had been surprised to learn that she was still in Pera, she had at once concluded that Tom had come out for the sole purpose of seeing her: impelled either by love or a desire for revenge. The letter gave her no positive indication which, although the chillingly sarcastic reference to Charles with its implied criticism of her for having failed to warn Tom, made her for a time consider vengeance the likelier of the two. Yet when she recalled being with him, her memories of his tolerance and touching uncertainty gave the lie to this. She had done much to provoke him, but he had never repaid her with anger or reproach. She thought of him by the river, as he stooped to pick up her veil – brushing grass from her skirt – sitting miserably on their ugly bed in Blandford’s Hotel, head in hands, under the hissing gasolier – radiant beside her in the autumnal woods near Barford – memories, which brought back not love or pain, but a nostalgic tenderness mingled with regret.

  A year ago, a war ago, a world ago – before her dai
ly fear for Humphrey’s safety, before the bombardments and assaults, the diplomatic banquets and receptions, before poor James had first made love to her in Valetta, apologetically, as though his body had belonged to someone else. A century it seemed since she had traded her old self for a new name and, so different had her new life been, that recalling the past, even with Tom’s letter in her hand, she had found it hard to understand that events from a distant world might still have power over her; that figures from an English summer might touch her in a Levantine winter.

  But, re-reading the letter, fear had once more returned, replacing tenderness and nostalgia, and soon turning to anger. The facetious formality of tone, the absence of any thought for the difficulties she would face in contriving a meeting outside the city, and finally his veiled threat to call unannounced at the Embassy, unless she complied with his wishes, had filled Helen with furious indignation.

  To explain why she should need a carriage for a whole day, she had been forced to work out an elaborate excuse about visiting a distant relative, who had fallen sick on his way to the war, while staying with friends in Orta-köy. Had she made no mention of illness, it would have been thought extraordinary that any gentleman should ask her to travel in winter when the roads were at their worst, instead of calling on her at the Embassy. Lord Stratford had then raised difficulties; his dear Lady Crawford could not travel alone with a groom and footman, she must have a small military escort; then, by offering her sick relative the services of the Embassy’s physician, his lordship had placed her in a situation from which she had only extricated herself with the greatest difficulty. But angry though she was, Helen knew that if she handled the meeting badly, she might face far greater inconvenience and danger than that arising from the few lies she had so far been obliged to tell.