Hope

by Lesley Pearse

  A rumour came that Menshikoff, the Russian General, was dead, confirmed a day or two later, and there was jubilation that this would end the war. But the Russians kept firing their guns, the wounded kept coming, and now the talk changed to an all-out assault on the town. The general belief was that if gunfire alone couldn’t make Sebastopol crumble, then it would have to be done with bayonets.

  Hope shuddered at the thought, for hand-to-hand fighting would mean even more carnage. Meanwhile, newspapers sent from home told her that Lord Cardigan had arrived back in England to a hero’s welcome. She could hardly believe what she read – that his picture was in every shop window, his biography in every newspaper. They’d even copied his woolly jacket and called it a cardigan.

  This was the man who had lived on his yacht while his men were shivering in tents up on the plain and their horses had no shelter at all. When the horses were dying of starvation and the Commissariat had said there was no transport to get forage to them and he must either collect it himself or bring the horses down to feed, Cardigan had refused to do either. He stubbornly insisted on keeping his men and their horses ready for a Russian attack. Troopers had to watch the horses trying to eat bridle straps and each other’s tails as they stood knee-deep in mud, the bitter wind whipping their emaciated bodies. The troopers couldn’t even shoot them to put them out of their misery as Cardigan had given an order that shooting was only for broken bones.

  Sometimes the horses took three days to die, lying in the mud in agony, for no one dared defy Cardigan and shoot them and run the risk of a flogging. Yet the people back in England thought this pompous, cruel and self-serving ass was a hero.

  Hope knew the real heroes of this war were still here, lice-ridden, thin and weary, battling it out in the trenches, or lying in a vast hospital ward in Scutari with missing limbs.

  As each day passed, Hope saw that the doctors in the main reception ward were becoming stretched to breaking point with the sheer volume of wounded, and her frustration grew. As Angus had pointed out, the orderlies could easily take care of the men on her ward, but try as she might, she couldn’t gain permission to leave them to it and go and help with the recently wounded.

  The baffling thing was that she couldn’t find out who was so intent on keeping her out. She could see in the weary faces of all the doctors that they wanted her help, but to a man they stubbornly said they’d had orders that only recognized army personnel were to work in acute wards.

  In early May, Hope had arrived on her ward at six in the morning and by eight she had finished all her duties. Regular doctors’ rounds were a thing of the past now that the hospital was so frantically busy, but having found one patient, a Pole, with an infected wound, she went looking for a doctor, leaving the orderlies doling out the porridge for breakfast.

  Once through into the main hospital she found a scene very reminiscent of her first day here. It was chaos – there had clearly been a huge influx of men at the same time. Men brought in on stretchers had been placed on the floor because there were no more free beds to put them in, every field dressing she glanced at was bloody, men were vomiting on the floor, others were writhing and screaming with pain. Almost all of them had blackened faces from gunpowder.

  Four surgeons were hard at work in the smaller room off the main ward, removing bullets and shells and amputating limbs, and assistants were giving chloroform. But most of the orderlies clearly had no idea what they were supposed to do.

  Hope hesitated for a second or two. She knew that obeying orders counted for everything in the army, even to the point of insanity like the fateful Charge of the Light Brigade. But remembering that she was in fact a volunteer, it seemed to her that no one had a right to tell her what she could or couldn’t do.

  Taking a deep breath, she took charge.

  First, she got the orderlies to move men who had been admitted a few days earlier and had already received surgery into one of the less crowded wards. After that, she got the newly wounded settled into the free beds, clearing most of the space on the floor. While one orderly was told to mop up the mess on the floor, she instructed the others to give the wounded water, to get them out of filthy uniforms and wash them.

  ‘Maybe we can’t take away their pain,’ she explained. ‘But by cleaning them up and trying to make them more comfortable, we are reassuring them that they are going to be seen by a doctor soon and that we care.’

  Doctors came past her all morning, most acknowledging her presence with a nod or a brief greeting, but often there was a warm, grateful smile. She continued to wash men, get them drinks, or help them if they were vomiting. As patients were brought back from operations, she checked on them regularly, offering bed pans and bottles.

  By two in the afternoon everything was under control again, and after leaving a few instructions with the orderlies she went back to her own ward.

  As she opened the door her heart sank, for Surgeon Truscott was examining the man she had been going to get help for that morning. He looked round at her and glowered.

  ‘And where have you been?’

  Truscott had arrived in Balaclava some weeks after the base hospital had been established and so he hadn’t got used to her helping with the sick in Varna as many of the other doctors had. Hope had always known that he didn’t approve of women in regimental hospitals; he had often made barbed comments about her in the past.

  He was a big, bumptious man with a swirling moustache, close to sixty, who believed that the scope of medical assistance given in the days of the Peninsular War was quite adequate for this one. Bennett thought him an able surgeon, but very out of date with his techniques. In the past few months he’d barely been seen in the hospital; according to gossip he went out riding a great deal.

  ‘I went to find a doctor to look at this man’s wound,’ she said truthfully. ‘But they were so much in need of help with the recently wounded that I stayed.’

  ‘So this man’s life wasn’t important to you?’

  Hope was fairly certain that the Polish man’s infection was only a mild one, and that a delay of a few hours would have done no harm at all.

  ‘Of course it was, sir,’ she said. ‘But there were men in much more grievous danger in the main hospital.’

  ‘So you decide who needs medical assistance now, do you?’ he bellowed at her. ‘Deserting your post while on duty is a very serious offence!’

  ‘I hadn’t deserted. I was just giving assistance elsewhere,’ she said, her anger rising. She wished she had told a doctor about this Pole’s wound first, but even if she had, she knew none of the doctors would have broken off from what they were doing to treat something they would have considered trivial. ‘Besides, I can hardly be accused of desertion when I am only a volunteer.’

  ‘I will not stand for insubordination,’ he roared, making every man in the ward look round. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  She was tempted to retort, ‘A jackass,’ but she held that back. ‘Yes, sir, you are Surgeon Truscott.’

  ‘With over thirty years’ experience in surgery,’ he shouted. ‘There is no place for women in regimental hospitals. What sort of a milksop is your husband to bring you out here with him? And then to inflict you on us!’

  Suddenly, and without any warning, the surgeon was struggling, for a man had crept up behind him and was holding a knife to his throat.

  Hope gasped in shock. She had not seen Asiz, the little Croatian man, get out of his bed and steal across the floor. He was only slightly taller than her, while Truscott was six feet tall, but the knife he was holding looked very sharp. He wasn’t the man Angus had given his warning to, but clearly all the Croatians had taken it as an order to protect their nurse from any man threatening her.

  ‘Asiz, no!’ she called out.

  But Asiz did not put the knife down and every other man was either getting out of bed, if he was capable, or sitting up and shouting in his own tongue.

  ‘You’ve done this,’ Truscott said, turning very red in th
e face. ‘Get him off me.’

  Hope went behind him and made signs to Asiz that she was fine, and taking his arm she led him back to his bed. She put her finger up to her lips to tell the others to be quiet.

  ‘I want you out of this hospital this minute,’ Truscott said, rubbing his neck as if convinced it was cut. ‘You are clearly not to be trusted.’

  Hope glanced round the ward. The men were quiet now but they were watching and waiting. All at once she realized that it must have been Truscott who was responsible for her fate, and no doubt one of the orderlies had been persuaded to act as a stool pigeon.

  It was tempting to tell him how childish he was. To ask why, if he was such a great surgeon, he wasn’t out there dealing with the seriously wounded. But that was likely to cause trouble for Bennett, and if she riled Truscott any further, it just might lead to the men attacking him.

  ‘Very well, sir,’ she said, and, biting her lip so she wouldn’t call him any of the foul names Betsy had taught her, she marched out of the ward with her head held high.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Hope was dripping with perspiration by the time she reached the top of the steep path leading to the Heights. It was just six in the morning and would remain chilly until the sun rose further in the sky, but it was a hard climb and her bag was heavy.

  For two whole days she’d stayed in her room, angry, frustrated and often tearful, yet quite certain someone would come and ask her to go back to the hospital.

  But no one came, not even the few young doctors and orderlies she had counted as friends. Eventually she decided this wasn’t just because they were afraid of Surgeon Truscott, but far more likely because they had never really approved of her.

  Disapproval of women nurses in military hospitals was widespread. When it was heard that Florence Nightingale was going to Scutari, Bennett had said that most of the older doctors were outraged. Probably the only reason Hope had been tolerated all this time was because she’d already proved herself useful in Varna, and because she was Bennett’s wife.

  Yet whatever Truscott and the others who were backing him felt about her, it was an act of monumental stupidity to get rid of her just when the hospital was so overstretched.

  So today she was setting off to join Bennett at the Rifle Brigade field hospital.

  She was scared; about Bennett’s reaction, how his fellow officers would view her turning up, and what it would be like to live in a camp again. Back in Varna it had been very different – everyone was just waiting to be moved on, and when people fell sick they were grateful she could help, regardless of who she was.

  No one had anticipated that within a year half their number would be dead or wounded. She recalled the excitement when they’d finally sailed away from Bulgaria, everyone so certain they’d left all the sickness behind and that they’d be home in time for Christmas.

  Would they even be home for next Christmas?

  She sat down on a rock to get her breath, looking down at the harbour, anxious tears filling her eyes. She was over four months pregnant now, and although her clothes hid her ever-increasing belly, they wouldn’t for much longer. Bennett would realize the truth very soon, and he’d be angry that she hadn’t told him before.

  She turned at the sound of men’s voices and hastily wiped away her tears. A couple of soldiers were coming towards her, carrying gabions, the curious funnel-shaped baskets which were filled with earth and used in building defences. She thought they were probably out searching for roots and wood for their fires.

  It wasn’t possible to make out which regiment they were from, for neither was wearing anything that approached a uniform, just dark breeches and filthy loose shirts, both with thick dark beards and straggly long hair.

  One called out, asking if she’d lost her way.

  ‘No, just resting after the climb,’ she called back. She got up and walked towards them to explain she was going to find her husband.

  ‘Keep over that way,’ the taller of the two men said, pointing in the direction of the sea, where she could see tents and huts in the distance. ‘If you stay on this path you’ll come to the trenches and that could be dangerous.’

  Hope set off in the direction they’d advised, but as she drew nearer to the camp she became confused. Nothing looked the way it had when she’d last come up here with Bennett.

  It had of course been a grey day in winter then, and there had been only a sea of mud and tents. She couldn’t get her bearings now for the sun made everything look different, and with all the new huts, and even some patchy grass growing back, she didn’t recognize anything. As she recalled it, the hospital marquee had stood out from everything else, and it had not been far from the trenches. Surely when they replaced it with a hut, they would have put it in the same spot or very nearby?

  She wished she’d told those soldiers who her husband was, and which regiment he was with, then maybe they’d have been able to direct her straight to him. Her feet were throbbing from the long walk, her arm was aching from her heavy bag, and she didn’t want to walk right down to the end of camp, only to have to turn and go back again.

  Standing for a moment and shielding her eyes from the sun, she studied the layout of the camp. To her far left were the Russian defences – every now and then a volley of gunfire came from there, and the wisps of smoke hung in the early morning air. Much nearer, still on her left, were the British trenches, not that she could see much more than mounds of earth from where she stood. She wasn’t even sure if they were manned because she couldn’t see anyone and no one was answering the Russian fire.

  Nearer still there were tents, huts and a great many men, carts, horses and mules. One of the huts was larger than all the others, and she thought that maybe the carts were being loaded with wounded to take down to the base hospital.

  To her right was the rest of the camp, extending right over to the French camp, where heavy gunfire was taking place.

  But straight ahead of her was a large open area with a flagpole which she had no memory of seeing before. She was sure that if Bennett had taken her across that to the field hospital, she would recall it.

  So she turned to her left, making straight for the biggest hut. It wasn’t until she was near the first row of tents that she saw how close they were together, guy ropes and pegs making an obstacle course she couldn’t get through. She managed to find a way through in one place, then found herself in another rowjust the same, and then another. There were no men here, nothing but tents and more tents, and she couldn’t see the hut she wanted to reach any more for she was lower down.

  Just as she was beginning to despair of ever leaving this maze, she slipped between two tents and found herself on a path with nothing ahead but the trenches. Some soldiers moving a gun on its carriage were 300 yards further down and she began to walk towards them.

  Suddenly she heard someone yell, ‘Mrs Meadows!’ from behind her. Wheeling around, she saw Robbie, Queenie’s husband, with a group of other riflemen she recognized.

  It was good to see friendly faces, and she stood still, waiting for them to reach her. Suddenly a burst of gunfire came from the Russian lines. The men dived for cover, but to her shock she saw Robbie reel back, dropping his rifle and clutching at his thigh.

  She had never seen anyone shot before, and for a second didn’t realize that was what had happened, not until he fell to the ground.

  The other riflemen immediately began firing back at the Russians. But Hope could see to her horror that Robbie was right in the line of enemy fire. She could see blood spurting out on to the ground beside him as he tried to scrabble along the ground to get out of range, but he wasn’t going to make it on his own.

  Without stopping to think, Hope dropped her bag and darted towards him.

  ‘Get away,’ Robbie yelled at her when he saw her coming. But she ignored his order, reached him and rolled him over on to his back.

  A bullet whizzed past her ear, so close that she felt the heat of it, but she put h
er two hands under his arms and hauled him backwards towards the row of tents.

  He was a big, heavy man and her arms felt as though they were being pulled right out of their sockets, but still she yanked and tugged, ignoring yet another bullet which came dangerously close.

  ‘Are we out of range now?’ she asked breathlessly once they were through the first row of tents.

  ‘I thought we were out of range back there,’ he said weakly. ‘They must have moved closer, but we should be all right here.’

  Hope laid him down. His thigh was a gory mess, but with his breeches on it was impossible to tell how bad the wound really was. She tore off the sash from around her dress to make a tourniquet and fastened it above the wound, then stood up to pull off her petticoat to use it to staunch the bleeding.

  Still the firing continued, and as she held the cloth over Robbie’s injured thigh she looked around frantically for help. Seeing a soldier further down the line of tents, she jumped up and shouted at him, waving her arms.

  Something hot and stinging hit her left arm. She sank down beside Robbie, supporting her arm with her right hand. ‘Bugger me, I’ve been shot too,’ she said.

  The wound was between her elbow and wrist, a patch of crimson bloody flesh some two inches wide beneath a hole in the sleeve of her blue dress. She had seen hundreds of far worse wounds and barely turned a hair. It didn’t even hurt much, but the sight of it made her feel faint.

  ‘I hope that soldier gets someone,’ she said weakly. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be much more use to you, Robbie. Loosen that tourniquet in a minute, then tighten it again in a little while.’

  ‘Hope! Wake up!’

  Bennett splashed cold water on her face, then tore what remained of her sleeve away from the wound on her arm.

  ‘Is that you, Bennett?’ she asked feebly, her eyes still closed.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ he said. ‘You are in the hospital now. You fainted.’

  ‘Is Robbie here too?’

  ‘Yes, he’s here too. Right beside you. Open your eyes and you’ll see him.’