A most remarkable change took place in Myrtle – in her appearance, that is. While George and I visibly lost weight, owing to heat and a restricted diet, etc., she appeared to gain some; her cheeks filled out and her throat and arms became rounded. Her face, once pale, turned golden in the sun and as she refused to cover her head, her hair leapt with threads of fiery colour. Result – it was as though Myrtle, previously lurking in mist; had now emerged into the light. I doubt if George noticed the difference, he being so preoccupied with other matters, but I did feel it was just as well poor, deluded Naughton was no longer on the scene. If he had been smitten before, this new, glowing Myrtle might well have sent him into madness. Naughton, after a hefty sum had been raised to sweeten the Turkish authorities – I myself, or rather George, having contributed generously to the fund – had been shipped off home. I accompanied him to the boat, where, before boarding and too distressed to speak, he clung to my hand like a drowning man. I’d adjusted my expression accordingly, though I reckon shame still swam in my eyes.
In June, George was summoned to Constantinople to appear before the Army Medical Staff. He was informed that henceforth he would be attached, in the capacity of Assistant Surgeon, to the 2nd division, presently to be quartered at Varna. He advised me not to tell Myrtle the reason for his appointment – no fewer than three doctors had successively held the post before him, and all had succumbed to cholera.
I expressed alarm, but he assured me that the danger of infection was as great here as there. For weeks, hundreds of the sick had been arriving at Scutari. The disease had taken such a hold that the dying lay in mouldering rows along the endless corridors of the Barrack Hospital. So much death and still a shot not fired!
I’m not a brave man and I must admit it did cross my mind that I might return to Constantinople and thence home. I suspect I would have done so, had it not been for Myrtle. Nothing on earth would have persuaded her to leave George, and if a mere woman was willing to stand her ground, how could I possibly turn tail?
We sailed a week later, in twilight, past the picturesque houses of the grand pashas; past the tomb of Barbarossa, conqueror of Algiers; past the darkening gardens amid the cypress trees, the keel of our ship trailing a dancing path of phosphorus light along the waters of the Bosphorus. In our wake flew a swarm of small birds, no bigger than robins, which are never seen to settle, but must always be in flight. The Turks, so I was told, suppose them to be the souls of women whom the Sultan has drowned.
Our journey took two days; on the morning of the second, while we were at table, a young officer in the Dragoons, in the middle of telling the company how he regretted leaving his tennis racquet at home, suddenly slumped over his plate. George, on propping him upright – he had attended him the night before on account of stomach pains – pronounced him dead. For a short while the dragoon sat there, mouth open. We too continued to sit, as though unwilling to interrupt him. When at last he was carried out, Myrtle rose and tenderly shook the breadcrumbs from his hair.
To say we landed at Varna was inaccurate; we fell down rather than disembarked, the pier being rotten. We had to wade through mud to reach solid ground. One of the horses broke a leg and had to be shot where it lay. It was dragged further out into the Black Sea, where it floated beneath a canopy of flies.
The town was in a state of considerable disorder due to its swollen population. The numbers of horses, troops and supply carts struggling up from the port made the narrow streets almost impossible to negotiate. There were rats openly burrowing among the mounds of refuse outside the provision shops. Even Myrtle remarked on the filth and confusion. My dreams of finding a pretty little house to rent, with tubs of plants on the veranda and the stem of a vine climbing to the roof, flew out of the window. Every available dwelling, beside providing refuge for numerous species of the insect world, was largely given over to human vermin, namely wine merchants and horse dealers, lured from every corner of the Levant by the heady stench of war.
George went off to report to the General Hospital, leaving Myrtle and me to wend our way some miles west of the town to where the army camp was stationed, tents pitched on either side of the road and extending upwards on to the hilly ground above a large lake formed by the river Devna. Downstream spread a second, smaller lake, the area surrounded by marshland which, though pleasant enough by day, at night gave off a noxious mist. I understood from the Greek villain who guided us there that it is in the vicinity of the military burial ground in which lie the remains of six thousand Russian victims of the plague of ’29. After purchasing, at exorbitant prices, tents and cooking pots, we settled ourselves some distance downhill from the smaller lake. As to drinking water, there were some excellent springs nearby.
It was only a matter of hours before I realised the extent of the dreadful pickle we were in; no sooner had night fallen than a wretched procession of men, some slung over the shoulders of comrades, stumbled past our fire and vanished into the darkness. I was told they were being marched to the river to clean themselves and were, as yet, suffering from nothing more serious than diarrhoea, although there were rumours that cholera had begun to rage through the French camp situated in the supposedly healthier region to the north-east.
George joined us a day later kitted out in what was claimed to be the uniform of an officer of the 2nd division. His garments were so faded and shrunken that it proved impossible to guess at their original colour; they had obviously been worn by the former unfortunate regimental incumbent – if not all three. Obliged, at his own expense, to purchase regulation boots, he was asked to fill out numerous documents, only to be told that it would be weeks, possibly months, before the desired footwear arrived.
Conditions at the hospital, he informed me, were disgraceful. There were too few sappers to put the place to rights and he gathered the authorities did not or would not recognise the urgency. Attempts had been made to improve the ventilation by removing planks in the roof, but the place was miserably dirty and provided a veritable Valhalla for fleas, cockroaches and rats. Nor were there sufficient medical supplies. On his first afternoon, he dealt with a man who, following a drunken fall from a horse, had broken his lower jaw. There being nothing else available in the way of splints he was forced to use the pasteboard covers of a book – The Wide, Wide World – to set the injury. Until whitewashed throughout the building remained uninhabitable, and it was his firm diagnosis that a man would die there quicker than in camp. He scratched ferociously all night long and robbed me of sleep.
I myself cut a sorry figure following the thoughtless handing over of the clothes I stood up in, much stiffened by my romp through the mud, to a washerwoman. Result – I spent a whole day, naked and wrapped in a grimy horse-blanket, waiting for her return. She never did, and to add to my sartorial troubles the ship that carried our trunks failed to arrive, having reportedly caught fire a mile out of Scutari. Myrtle went off and, finding a seller of second-hand clothing, kindly purchased on my behalf a clerical suit styled in a fashion last favoured by my grandfather. She also brought back a top hat, somewhat moth-eaten at the crown. I wore it, ridicule being preferable to sunstroke. She herself donned a long robe, such as worn by Turkish women, in which, almost indecently at ease, she glided about the camp.
It is curious how quickly one adapts to living in the open. Astonishing too, how used one becomes to hands black as pitch and a beard lively with grease. There is nothing more guaranteed to reduce a man to the essentials than to live beneath the sky.
I admit I didn’t know who I was any more – my bearings had gone astray along with my trousers. I observed, and wrote down my impressions – by day, to the infernal buzzing of flies; by night, to the barking of dogs and the muffled cries of those disturbed by dreams of home … and worse.
Deep down I was lost, my mind out of kilter. Often, drifting into sleep I silently recited those lines of Hesiod – They by each others’ hands inglorious fell, In horrid darkness plunged, the house of hell. I fear it was the tough mutt
on we consumed at sunset, rather than intellect, that dictated my thoughts.
Plate 4. August 1854
CONCERT PARTY AT VARNA
This is the most beautiful spot and I cannot understand why so many fall sick. Possibly it’s the abundance of fruit to be had for the picking – cherries and strawberries grow wild in the meadows beyond the tents. I have never felt more healthy in my life.
On our arrival Georgie instructed Dr Potter to buy me a pony. She’s white with a black patch on her rump; if startled, a blue vein stands out on her forehead. Docile animals are very like children. When I stroke her neck, the skin soft as velvet—
Georgie has never seen me ride, being always too busy, but yesterday he promised to come with me up into the hills above the lake. An hour before we were due to depart he went missing. He was in the hospital tent, of course, itemising medicines and jotting things down in a ledger. He has no assistant and complains of the amount of reports he has to submit to the office of the Inspector General. He could have said he was sad not to accompany me, but he didn’t. He simply shouted over his shoulder, ‘You go, Myrtle. I can’t possibly get away.’
Dr Potter would have come with me if I’d let him, in spite of being an indifferent horseman and against exercise. I’m fond of him, but used to living mostly in his head he’s poor company when forced outside. His frequent quotations concerning death, first spouted in a dead language and then laboriously translated, become wearisome. They’re interesting as far as words go, and if we were sitting in a drawing room among fools I’d be the first to think him clever. Here, in the midst of the newly dead, his references to ancient massacres merely irritate. I suppose he scuttles into the past to escape the awful present.
‘Mrs Yardley has agreed to ride with me,’ I told him. ‘And besides, you’re not comfortable in the heat.’
‘True, true,’ he said, though he looked put out.
The sun being particularly fierce that morning, I begged to borrow his hat – to mollify him. Which it did. ‘Take it, my dear girl,’ he cried, tearing it from his head. I had no intention of wearing it longer than it took him to reach the shade of his tent.
Mrs Yardley and her colonel are billeted in the town, but spend their days in camp. I’ve grown to like her. Sometimes she swears, especially when newly bitten. She has several flea bites on her face, one on the end of her nose, yet remains good-humoured. She was on the stage, posing in operatic tableaux, and makes no secret of it, any more than she disguises the nature of her liaison with the colonel. I doubt she knows how much we have in common, although, owing to the incident with silly Mr Naughton, she has tried several times to sound me out in regard to background. As yet, I haven’t taken her into my confidence, but may do so when I know her better.
We both do what we can in the way of relieving hardship and agree that the wives and followers of the ordinary soldiers, some with children howling at their skirts, are more capable of fending for themselves than the ‘ladies’ among us. I keep telling Master … keep telling Georgie … that it’s foolish to question the common soldier as to the looseness of his bowels, the condition being quite normal among those accustomed to eating food gone bad. I reminded him of Mrs O’Gorman’s tale of her sister’s family in Liverpool, who, finding the carcass of a long-drowned pig in the estuary mud, dragged it home and devoured it half raw. Result – as Dr Potter might say – full bellies for once.
Quite early on into our trek to the hills, Mrs Yardley began to probe; I reckon the colonel was behind it, he being acquainted with military gossip.
‘Miss Hardy,’ she said, ‘I hear that Mr Naughton, on returning home, took to his bed. Apparently news of his exploits had run before him. He’s now in financial trouble, due to neglect of his business.’
‘I didn’t know him very well,’ I replied, ‘but I’m sorry to hear it. Being without money is painful.’
‘I thought you knew him in Liverpool,’ she said.
‘Not at all. We met on board ship … and again in Constantinople. He was kind enough to help me back to the hotel after I’d turned faint in the street.’
‘On account of the heat,’ she said, still probing.
‘Certainly not. It was the fault of the dogs—’
‘Of course,’ she cried. ‘Beatrice told me. You were set upon—’
‘I wasn’t,’ I said. ‘A pet belonging to my … my brother’s children was torn apart in front of me.’ Just the mention of my darlings brought tears to my eyes.
‘How distressing,’ Mrs Yardley wailed, and sounded as if she meant it.
We skirted the river and passed a number of women washing clothes, their arms burnt brown from the sun. Close by, the Bulgarian provision men who supply the camp with meat were hacking at slaughtered sheep and flinging the bloody guts into the water. The women seemed happy enough, laughing and shouting as they rub-a-dub-dubbed. A small boy lay on his stomach, dipping a bucket. When full it was too heavy to heave out and he was forced to tip it sideways. After dashing some of the contents to his lips, he staggered off in the direction of the tents.
‘I have never felt the need for children,’ Mrs Yardley said. ‘Which is just as well, seeing as I have never conceived.’
‘Neither has Beatrice,’ I confided. ‘Though it’s not for want of Dr Potter trying.’ At which we both smirked, it being a risqué remark and one I would never have made to a woman other than my companion.
Thinking of such intimate things filled my head with pictures – Georgie fetching me from school in Southport and my seizing of his hand on the journey home – Georgie escorting Annie to a supper party in a hotel down by the docks, myself trailing behind, the early moon above, the lanterns lit in the rigging of the ships and my breast so full of innocent joy that I bit my lip for fear I squealed aloud. Not quite innocent—
‘Damnation,’ shouted Mrs Yardley, slapping her hand furiously against her throat.
I advised her to cut a cross in the nip, with her fingernail. Georgie says it disperses the irritation. Insects don’t bother with me. Possibly I was so infested as a child that I’m now immune.
Soon the path led directly through a wood sweet with bird-song and the drone of bees. Mrs Yardley said it reminded her of being in church, without the inconvenience of having to kneel down—
It was at Mr Hardy’s funeral that I was first in a church with Master … with Georgie … albeit in the opposite aisle and twelve rows behind. Lolly lent me her hat. Mrs Hardy sat between Beatrice and the gentleman who’d been shot at by Lord Cardigan. Nobody heaved with tears save for Georgie, although I admit I watched no other shoulders but his. Mrs Hardy carried a handkerchief and never used it. Some people only weep inside, which I think wasteful—
‘Why do they find me so delectable?’ complained Mrs Yardley, flapping her hands as the gnats swarmed about her head.
We rode in single file and shortly passed two young men, bare-chested in the sun-dappled shade, one sitting with his back to the trunk of a tree, the other sprawled upon the ground, arms covering his face, bright hair bunched against the brown earth. Both were lazily humming, their scarlet jackets dangling from the branches above. Hearing the soft plodding of the horses’ hooves, the seated man opened his eyes and nodded respectfully; he had the rosy cheeks and snub nose of a country boy, and his lap was heaped with wild cherries.
Once out of the wood we began to climb higher. Mrs Yardley, scratching at her cheek, asked what I would rather be doing at this moment in time. From her disgruntled tone it was obvious she had suddenly thought of a million superior ways of filling the hours.
‘Why, just this,’ I replied. ‘One should always seize the present … there is nothing else available.’ I wasn’t being truthful; I would have wished Georgie at my side.
Presently the path widened and we saw in the distance a little whitewashed house beside a square of vineyard. I was all for making a detour to avoid coming too close. ‘There’ll be dogs,’ I warned. Mrs Yardley didn’t appear to have heard me and trot
ted on regardless.
Sure enough, we had advanced but a little way when the air was shattered by a deep and awesome howl; Mrs Yardley’s horse stopped dead in its tracks. An animal the size of a small calf and much emaciated appeared round the side of the house and tore towards us, followed by a smaller creature, black all over and running on three legs.
‘Don’t move,’ I called out to Mrs Yardley, though indeed, the slither of claws on the stony path and the ferocious barking that rent the luminous day had turned her to stone in the saddle. Fortunately the horses stood firm, being no doubt used to such alarms. Some six yards away, the dogs halted, tongues lolling. I concentrated on the larger of the two, forcing myself to gaze into its hateful eyes; whining, it lay down, ears flattened to its mean and bony skull. Mrs Yardley was whimpering, but not loudly enough to provoke an assault.
After what seemed like hours a bow-legged man emerged from the vineyard and whistled off the brutes. Approaching, he beckoned us forward. We were led past the house to a courtyard beyond, where a woman squatted in the dust pummelling a lump of dough. Fawning, the man urged us to dismount and gestured towards a rickety table. Half a dozen children, some crawling, materialised as though by magic and began to pluck at our clothes.
Mrs Yardley was trembling; a pin-prick of blood stood out on her cheek.
‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I should have listened to you.’
‘Think of what to give them,’ I urged. ‘Have you money?’
‘Money,’ she said. ‘Why do we need money?’
‘In return for hospitality,’ I said, vexed. ‘Nothing is for free in this world.’
Master Georgie Page 8
