In the Shadow of the Lamp

by Susanne Dunlap

  “The surgeon is preparing to amputate this man’s leg; it is gangrenous,” the sister said in English, her accent so strong I hardly understood her.

  We stepped forward and around a curtain. Behind it a man lay on a table, one leg covered by a sheet, the other out plain as day. From the knee down his leg was black and swollen. It seemed to be in shadow, like Janet’s neck before she died. The surgeon, whose back was to us as he arranged some very sharp and pointed instruments on a table, turned, holding a saw and a curved knife. Three nuns and a man in monk’s robes I’d not noticed before came forward and stood on either side of the table. The monk and two nuns held the man’s body down so he couldn’t move. The third nun stood by the doctor with a cloth in her hand.

  “He has been given chloroform, but only a little. Our supply is very limited. Most of it is with our army in Turkey,” the nun whispered.

  I didn’t know then what chloroform was. I was still hardly awake, and everything seemed odd and like a dream.

  “First, the surgeon must ensure that the fellow does not bleed to death,” Miss Nightingale whispered to me. “So he cuts through the skin and muscles and finds the arteries and veins and ties them off.”

  That was not so very different from tying the cord when Lucy’s baby was born. I watched, but we were too far away to see much.

  “Will we have to cut off legs?” I asked, suddenly worried that was why she brought me to the hospital with her.

  “No!” she whispered harshly. “But we may have to stand by and assist, as that nurse is doing.”

  The man’s eyes rolled open and he started moving his head from side to side. “Ah! Ah! Merde! Ça me blesse trop!” He began to scream and struggle. His leg twitched. The monk gripped it hard to hold it still. His pain must have been far worse than Lucy’s. No gentle touch would make that go away.

  The nuns and monk held him fast. The doctor continued what he was doing as if he were carving a Sunday roast, now slicing hard through the skin and muscles. The man suddenly stopped struggling and the leg lay still.

  “Is he dead?” I asked, although he didn’t look it. I remembered them carrying Janet’s body out of the house, and her skin was gray—almost purple.

  “He probably fainted from the pain,” Miss Nightingale said.

  I nodded and watched the nuns holding him to see what they did. One of them had her hand on his forehead. I wondered if he could feel her soft touch, even though he’d fainted dead away. She looked up and saw me staring at her. She nodded just a little. She understood about touching, how it could help. Her hand was soothing him, making him feel better, less afraid, like mine did with Janet and Lucy.

  All this distracted me from what the surgeon was doing but now I had to watch. He’d carved through all the soft bits and reached the bone. The sawing was loud and rasping, like going through a piece of hard wood. Before long the blackened leg lay on the ground. Blood flowed out of it, as well as other liquids that looked and smelled putrid.

  “Now he will sew up the wound, and if the fellow does not die of shock, he will get a wooden leg and live on. How do you feel?”

  I looked up at her. “I feel sorry for him. But I believe he’ll live.” I think I was still too dazed to take in everything I’d just seen.

  She cocked her head to the side. “What makes you say that?”

  “I … I don’t know,” I said, realizing I’d said something I maybe shouldn’t.

  “You’re a strong girl, Molly,” Miss Nightingale said. We turned to go out, leaving our aprons on the pegs where we got them.

  A moment after we left, one of the nurses who had been helping the surgeon came out with something wrapped in a bloody sheet. I saw the sole of the man’s black foot as she walked off down the hall. I don’t know why, but something about that, the leg going away from him forever, a dead thing no longer any use to anyone, broke down the calm I felt while I watched the operation.

  “Excuse me, Miss Nightingale, but …” I couldn’t finish my sentence before retching.

  Her cool, soft hands stroked my hair away from my face as I lost what little I’d eaten. “It’s all right, Molly. Perfectly natural. I did the same the first time I saw someone lose a limb. But you will see many more horrific sights in Turkey, and if you feel you won’t be able to manage, now is the time to tell me.”

  My stomach calmed. Would I be able to stand it? I didn’t really know. If I could see a person’s pain so clear and obvious, how would I bear it? Perhaps I’d get used to it, maybe even be able to help, maybe learn how to do more than just soothe with a gentle touch. And I would have a chance to do something, to go somewhere. What would I do if I went back to London now? Probably starve. At the very least, be an embarrassment to my mum. “No, I still want to go. I think I’ll be all right.”

  “Come with me then. You’ll need a passport and clothing like the others. Then I shall want you to help me do some shopping.”

  Shopping? “What will you buy?” I imagined gowns and hats, and thought it very strange of her to outfit herself just to work in a hospital.

  “Some small stoves. A quantity of chloride of lime. Linens. Since you were a parlormaid, I thought you might know the best stoves and bed linens to get; ones that would stand up to hard use.”

  Miss Nightingale was asking for my help. How could this be? I felt better right away. And she was right, I did know a thing or two that could be useful. We climbed into the Paris version of a cab, a small open carriage with one horse pulling it, and went off to take care of all the errands.

  “Well, so aren’t we the lucky one!” Emma sat on her cot with her feet up, repacking her case.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Going off all day with Miss Nightingale. I ’spect you’re too good for the rest of us.”

  “I had to get a passport and warm clothes,” I said. “It was Mrs. Bracebridge’s idea.” I don’t know why I added that.

  “Just so long as you don’t put on no airs. Nursing’s nursing.”

  I didn’t feel much like talking to Emma. I had so much to think about and only one person I ached to share it with. I took the pencil and paper Lucy gave me out of my trunk. I wanted to tell Will all about what had happened in the last two days, but my spelling was so terrible. Would he laugh at me?

  I sat for a long time staring at that blank sheet of paper.

  “Are you just going to look at it or write something on it?” Emma got up off her cot and flopped down next to me on mine.

  “I’ve never wrote a letter before,” I said, immediately worrying I had told her too much.

  “Never been away from home? This is a fine place to be for the first time! Well, just start. You’ll find what to say easy enough.”

  Of course she thought I would write to my mum. And then I thought I really ought to. She might be worried. Especially because, by my count, the day before would’ve been my half day, and I wouldn’t have come home with wages for her. I wondered if she’d sent Ted to look for me and what they told him at Cadogan Square. Or maybe Will thought to let them know I was gone away and not to worry about me. Still, she’d have to have someone read the letter for her, since she wasn’t so good at reading and Dad couldn’t read at all. I’d take the trouble when I had something to really tell her and trust that they found out enough not to be off their heads with worry.

  Emma soon got bored with watching me just sit there and went back to her packing. I saw her tuck a small tin flask in the middle of all her clothes. Several of the other nurses had them too. I’d seen them drinking from them when they thought no one was looking on the train. Maybe that was why Miss Nightingale made such a fuss about drunkenness. By the time the dinner bell rang, I’d written to Will what I could:

  Dear Will,

  Riting from Paris. We go to turkey to-morro. Ill be a nerse! Thanks for yore help. I think of you. Rite to me at Scutari. Plese tell my mum I’m alive and well.

  Yore frend,

  Molly

  The papers Mrs. Bracebr
idge gave us had the direction where our family could send letters. Will told me to write to him at Lucy’s, and I suddenly realized why. No one would think I was writing a man friend. I folded and sealed the letter, then gave it to Mrs. Bracebridge to post, part of me wishing I could curl up tiny and go where that letter would go, just to see Will and Lucy again.

  Chapter 9

  The trip from Paris was a bit tedious. Nothing to do but stare out the train windows at dreary scenery that didn’t look so different from England—except once in a while there was a castle on a hill. Some of the other nurses played cards. The nuns prayed a lot. I was too shy, knowing that I’d be sent packing for any wrong step, to get acquainted with anyone besides Emma.

  Emma. There was something about her. She was always ready with a quick word, a funny quip to make me laugh. Maybe it was because of her scar, but even when she was laughing her eyes didn’t look really happy. Instead of lighting up all merry like Will’s did, they went hard, like crystals.

  “ ’Ere, Moll,” she said after a long silence between stops on the train. “What you think about them nuns what are coming with us? There’s three different kinds. I always thought nuns was nuns.”

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing. Do you s’pose we dare ask them?”

  One of the sisters walked by just as I said it. “Ask us what?” she said.

  “We was wondering why you all aren’t dressed the same,” Emma asked, brazen as anything.

  “That’s because we belong to different houses, or orders. Those over there, with the black habits, are from Norwood. The ones next to them are from Bermondsey. They’re both Catholic. I and my other Sellonite sisters are Anglican.”

  She smiled and stared straight at us, as if she expected another question. “I see,” I said. “I didn’t know there was such a thing as Anglican nuns.”

  “We’re more Sisters of Mercy than nuns.” She nodded to us and continued on to join the other Sellonites. That was the last time any of them spoke to us until we boarded the steamer at Marseille. And we didn’t do that till after we took a smaller steamer down the Rhône River and got on another train at Avignon.

  Marseille was a busy port town, more like London than Folkestone was. I recognized the lowlifes around the docks, and even though they spoke in French the rough voices could’ve been just the same as the ones I was accustomed to hearing in the East End. I’d no doubt they were turning the air blue with their cursing and would’ve made us blush if we could’ve understood them.

  “Well,” Mrs. Bracebridge said as we all gathered with our valises waiting to board the Vectis, “That other nurse, Mrs. Wilson, was supposed to meet us in Paris. I thought perhaps she’d catch up with us on the train since I told her our route, but there’s still no sign of her.”

  Mrs. Bracebridge handed us our tickets as she spoke. I didn’t know there was a nurse missing. Maybe she wouldn’t come, and it’d be good that I was there to make up the numbers.

  “I’m dreading this voyage,” she continued. “The Mediterranean is always rough this time of year.” Miss Nightingale, who seemed solid and sure in Paris, had turned so pale I could nearly see the bones beneath her skin.

  “Excuse me!”

  A woman, round in body and with at least two chins, wearing a hat with a feather that stuck up in the air and quivered as she marched toward us, burst into our group and scattered us, making straight for Miss Nightingale.

  “Blimey! What you s’pose she’s going to do?” Emma said. I shrugged, turning with all the others to stare straight at her. She looked like a great parrot come to light on a dead tree she seemed so out of place.

  “Mrs. Wilson, at your service. I have been on this train the whole time and cannot understand why I did not encounter you, Miss Nightingale.”

  Mrs. Wilson had a loud voice and was trying to make it sound posh.

  “I’m sure I would have noticed you in the second-class carriage,” Miss Nightingale said, making one or two of the nurses stifle giggles. “However, the main point is that you have joined us at last. You will be able to change into your uniform once we board the steamer.”

  “Why, there’s the answer to the mystery! I didn’t see you because I was in the first-class carriage, which I naturally assumed was where you would be.”

  Every one of us froze. The look on Miss Nightingale’s face was thunderous. I thought for sure she’d explode at any moment, but instead she simply turned away. “I see the purser, and the gangplank is down. Let us climb aboard.”

  We formed an orderly queue, Emma and me at the end. This time, instead of having to sneak my way onto the boat, I had all my papers ready for the purser, who frowned at them and then waved me on.

  Everyone mostly went down to the cabin where we would sleep, but I wanted to wander around the deck. I’d not gone far when the sound of voices, their owners hidden by some barrels and ropes, stopped me.

  “You understand, Mrs. Wilson, that we cannot support payment of your first-class fare. We are going to nurse the common soldiers, in the pay of the British government.” Miss Nightingale’s clipped, precise voice was unmistakable.

  “You think I came just for your paltry ten shillings a week?” Mrs. Wilson said. I nearly gasped. Ten shillings a week were riches by most people’s standards. Who would have the nerve to speak to Miss Nightingale like that? “Now that my husband is no more—God rest his soul—I intend to make my fortune nursing a nobleman and thought I’d find him in Turkey as much as anywhere else.”

  “I see. We have a difference of intent, Mrs. Wilson. However, as you are here and have been highly recommended by those I respect, I will allow you to come to Turkey and expect you to carry out your duties professionally.”

  I quickly went back the way I came, hoping Miss Nightingale didn’t see me. It seemed more people were like Mavis than I thought, especially women. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so shocked. What else was there for us to do? Anything that wasn’t illegal paid barely enough to live on. Lots of girls tried for a rich husband any way they could.

  The Vectis, although larger than the river steamer we’d been on, was small by ocean-going standards; I could walk round the deck in just a few minutes and there were only a few places for passengers. Our cabin had shelves along the sides, which they told us were the bunks where we’d sleep. Miss Nightingale and the Bracebridges had quarters somewhere else on board. A few doctors, Emma told me—though how she knew I didn’t dare ask—had the cabin in the stern.

  I leaned on the rail and watched the dockworkers load all the supplies Miss Nightingale bought in France. They stowed them away quick as could be and it was still more than an hour before they had finished.

  As the engines were fired up and we prepared to set sail, I turned my attention to the men on deck. Since this was a steamer, the usual scurrying around throwing ropes and hauling sails was replaced by shoveling coal. It didn’t take so many sailors to get up a head of steam as it did to hoist four masts of canvas. Some of them had little to do, only walking the deck, looking out to sea. Still, they seemed edgy to me. I couldn’t tell why. I didn’t see anything but calm, flat water with a dark line of clouds at the horizon.

  Watching the work made me think of Dad and the boys. I wondered if any of the younger ones had started going to watch and learn the ropes. I knew Mum would miss my wages. I hoped it wouldn’t make Dad cross, the way he was before I got my first position, when sometimes he’d come home drunk and make Mum cry. She’d try to keep him away from us then, and my stomach clenched, remembering his eyes hard and cruel and him coming after me with his belt. “It’s your fault! Damn useless children!” he’d say. But only when he was drunk. Sober, he loved us all, and in his heart I knew he wouldn’t hurt us on purpose in any way that would last longer than a bruise. Worst I ever got was a welt that I felt for a month.

  The engines began to huff and puff and clouds of steam rose up from the chimneys on the boat. The horn blew so loud it made me jump. People standing on the dock waved and
smiled. The sailors just carried on, but every now and then one of them looked out to sea, like he could see something there I couldn’t.

  Getting out on the water made me forget everything. We weren’t long away from the harbor before all sign of land disappeared. I felt like I was nowhere and everywhere, going neither here nor there, just sitting on the back of the world with it all spread out around me.

  It was strange to let my fancy wander. Before, I never had time where I wasn’t doing anything, where I could just let my mind think what it wanted to without having to rush to get a chore finished before it was time for the next one. I had no idea how long I sat like that.

  However long it was, it was still daylight when a thin line of clouds spread out over the sky turning everything above us dark gray and the waves kicked up to where white froth capped their tops. They got bigger and bigger, splashing up almost to the rail, and then the rain and thunder and lightning started. Of course. That’s why the sailors were all so uneasy. They knew a storm was blowing up.

  “Come below out of the rain, you daft child!” Emma’s voice screamed out from the entrance to our cabin, near the top of the stairs—more like a ladder, really—that led down belowdecks to our bunks.

  I had been so caught up in watching the men rush about closing hatches and fastening down anything that might move that I didn’t really notice until then how bad the storm had got. Now the deck was slippery and wet. I started to shiver, and my hands were numb from cold and wet. Slipping them off the smooth wooden rail, I steadied myself.

  I took a deep breath. I tried to judge when the waves would settle a bit so I could dash across the distance to the hatch. Emma’s eyes were wide and her face had no color. “Come soon or I’ll close the door!” she screamed.

  Please, I thought, I can do it. It’s not so far to the hatch. I just have to let go and run.

  A big wave hit the Vectis and for an instant I stared down into the black, cold water, so deep and empty. I thought how much easier it would be just to let go. Then my mum and dad would never know about everything that happened at the Abington-Smythes.