In the Shadow of the Lamp

by Susanne Dunlap

  I went directly to the hospital, deciding that if I came in with the wounded from the trenches the others might have more sympathy for me. In addition to the wagon that had gone down earlier, three more arrived around the same time I did.

  I didn’t know what to do with the horse, so I tied the reins to a fence nearby. I went up to the orderly who was admitting the men. “Who’s on the wards today?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Don’t you know? I thought ye was in there with the rest of them,” he said.

  “I had business to attend to,” I said, putting on my most superior expression.

  “Eh, well,” he said, pointing to two stretcher bearers the way to take their cargo, a man with what looked like a serious head wound. “The usual lot, and Miss Nightingale herself. Didn’t look too pleased if you ask me.”

  I didn’t ask him, and wished he hadn’t said. Better sooner than later, I thought. I went to check the roster. I was supposed to be in the admitting ward today, which meant I’d see the men from up above. I wondered if Dr. Maclean would be there, or if he’d been moved somewhere. I didn’t know who I dreaded seeing more: Dr. Maclean or Miss Nightingale.

  “Nurse Fraser.”

  It wasn’t a question. It was a command. And I would have recognized the voice anywhere. At least I’ll get it over with, I thought, preparing myself for the worst. I wouldn’t be any worse off than before I came, at least. “Yes, Miss Nightingale?”

  “I wish a word with you, after we have finished seeing to the comfort of these men.”

  So she was going to let me do my job a while longer. There was relief in that. I went from bed to bed, checking dressings, giving drinks of water, cleaning off faces. One bed was curtained off. That usually meant surgery, or a wound too bad to deal with easily. We weren’t to go behind curtains unless asked. It reminded me of the curtain I had pulled around when Dr. Maclean and I saved that soldier with appendicitis.

  I was about to skirt around the curtained bed when Miss Nightingale beckoned me closer. “Nurse Fraser, there’s an unusual case I would like you to see.”

  Though I was surprised she asked me after what I’d done, I followed her around the screen, and my heart nearly stopped. It was Dr. Maclean. His wounds had been revealed in all their ugliness, and he was propped up on pillows, talking through clenched teeth and sudden sharp breaths, discussing the problem with the other doctor.

  “I think it missed the liver. If we keep it packed, I may live.” His face went white as the doctor probed inside the wound. So far he hadn’t noticed me.

  “There’s shrapnel lodged just to the left of it. We have to get it out.”

  Miss Nightingale bent close to see what she could, pulling me with her. Did she know what she was doing to me? I didn’t dare look at Dr. Maclean’s face, which was so distorted with pain that I assumed he would hardly notice me there. His skin was torn in a jagged shape, not a neat incision like the one he’d made on the soldier that day with a razor-sharp scalpel. Blood flowed from it so fast the doctor could hardly keep a cloth from soaking through.

  “Any higher and a bit farther over and it would have hit your heart,” the doctor said.

  “Perhaps it would have … done me a favor.” Dr. Maclean could hardly get the words out.

  “Would you hold this back for me, nurse?” The doctor glanced at me, indicating that I should take the large tweezers he was holding. I reached out my hand, but it shook so much I couldn’t grasp the instrument. Miss Nightingale took it instead, her hands as steady as if she were watching someone darn a sock. I shrank back. The floor was sticky with blood. Piles of soaked bandages were lumped at the doctor’s feet.

  “Got it!” the doctor said, holding up a triangular metal shard covered in gore. “Best get you closed up.”

  Dr. Maclean didn’t say anything. His face had gone beyond pale to gray. The doctor began stitching up his wound. Miss Nightingale still watched, fascinated, handing him a threaded needle. It was such a large gash, so deep, and he was still bleeding heavily, almost as if shrapnel still pierced him.

  The scene was oddly unreal. I almost forgot it was a man they worked on, and which man in particular. The feeling didn’t last long, though. Hardly more than a moment later recognition and fear gripped me. He was bleeding too much. What if, like that soldier we’d found in Scutari, there was still something vile and poisonous inside him?

  I could tell something wasn’t right. The swelling hadn’t gone down enough near his liver, which I could still see despite the blood. I felt as if I was back in the Barrack Hospital, watching something happen and knowing I should act. I didn’t have the confidence then, and Dr. Maclean was there to do what was necessary. Only now, his life was in the balance.

  They had started their stitching near the top of the wound, where they’d removed the one piece of shrapnel. The doctor’s hands moved quickly because of the bleeding, and I knew I didn’t have much time. Without thinking about the others, I cried out “No!” and pushed the doctor and Miss Nightingale aside. I plunged my fingers inside the gash that remained and probed gently, closing my eyes and feeling for something—I didn’t know what.

  I heard cries of “Molly! Don’t,” and was dimly aware of other angry voices. But I paid no attention, just concentrated on what I was doing.

  And I found it. It was hard, and would not have been easily visible, I thought later. I grasped the object’s edge and pulled gently, aware that if I moved too fast I might inflict more damage.

  I felt someone grab my arm and shout, “Don’t! You’ll kill him!”

  After that I think the doctor and Miss Nightingale must have been frozen with astonishment, because they did not interfere with what I was doing until I brought my hand out with its prize.

  Silence fell. I could hear a bird singing outside the window. I looked at what I held in my hand and saw a shard of metal, covered in blood and bits of flesh, that was twice the size of the one the surgeon had already removed from Dr. Maclean’s body.

  All my strength left me and darkness closed in. The last thing I remember was his voice. “Molly, it’s all right.”

  Chapter 28

  I woke up in a room I didn’t recognize. There were chintz-covered chairs, a lamp with a pink glass shade, and blinds drawn down over the windows. I lay in my shift underneath soft white sheets, and a glass of clean water was on the table next to me. I pushed myself up and reached for the glass.

  Someone’s hands took my shoulders from behind and gently pressed me back down. I turned my head. It was Miss Nightingale.

  “Oh, Miss Nightingale! I’m that sorry! I didn’t mean to break the rules, only I didn’t have a choice. I—”

  “You mean you had no choice in sneaking off to the front lines with that Emma, a troublemaker of the first water?”

  I couldn’t look into her eyes. “Don’t be angry at Emma. She’s not coming back. She’s married now, to her Thomas. What happened to me?”

  “Ah … I expect she had her reasons. As for you—you fainted.”

  “I fainted? And before that?” Had my action been a dream? Surely I’d not dared to interrupt a doctor performing surgery. I had to look up and see what was in Miss Nightingale’s eyes, to see just how angry she was, what she thought. It would give me pain, but I wouldn’t have done anything different. I knew I owed her so much, for taking me on when she really needn’t have, and for trusting me to be one of her nurses.

  She leaned forward in the chair she sat in next to the bed. She didn’t look like she was mad at me, just curious. “You put your hand into Dr. Maclean’s wound. Why?”

  The picture of him suddenly flashed into my mind like a lightning bolt. “Where is he? Is he …” I couldn’t say it.

  “Dead? No. And the doctor thinks he’ll recover. He also thinks that if you hadn’t found that other piece of shrapnel, he would most certainly have died.” She paused and looked off into the distance. “But, Molly, what made you do it? How did you know?”

  I didn’t fully underst
and it myself. “I saw the swelling was still there, and there was too much blood.”

  We were silent together for a little while. “Whatever it was that made you take such a dangerous chance, you’re a clever girl, and you have learned more than many who spend a lifetime nursing. I think I knew you had a special gift when I first saw you, in Paris.” She wasn’t talking directly to me anymore. She stared out across the room like she was talking to herself. “I envy you. I don’t see things like that. I don’t see—or imagine I see—what goes on inside a living body. I see the whole mass of people and how doing things differently could make more of them get well. It’s laid out in front of me, like a pattern I can perceive but no one else does.” She turned back to me. “Do you think that’s wrong of me, Molly? Ought I to just care for people one at a time?”

  She was asking me? How could doing all she’d done for the soldiers in Scutari and now here be wrong? “Miss Nightingale, I’m sure there’s others who could judge better than me. But I think you’ve done more good than the whole army.”

  She smiled. Then she stood and her face closed over again. She was Miss Nightingale; efficient, strong, strict Miss Nightingale. “If you feel well enough I think you’d better go back to your quarters and pack your things. Though you’re a good nurse, Molly, I’m afraid I can’t overlook the way you disobeyed. It wouldn’t be fair to the others. There’s a boat leaving for Scutari this evening. I’ll give you a letter for Mrs. Bracebridge and she’ll arrange your passage back to England—and give you any wages you’re owed.”

  “Thank you, Miss Nightingale,” I said. But it was nowhere near enough to say what I felt for her.

  By then it was late afternoon. I discovered I’d been taken to Miss Nightingale’s own room at the commander’s house when I fainted. A maid came in and helped me, gave me hot water and a towel so I could wash. It was odd having someone wait on me.

  When I got back to our hut the others hardly talked to me. I sat by myself at tea, no Emma to share stories with. I missed her, even though it’d been no more than half a day since we parted. I looked around, hoping Mrs. Drake would still speak to me, but she wasn’t there. She wouldn’t turn her back on me, I was sure, and I did want to say good-bye to her. She was always the one with a kind word or something cheery to say when things were difficult, and she was civil to the others who’d been sent home, too, whatever the reason. “Where is Mrs. Drake?” I asked, breaking the silence apart like a stone in a pond. “Did she return to the Barrack Hospital to nurse the new wounded?”

  “Don’t you know?” Mrs. Langston asked, looking truly surprised. I shook my head. “She took sick in the middle of the night. She asked for you.”

  I felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart. Mrs. Drake? She was ill and she wanted me? I didn’t wait for any more news, but left my one valise by the door of the hut, ready to be taken to the landing, and ran as fast as I could the short way up the hill to the hospital.

  “Mrs. Drake,” I panted to the first orderly I met. “Where is she?”

  He pointed away from the men’s ward to three small rooms reserved for high-ranking officers. I ran to open the first door and found the room empty. So was the second one. I thought the orderly had deliberately told me wrong to tease me, and hearing no sounds at all coming from the third room I assumed it would be empty too.

  But I opened the door to find Mrs. Drake sitting upright in her bed, her face as pale as her nearly white hair. She wore a serious expression. “I’ve been expecting you,” she said.

  “Oh, Mrs. Drake! I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when you took ill. I wish I could’ve been in two places at the same time, but I had to go with Emma to find her Thomas. I had to—”

  “It doesn’t matter, Molly.” She smiled at me and reached out her hand. I took it. It was very cold. “There’s so much I wish I could tell you, but they won’t let me.”

  “Who won’t let you? What do you want to tell me?”

  She smiled. “Poor Molly. You’re confused. Don’t worry. Everything will come clear in the end.”

  Her voice was so kind and loving, sweeter than any voice I’d ever heard, except my mum’s when I was sick. Something about it made me just want to cry and cry, to weep away all the sorrows and disappointments, the pain I’d seen in the past few months, and the pain I’d caused Will and Dr. Maclean. I knelt down by her bed and buried my face in the covers. I let myself sob like I never had before, in hard, painful gasps that shook me all through.

  After a while, I felt a hand on my head. I assumed it was Mrs. Drake, telling me it was time to stop crying and face my future. I looked up.

  The bed was empty. It was perfectly made. Not so much as a wrinkle where Mrs. Drake had been sitting. I turned. It was Nurse Roberts, not Mrs. Drake.

  “She was fond of you, Molly. She’d be glad to know you came to say good-bye.”

  I had shed all my tears already. Now I was just confused. “What?”

  “It was her heart. Those pains she complained of in her chest. They woke her last night, so bad she couldn’t breathe. She died before morning.”

  I stood, my knees stiff from kneeling. “I’ll be going now,” I said, too numb to react, and left the hospital.

  Chapter 29

  Emma sent me a letter that I got in Scutari, during the first week I had to wait for passage home to England, because of storms and other delays.

  Dear Molly,

  Thomas only lived two more days after the bombardment. Dr. Hastings said he would have been a cripple his whole life, and it would be no way to live. I was sad, of course, but at least our baby will have a surname. The chaplain told me he’d make sure I got my widow’s jointure, so I’d have some money to get home on.

  But I decided to stay here anyway. I’m closer to where Thomas’s buried, and Mother Seacole said she could use some help. That way I’ll know someone who can manage will be there when the baby comes. I wish it was you. I never had a friend before.

  I know it’s hard for you to write, but if you can, send word about yourself. I expect I got you into terrible trouble. Will you ever forgive me? Maybe if you’re in love like I was you’ll understand.

  And Molly, speaking of love, that soldier—Will, the one who looked for you in Scutari—he’s been very sweet to me. Him and Thomas were friends it turns out. Take care.

  Emma Mitchell

  I wasn’t surprised about Thomas’s death. I had a sense that it would happen, as sure as I knew the sun would rise, no matter what. What I didn’t expect was Emma getting friendly with Will. I don’t know why it bothered me so much. I didn’t treat him like more than a friend, and I knew I hurt him that day near the trenches. Truth was, I was very fond of Will, only I didn’t know much about love. Was it the warm, safe feeling Will gave me or the frightening, dangerous feeling I got around Dr. Maclean? Now, I wouldn’t have a chance to find out.

  And it’d maybe work out for Emma, if Will could take care of her. I tried to imagine it, imagine him looking at her the way he looked at me. But I couldn’t. He was my friend first. I knew it didn’t make sense for me to be jealous. Still, even though I figured he’d look for comfort in someone else’s arms, why did they have to be Emma’s?

  But I had plenty of other things to think about. Not least of which was how could Mrs. Drake talk to me when she was already dead and on her way to being buried? I decided I must have so wanted to see her, and I hadn’t slept the whole night before, that I imagined it all. I had to believe that, anyway. Stranger, perhaps, was how I knew that something else was inside Dr. Maclean and had to come out before they sewed him up for good. Miss Nightingale called it intuition. But she punished me nonetheless, and it surely had nothing to do with nursing.

  As soon as I got off the boat at Scutari I was treated like I had the pox. No one talked to me except to ask for the salt at meals, and the nuns even crossed themselves when they saw me. I don’t know how they found out everything that had happened, but I overheard enough of their whispers to know they had. />
  After so many adventures in Balaclava, everything seemed different. I didn’t know myself anymore. Used to be I could fall asleep as soon as my head hit my pillow. Now I lay awake every night until late, listening to the sounds of the night, trying to make sense of everything.

  I thought of what I could say to my mum when I got back. Surely she’d take me in? I could maybe train for a midwife now I had more experience. It was a way to get by. I’d help her, and be a good girl, teach the little ones their letters just like I learned mine. The more I thought it through, the more I wanted to go home, until it became like an ache that wouldn’t go away. But still the storms continued and the ships were full. I kept my valise packed, just in case.

  Mrs. Bracebridge made sure I was busy in the wards and was kind enough, but I couldn’t talk to her—not after she’d taken such a chance on me and I ended up a disappointment. The doctors were all too occupied with the sick and wounded, and I didn’t know any of them well enough to talk to, to find out more about how I might have known enough to reach into Dr. Maclean’s wound like that.

  Dr. Maclean. I couldn’t help wondering if he was better, and whether he would stay in Balaclava or go home. If he stayed in Balaclava, there was no chance I’d have to face him again, so that was what I hoped for most—and feared.

  I kept trying to imagine both Will and Dr. Maclean in my mind, but the harder I tried, the less I could picture them. I’d suddenly find Will’s eyes in Dr. Maclean’s face, or feel the imprint of Dr. Maclean’s lips as I remembered Will’s kiss. What did it mean? I couldn’t be in love with anyone if I was so mixed up that way. And maybe I didn’t want to be. Maybe it was never my lot to find a husband. Plenty of girls didn’t.

  Then I’d start back in again, picturing the moment when I’d see my mum and the little ones, my brother Ted and my dad. Would I get the strap? Or was I too old for that now? What would they know, other than what I told them? Would I lie?