The Rose of Sebastopol (37 page)

“Oh, well, that’s all right, then. As long as you’ve done your best.”

He stood back from the doorway to let me pass and I found myself outside the hut at last, where the dawn wind was cold and smelt of the sea. When I glanced round I saw him in the lamp-light bend over Nora’s bed, stroke her shaved head, and stoop down to kiss her cheek. Then he took the missal, the rosary, and the little box of earth I’d brought up from the
Royal Albert
and arranged them by the pillow, so she would see them if she woke.

I
leant against the flimsy wall of the hut
and wondered what would happen next. Max, as our last encounter in the drawing room at Fosse House had illustrated, could not be relied upon to behave well at the best of times, and I had noticed a crackle of animosity towards me beneath his concern for Nora. Furthermore, I was aware that his arrival was the closest I had yet come to Rosa. After all, she had actually been sheltered in his camp for some weeks; surely, therefore, he would at least know what had been on her mind.

To my left was the steep slope of the hillside above the harbor, to my right, up a slight incline, the track that ran along the front of the two dozen or so huts constituting the Castle Hospital. The guns were still strangely silent but there was a great deal of bustle on the road as a succession of carts trailed up to the hospital. I was conscious for the first time of being very close to a great many other people, some sick and helpless, others cogs in the machine that was supposed to cure them. The difference between everyone else and me was that I didn’t belong here; only my unhappy relationship with Nora gave me any right to be on that hillside at all.

Max emerged from the hut, jerked his head in the direction of the hospital, and strode off. I followed, heart in mouth. He was apparently well known to the various groups of men who languished outside the huts, because those who were capable sprang to attention, saluted him, and stared at me with weary-eyed interest. I didn’t look too closely at the bloody patches on their uniforms, their bandaged heads and hands, or the greenish pallor of their skin. Nor did I look about me at what was being unloaded from the carts and I tried not to resolve the noises from within the huts into cries and moans of anguish. A couple of women carrying a laden basket of laundry between them stepped aside, smiling and blushing, to let Max past.

We came to a square hut with a crooked chimney from which came the dizzying scent of coffee. Max disappeared inside and emerged a few minutes later with a fistful of bread and two mugs, one for me. He then set such a pace that when I followed, coffee slopped over the side and burnt my fingers. Nevertheless I managed a couple of frantic gulps which, like Mrs. Prior’s jam yesterday, had the most sensational effect on my body and spirits.

Max didn’t stop until we had got beyond the last hut and were on a stretch of open ground leading up to the ruined fort where Lieutenant Newman had invited me to picnic. There he flung himself down on the dewy grass and put his arm over his eyes.

I wondered what to do. Further up the hill was the broken tower of the Genoese fortress and to my left, far below, lay the sea, serene under the hazy sky with birds dipping from the cliff and only the faintest murmur and rush as waves broke on rocks. Behind me were the muted sounds of the hospital and down to the right the masts in Balaklava Harbor were packed close as a handful of spillikins. The grass underfoot was springy and peppered with perky little blue flowers. I could certainly understand why Newman had suggested this as the perfect spot for an excursion.

I sipped the coffee then crept forward, picked up the bread Max had dropped, tore off a piece, and ate.

Perhaps it was the taste of good bread and coffee, the smell of the sea, the sense of having come through an ordeal during which I had not abandoned Nora and she had not died, whatever the cause, I felt a sudden rush of happiness, probably the first since lying in Henry’s arms in the Hotel Fina, before he spoke Rosa’s name.

I sat down and after a while grew so mesmerized by the glinting water and flashing white birds, the soft heat of the sun on my eyelids, the chock and mumble of human sounds from the distant hospital, that I was startled when I realized Max had slightly raised his arm and was watching me from beneath it.

“I saw a woman in Kerch,” he said, “who I remember thinking at the time reminded me of you.”

I was surprised that I had been on his mind at all. After a pause, during which he seemed to doze again, I said: “Why have the guns stopped firing?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry, they’ll be off again before too long. Like I said, there was a bit of action yesterday in which the French took the Mamelon, one of the Russians’ chief bastions to the east of the city, and we captured the Quarries. Usual pile of casualties on both sides but at least we made a move.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Very good. Oh yes, wonderful news. Something for the papers to write home about.”

His tone was so insulting that I stood up and backed away a few paces. The wind caught my hair and lashed it across my face and I tried to tuck the untidy ends back into place. Max leant on one elbow and squinted up at me. “What are you doing in the Crimea, Miss Lingwood?”

“Nora and I came to find Rosa.”

“Rosa. Yes. I see.”

“As you know, she’s disappeared. We are anxious about her.”

“How touching. So here you are with Balaklava Harbor at your feet and the whole British camp as your playground. Where she leads, you follow.”

I was silent.

“You’ve got the wrong hospital of course. She was up at the General Hospital in Kadikoi. The Castle Hospital was scarcely built back in the spring. They waited until the crisis was over and there were only a handful of casualties a day, before setting up a new hospital.”

“Why do you think she didn’t stay at the General Hospital?”

“Well now, let’s see. Rules, mostly. Other people telling her what to do. Far too much counting bandages, not enough washing wounds and mop-ping brows for Rosa’s liking.”

“But if she was at the General Hospital why didn’t she write to me?”

“Perhaps she did. The post, I’m told, is shocking. Or perhaps she had no words, Miss Lingwood. Sometimes we all run out of words.”

“And then my mother wrote to you, I believe, asking if you had news of her. Perhaps if you’d replied you would have saved us the trouble of coming here.”

“I wasn’t aware that saving you trouble was part of my business in the Crimea.”

“As you can imagine, my aunt, indeed our entire family, is sick with worry. I understand from Lieutenant Newman that Rosa was actually staying in your camp. A letter from you would have helped a great deal.” I turned my face away and tried to control my voice. “But then of course you don’t know the other side of the story. Before we came here Nora and I visited my fiancé, Dr. Henry Thewell, who is very sick in Italy. He also wanted me to find Rosa. I think that he and she might have tried to elope together.”

He laughed extravagantly. “
Elope
. What a perfect word. Is that what your little Clapham mind has told you happened to Rosa? I hardly think so.”

“Since I’ve been here I’ve heard rumors that she was last seen going up to meet a man in some cave...”

“If you’ve heard rumors they must be true.”

I tried to remain polite and smooth-voiced. “You must have some idea what happened to her, Captain Stukeley.”

“She came up to our camp and asked me if she could stay for a while. She was sick of the hospital, she said, because there were too many restrictions and too much bickering among the women. Though she seemed very happy with us and the men loved her, one day she disappeared.”

“But surely you went looking for her?”

“Of course I did, but I didn’t find her. What do you think, that I’m keeping Rosa hidden away somewhere? What is this, Miss Lingwood? I am here to fight a war, not act as a chaperone to my stepsister.”

“But do you think she was connected to Dr. Thewell in some way?”

“Of course she was connected. We’re all connected, God help us. Do you know, Miss Lingwood, one of my reasons for joining the army was to get away from my family. And now look at me, more trammeled by family than any other man in the Crimea. Yes, Thewell visited her a couple of times in the camp. And then, yes, when he became a bit strange and took himself off to a cave above Inkerman she heard he was very sick so she followed him to try and persuade him to come back. For all I know she never got there. Whatever happened, he reappeared in the camp; she didn’t. I rode out to Inkerman but there was no sign of her. Then I visited Thewell, who by that time was up in the General Hospital half dead, spitting blood, in a raging fever. He spoke her name constantly but was either incapable or refusing to say more. For weeks I neglected my men and risked life and limb to go looking for her. I went to towns and villages and markets and asked for her. No Rosa. So there we are, Miss Mariella. I’ve done my best and I won’t stop looking but I don’t need you here. You’ve had a pointless journey, I’m afraid. So pack your bags and off you go.”

“Later, perhaps.”

“Not later. I have orders to tell you to leave now.”

“Who ordered it?”

“Barnabus.”

“Well, I am not under orders from Barnabus.”

“He tells me that he’s received a flurry of telegrams from London. Your father has pulled strings and wants you home posthaste. Your name is mud with Barnabus. Apparently he’d secured you a snug little berth and you never showed up.”

“I was looking after Nora.”

“Well, now I’m here to keep an eye on her so there’s no need for you to trouble yourself.”

“I will go home in my own time. When Nora is better.”

“I’m sorry to press the point, Miss Lingwood, but you have strayed into a war and here everyone is under the orders of the military. If we say you go home, home you go.”

“I’ll go when Nora is well enough to travel. I won’t abandon her. And I want to find Rosa.”

“If Nora has Crimean fever it could be weeks before she’s well. If she ever recovers. Didn’t it occur to you, Miss Lingwood, that you would be risking your lives by coming here? Haven’t you been reading the news? Nora’s suffered more than enough already. She deserves better than to have her life endangered on the whim of some spoilt girl from Clapham.”

“It wasn’t a whim. My fiancé, Henry Thewell, is dying of consumption. He insisted that I come and find Rosa, and Nora was so keen that she made all the arrangements.”

“Whatever the reason, I want you to go home. I’ll take care of Nora McCormack.”

I gathered my skirts. “You’ll care for her like you cared for Rosa, I suppose.” But before I’d taken more than three steps my upper arm was seized, my name was spoken with biting authority, and I found myself being marched, or rather half dragged, because my feet tangled in my hem, further up the path towards the ruined fort.

The higher we climbed the more the wind took my hair until it was a storm across my face. Max gripped me so tightly that I knew my flesh would bruise. In the shadow of the high wall it was suddenly cold and dank but out of the wind. Though he released me, he stood very close, at least a foot taller than me, so that I couldn’t avoid noticing his bare throat and unshaved face, and that there was not a glint of friendship in his dark eye. “You are a bloody little fool and you will leave now. I’m not giving you a choice. You’re absolutely right that Rosa has disappeared into thin air, is probably dead, and yes, I do feel responsible even though I had no idea she was coming out here in the first place and certainly didn’t want her underfoot up at the camp. But I’m sure of one thing: you’re not going the same way as her. This is no place for you. The Crimea is full of vermin and disease and foul weather, not to mention the rockets and shells which are never choosy about where they fall.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek and tilted my chin, so I was looking up past stones stained with lichen and bird lime to the blue sky.

“Take Nora McCormack,” said Max. “Tough as old boots. Been to hell and back in Ireland already, lost everything and survived, but half an hour in the Crimea and she’s at death’s door. This is a filthy war. It has already murdered four armies. These soldiers you see out here now aren’t the ones who charged into battle at Alma or Balaklava or Inkerman, because most of the survivors died of frost-bite or scurvy up in the trenches above Sebastopol. Instead we are left with recruits so raw that when someone shouts an order, half of them fall over with fright. What arrogant little voice in your head, Miss Lingwood, tells you that you can dip your toe in this war and get out in one piece when tens of thousands of soldiers haven’t managed it, nor has Rosa, nor your precious Dr. Thewell? And now Nora McCormack is another victim. Even if you don’t die, what state do you think you’ll be in when you get home? I’m a soldier. I have spent my life doing what I’m told by my senior officers, even when I know that both the officer and the order he gives me are barking mad. I obey because that’s what I’ve been trained to do, and my regiment is my home. But you, you’ll take one look at this war and you’ll go home so dumb-struck with disbelief you’ll never be able to look your parents in the eye again.”