Hope (54 page)

Hope noted that the French seemed much better organized and equipped than the English. They alone appeared to have a real plan, and their tents were struck quickly and efficiently.

Bennett pointed out both Lord Cardigan and Lord Lucan and told Hope there was already a major row brewing between them because Cardigan had believed he was to be in command, yet Lord Raglan had decided that Lucan was to be. Apparently it had eventually been decided that Lord Lucan would have the Heavy Brigade, and Lord Cardigan the Light Brigade, but as Lucan had overall command, trouble was still expected.

Hope didn’t think much of either of these two men she’d heard so much about back home. They were both so old, at least fifty-five or more. Cardigan looked every bit as arrogant as she’d heard, and not half as handsome, for he had thick bushy whiskers down his cheeks, and his teeth were bad. As for Lord Lucan, he looked as if he were sucking a lemon, and she’d heard he was so fussy that he went round with a ruler measuring the space between each of the men’s tents, and if they weren’t exactly so, he made them take them down and move them.

But for days Hope was too awestruck by the sheer volume of soldiers – someone said there were over 70,000 – and the chaos and intense activity going on all around her, to make any real sense of how they were being organized, if at all. One minute men were in full uniform on parade, their tents and kits under inspection. The next they would be lounging on the ground smoking or drinking, only to be galvanized later by some unseen force into moving tents, unloading equipment or collecting wood.

She heard the laughter of soldiers’ wives washing clothes in the river, and when she saw them splashing around like children she was tempted to join them, for it was terribly hot, but she knew such behaviour would be noted, and disapproved of.

Without Queenie she would have been dreadfully lonely, as Bennett was part of a team of both French and English doctors who were supervising the overhaul of the hospital in Varna town. He said it was a far more hopeless case even than Scutari, full of fleas and vermin, with no drainage, more suitable for cattle than the sick. But Queenie had many of Betsy’s attributes, and was just as saucy, opinionated and full of life. Her cooking skills were non-existent and she had no idea of hygiene, but she was a very good scavenger, able to get practically anything Hope wanted or needed. She was also great fun to be with.

‘The water is getting terribly muddy,’ Hope said as she and Queenie approached the river to wash some clothes. They had been in Varna for a month now, and though it had seemed a very pleasant place to camp at first, now, with so many thousands of men living here, it was fast becoming very squalid.

‘It would do, wouldn’t it, wif all those great horses trampling about in it,’ Queenie replied. ‘S’pose you expects ’em to line up like gentlemen and drink one by bleedin’ one?’

Hope laughed. Queenie’s squeaky little voice amused her even when she wasn’t trying to be funny. ‘No, I don’t expect that, but they could all drink further downstream and leave this part clear for us to drink. And what’s that floating in there?’ She pointed to what looked like animal innards floating by.

‘Looks like someone killed a sheep or sommat,’ Queenie replied. ‘Filthy bastard chucking it in the river!’

Bennett had already pointed out that the camp’s position by lakes surrounded by marshland was unhealthy because of the hordes of mosquitoes that drove them all mad at night. Now that the river, which had been crystal-clear when they arrived, was looking so dirty, both he and Hope were afraid the troops might become sick, for in this heat they were drinking the water copiously.

‘In future we’ll get our water from right up there.’ Hope pointed further up, where no one bathed and horses rarely quenched their thirst. ‘And we’ll boil it for drinking.’

Queenie rolled her eyes with impatience. ‘Oh, come on, Mrs Meadows, I can’t be doing wif trekking right up there in the hot sun! The water’s the same wherever we gets it from.’

‘It isn’t,’ Hope said firmly. ‘There’s already enough men complaining of diarrhoea, we don’t want anything worse appearing.’

But a month later something far worse
had
appeared.

Cholera.

It was only in the French camp so far, and the English troops had already moved camp further away from the marshes as a precaution, but there was unease everywhere.

Hope, who probably knew this disease better than anyone else in her immediate circle, was very frightened. She knew it could decimate a whole regiment, and although every single soldier knew he might die in a battle, that at least was a noble end.

She’d got to know many of the men now; she’d dressed the backs of those who had been flogged for drunkenness, she’d reproved some for stuffing themselves with unripe fruit and giving themselves stomach aches. She’d written letters home for two or three who couldn’t read or write, and pleaded and cajoled others to help clean up the hospital for Bennett and the other doctors. They weren’t unknown faces like the victims who had died at St Peter’s; these were friends and comrades, and most of them were so young.

But as the temperatures rose in July, so the death rate rose too, and the sickness was now in the British camp and among the Turks. A party of men heralded as the Hospital Conveyance Corps arrived in Varna. They were intended to be stretcher-bearers and orderlies, but they turned out to be too old, too feeble and mostly too drunk to be of any use. They soon caught cholera and died.

The men were becoming dispirited even before sickness stole into the camp. The heat, dust storms, endless drills, poor food and the interminable waiting for action were sapping their morale. But now every twinge of stomach pain, a slight fever or a headache could be the onset of cholera and the anxiety showed in every face.

Hope worked tirelessly alongside Bennett and the other doctors. The hospital at Varna was still overrun with fleas, so they used a marquee for the sick instead. But the overpowering heat, the shortage of laudanum and other medicine made it hard even to make the patients comfortable, let alone help them to recover. Nearly 400 men died during July and in August the figure doubled. The 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade alone had lost thirty men in all. Hope had got to know most of them well on the boat coming over, and losing them had been almost as bad as losing Betsy and Gussie.

‘You must rest today,’ Bennett said early one morning right at the end of August. He knelt beside her camp bed, putting one hand on her forehead. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you got sick too. When Queenie comes, go and find somewhere shady to spend the day.’

‘But I’m needed,’ Hope protested, attempting to get up and prepare his breakfast.

‘You know as well as I do that they die with or without our care,’ he said more sharply, pushing her back down. ‘But I cannot live without you, and you look so peaky I’m going to insist you rest.’

Hope knew when he had that stern look that he was giving her an order, and it was best not to disobey. Besides, the prospect of a day doing nothing was pleasing. She thought maybe she and Queenie could take a picnic into the woods.

‘So tell me how you met the doctor?’ Queenie asked later that morning.

They had left the camp soon after eight, before the sun got too hot, and with a small picnic in a basket, a blanket to sit on and a large flask of water, they’d made for the woods a few miles above the camp.

They could still hear some of the noise from the camp – with all the thousands of men there they would have had to go a great deal further for complete silence – but it was none the less muted and distant, and cooler under the trees.

Lying there beside Queenie on the blanket, Hope could almost pretend she had Betsy back with her, for although Queenie’s voice was very different, and she was smaller and far spikier than her old friend, she had a similar easiness about her, wits sharpened by hardship, and very colourful speech. Hope got Queenie to tell her about her family.

‘Me mam’s a whore,’ she said without any embarrassment. ‘Dunno who me dad is, some sailor I reckon. She’s had so many I don’t fink she remembers any more. She done all right fer us anyways, we was fed and that. I’m second to youngest, and me mam lives wif me big brother Michael, cos she’s got too old fer all that now. He’s a blacksmith, does all right fer himself an’ all. The others they all got took on in service. I was working in an ale house when I met Robbie.’

Robbie, it seemed, was from Portsmouth too, like Queenie. They’d known each other by sight from childhood, but it was only when he came home from Canada on leave that he ran into her again, they fell in love and and got married.

‘I tried to go with him when he went to the Kaffir war,’ Queenie said. ‘But I didn’t get picked. I weren’t going to stay home this time, though, whatever it took. I got him to train me wif the small arms and all for days. You shoulda seen me at muster; I fooled the lot of ’em. Shame I ’ad to cut off me ’air though, don’t feel the same without it.’

Hope laughed. She thought Queenie looked very pretty with her short-cropped hair. ‘There’s times when I’d gladly cut mine off too,’ she said. ‘It’s far too much trouble in this heat.’

‘Your hair’s beautiful,’ Queenie said admiringly. She often brushed and checked Hope’s hair for lice. ‘But then, every-fing about you is beautiful, the way you talk, your face, and the way you are. Everyone goes on about that Mrs Duberly what’s come on the campaign, but you are much prettier than her.’

Hope smiled. Mrs Duberly was the wife of a paymaster with the cavalry, a dainty blonde woman who could ride as well as a man. She was much admired by everyone, except Bennett who pronounced her empty-headed and suspected she was in fact Lord Cardigan’s mistress as they always seemed to be together. So it was good to know Queenie liked her better.

Queenie asked her again how she’d met Bennett, and Hope told her an abbreviated version of the truth; that she’d met him while working as a nurse. ‘Don’t know ’ow you can stick sick people.’ Queenie shuddered. ‘You wouldn’t catch me cleaning ’em up and that.’

They fell asleep after eating their picnic, and Hope was woken suddenly by the sound of a male voice.

She was disoriented for a moment, thinking the voice was Bennett’s, and she didn’t bother to move. But on hearing a second voice and a twig snapping close by, she opened her eyes and saw two men looking down at them.

They were clearly Turks, judging by their olive skins, drooping moustaches and baggy red breeches, though they weren’t wearing the standard fez. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the excited tone of voice and the lust in their dark eyes were enough.

‘Wake up, Queenie,’ she said, prodding her companion and sitting up. ‘English,’ she said. ‘My husband officer in army.’ She pointed in the direction of the camp.

Queenie woke, caught on immediately to what was happening, and jumped to her feet.

‘Sod off,’ she yelled. ‘Go on, get out.’

One of the men said something, and leered at Hope. She got on to her knees as if to pack up their picnic basket, and deftly slid the sharp fruit knife up her sleeve before rising to her feet.

Queenie, meanwhile, was shouting abuse at the men. They backed off slightly, but maybe they understood some of the riper insults, for suddenly their faces darkened and they leapt forward, one catching hold of Queenie, pinning her arms to her sides, while the other, slower man caught Hope’s left arm in a vicelike grip, pushing her back against a tree.

All at once Queenie was down on the ground, her captor on top of her. There was no doubt what he was intending to do to her, and it seemed to Hope that the man holding on to her intended to watch that first, then do the same to her.

Queenie screamed at the top of her lungs, fighting like a hellcat to get from under the man. But although not very tall, he was powerfully built, and she was making no impression on him at all except to make him more excited.

Hope screamed too, but she didn’t lash out with her free hand because she was trying to get the knife down from her sleeve. But as the man lunged at her skirt to pull it up, at the same time pushing her back against the tree, she had the knife safely in her hand. She waited only long enough for him to straighten up, then thrust it into his side.

His shocked expression was almost laughable. He staggered back, eyes rolling, trying to pull out the knife with his hand.

For a second or two it was as if everything happened in slow motion. The man with Queenie was trying to force her knees apart, her attacker was trying to get the knife out, and any moment he might succeed and use it on her, while Queenie would be raped.

Until that second Hope had been very afraid, but now her fear turned to fury. She hadn’t come all this way from England to be killed or raped by one of the Turks they were supposed to be defending. Letting out a bellow of rage, she rushed at the man, yanked the knife out of his side and kicked him to the ground.

‘That’s it, mam!’ Queenie yelled, her voice somewhat muffled by the man on top of her. ‘Nowstick this bastard!’

Hope rushed over, grabbed the man by the hair, and put the knife to his throat.

Suddenly she heard the sounds of feet blundering through the wood. Still holding the man, she glanced up to see three cavalrymen in their cherry-red breeches rushing towards her.

They took over then, one punching Queenie’s would-be rapist to the ground while another checked on the other man still lying there clutching at his side and moaning. The third cavalryman, tall and dark-haired, helped Queenie to her feet.

‘We’ll take you back to our camp,’ he said to Hope. ‘But would you mind putting that knife down first? It’s making me a bit nervous.’

The tall man, who introduced himself as Trooper Haynes, asked them a few questions as they walked back to the cavalry camp. The other two men were frogmarching the Turks back too, just behind them.

Queenie did all the explaining. Hope was too shocked to speak. She couldn’t really believe she’d actually stuck a knife into a man and might have cut the other one’s throat if she hadn’t been interrupted.