In the Shadow of the Lamp (12 page)

Dr. Menzies planted himself in front of her so she couldn’t see the surgeon. “This is a hospital in a time of war. We do our best with what we have. We have difficulty getting our supplies. We have asked repeatedly for beds and more linens, yet they do not come.” Dr. Menzies sounded angry.

“There’ll be a fight for sure,” Emma whispered to me.

“Might I have a word with you in your office, Dr. Menzies?” Miss Nightingale said.

The two of them went off, leaving the rest of us in the ward. A sigh went out all of a piece from us. I guess we had been holding our breath.

One or two of the men who were not unconscious or in so much pain they couldn’t speak raised their heads. “I’m from Wiltshire,” said one. “Any news of Wiltshire?”

Mrs. Drake went to him and knelt down beside him. “I was just in Wiltshire at the beginning of the month. The weather’s already bitter.” She chatted on to him about home, bits of nonsense and recollecting places they both knew.

Once that fellow spoke up, more and more of the men began to ask questions. “What’s happening in London? Do you know a Mrs. Holbrook? Will you fetch me a drink of water? I’m ever so thirsty.”

We soon spread out amongst the men, doling out what comfort we could. I crouched down close to one fellow who was trying to say something but could only whisper. “Can I help you?” I asked.

“You’re pretty,” he whispered, and tried to smile but the effort caused him pain and he closed his eyes. He was all twisted up in a dirty sheet. I tried to ease it out and straighten it. I didn’t notice until then that the straw beneath him was crawling with vermin. I pulled my hands away quick. He opened his eyes. “I know I don’t look so handsome right now,” he managed to squeeze out. I couldn’t bear to let him think it was him that made me shrink away so I stiffened my back and got on with what I was doing.

Emma was tending to the soldier next to me. She tipped up a cup of water carefully into his mouth. Most of it dribbled out the sides. He looked as though he might die at any second, he was so pale and still. “Eek!” she screamed, ripping the silence open, and dropped the cup.

“What is it?” I asked. She pointed to a large rat that ran up and down and over the men until it disappeared into a hole at the base of the wall. I looked down the long ward. Every now and then another rat would poke its head out and run. “Blimey!” I said. “There’s rats everywhere.” Some of the heaving shapes I thought were men were actually rats scurrying over bodies too wounded or sick to scare them off.

Emma dug her fingers into my arm. “If this is what we’re in for, I’m going home!”

“If you ain’t seen rats in a hospital before, get used to it.” It was Nurse Grundy. She was always pretty nice to me, but her face had gone hard and set, like there was another person she kept inside until she needed to put her on. None of the other experienced nurses had batted so much as an eyelid at the rats here, although they were afraid enough of them in our quarters.

The Sisters of Mercy spread out across the ward and went from pallet to pallet speaking to the men, touching them lightly, straightening linens. Right then I wondered if I had the courage to be like them. It didn’t matter how bloody, how filthy a soldier was, they did what they could for him. It was all too much to get into my head. And these men had mostly already been operated on and were patched up and healing—or perhaps on their way to dying—so not even fresh from the battlefield.

Before I had any more time to think, Miss Nightingale came back without Dr. Menzies. “Nurses,” she said, “we have work to do.”

Everyone gathered again and followed Miss Nightingale. We headed to another of the corner towers. Once we got there she divided us into groups: those who would clean, those who would sew, and those who were strong enough to lift the men. Emma and I went with the cleaners, of course.

I don’t know how Miss Nightingale did it, but soon we had mattress ticking and bales of straw being dumped in the empty corridors by Turkish merchants. First off after we swept the floors we had to stuff the empty mattresses that had mostly been sewn up somewhere else—did she know ahead of time about this too? Could Miss Nightingale see into the future like a gypsy? Did she buy empty mattresses and ship them over with us from France? I was too busy to do anything but wonder. Too busy to talk. My hands were quickly scraped raw by the straw, but the women who were sewing up the mattresses had it harder, their fingers pricked and bleeding trying to get the needles through the tough ticking.

“Soon enough be so much blood on these no one’ll notice a drop or two of mine,” said Mrs. Drake, making everyone laugh, as was her way.

As soon as we stuffed the mattresses, orderlies took them and piled them up on the floor below.

“Fraser, Bigelow, Hawkins, and Drake, come with me.” I had got quite used to Miss Nightingale’s commands. They didn’t seem so harsh now that I saw what we were faced with. She led us down to the ward. One end of it was not yet filled with men. “You’ll start cleaning here. As soon as you’re done, we’ll spread fresh straw and mattresses, then move the first of that lot over, working our way down as we go.”

I was already shaking from the hard work. Even my first day as a parlormaid was nothing compared to this. At times I thought I wouldn’t be able to continue, and felt a lump rise up in my chest, squeezing my breath out, making me feel as though I would cry.
Don’t, don’t
, I told myself. I just thought about the horrible condition of the men and realized how lucky I was to be just tired, not waiting for a limb to be cut off or for my life to float away.

That first day all we did was put two hundred men on clean mattresses. I felt as if I’d climbed a mountain and hauled a ton of coal. I was almost in too much of a daze to hear my name called out as we ate our dinner in the common room.

“ ’Ere, Moll, you got a letter,” Emma said, jolting me out of my thoughts.

“A letter?” I couldn’t imagine how. I’d never had a letter before. I hoped I’d be able to read it. I stood—it took so much effort to do just that—and got my letter from Mrs. Bracebridge.

It came from England, of course. And it said my name plain as day on the envelope. Miss Molly Fraser. I put it aside and finished my dinner, right then more hungry than curious.

“Well come on,” Emma said, plopping herself down next to me. “Open it!”

Having become used to doing exactly what I was told to all day long, I put my fork down and picked up the letter, sliding my finger under the seal to pop it open. The paper still felt crisp though it was dirty from its long trip from England in the hold of a packet boat.

The letter wasn’t long. But I’ll never forget a single word of it.

Dear Molly,

Things got bad at the Abington-Smythes after you left. I decided service wasn’t for me after all. It seems they need good men to fight the Russians, and so I joined up with a regiment of foot.

That’s not the only reason I did it, though. I can’t stop thinking about you, wondering if you got there and are all right. If I see you again, I was wondering if you’d walk out with me, so we could talk like we used to.

I expect you’ve met people more interesting than me probably. But I wanted you to know. Take care of yourself.

Your friend,
Will Parker

Will was coming to the Crimea. I might see him! A familiar face. A familiar face that was very dear to me. I thought suddenly of that kiss, the one on the lips when I last saw him, at Lucy’s. Would he kiss me again? I didn’t know, couldn’t guess, but it was enough just to imagine it. I read the letter again, this time faster since I’d already made out all the words.

Will. Coming to fight. The men in the hospital, wounded and broken, had got that way because they’d been fighting. Others were killed. If I’d not come, it seemed Will wouldn’t have either. If he got hurt, or worse—would it be my fault?

“Well, aren’t you going to tell me the news?”

I had completely forgot Emma was sitting there. “It’s from a friend,” I said, too tired to face everything and explain it to her. I wanted to write back to Will, to let him know how much I wished I could see him, but what use would there be? He might’ve left even before my first letter got to him.

I don’t think I dreamed at all that night. I had too many wonderful and terrible thoughts in my head.

C
hapter 13

Our first week in the wards I didn’t do any of what you really call nursing. Me and Emma were always the ones helping to stuff the mattresses or clean the floors—though keeping the wards clean, Miss Nightingale said, was just as important as any of the other things nurses did, because it helped the men to heal. I suppose I had no cause to complain. What did I know, after all? I was just lucky to be there.

But it wasn’t easy, all the same. Seeing the wounded soldiers when they brought them in bothered me something terrible at first. It was all I could do not to cry every time. But before long I learned a trick that helped me keep apart from them, not allow myself to think about how much they must be hurting or who was back at home sleepless, waiting for news of them, good or bad. I’d set myself the task of guessing what was wrong with them, to see if I could figure out what the doctors would do. I never knew if I was right or wrong. But it made me feel like I was learning something. And it took my mind off Will.

I figured it would take Will some time to get to the Crimea. And he’d have to learn to be a soldier. They’d hardly send him off to fight without teaching him how so he’d be ready, and that would take time.

What was Will thinking right at that moment? Was he afraid? I realized I didn’t know him all that well, in spite of owing him so much. All I knew was his kindness to me. No one outside my family had ever been so nice. I surely didn’t want him to think I took advantage. So when I got my wages the first week, I put aside half to pay Will back.
It will take me only a few weeks to save enough,
I thought. I’d find a way to send the money to Lucy, perhaps, to keep it for him until he got back. Or maybe she should just use it, since he’d been going to give it to her that day anyway.

I was doing all right in Turkey. Earning a wage that would let me bring plenty back to Mum. But it wasn’t easy work—even without nursing in the wards night and day. When it rained the water poured in on us, and we put out pots and basins to catch it and as soon as they filled we’d empty them. Other times the cold wind whistled through the gaps in the walls and the windows that didn’t fit proper in their frames. It was so cold. I never felt warm.

Then one night we woke up to a terrible banging.

“It’s a hurricane!” screamed Mrs. Drake, running up and down between our cots with her white nightgown flapping and nightcap half off her head. I wanted to laugh at first, then I realized the wind had whipped up so fiercely it was tearing bits of the building away and flinging them onto the ground.

“Leastways we’re not on the
Vectis
,” I said to Emma, pulling my covers up to my chin.

All at once there was a terrible crash above our heads, over by the tower where Miss Nightingale’s and the Sellonites’ rooms were. In a second we leapt out of our beds and ran as quick as we could through the common room and toward the dark corridor that led to the tower. Miss Nightingale herself stopped us. She came through soaking wet, a splintered wooden post in her hands. “The wind blew my windows in,” she said. “I wonder, Molly, if you’d let me share with you for the rest of the night? You’re the slimmest.”

There was no question in my mind of my answer. “Of course!” I said. Everyone made their way back to their beds, one or two shooting glances that were green with envy in my direction. “You lie down and make yourself comfortable,” I said. Miss Nightingale stretched out on my cot, trying to shrink herself as small as possible. But it was no use. There wasn’t room for two, no matter how hard she tried. I feared I’d push her out for sure, or be pushed out myself. “If you give me one of the blankets and a pillow, I’ll be just fine on the floor here.”

“Oh Molly, no!”

I guessed she only called me Fraser when we were working. “Don’t say another word, Miss Nightingale. I can manage.” I took the blanket and pillow and lay on the hard, damp floor between Emma’s bed and mine.

“Oh, I’ll be just fine!” Emma whispered to me, reaching down to give me a pinch. It wasn’t hard, though, and I knew she meant it just to tease.