None of the men looked like soldiers now. They were thin, gaunt, lice-ridden creatures with thick, bushy beards, often wearing bizarre hats and other pieces of non-uniform clothing over their mud-daubed, ragged official one. Russian coats and boots had been taken from the dead at Inkerman and some infantrymen wore naval pea jackets bartered from sailors. Many had old newspapers bound to their legs or body with webbing, for warmth. Some didn’t even have boots, just sacking wrapped around their feet. Personal hygiene was impossible as water had to be hauled a great distance and they had to contend with snow, ice and heavy rain. The only fuel available was roots, but it could take a whole day to dig up just a small bag for the cooking fires. As a result, the salted meat was often eaten semi-raw and was no doubt responsible for the increase in bowel disorders. Scurvy had appeared, along with pneumonia and various bronchial problems, and there were also many cases of frostbite. Cholera had disappeared for now, but other fevers were still just as prevalent.
Morale was at rock bottom. Many of the men brought into the hospital had said they would rather risk death in an assault on Sebastopol than continue this long-drawn-out, seemingly hopeless siege. They had told Bennett that sometimes their rations didn’t turn up, and when they did, the salt pork and biscuit were so unappetizing they could hardly eat them. Hope had felt the desperation in every man she’d spoken to.
‘You’ll stay here,’ Bennett said, his stern tone implying she was not to argue. ‘They do at least value
your
help in the hospital.’
‘I can’t stay in the house without you,’ she said. ‘Not with all those men.’
‘The Crimea is full of men wherever you go,’ he said impatiently. ‘At least the ones in the house are known to you. I can’t have you freezing to death or being shot at.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ she said stubbornly. She hated the idea of going, but she hated the idea of being apart from him still more.
‘No, Hope,’ he insisted. ‘God knows, I’d like you by my side, but not there. It’s no place for a woman.’
‘But Queenie’s up there, and other soldiers’ wives,’ she argued.
‘No,’ he said, his face darkening. ‘You do an invaluable job here. I’ll be able to ride down from time to time and I’ll need the thought of you safe and snug in our room at night to keep me going.’
She knew then why he’d been awake all night. It was her he was concerned for. His own comfort didn’t worry him – he probably felt he owed it to the men in his regiment to be with them. He had known she’d insist on going with him, but he wasn’t going to let her put herself in danger.
‘I’ve packed my bag,’ he said. ‘I’m only staying now until I can hand over details of men I’ve been treating to other doctors. Please don’t make it more difficult for me.’
Hope took a deep breath and bit back her tears. She was, after all, a soldier’s wife and she must behave like one.
‘Who will wash your clothes?’ she said.
Bennett half-smiled. ‘You. I’ll bring them back with me when I visit. I’m sure I can wangle it so I always come down with the wounded. Now, give me a kiss before the men wake up.’
It was a bittersweet kiss, and Hope clung to him, trying to blot out her fear. The firing might have stopped for the winter, but there was still the odd sniper taking pot shots. Several doctors had even died of diseases caught from their patients because hygiene was so bad. And she knew too that Bennett would be outspoken at the callous way the army treated its rank and file. He just wouldn’t be able to hold back.
But even above her fear for him, she was angry too that his superior officers had allowed petty jealousy to cloud their judgement. Bennett was one of the most experienced and skilled surgeons down here, and in his absence men would die who could have been saved by him. Any of the hastily recruited young doctors just out of medical school could apply tourniquets, field dressings, or splints to broken limbs, for that was all that was required up on the Heights. But it made her shudder to think that one of those inexperienced young men might be sent down here to take Bennett’s place.
In early March, a month after Bennett had been sent up to the Heights, Hope took a walk out of the town to see how the construction of the siege train was progressing. It was vital, for it would put an end to the soldiers hauling heavy guns and ammunition up to the front themselves, and navvies had been brought in to speed up the work.
Hope was glad they’d brought men out from England to do this, and it was good to see big, brawny men in rude health for a change, but she, like many other people, resented their preferential treatment.
It wasn’t fair that they should have large quantities of fresh meat daily, while the soldiers had none. Nor was it right that the soldiers who were already weak and sickly were expected to build huts for the navvies, while they still slept in leaky tents.
But Hope was pleased to see there had been great progress. The track was already past the village of Kadikoi, about a mile and a half out of town and close to the cavalry camp. Soon it would be right up to headquarters.
The past month had been the most miserable time. She missed Bennett so much, worried about him all the time, and felt dreadfully alone.
When Bennett had been with her, people had dropped in for a visit, and they had sometimes visited others too. But now she had to be very careful. She couldn’t have male visitors for fear of gossip about her, and the few women here were either so deadly dull that she’d rather stare into her fire than spend time with them, or so uppity she felt like slapping them.
Bennett had only managed to come down twice, and both times he had been so exhausted that he had fallen asleep immediately after a bath.
Letters from home were the only thing that brightened the gloom. Nell wrote every week, and even though her letters had a frustrating lack of detail about her life, just a glimpse of her big, childlike writing made Hope feel loved. Matt had written three times on behalf of Joe and Henry too, and Amy always added a bit of village gossip at the end.
Ruth’s two letters had been the most entertaining. She wrote well, in a good hand, about her three children, her husband and two stepchildren, and about her life in Bath. She thought it was very exciting and adventurous that Hope was in the Crimea and said she boasted to her friends about it. She saw Nell quite often and said she was blooming now that she knew where Hope was. But it was the little details Ruth put into her letter that pleased Hope most – how her hair was growing grey and she was getting matronly, or what she’d cooked for a special dinner, and funny little things her children said. In the second letter she’d ended by saying what a great deal of catching up they’d have to do when she got back, and how there would always be room for her and Bennett in her home.
James had written his one letter in a tearing hurry, but it had been warm, with promises of another as soon as he had more time. He expressed his joy at hearing Hope was safe and well, and he told her that he was now married to Joan, who had been a parlourmaid at Littlecote. Their daughter was now four, they had a small cottage on the estate, and a second baby was due soon. He hoped that she and Bennett would come to visit when they came home.
Alice and Toby had written a joint letter just once, and Hope had got the impression that it was penned out of duty because Nell had ordered it. While this made her feel a little sad, it was understandable. They had gone into service together in Bath when Hope had still been a small child, and they’d made a life for themselves quite separate from the rest of the family.
None of her brothers and sisters had quizzed her about her disappearance. Whether this was because Nell had already explained it, or because they weren’t curious, she didn’t know. But it was rather odd after spending so many years worrying about their reaction to find they didn’t have one.
The siege train did look impressive. The big engine at the top which would haul the train over the steepest part of the route was in place now. She just hoped that those who said this would hasten the end of the siege were right, just as she hoped that the news that Czar Nicholas had died the previous day might bring peace.
The sight of a clump of flowers growing by the roadside made her stop to look closer. They were similar to a crocus, and as they were the first tangible sign of spring, and in fact the first flowers she had seen here, she bent to pick one.
‘That’s almost as pretty as you, Hope!’
Startled at hearing her name, Hope stood up and turned to see Angus astride his horse, grinning down at her. The last time she’d seen him had been back in January, when he’d been beside himself with anxiety about the cavalry horses which were dying of starvation. She’d seen him limping back up the road to the cavalry camp carrying a heavy sack of oats on his shoulders.
But he was looking fit and devilishly handsome now, even if his red breeches were decidedly faded, worn and mud-splattered. His chestnut horse was very thin and now here near as sleek as she remembered in Varna, but it was a relief to see it hadn’t died during that terrible period.
‘How good to see you,’ she said, and stroked the horse’s nose. ‘And good to see Brandy is getting some food again. How are your wounds?’
‘What wounds?’ he said, dismounting.
Hope laughed. ‘Well, it wouldn’t do to make you drop your breeches to check on the scar,’ she said. ‘But it’s clearly not troubling you.’
‘Thanks to you, angel fingers,’ he said, taking her hand and kissing it. ‘Why aren’t you down there now stitching up some young soldier who will remember your face till the end of time?’
‘No wonder Lady Harvey got led astray,’ Hope giggled. ‘But you must behave. Bennett’s been sent back to his regiment up on the Heights, so it wouldn’t do for me to attract gossip.’
Leading his horse, Angus walked back to the harbour beside her, and they talked about Bennett’s move, the Czar’s death, and the tremendous increase in the number of men reporting sick during January and February.
‘Morale is at an all-time low,’ he sighed. ‘We should have gone on the attack as soon as we got here last year. Lord Raglan is an old woman, can’t make his mind up about anything. Delaying only gave the Ruskies time to build better fortifications and get in more supplies. Now we’ve hardly got a fit man in the whole army. Even the new bunch that arrived in January look as bad as the oldtimers now. But you, Hope, you’ve got a bloom about you! Why’s that?’
‘Have I?’ she said in surprise.
‘You certainly have,’ he said, looking at her intently. ‘You’ve filled out. Have you found some source of good food that you are keeping to yourself? Or could it be a happy event is expected?’
Goose-pimples erupted all over her and she looked at the Captain in horror.
‘Not a happy event then,’ he said, but when she didn’t speak his grin faded. ‘Oh dear, I’ve been too presumptuous. I’m so sorry, Hope, but I’ve come to think of you almost as family. Forgive me?’
He meant, of course, that it wasn’t done for men to remark on such things as pregnancy. But her shock wasn’t at his comment, but the jolt of realization that she could well be carrying a child.
Bennett had been very careful every time they made love, for clearly it would be a calamity to become pregnant in a place like this. He always withdrew before his seed was spent, often to her disappointment. But on Christmas Eve he hadn’t.
It had been such a lovely evening, almost balmy, with a big, bright full moon. Some of the bandsmen from various different regiments had joined together to play their instruments on the quay. The pipers from the Highlanders came down from their camp too. For that evening the siege was forgotten. Music and singing were heard from the Russians inside Sebastopol, the French too were playing instruments up on the Heights, and not a shot was fired on either side.
Some of the Turks had slaughtered and roasted an ox. There were bottles of wine, port, brandy and rum in profusion and Hope had danced with scores of different men as there were so few women. She had bathed and put on the pink dress she’d worn on her honeymoon, and Bennett had looked so handsome in his full-dress uniform. She remembered thinking that the Rifles’ tight green jacket gave him a rakish charm and enhanced the colour of his eyes.
They had been very tipsy when they had finally gone to bed, and caution had been forgotten. Bennett had transported her to places she’d never dreamed of that night. Even recalling it now sent a shiver of pleasure down her spine.
But however magical that night had been, they had shot straight back to reality soon afterwards. January had been the very worst month at the hospital, a bleak and desperate time with the sick coming in by the score each day. It was hardly surprising she couldn’t remember whether she’d had her courses that month or not.
‘Hope? Tell me I’m forgiven?’
Angus’s plea brought her back to the present. ‘Of course you are,’ she said hurriedly. ‘A country girl like me doesn’t get the vapours at a man mentioning such things.’
‘But you have turned a little pale,’ he said anxiously.
‘Oh, do talk of something else,’ she said irritably. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing, it’s been so long since I last saw you. Has Nell sent you any more food parcels?’
He’d had a big fruit cake at Christmas, of which he’d brought her and Bennett half. Nothing had tasted quite as good as that, at least not until another arrived for Hope in mid-January along with jars of mincemeat, several different kinds of preserves and warm mittens and scarves.
‘I should think I’m about due for one any day,’ he said in his more usual jocular manner. ‘But of course now she has you to lavish her treats on, I’m not doing so well.’
They continued their walk, Angus remarking on all the improvements in the town. Conditions had become absolutely disgusting, for apart from all the usual mess hundreds of Turks had made a hideous shanty town behind the main street. All their waste and dead animals had been left lying around, and there was tremendous sickness in their camp. They hadn’t buried their dead properly either, and this had posed the most serious health problem.