In the Shadow of the Lamp (8 page)

The engines began to huff and puff and clouds of steam rose up from the chimneys on the boat. The horn blew so loud it made me jump. People standing on the dock waved and smiled. The sailors just carried on, but every now and then one of them looked out to sea, like he could see something there I couldn’t.

Getting out on the water made me forget everything. We weren’t long away from the harbor before all sign of land disappeared. I felt like I was nowhere and everywhere, going neither here nor there, just sitting on the back of the world with it all spread out around me.

It was strange to let my fancy wander. Before, I never had time where I wasn’t doing anything, where I could just let my mind think what it wanted to without having to rush to get a chore finished before it was time for the next one. I had no idea how long I sat like that.

However long it was, it was still daylight when a thin line of clouds spread out over the sky turning everything above us dark gray and the waves kicked up to where white froth capped their tops. They got bigger and bigger, splashing up almost to the rail, and then the rain and thunder and lightning started. Of course. That’s why the sailors were all so uneasy. They knew a storm was blowing up.

“Come below out of the rain, you daft child!” Emma’s voice screamed out from the entrance to our cabin, near the top of the stairs—more like a ladder, really—that led down belowdecks to our bunks.

I had been so caught up in watching the men rush about closing hatches and fastening down anything that might move that I didn’t really notice until then how bad the storm had got. Now the deck was slippery and wet. I started to shiver, and my hands were numb from cold and wet. Slipping them off the smooth wooden rail, I steadied myself.

I took a deep breath. I tried to judge when the waves would settle a bit so I could dash across the distance to the hatch. Emma’s eyes were wide and her face had no color. “Come soon or I’ll close the door!” she screamed.

Please
, I thought,
I can do it. It’s not so far to the hatch
.
I just have to let go and run.

A big wave hit the
Vectis
and for an instant I stared down into the black, cold water, so deep and empty. I thought how much easier it would be just to let go. Then my mum and dad would never know about everything that happened at the Abington-Smythes.

The moment passed quickly and we were righted. My heart calmed a bit, as if contemplating death, made everything else seem easy. A lull in the waves came, and I breathed slow and deep, then let go of the rail, and ran.

Emma was still at the hatch, and she reached out her arms for me. I almost made it to her, but a powerful gust of wind and a wave hit at the same time, sending me sliding back across the slick deck. I couldn’t get my footing, and something told me to crouch down low and cover my head.

Emma shrieked so loud it pierced right through a thunderclap, and before I knew it a pair of strong hands had me by the arms. Next I was lifted off my feet, scooped up and carried to the hatch.

I thought it must be one of the sailors, but when I looked up and saw the man’s smooth, pale face I knew it wasn’t. As soon as I was far enough down the steps my rescuer slammed the hatch closed behind me. My legs shook and I slid down the stairs on buckets of water that had washed in already in that short time.

“I thought you was dead for sure!” Emma cried and held me close to her.

“I did too. I’m ever so sorry; I didn’t notice the storm coming.”

Emma’s hug was warm—like she had a fever. When she let go of me I felt cold. I wanted to put my hand out and touch her, keep that connection between us that made me feel everything would be all right, but I knew she’d think it strange of me.

“It ain’t been so quiet down here, neither,” Emma said once she’d calmed a bit, smoothing down her skirt and hair—such a funny thing to do with everything rolling all over the place. “Looks like you an’ me an’ one or two of the nuns are about the only ones what aren’t sick from the storm,” she said, sweeping her arm around at the bunks.

I could hardly believe what I saw. Almost every bunk was full with a green-faced, retching nurse or Sister of Mercy. Two of the Sellonites looked well enough, though: their leader, Mrs. Langston, and the one called Sister Sarah Anne who spoke to us on the train.

“Where are Miss Nightingale and the Bracebridges?”

“They took ill too. Miss Nightingale disappeared to her cabin soon as we left port!”

Miss Nightingale was ill like the others? She seemed so strong until now, just like what they said about her in the
Times
and the
Morning Chronicle.
I wished I dared to go to her. But it was clear we’d have our hands full looking after our own.

“I’m not half freezing,” I said.

“I think you can wear your other clothes. No one’s like to notice in this blow.” We had been told that we were supposed to wear our nurses’ uniforms at all times. It wasn’t a very nice uniform, and mine didn’t fit properly—it was too big and too short. Black serge, a coarse apron, and a sash with
SCUTARI HOSPITAL
embroidered on it. And a cap hid all our hair, like the nuns’. Though I worried about disobeying, I saw no sense in making myself ill before we even reached Turkey by sitting in my cold, wet clothes. I quickly slipped out of my uniform and into dry togs.

That’s when the gale really began, and I was glad I’d got myself belowdecks. The boat started pitching and lurching, the wood creaking like it was about to break apart. The violence of the storm made everyone retch, and there was swill all over the floor, sea water and bits of old meals. The bitter smell nearly made me sick too.

“Oh God, help me!” said one of the older nurses, Mrs. Drake, who’d been a bit frosty with me on the train and in Paris, like she knew my whole story and didn’t approve. I rushed over to her. She rolled on her side. I picked up one of the tin basins the crew had left down below for that purpose and held it for her, smoothing her hair out of the way. When she’d finished her eyes were watering, and I could see she felt bad.

“It’s all right,” I said. “No sense worrying about something you can’t do nothing about. I’ll get a cloth.” Most of the water in the basin they’d put out so we could wash had sloshed away and there was very little left. The drinking water was in corked vessels tied into shelves, but I didn’t want to waste that on mopping foreheads. I blotted up what I could and gripped the edges of the bunks so I wouldn’t topple over on my way back to Mrs. Drake.

“Oh no, here I go again.” Someone else began to be sick just as I passed.

“I’ll go,” Emma said, and I continued on to Mrs. Drake.

The poor lady’s face was a yellowish green. “Thank you,” she whispered, once I finished wiping the corners of her mouth. “You’re a good girl.”

For a moment I got a little knot just above my stomach, not because I felt unwell, but because it was what my mum said to me just before I left on my half days to go back to the Abington-Smythes. At least here I wasn’t a disappointment to anyone, not yet anyway.

“Give us a ’and here!” Emma called, breaking into my daydream.

From that moment, Emma and I, and anyone else who wasn’t too ill to get up, tended to the others. I watched what the experienced nurses did and copied them.

“Molly’s your name, right?” murmured Mrs. Drake after I mopped her face and fanned her a little for a second time. She closed her eyes. Maybe she would sleep.

Emma and I began to empty all of the full basins into the latrine before they tipped over and made even more of a stinking mess of the cabin. Every so often a huge wave would crash and send water pouring in through the hatch. It was covered with canvas, but water seemed to find its way around anyway, and we were up to our ankles in no time.

At some point after we’d been working for hours Emma stretched out on her own bunk. “I’m knackered!” she said to me. “Maybe they’ll send some of the hands down to clean after the storm.” She yawned.

I turned back to tell Emma that we couldn’t wait for that to happen and had much better do it ourselves, but she was already fast asleep.

I was dead tired too, and a little before dawn I let myself lie down. I discovered then that the bunk was alive with lice and other crawling creatures. I crushed them and swatted, wanting to stay awake so I could battle them, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

C
hapter 10

The next morning the storm worsened. Up above on deck we heard awful crashes and thumps, like the whole steamer was breaking apart. The noise woke everyone up, and suddenly there was wailing and praying and crying all around.

“I’ll go up and see what’s the matter,” Mrs. Langston said. She was one of the only ones who stayed calm. Whenever I felt myself getting panicked or feeling tired, I’d just look at her and think,
If she can manage, so can I.

Emma and I helped her open the hatch. Water gushed down the stairs until we were up to our calves standing there, and it almost reached the bottom of the lower row of bunks. Miss Langston didn’t stop, but climbed out before we could say anything to prevent her.

“Better leave the hatch open so she can get back in quick!” I yelled to Emma over the din of the waves and wind.

A huge splash came and drenched us and Sister Sarah Anne.

“Close it ’fore we all drown!” Emma screamed, trying to grab the rope to pull the hatch back into place.

I latched onto one of her arms and Sister Sarah Anne took the other. “No! Wait just a bit longer!” My heart raced too, though, and I wanted to close us up tight again, but the thought of Mrs. Langston out there stopped me.

A moment later, a soaking wet foot stepped on the top rung of the ladder. We reached up and helped Mrs. Langston back in. She tugged the rope and closed the hatch almost on her own head.

She heaved and shivered with cold. All around us the nurses and nuns were crying. Mrs. Langston held up one hand and put the other to her ribs. “Shh!” I said to everyone. I wanted to hear what she had to say.

“It’s all right,” she gasped. “Nothing to worry about. It sounds much worse than it is. There’s some damage, but it’s a good boat and we’re fine, so the captain says.”

I didn’t know if she was telling the truth, but it was enough to quiet everyone down.

The constant vomiting stopped by the third day, partly because although the storm continued it wasn’t quite so fierce, but mainly because no one had any food left in their stomachs. I was afraid some of the worse ones might die. One or two looked so pale and thin I couldn’t see how they would live. There wasn’t as much for us to do with everyone mostly sleeping quietly, so Emma and I sat on our bunks and talked some.

“You weren’t writing to your mum, were you?” Emma asked me later that night after we’d eaten a little supper of cold salt cod and stale bread. If I’d ever written more than one letter in my life, I might not have known what she was talking about. I wasn’t sure what to say. The last thing I wanted was to tell Emma my story—even though she had already told me about her father who beat her and her mother who was always drunk, and that she’d run away when she was my age and the only job she could get that wasn’t on the streets was nursing in a hospital. Something about how she told it all made it sound like a story, like even that wasn’t the truth. It was the way she looked sideways during the most dramatic parts. But if she had secrets to keep, who was I to stop her?

“I was writing to a friend,” I said at last. Since the envelope was directed to Lucy, I hoped she wouldn’t suspect anything more.

“A man friend, I’d guess.”

I tried hard not to, but the way she said it made me blush. “It’s not what you think at all. Will’s just a friend who helped me get to Folkestone,” I said in a way that I was sure would end her line of questioning.

“Oh, don’t be shy with me! I won’t tell anyone.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. After what Mavis did to me at the Abington-Smythes, I didn’t think I’d ever trust a girl again. And Miss Nightingale had made it very clear that she wouldn’t tolerate any nonsense of that kind. That philandering, as she called it, would be cause for immediate dismissal. Emma could get me fired just like Mavis did. “There’s nothing to tell. I just wanted to thank him and let him know I was on my way to Turkey.”