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Hour after hour the surgeons had labored in the medical tents, striving to save lives, only to have men die on the long rough cart journeys to the ships, and then by sea to Scutari, where, if they survived that, they would die in the hospital of fevers or gangrene.
She could recall the smell and the exhaustion, the dim light of lanterns swaying, their yellow glare on the surgeon’s face as he worked, knife or saw in his hand, striving above all to be quick. Speed was everything. There was seldom time for such niceties as chloroform, even though it was available. And many preferred the “stimulant” of a well-used knife rather than the silent slipping away into death of anesthetics.
She could remember the numberless white faces of men, haggard, shocked with injury, the knowledge of mutilation, the scarlet, and the warm smell of blood, the neat pile of amputated limbs just outside the tent flap in the mud.
She could see Prudence Barrymore’s face, eyes intent, mouth drawn tight with emotion, smears of blood on her cheek and across her brow where she had pushed her hair out of her eyes. They had worked in silent unison, too weary to speak a word when a glance would serve. There was no need to express an emotion which was so completely shared. Their world was one of private horror, pity, need, and a kind of terrible victory. If one could survive this, then Hell itself could offer little worse.
It was not something you could call friendship; it was at once less and more. The sharing of such experiences created a bond and set them apart from all others. It was not something that could be told to another person. There were no words with a meaning both could understand which would impart the physical horror or the heights and depths of emotion.
It brought an extraordinary kind of loneliness that Prudence was gone, and a driving anger that it should be in this way.
On night duty—which Mrs. Flaherty gave her whenever she could; she disliked Crimean nurses and all the arrogance and the change they represented—Hester would walk around the wards by lamplight, and past memories crowded in on her. More than once she heard a dull thud and turned around with a shudder, expecting to see a rat stunned as it dropped off the wall, but there was nothing except a bundle of sheets and bandages and a slop pail.
Gradually she distinguished the other nurses and spoke to them when she had a natural opportunity. Very often she simply listened. They were frightened. Prudence’s name was mentioned often, to begin with, with fear. Why had she been murdered? Was there a madman loose in the hospital, and might any one of them be next? Inevitably there were stories of sinister shadows in empty corridors, sounds of muffled screams and then silence, and almost every male member of staff was the subject of speculation.
They were in the laundry room. The huge coppers were silent, no clanking of steam in the pipes, no hissing and bubbling. It was the end of the day. There was little left to do but fold and collect sheets.
“What was she like?” Hester asked with casual innocence.
“Bossy,” an elderly nurse replied, pulling a face. She was fat and tired, and her red-veined nose bore mute witness to her solace in the gin bottle. “Always telling other people what to do. Thought having been in the Crimea meant she knew everything. Even told the doctors sometimes.” She grinned toothlessly. “Made ’em mad, it did.”
There was laughter all around. Apparently, however unpopular Prudence might have been at times, the doctors were more so, and when she clashed with them, the women were amused and were on her side.
“Really?” Hester made her interest obvious. “Didn’t she get told off for it? She was lucky not to be dismissed.”
“Not her!” Another nurse laughed abruptly, pushing her hands into her pockets. “She was a bossy piece, all right, but she knew how to run a ward and care for the sick. Knew it better than Mrs. Flaherty, although if you say I said that, I’ll push your eyes out.” She put down the last sheet with a thump.
“Who is going to tell that vinegar bitch, you stupid cow?” the first woman said acidly. “But I don’t think she was that good. Thought she was, mind.”
“Yes she was!” Now the second woman was
getting angry. Her face was flushed. “She saved a lot of lives in this God-awful place. Even made it smell better.”
“Smell better!” There was a guffaw of laughter from a big red-haired woman. “Where d’ya think yer are, some gennelman’s ’ouse? Garn, ya fool! She thought she were a lady, not one o’ the likes of us. A sight too good to work with scrubwomen and domestics. Got ideas about being a doctor, she ’ad. Right fool, she was, poor cow. Should have heard what his lordship had to say about that.”
“ ’Oo? Sir ’Erbert?”
“ ’Course Sir ’Erbert. ’Oo else? Not old German George. ’E’s a foreigner and full o’ funny ideas anyway. Wouldn’t be surprised if it were ’im wot killed ’er. That’s what them rozzers are sayin’ anyway.”
“Are they?” Hester looked interested. “Why? I mean, couldn’t it just as easily have been anyone else?”
They all looked at her.
“Wot yer mean?” the red-haired one said with a frown.
Hester hitched herself onto the edge of the laundry basket. This was the sort of opportunity she had been angling for. “Well, who was here when she was killed?”
They looked at her, then at each other.
“Wot yer mean? Doctors, and the like?”
“ ’Course she means doctors and the like,” the fat woman said derisively. “She don’t think one of us did her in. If I were going to kill anyone, it’d be me ol’ man, not some jumped-up nurse wi’ ideas above ’erself. Wot do I care about ’er? I wouldn’t ’av seen ’er dead, poor cow, but I wouldn’t shed no tears either.”
“What about the treasurer and the chaplain?” Hester tried to sound casual. “Did they like her?”
The fat woman shrugged. “Who knows? Why should they care one way or the other?”
“Well she weren’t bad-looking,” the old one replied with an air of generosity. “And if they can chase Mary ’Iggins, they could certainly chase ’er.”
