Hope - Lesley Pearse [195]
What with packing and organizing the closure of the hospital, there was no opportunity for Hope to make the journey to the cavalry camp. She had to assume that Captain Pettigrew was in similar straits for he did not come down to the hospital again.
All at once the harbour was full of ships, and the demarcation began. But just as she had got all her and Bennett’s personal belongings ready to be taken aboard, she heard that Lord Raglan had given the order that none of the officers’ wives would be allowed to go with their men.
Hope was horrified, for it seemed no alternative provision had been made for them either.
In fact very few officers’ wives had come on to Varna, and most of those who had were so dispirited they would be glad to get a ship back to Constantinople or Malta. Lady Errol and Mrs Duberly, the paymaster’s wife, did want to go on with their husbands, but they had friends in high places and would almost certainly find a way around the order. But Hope had no such influence.
Bennett turned to his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence, for advice and his suggestion was that Hope should be smuggled immediately into Bennett’s cabin on the Pride of the Ocean, the ship their company was due to take, and stay there until the ship sailed. Lawrence thought that as long as Lord Raglan didn’t see her, they would be in the clear.
So Hope had to endure several days shut up alone in a stuffy cabin, without even Queenie for company, for she and the other ranks’ wives wouldn’t join the ship until the date set for departure. Hope passed the time writing down all that had happened to her since leaving Briargate, in the hope that before long she could relate it all to Nell.
At dawn on 7 September, the Pride of the Ocean finally left Varna, and Hope was at last able to go up on deck and breathe some fresh air. It was good to see Queenie again and to hear her funny stories about the chaos during the last days in Varna, yet even better to see that men who had looked sickly as she watched them waiting on the quayside, already appeared to be regaining their vitality in the sea breezes.
Bennett, however, was more concerned with the ambulance carts. It seemed they had been left behind at Varna.
After a day’s sailing they found themselves part of a vast armada. There were hundreds of steamers and sailing ships which made an awe-inspiring and beautiful sight. Anchors were dropped, the officers went to and fro visiting other ships in rowing boats, and although no one seemed to know what they were all waiting there for, it was generally supposed that the commanding officers were still planning their tactics.
Finally, on the 14th, the anchors were hauled up and they set sail again. The first sight of the Crimea was not cheering. It looked a very inhospitable, bleak and barren place, with no sign of any people or even animals.
At Eupatoria two officers went ashore to receive the surrender of the port, but apparently it proved unsuitable as a base. It was decided that the following day all troops were to be landed further along the coast at Calamita Bay. From there they would march to Sebastopol to take it.
Bennett was closeted with Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence for some time that evening, and when he returned to Hope he looked troubled.
‘You’ve got to stay on the ship while I go with the regiment,’ he sighed. ‘It seems we’ve got a long march and the Colonel believes we may run into Cossacks.’
Hope realized that although he was worried about her, he was even more concerned about the health and welfare of the men in his regiment.
Bennett liked order, and it was plain to him that his superiors had given very little thought to what would happen to any casualties if the army was attacked on the march. He and the other surgeons would of course be there to dress the wounds, but with no ambulance carts and no hospital set up to take the wounded, they were likely