Hope - Lesley Pearse [199]
Turning sharply, she ran back down the hill, side-stepping the stretcher-bearers and pushing through the crowds on the quay. Back in her cabin, she pulled out her old grey dress and white apron.
Within five minutes she was running back up the hill. Her hair was tied back, her petticoats were gone, the sober dress and apron replacing the frivolous pink one. And as she ran she offered up a silent prayer that some kind of instinct would take over and showher how to dress gunshot wounds, for she knew that nothing she’d ever done previously had been appropriate training for this horror.
Bennett had moved on to another soldier by the time she got back to the hospital, and he had his back to the door so he didn’t see her come in.
‘Nurse Meadows reporting for duty, sir,’ she said softly as she got closer.
He turned at her voice and smiled wanly. ‘It’s good to see you, but I don’t think you can cope with this.’
‘I can,’ she said firmly. ‘Just tell me what to do.’
It was dark when Bennett finally insisted they’d done all they could for one day. Their clothes were stiff with dried blood, backs aching from continually bending over, even their eyes were sore from peering in poor light.
All the doctors had worked like demons; there had been no breaks for meals or even drinks. Bandsmen who had been pressed into service as orderlies would bring whichever man was next in line to an area where there was some light, and there on a rough table, bullets would be removed, the wound stitched and dressed. Often amputation was required.
Hope didn’t think she’d ever forget the horror of the first leg amputation she helped with. The infantryman was no more than eighteen, with wide, childlike blue eyes full of fear. There was no chloroform to anaesthetize him, yet he’d found the courage to smile at her and kept his eyes on her, unwavering, as his limb was sawn off, never once giving way to screaming.
The sound of the saw on bone was so horrible, with so much blood, and all the time his poor young body was twitching uncontrollably in agony. All she could do was bathe his face, tell him how brave he was, and silently pray for him.
She knew that he and most of his comrades would have come from places like Lewins Mead. To men like him, joining the army was a way out of poverty, a smart uniform being better than rags. Yet sadly, they were defending a country that felt nothing for its poor and needy. If he survived the amputation, he would be shipped home to nothing. Maybe he’d get a medal, but what good was a medal when he couldn’t work? It wouldn’t buy bread or meat.
She heard that some of the wounded had lain on the battlefield among the dead all night, without receiving even a drop of water. They said they’d seen the surgeons drenched in blood cutting off limbs and tossing them to one side.
The Rifle Brigade’s casualties were light compared with other regiments. Two sergeants, one corporal and seven riflemen were killed. Twenty-five more were wounded. But Robbie had been seen by Bennett that very morning in Balaclava, and Queenie had clearly found him as she hadn’t returned to the ship.
‘Tell me what it was like at the river Alma,’ Hope asked Bennett after they had eaten and retired to their cabin.
‘The men were incredibly brave, even formidable,’ he said weakly, his face etched with weariness. ‘That’s all you need to know.’
‘I meant, what was it like for you?’
Bennett slumped back on the bunk and closed his eyes. ‘Much like you sawtoday,’ he said. ‘Except we had no table to operate on, in fact we didn’t even have a field hospital. I had to examine men on the ground with only a candle for light. There weren’t enough stretchers and during the night I could hear men calling out for help, but it was too dark to find them. We had to use peasants’ carts as ambulances. It was