Hope - Lesley Pearse [204]
Only 195 men came back, including Lord Cardigan, and some 500 horses were killed.
Back in the hospital, everyone was too busy dealing with the casualties of the morning to take much notice of the gunfire. It was some time after the charge, which had only lasted twenty minutes, that a messenger arrived with the devastating news. By the time the wounded were brought down into the town it was late afternoon, already growing dark and cold.
A handful of the men, swaying in their saddles, rode down on their horses despite pieces of shell embedded in their limbs. A few staggered in on foot, supported by other soldiers, and the most seriously wounded came on carts. Their faces were blackened by smoke and smeared with blood, the once vivid colours of red or blue jackets were dull with dirt and more blood, tattered and singed by bullets.
For the second time since she’d arrived in the Crimea, Hope felt like running away. The little hospital was already full to bursting point, the air was thick with the stench of blood, and the moaning of those in agony was too dreadful to bear. She had already seen over thirty men die from their wounds that day. Most of them were very young, mere boys of eighteen or nineteen, and it was wrong that they should have died for a cause they didn’t even fully understand.
But as she stood at the hospital door, watching the lights from the quay glistening in the water of the bay, she knew she would have to find the strength from somewhere, as long as Bennett remained working.
‘Leave me here to take my turn. There’s a great many worse off than me.’
She started at the familiar voice, and realized it was coming from one of the carts filling the quayside. The darkness had added a new problem. Earlier, in daylight, they had been able to check over the wounded, selecting the most urgent cases first. This was impossible now, and it was too horrible to think that someone might die of blood loss for the want of a simple tourniquet. Taking a lantern down from the wall, she called to two orderlies to come with her. Then, going from cart to cart, she quickly looked the men over, telling her assistants which ones she wanted taken straight in.
It was on the fourth cart back that she found the owner of the voice she had recognized.
Captain Pettigrew.
She hadn’t seen him at all since she landed here, much to her frustration when she wanted to know all about Nell, and she hadn’t had the time or opportunity to go to search him out.
‘Where are you wounded, Captain?’ she asked, holding the lantern up so she could see him better.
‘Why, if it isn’t Mrs Meadows!’ he exclaimed in some surprise. ‘I thought you’d been left at Varna!’
‘Not me,’ she smiled. ‘I was always disobedient. Where are you hurt?’
‘Just a sabre slash,’ he said, indicating that it was on his thigh. ‘It can wait.’
Even in the darkness she could see a vivid flash of white flesh where his cherry-coloured breeches had been slashed. The sleeve of his blue jacket was cut too, and the surrounding material was dark with blood.
‘Take this man,’ she said to the two orderlies.
‘No, leave me, there’s others more urgent,’ he said.
‘Allowme to be the judge of that,’ she said. ‘A clean wound if stitched up quickly heals in no time. Stay here and you’ll bleed to death. Don’t argue with me.’
He grinned at her and made a mock salute. But despite his jovial manner she could see his face was alarmingly pale and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.
By the time she’d checked the other carts and gone back into the hospital, Captain Pettigrew had been laid on a palliasse and she could see he was already weak from loss of blood.