Hope - Lesley Pearse [224]
‘I can’t agree,’ he said, reaching out for one of her curls and twisting it around his finger. ‘It will be too dangerous once it starts.’
The gentleness of his tone and the way he looked longingly at her was evidence he was wavering. Maybe he wasn’t so sure that she was entirely safe here either, not in a ward full of rough foreigners.
For a moment or two she wanted to beg him, tempted to blurt out how isolated she felt, how the two orderlies on her ward were surly, that she couldn’t talk to the patients and that she felt she was being victimized just like him.
But she stopped herself in time. If she began to tell him some of it, the rest would surely follow, and once he knew about the baby, he’d never have any peace of mind. The bombardment would mean many wounded, and he needed to be single-minded in dealing with that. It wasn’t fair to add to his burdens.
‘You are right, of course,’ she said, more bravely than she felt. ‘I must stay here; it’s just that I miss you so much.’
He enfolded her in his arms, holding her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. ‘I miss you too, my darling, but it won’t be for much longer. With all the firepower we have this time, Sebastopol doesn’t stand a chance.’
On 8 April, Hope was cleaning a Croatian labourer’s wound. He had injured his hand while unloading a ship and hadn’t sought any treatment until it was so severely infected it had to be amputated. She felt her patient stiffen and his eyes go to the door, and when she turned to see who was there, she realized it was Angus.
‘Give me a moment,’ she called out.
He ignored the request and came over to her. ‘Are you all alone in here?’ he said, a look of extreme concern in his dark eyes.
‘Yes, for the time being,’ she said. ‘The orderlies are collecting the rations.’
He watched her cleaning the wound in silence; then, as she began to dress it, he moved closer and said something to the patient, presumably in the man’s own language, making him look afraid.
‘What on earth have you said?’ she asked. ‘And why would you know any Croatian?’
‘I know a few useful phrases in many different languages,’ he smirked. ‘That one was a warning that if anyone in here upsets you he’ll have me to answer to.’
‘That isn’t necessary,’ she said indignantly.
‘It’s always necessary to warn men off when a pretty woman appears to be quite alone. Whose idea was it to send you to this ward, Hope? And why?’
Hope shrugged.
His face darkened. ‘No wonder the newspapers back home are full of reports of chaos and mismanagement out here! Any orderly could take care of these men. You should be where it counts.’
‘These men count too,’ Hope said indignantly.
‘In my opinion they should be at the back of the queue for treatment, behind our men,’ he said gruffly. ‘But you weren’t sent here for their good, anyway. Whatever fool made that decision, made it out of spite.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ she said tartly. She was very aware of twenty-five pairs of eyes watching them intently and sincerely hoped they didn’t have any idea what they were talking about. ‘But I’m here now and I’ll make the best of it until Bennett lets me go up with him on the Heights.’
‘You must never go there,’ he said, looking alarmed. ‘The ball will open tomorrow.’
Hope chuckled at his pretty way of describing the bombardment. ‘I wasn’t planning on going to the ball. I thought more of helping with the clearing up afterwards.’
‘You stay here in Balaclava,’ he said fiercely, punctuating his order with a pointed finger. ‘Nell would have me hung, drawn and quartered if you got hurt.’
*
The bombardment did start as planned early the following morning. It was a wet, miserable day, made even more depressing by the knowledge that before long the wounded would begin to arrive. Hope, stuck out at the back of the hospital, could only listen to the booms, cracks and whistling sounds with dread, wishing she had someone with whom to share her anxiety for Bennett.
Day and night, day after