�Michael,� Charlotte said, as she zipped up her coat, �get some sleep. Doctor's orders.� Turning to Darryl, she said, �And you, put a cork in it.�
Darryl gestured at the bottle.
�You know what I mean.�
���
CHAPTER TWENTY
Early September, 1854
THE HORSES.
It was the terrible toll taken on the horses that drove Lieutenant Copley nearly mad.
His beautiful Ajax, along with eighty-five others, had been driven down into the hold of Her Majesty's Ship
Henry Wilson�
a small, dark, and unbearably foul place�where almost no advance preparations had been made. There were no stalls constructed, no head collars, only tethering ropes, and even on a calm sea, the horses brushed up against each other, stepping on their neighbors� hooves, struggling to lift their heads clear of the herd. But once the ships of the British fleet had hit the gales in the Bay of Biscay, the horses went wild with fear. Sinclair, along with many of the other cavalry officers�the ones who were not laid up with fevers or seasickness�were down in the hold, standing at their horses� heads, trying desperately to calm and control them. But it was not possible. Each time the vessel rolled, the poor panicked beasts were pitched forward against the manger, whinnying in terror and stamping their feet on the creaking, wet boards. Cascades of water flooded down
from the hatches, rivers of it sloshed around their legs, and every time one of the horses fell, it was the devil's own business to get him righted again. When Ajax went down, tumbling in a heap atop Winslow's horse, it took several soldiers and sailors to get them separated and standing once more. Sergeant Hatch, the India Man, seemed to be down in the hold at all times�Sinclair wondered if he ever slept or went up on deck for a breath of air that didn't stink of dung and blood and moldering hay�but even he was unable to stem the losses. Every night horses died�of broken bones, panic, and heat prostration (there was almost no ventilation belowdecks)� and were unceremoniously thrown overboard the next day. All the way to the Mediterranean, the British fleet had left a trail of bloated, floating carcasses in its wake.
And Sinclair, though he knew he was only a young unproven lieutenant, could not help but wonder why the army had not requisitioned steamers to make the voyage. From what Rutherford had told him (and Rutherford's father had been a lord of the admiralty under the Duke of Wellington), a steamer could make a trip in ten to twelve days that it would take a sailing ship a month or more to do. Even if it had taken a fortnight to round up enough steamships, so much of this appalling damage could have been avoided, and the troops�with their horses, in decent condition�could have arrived on the Turkish shores, ready to do battle, sooner than they would arrive now.
But no such thoughts appeared to have occurred to the command, nor to the throngs of onlookers who had attended the army's departure. When Sinclair marched aboard the transports, in the company of the Light Brigade, the Heavy Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the 11th Hussars, he too had been caught up in the gay atmosphere at the docks. The war, everyone believed, would be so brief that it might be over before some of them had even had the chance to use their lance or sword or rifle; the Russians, it was said, were such a lackluster fighting force that most of them had to be forced onto the field at gunpoint. Le Maitre had told Sinclair that the Russian infantry's rifles were dummies, made of wood, like the swords the brigade used in its field exercises. As a result, many of the English officers had received permission to bring their wives along on the mission, and the ladies were outfitted in their finest, most colorful dresses. Some brought their own maids and favorite horses with
them. As Sinclair scanned the crowds lining the docks and quayside, searching for a spot of pale yellow, he saw cases of wine, bouquets of flowers, and straw baskets filled with hothouse fruit being brought aboard. Hundreds of people were holding pennants of the Union Jack, others were wildly waving caps and bonnets and lace handkerchiefs, and a military band was playing martial tunes. The sun was shining brightly, and he could hardly wait for the adventure before him to unfold.
�Moira tells me it's unlikely Miss Nightingale will give them leave,� Captain Rutherford said, leaning on his elbows at the rail and divining what Sinclair was looking for.
Sinclair glanced at his companion, whose brow was gleaming with sweat.
�I told her that this Miss Nightingale was no patriot, then,� Rutherford concluded, taking his fur pelisse from his shoulder and laying it across the rail.
Sinclair had never quite understood what bond existed between the captain and Miss Mulcahy While his own connection to Eleanor Ames was in itself unusual�and, as anyone would have told Sinclair, held no promise in practical terms�Rutherford's attachment to the buxom, earthy nurse Mulcahy was stranger by far. Rutherford came from a very prominent family in Dorset�he was destined for a peerage�and his family would be appalled at this liaison. Yes, it was, of course, understood that cavalry officers had their pick of the ladies in town, and that they often indulged in reckless, even unwholesome, affairs, but it was also understood that the young men would eventually come to their senses, especially on the eve of a great foreign expedition. It was the perfect time, and the perfect means, to cut the cord. It was one of the signal advantages to being in the army.
But behind Rutherford's bluster, Sinclair thought he had detected an oddly sentimental streak. He was not a man comfortable in the salons to which he was regularly invited, or around women in general�Sinclair had once seen him clumsily upend a punch bowl on a young lady to whom he was being introduced. He much preferred the life of the barracks, with its bawdy talk and camaraderie, and there was something about Miss Moira Mulcahy, for all her working-class ways, that appealed to him. Indeed, if Sinclair had to hazard a guess, it was that very
lack
of refinement that appealed to
him � coupled, of course, with her bountiful bosom, always and ever on display. It occurred to Sinclair that he might be better off trying to spot an expanse of creamy flesh in the dockside mob than the new yellow dress that Eleanor might accompany Moira in.
Lord Cardigan, commander of the 11th Hussars, could be seen on horseback, in all his finery, surrounded by aides-de-camp, bellowing out orders. He was a vain, handsome man, with a full russet moustache and side-whiskers, and he rode erect in the saddle. But he was known for his hot temper and his fanatical devotion to protocol and foolish points of honor; indeed, he had created a scandal at an officers� mess, the repercussions of which haunted him still. Lord Cardigan insisted that only champagne might be served at his table, and not the black bottles of porter that many of the soldiers, particularly those who had served in India, enjoyed. When a general's aide requested Moselle, which was placed on the table in its own black bottle rather than being decanted first, Lord Cardigan mistook it for porter, exploded into a rage, and insulted a captain of the regiment. Before the affair blew over, all of London had heard about it, and laughed. Lord Cardigan could not attend the theater, or even walk his Irish wolfhounds down the streets of Brunswick Square, without hearing the occasional catcall of �black bottle!� The men under his command particularly resented it, and often fell into brawls when so taunted.
Though the 17th Lancers of the Light Brigade were nominally under the command of Lord Lucan, Cardigan's stubborn brother-in-law, Lieutenant Copley suspected that they, the hapless soldiers, were actually pawns in a bitter family rivalry.
�Here,� Rutherford said, to a passing naval officer, �may I borrow that?�
The navy man, perhaps so bowled over by the richness of Rutherford's costume that he was unable to determine a particular rank, immediately relinquished the telescope he carried, and went on about his duties.
Rutherford raised the telescope and scanned the crowd, from the top of the High Street to the bottom of the loading ramps. There was the unending tramp of the soldiers� feet, the neighing and huffing of the horses, the vagrant notes of the Inniskilling anthem, played by the military band and blown out to sea on the swirling winds. An order was shouted out, relayed around the decks
several times, and dozens of sailors began rounding up the stragglers, among whom quick embraces and mementoes were exchanged with family and well-wishers; the heavy ramps were sealed off, then hauled aboard the boats. Dockhands unknotted the thick mooring ropes and threw their loose ends aside. But Rutherford's search had apparently come up empty-handed.
�I shall have a word with this Florence Nightingale when next I see her,� Rutherford said in a huff.
�Let me try,� Sinclair said, taking the telescope in hand. He lifted it, and spotted first the sight of a horse's rump�Lord Cardigan's horse, as it happened�traveling back toward town. The great lord, scuttlebutt had it, would follow the troops later, in the more comfortable accommodations afforded by a French steamer.
But Sinclair was having no more luck than Rutherford. For a moment, he thought he saw Frenchie's lady friend, Dolly, but the size of the bonnet made it too hard to be sure. Even Frenchie had become separated from his friends in the melee, and was presumably lost somewhere on the crowded deck of the
Henry Wilson.
Sinclair saw a little boy holding his mother's hand and smiling bravely, and another who was far more intent on trying to catch an injured sparrow that was hopping between the wheels of a commissary wagon.
More orders were shouted, and a dozen sailors scrambled up the rigging, loosing the sails and letting them unfurl with a great flapping noise. The ship creaked and groaned, like a great stiff giant coming to life, and a ribbon of brackish water now ran between it and the dock. Sinclair swung the telescope from one end of the harbor to the other, stopping once at a yellow parasol, and again at what turned out to be a yellow placard advertising a show in Drury Lane.
�I wonder when we shall see our first fight,� Rutherford said. �I hope it's not some skirmish, all close quarters and no chance to use the lance properly.� The lance had been a relatively recent innovation, modeled, as were their uniforms, on the Polish lancers who had so distinguished themselves at Waterloo.
Sinclair muttered his assent, while continuing the search. He was just about to give it up�the lurching and swaying of the vessel made it difficult to hold any image still�when he saw an open wagon rumble down a side alley, and two figures, one in yellow, one
in a white apron, jump off its end and run toward the docks. With one hand, he held on to the railing and with the other trained the telescope on the running girls. The one in front was Eleanor, clutching her nurse's hat, and Moira, holding her skirts up and away from her ankles, lumbered behind.
The
Henry Wilson
was now a hundred yards or more from the dock, and the flag flying from its stern obscured his view. But he could tell that the girls� eyes were trained, and their steps directed, toward one of the other transports leaving the dock. Eleanor, he could see, had stopped a man in uniform, and after a few hasty words with him, she had taken Moira by the arm and turned her instead toward the dock from which the 17th Lancers� ship had just departed.
The flag rippled and snapped in the gathering sea breeze, and Sinclair shouted to Rutherford, �They're there! Coming toward the dock!�
Rutherford craned his neck over the bulwark railing, and Sinclair tucked the telescope under one arm and waved in wide, sweeping motions.
More sails cascaded down from the topmasts and the ship instantly pitched forward, gaining speed. The land was being left behind, and the people on it were being quickly reduced to specks.
Sinclair lifted the telescope one more time, and found the bright spot of yellow one last time. He willed her to look in his direction� she seemed to be staring toward the bulging sails for some reason� and just as the ship plunged into the first of the waves to skirt the breakwater, casting a mist of chilling spray over everyone on the decks, he thought she had indeed turned her green-eyed gaze toward him. Or at least he chose to think so.
