He looked amused. ‘So what are you suggesting? That I buy myself a pony and lead my men from behind, like others I could mention?’
She smiled in spite of herself. ‘No, I can’t imagine you doing that. But a different mount perhaps? A bay, like that one there –’ she pointed to the horse lines where a number of the cavalry mounts were tethered – ‘the second from the right.’
He looked where she indicated and nodded. ‘I see you have an eye for horseflesh. But you are English, of course. I should expect that.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Well, I will consider what you said. But you see –’ he stroked the arched grey neck – ‘I am very fond of Cloud and I believe he is of me. He would pine if I abandoned him.’
‘He would pine longer if you were killed,’ she said.
He pursed his lips and shrugged, as if accepting the inevitability of that. Then he smiled again. ‘Thank you for your advice. Now I must be on my way. Goodbye.’
She watched him out of sight and then turned back to fetch the baggage from the car.
They were invited to dine with the general and his officers, and were treated with the same courtesy as before, though the signs of strain were apparent on the faces of their hosts and the food was inferior and served in smaller portions. Leo was relieved to discover that Sasha Malkovic was not among the diners. If he had seen her in the company of the Bulgarian officers, who knew her as a woman, her deception would have been at an end. It seemed the Serbs now had their own mess and she was reminded of the strained relations between the two so-called allies.
Next morning Leo suggested to Victoria that, as they were going to have to stay for a few days, they should go and see how Sophie and the others were getting on in the hospital tent.
‘Must we?’ Victoria groaned. ‘I’ve seen enough of hospitals to last me a lifetime. Do we have to wait for the train? Why don’t we drive to Salonika?’
‘Because we haven’t got enough petrol, for one thing,’ Leo said. She was beginning to realize that her friend found the reality of nursing hard to face, but she was disturbed by the change in her normally cheerful manner. Over the last weeks she had become increasingly short-tempered and withdrawn. ‘Come on,’ she said, trying to sound encouraging. ‘We can’t sit around doing nothing all day. Let’s at least see how Sophie and the others are getting on.’
When they entered the tent, with Luke behind them, Sophie left what she was doing and came hurrying over.
‘Victoria! I am so pleased to see you again! How are you? And this is . . . ?’ She broke off and covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. ‘It’s you, Leonora! I thought it was a young man. But what has happened to your hair?’
‘It’s more practical like this,’ Leo explained. ‘And so are the breeches.’
Sophie caught her breath. ‘You are so brave! I would not dare . . .’ Then she saw Luke. ‘But this
is
a young man, and I don’t know him.’
Victoria made the introductions and when Luke greeted her in Macedonian Slav she exclaimed, ‘You speak our language. How wonderful!’
Luke began to explain his antecedents but Sophie had already turned to the two women and caught a hand of each. ‘I am so glad to see you both. We are so desperately short-handed here. Some of the staff are down with a fever and every day there are more patients to deal with. You have come back to help, haven’t you?’
Victoria began to explain that they were only passing through on their way home but Leo was looking at Sophie. When they had first met her face had been as smooth and rounded as a doll’s but now her cheeks were hollow and there were dark shadows under her eyes. It was obvious that she was not exaggerating the need for extra help. Besides, Sasha Malkovic was in camp and she wanted an excuse to stay.
She said, ‘Vita, I really think we should help out, if we can. Just for a day or two.’
Victoria said, ‘I don’t understand why you are so hard-pressed, Sophie. Now the firing has stopped there are fewer casualties, surely.’
‘It’s the typhus,’ Sophie explained. ‘We have new cases every day.’
‘Typhus!’ Victoria clapped her hand over her mouth and took a step back. ‘You want us to nurse typhus cases?’
‘They need care, just as much as the wounded do,’ Sophie said.
Victoria was shaking her head. ‘No, I’m sorry. I volunteered to collect wounded men from the battlefield and give first aid, not to nurse plague victims. I can’t do it. I just can’t . . .’ She turned and hurried out of the tent.
Luke called after her, ‘Vicky!’
Leo knew that Victoria hated that diminutive, but she had heard him use it before and she seemed to tolerate it from him. However, this time she turned back and snapped, ‘Don’t call me Vicky!’ Then she was gone.
Leo said, ‘I’d better go after her,’ but Luke put a hand on her arm. ‘I’ll go. Leave her to me.’
He went out and Leo was left with Sophie, who fixed a pleading gaze upon her. With a chill at the pit of her stomach, Leo said, ‘What do you want me to do?’
Sophie handed her a bottle. ‘It’s paraffin. The disease is carried by lice. We’re not sure that paraffin actually kills lice but it certainly deters them. Go and smear it all over your body. Then come back to me and I will give you an overall and gloves. Leave them here at the end of each shift and when you undress check your body and the seams of your clothing very carefully for lice. Do you understand?’
Leo shuddered. ‘Yes, I understand.’
She went back to the tent she shared with Victoria and was glad to find it empty. Luke and Victoria had apparently gone off somewhere together. She stripped off her clothes, shivering, and smeared the paraffin over herself. Then she dressed again and made her way back to where Sophie was waiting. As soon as she was ready, Sophie took her on a tour of the ward, explaining what was wrong with each man. Some had wounds from bullets or shrapnel, but far more were suffering from frostbite incurred through long hours on watch in the trenches, up to their knees in icy water. Several had already had their feet amputated. At the far end of the tent a section had been divided off with a canvas curtain. Behind this were the typhus patients.
Sophie described the symptoms in dispassionate tones. ‘The first indications are headache and inability to sleep. Then comes a high fever with intense thirst. The body is covered with mud-coloured spots and the tongue is coated with brown fur. Next the patient goes into a coma, which closely resembles death. Around the fourteenth day the crisis occurs. Temperatures fall to below normal and death usually follows.’
‘Do none of them survive?’ Leo asked.
‘Yes, a few, the strongest. But not many.’
‘So what can we do for them?’
‘Very little. Give them drink, bathe them to reduce the temperature, try to get them to take some nourishment. That is about all.’
Leo looked at her. ‘How can you bear it – to see them like that and not be able to do anything?’
Sophie gave her a grim little smile. ‘We bear it because we must – because we are alive and their need is so great.’
Leo braced her shoulders. ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’
When they congregated in the mess tent for the midday meal Sophie came over to where Leo was standing, bringing with her a small, lean man with very bright eyes.
‘This is Dr Iannis Nikolaides,’ she said. ‘He came from Gallipoli to join us.’
They shook hands and exchanged greetings, then Leo said, ‘But isn’t Gallipoli still under Turkish control?’
Iannis smiled. ‘For the present, yes. But I wanted to help the Allies who are fighting to drive them out, so I slipped through the lines one dark night and came here.’
‘That must have been very dangerous,’ Leo said.
‘He is a very brave man,’ Sophie declared, laying her hand proprietorially on the doctor’s arm. He smiled at her fondly and Leo realized that they were more than just colleagues. She was glad that Sophie had something to lighten the burden of her heartbreaking work but she felt a twist of envy. Victoria had Luke and Sophie had Iannis, but what hope was there that she might one day be united with her soul mate?
‘You are Greek?’ she asked Iannis. ‘I mean, I would guess that from your name.’
‘Macedonian Greek,’ he said. ‘As Sophie is Macedonian Serb. We are all mongrels, here in Macedonia, but we all love our country in the same way.’
Luke had reappeared during the course of the morning but in answer to Leo’s query about Victoria all he had said was ‘Give her time. She needs a bit of breathing space.’ He had offered his services as a stretcher bearer and general orderly and Sophie had been happy to accept. He joined them at lunch and Leo felt as they talked that a real sense of comradeship was developing between the four of them. She wished Victoria was there to be part of it.
When she returned to their tent that evening there was no sign of her friend and she was beginning to grow anxious when Victoria finally came in, flushed and with her sleeves rolled up.
‘Vita! Where have you been? What have you been doing?’ Leo asked.
‘You were right. I couldn’t sit around all day doing nothing,’ Victoria responded, ‘so I volunteered to help in the hospital kitchen.’
Leo jumped up and went to hug her. ‘Well done! I should have known you would find something to do.’
But Victoria backed away, gesturing Leo back. ‘I’m sorry, but if you don’t mind I think it would be better if we didn’t get too close to each other, don’t you?’
Leo retreated to her bed and sat down. It was sensible, she had to admit, but she felt rejected and unclean. Victoria made a conciliatory gesture. ‘I’m sorry, Leo. Honestly, I admire you for what you are doing . . . but I just can’t bring myself to do it. At least at Lozengrad everything was kept clean, but here the filth and the smell make me feel sick. And to be honest with you, I don’t see why we should risk our own health. Dying in a car crash or by a stray bullet is one thing; but not like that!’
‘It’s all right,’ Leo responded. ‘I understand. We all have things we can’t cope with. We must each do what we feel able to.’
For some days they both continued to work at their chosen stations, but Leo felt that Victoria had withdrawn emotionally as well as physically. She was uncomfortably aware that she watched with distaste as she examined her body for lice every night, and she kept all her clothes and other belongings well away from anything of Leo’s. One day as they worked together in the ward she mentioned her disquiet to Luke.
‘I think she’s just about at the end of her tether, to be honest,’ he said. ‘She’s a strong person and she’s a tiger behind the wheel of a car, but she needs a rest.’
‘I can’t seem to get through to her anymore,’ Leo said. ‘It’s as if she’s cut herself off.’
Luke’s face tightened. ‘Yeah. I know what you mean.’
He said no more but later that evening, sitting by the campfire, Leo saw him talking to Victoria in the shadows just beyond the firelight. She could not hear what they were saying but she saw him reach out to put his arms round her and saw her shrug him off and turn away. Is this the end of the affair, she asked herself, or just a temporary hiccup? Perhaps she’s got herself involved and now she’s regretting it. Well, I tried to warn her. Hard on that thought came a moment of ironic self-awareness. Who am I to warn others about love affairs, when I’m pining my heart out for a man who thinks I’m a boy and believes women should stay in the kitchen?
Next day a column of ox-carts bearing wounded arrived, with the news that the Turks were attacking in force around Gallipoli. The truce had broken down. The same evening they learned that fighting had begun again on the Chataldzha front.
Luke looked at Victoria. ‘Looks to me as if we could be back in business.’
‘You don’t mean back to Chataldzha?’ she asked. ‘It’s a long way from here and anyway, the hospital at Lozengrad has closed down.’
‘I was thinking of Gallipoli,’ he said. ‘If they are bringing the wounded here from that front there must be a need for the kind of ambulance service we were running before.’
‘You’re right!’ Victoria said, and Leo saw her face brighten for the first time in days. For a moment she was inclined to be angry. The breakdown in the truce had to be bad news for all concerned, but to Victoria it was a chance to get away from the squalor and drudgery of the camp and do what she did best. Leo decided she could not be blamed for preferring that.
Sixteen
Luke and Victoria left at first light the next morning. The distance to the battle front was greater from here, and there was no possibility of making a return journey in one day, so Leo knew she would not see them until the following evening. She was making her own way towards the hospital tent when she heard hoof beats approaching and saw Lieutenant Popitch, Colonel Malkovic’s aide-de-camp, cantering towards her, leading a second horse. She stood still, her pulse quickening. She had seen Sasha Malkovic at a distance once or twice since that first day, but there had been no contact.
Popitch dismounted beside her. ‘The colonel needs your help. Will you come?’
His tone was so different from the peremptory order he had delivered the first time that she wondered if Malkovic had told him to tread carefully. She said, ‘What does he need me for?’
‘He requires a translator. It is urgent, I believe.’
Leo hesitated a moment longer. Sophie would be expecting her in the ward, and she had her duty there, but she could surely be spared for an hour. And it must be important for Malkovic to send for her. She nodded. ‘Very well. Where is he?’
‘I’ll take you to him. Can you ride?’
‘Of course.’
She thanked heaven as she mounted that she had been taught to ride astride. It was good to be in the saddle again. They cantered back through the camp to the point some distance from the rest where the Serbian contingent had its base. Outside the largest tent Popitch took the reins from her and said, ‘He’s inside.’
Malkovic was talking to two other officers and Leo had a moment of terror at the thought that one of them might be Milan Dragitch, who would certainly recognize her; but they were both strangers.