The Daughters of Mars (20 page)

For the Inniskilling Fusiliers, it was known, were from a divided Ireland—though the sea was willing to accommodate them all equally.

She could not separate herself from the cold. It seemed determined to
be
her. The idea of being incarnate cold put her in a panic she was hard-pressed to manage. She felt cheated that—with all it
was cracked up to be—the Mediterranean could prove so bitter in the early or midsummer. Best not to say a word about it, though the useless words about the shivers pressed against her lower lip like a sneeze. Nor did she think that climbing aboard would help. She believed it would exhaust her more than give her warmth.

Are we all here then? called Naomi. She made a graceful reconnaissance over the side. No doubt over all four sides. She was the authority. Yes, Naomi could be heard, checking the unseen side of the raft. Five handsome soldiers and a sailor this side. Are we holding on? Are we downhearted, boys?

That was the stupid thing the troops always called: Are we downhearted? As their troop ships took them off to get minced.

Two of them at least replied. We’re still having a committee meeting on the downhearted business, Nurse.

Ragged half-witticisms.

You’ve got the tay going there, have you, Miss? And, What time’s the shuffleboard start?

A copper tank—a cube of about a yard each way—came cruising unevenly along. Two men held on by some sort of railing soldered to two of its sides. It seemed likely to roll at any encouragement but was kept steady by its two passengers’ life jackets.

Holding one of its handles was Sergeant Kiernan and, grabbing the other, an orderly whom Sally had seen but whose name she did not know. They were twinned. Each relied on the other to keep their cube steady.

Honora called to him. She seemed pleased to be able to make her complaint in person. This is nothing like what you told us, Sergeant Kiernan. All that Greek god claptrap. Never this cold at Clifton Gardens!

Kiernan was actually smiling! Keep angry with me, Nurse, he suggested. Angry people have a lot of staying power.

He made the water more habitable. A sort of hope floated up with him and raised the temperature for the moment.

He asked who was aboard and Naomi told him. Two wounded men. And Sister Nettice. And our three soldiers here.

Naomi—not quite in Sally’s line of sight from her position in the water—was doing a census for Kiernan. Apparently she inspected the young man with a steel fragment now.

This young fellow . . . he’s dead, I’m afraid.

The man’s sergeant roused himself, combating the decree. Are you right sure of that, Miss? he asked, sounding half hostile.

Feel the pulse, Naomi suggested. There is none.

Oh, Jamie, said the sergeant, doing his own assessment. Oh, Jamie.

Ease him down then, said Kiernan. That’s my suggestion.

Yes, said Naomi. I’ll take his life preserver first.

“He will swallow up death in victory,” intoned the sergeant in a grievous voice, “and the Lord God will wipe away tears . . .” He’s my fookin’ nephew.

What would you like me to do then? asked Naomi.

Let him go, said the sergeant with resignation. Let him go.

They could feel the jolting of Naomi and perhaps the sergeant dealing with the body. Naomi persuaded him to help her turn it over the rubber gunnels. A young body—but the face erased by a wedge of steel deck. Naomi and the sergeant operated on the reverent principle that he should not be simply dumped. Soldiers who knew him and who hung from the raft helped his descent into the sea. There for a number of consolatory seconds he floated, upright, face down, arms out. He waited until a decent space developed between him and the raft to raise his lower body and float in the posture of death. Then he gave up the surface and fell from sight. There was more discussion between Naomi and Kiernan. The ice now forming in Sally’s brain prevented her from grasping what was said. A delirious boy from further down the side of the raft was lifted aboard and Kiernan and his orderly abandoned their copper cube and took his place on the ropes.

Chafe him a bit, Miss, one of his friends called. He hit his head when we jumped.

They could feel rather than see Naomi rubbing the boy’s upper body as Mitchie, in shock, murmured half musically, “Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket, and bury me deep down below . . .”

Naomi was so busy and so much in command. She leaned over the squat rubber bulwark and said, Sally, we’ll change places
now
.

Sally desired it above all. But, No, she said, furious. Honora should go!

Come on now, said Naomi, with a commanding testiness. This isn’t a game of tea parties.

I’m here for good, said Honora, with stark blue-green eyes and clinging to her loop of rope. It was
her
pony or even her parent.

Honora, Sally insisted. And so Honora was hauled aboard and chafed. But the rubberized sides of the raft now threatened by a squeak to fold it up like a closed book, and so Naomi slid into the water, her bare feet pointed to make the entry as accommodating as it could be to everyone around the craft. There was no gasp from her, no sense of the shock of the sea.

So, are all you chaps awake? she asked after shaking the water from her hair. Their wakefulness had become her business.

Around the raft there were strange and weary cries. Yes, Nurse. Yes, Nurse. They sounded so much like a ward that they evoked the idea in Sally of the steel plates of the
Archimedes
and its decks crowded with cots. There was in their voice the expectation of orderlies arriving with trays of cocoa.

To Sally, her sister seemed above nature. Naomi conversed with Kiernan in tongues Sally could no longer grasp. They made their way around the raft to investigate the state of its passengers. On the raft, Matron Mitchie began singing again—this time in a finer contralto:

They don’t plant potatoes, nor barley, or wheat

But there’s gangs of them diggin’ for gold in the street . . .

But for all that I found there I’d much rather be . . .

Once she had made the mountains run down to the sea, a few soldiers gave her a raggedy cheer.

Oh, God, she groaned artlessly.

Kiernan—floating free of the raft—frowned as he surveyed Sally. He reached out with the sort of force allowed only here and lifted her into closer connection with the rope loop. Now, don’t daydream, Nurse Durance. The current would love to take daydreamers. You should be atop, you know.

He turned in the water to see if Naomi was in reach to consult. There was no doubt at all that Naomi must be party to decisions. And it was not many seconds later that—as if to confirm Kiernan’s adage about daydreaming—a soldier simply let go of the side of the raft. He floated away a little with his head back and his face skywards. What are you doing? she heard Naomi call to him.

I’m just . . . he called. See!

He half raised a finger to the sky. That other one . . .

No! Back here! Naomi called. But not even she had the strength to retrieve him.

Indeed, there were other rafts but removed now by hundreds of yards from them. An upright boat could be seen—but too far away. Another—upside down—was further removed still.

There is no other one than this one, called Kiernan. Come back!

No, the other one, he called out in cheery exhaustion.

Come back now, Ernie, one of his fellow soldiers called. But the current cooperated with the man’s intention. He spun in the water. His face grew smaller and it had a mutinous serenity on it. He laid his head back and his naked feet rose. He adopted the posture of resignation to the waters.

Some wisdom prevented even the overactive Kiernan from trying to fetch him. Dear God, Naomi said. It’s starting, is it?

She cried loudly, We’re all staying
here
. There is no other boat for us. Just this one.

No one answered directly except that some communal discontent at her edict came out in groans. They speculated about the chances of something warmer and more mothering.

In the raft Mitchie berserkly said, I don’t know where I’ve been, but I’m pleased to be home again.

A large gray ship appeared and was seen first by Honora. In the north, she called out. Yes. The north.

Leaning back a little way and her flesh blazing with ice, she could see the ship revealed by a swell. The men shouted and shrilled and whistled, and she bayed too. But it was set on finding its way to deliver more battalions to that terrible shore. Too busy delivering the dead to find the living.

Bastards! yelled one of the Ulster men.

Language, called Kiernan as if the rules here weren’t different.

Go to hell, roared the Ulsterman back. When I’m dictated to by a fookin’ colonial . . .

But he suddenly ran out of steam.

May I point out, called Kiernan, that it’s your crowd who want us here, beating our heads against the Turks. We are doing your Empire a favor.

There was another communal outcry from men on and attached to the raft.

Nettice leaned over the side and confided to Naomi, I’m finished now. I lost too much air. I went too deep.

She slid like a dolphin and was in the water, but Naomi gathered her in with a long arm and attached one of Nettice’s small blue hands to the rope. Nettice slumped there with a disappointed weariness.

Sally wondered why others were not so incarnately cold as she was. They complained in terms she knew were understandable. They spoke of the false current. They cursed a passing ship. But no one spoke of cold. Naomi was in the water but superior to it. Certainly she had lost all her authority on the
Archimedes
. Triage had chastened her. Ellis Hoyle’s
watch was an albatross. Yet now she had not only resumed control but done it in a particular way—by becoming the jolliest girl and the best camping companion. Sally was pleased for it since it was the accustomed arrangement which she welcomed at the moment. It was a grateful wonder. It was a light shining through ice.

There was another gray ship appearing up north and from the populace of the raft more waving and shouting and hooting and whistling in which Sally took part, but only by reflex.

Nurse Slattery, called Kiernan from the water, is there a box there, on board? One end of the raft or the other?

A box? There
is
a box, said Slattery. A young man has his head on it. Move him a little to the side. That’s right. So you want it, Mr. Kiernan?

Open it up, said Kiernan.

Honora said it was locked. Kiernan asked who had a knife.

Slattery inquired of the now mute sergeant if he had a knife. It seemed he produced something appropriate. Unskilled metal sounds were heard of Slattery working at the box. Fingers hopeless, she admitted. Then, Dear God, she cried. Broke the blade.

Keep working on it, said Kiernan. You see, there might be a flare.

Sally could hear Slattery battering at the box with the broken blade. She grunted, God, if you ever loved a poor girl, help me open this damned thing.

It amazed her by opening. A papist miracle of which none of the Ulstermen around and on the raft were heard objecting. Well, said Slattery, a jug of water here. Just right for Matron Mitchie.

I’ll have a sip of that too, said the sergeant aboard with a clotted voice.

In hearing that plea Sally discovered her own thirst. Dryness and ice. She was a cold desert no living water could redeem. She was not surprised to see her mother floating at her side where Honora had been. Life is sweet, said her mother but with the famed Durance frown which raised the chance that death was sweet too. Sally felt with a strange loathing pride what she had achieved—the lethal hoard
of morphine gathered in as honest girls gather in . . . what? Linen, blackberries, peaches? Time to put her money down on the chance death was sweet. Time to discover the infinite space of what she had done. The space lay beneath her and could be explored without limit.

A bandage and this stick thing, said Honora, further reporting the contents of the box.

The flare, said Kiernan. Hang on to it and keep it dry.

But there’s nothing dry here, said Slattery.

Kiernan redefined the objective. Well, don’t let it get too sodden. And pass it to me when another ship appears. It can give you phosphorus burns so don’t let it off yourself.

I wouldn’t know how to, Slattery reflected. She sounded a bit amazed that she had neglected this section of her education.

Go aboard when the time comes, Naomi advised him. Else you’ll drop it in the sea.

Sally saw another soldier slip away and no one but she seemed to take notice or be able to afford to. She could see him floating—she believed—towards Egypt.

Does anyone here have a red handkerchief? Naomi called.

Aboard, Honora repeated the request. Then she seemed to go about rifling pockets. We’ve got gray, she announced.

Use that too! said Kiernan.

For he and Naomi spoke and thought with one mind.

We’re as good as rescued, Naomi told everyone.

Men dangling on the sides of the craft were calling for their sip of the water. Naomi handed it over the far side of the raft. It had gone to only a few men when someone—according to the yells and reproofs of men—dropped it so that it half sank before it could be retrieved, already useless and tainted with salt. There were groans and curses all around the raft. The treasure was gone. That was the conclusive disaster. And the light was growing conclusive too, the sun getting low. In dark—it came to Sally—no one can stop me going to explore. Her forgiving mother said, We’ll slip off alone. Sally looked forward to it,
rejoicing. The pain of her hooked arm and the ice at her heart would be relieved.

She could not see more than the upper structure of one of them but it happened the sea was all at once full of ships. Two large shapes—Honora reported—and a smaller, faster one. The flare, called Kiernan, and Slattery passed it over the side like a baton without it being lost in the sea. Sally saw Kiernan—frowning like a prodigy of care—pull some string from it and hold it as high as he could. It blazed brighter than suns in his hand. He waved it while Slattery dared to stand in the raft and wave the gray handkerchief. One of the larger ships veered towards Kiernan’s light and Honora’s cloth. Around the raft ran a sudden, hoarse conversation.