The Eden Passion (50 page)

Still he managed to clear his head long enough to look up. And

there was Brassey, still seated astride his fine horse, safely removed from the blood-soaked mud, his boots in the stirrups polished, his coat thick and dry. The only feature about him which marked the occasion as unusual was his hatless state, that, and his face as he stared down on John. A portion of the customary arrogance seemed to have left it. His mouth was open, and his lips appeared to be trembling.

John lifted his eyes, forced them into direct contact with Brassey's. Before the Frenchmen lifted his litter, in that one brief instant when he was certain that Brassey's attention was his and his alone, he whispered, "Damn you! God damn your soul to hell!"

His head dropped back onto the litter and he closed his eyes.

Balaklava Harbor,

Aboard HMS Perseverance,

April 1855

Captain J. M. Broadwood was standing near the top of the gangplank looking out over the grim scene, firm in his mind that after two years of transferring the sick and wounded from Balaklava to Scutari across the Black Sea, this was the worst.

"Gawd," he muttered to his first mate, who was standing nearby. "Soldiers are bad enough, them that knew what they were letting themselves in for. But civilians . . ."

The first mate, a good man named Margate, stirred from his position near the railing where together they had kept a vigil for over two hours as ambulance wagon followed ambulance wagon to the docks from the Highlands. "Just another blot, it is, Captain," Margate muttered. "Name me one thing that's went right with this bloody war, just one."

Captain Broadwood heard the despairing tone and recognized it. It matched his own as well as the rest of his crew who had been pressed by the government into this grisly duty. They were all seamen, and damn good ones, at home on the high seas, their hold normally filled with tea from China or cotton from America. He'd heard no grumbling from his men on runs from Hong Kong or Savannah harbor. No, the grumbling had started when they'd had to swab the deck three, sometimes four times a day in an effort to cleanse the blood, when with every sailing they could look forward to the grim ritual of burials at sea.

Margate had seen enough. He walked away a few steps and looked respectfully back. "With your permission, Captain," he said, "I'll

press the crew into duty to help with the loading. I think it best if we get under way as soon as possible."

Captain Broadwood had no intention of disagreeing with him. Men were not designed to be heaped in such a miserable mass as that on the docks. He moved back to the top of the gangplank, assuming a captain's stance, his eye falling on a strange conveyance just entering the crowded dock area, a black carriage which looked out of place among the gray of the ambulance wagons. Compounding this strange conveyance was the fact that it appeared to be dragging a small enclosed sled behind it.

Grateful for a diversion, Captain Broadwood watched as the carriage penetrated as far as possible onto the dock, then was brought to a halt by the press of wounded lying on litters. A moment later the door opened and he saw a British soldier climb out.

Broadwood saw the driver of the carriage hop down from his perch and run to the covered sled at the rear of the carriage. He threw open the narrow door and looked inquiringly in. Then Broadwood's attention was drawn back to the carriage as he saw the soldier reach a hand in and guide a young man forward, clearly wounded and weakened, his right arm and shoulder swathed in bandages.

Captain Broadwood frowned at the scene. As diversion it left a great deal to be desired. It was simply the arrival of more sick and wounded. Now he saw the young man, dressed in ill-fitting civilian clothes, pull away from the support of the soldier and move rapidly toward the rear of the sled, where two litter bearers were withdrawing a man lying prone, covered with a blanket and strapped onto a litter.

It was apparent to Captain Broadwood that the wounded young man was refusing to leave the side of the man on the litter. The soldier appeared to be begging him to do so, but in spite of his obvious weakened condition, the man stood as though a guard, his good left hand grasping his friend's.

Finally the argument was settled by the superior will of one man over the other, and Broadwood saw the soldier step back in an attitude of resignation and start slowly through the wounded.

A moment later the soldier stood before him. "Corporal Andrew Rhoades," the man said, "temporarily released from the Sixty-third to escort the civilian wounded to Scutari."

Broadwood smiled. "All of them, Corporal?" he asked gently. "Quite a job that would be."

"Two in particular, sir," the soldier admitted. "Mr. Brassey's assist-

ant and one of his foremen." The young corporal reached inside his pocket and withdrew a crushed sheet of paper.

Broadwood knew what it was without looking, an official order. "Were you there?" he asked, referring to the recent massacre.

"No," Corporal Rhoades replied, a reluctance in his voice which seemed to say that he wished he had been there.

The captain put a hand on his shoulder. "Bring your two friends aboard, Corporal. We'll be under way as soon as possible."

At that moment Margate's voice boomed across the deck. "Stores secured, Captain. Way's cleared for the litters."

It had not been Captain Broadwood's intention to watch the grisly procession. He'd seen quite enough from the deck of his ship. But as litter after litter passed him by, he found himself searching each face, passing judgment on who, in his opinion, would survive the voyage and who wouldn't. The fortunate ones were half-delirious, the truly fortunate unconscious.

As he was about to turn away, having looked his fill, he saw the young corporal starting up the gangplank, his friend leaning heavily upon him, a greatcoat swung loosely over his bandaged shoulder, his eyes lifting now and then to check on the litter which preceded them, that man's face as bloodless as any Broadwood had seen during his watch, a noticeable thickness about his middle, bespeaking bandages.

Broadwood watched until they had disappeared through the narrow passage which led to the deck below. Then he looked back in the other direction and saw the wounded still coming, and unable to look any longer, he fled down the deck in the opposite direction.

In the meantime there was a bottle of brandy in his cabin which offered relief, and he ran toward it, feeling as battered and bleeding as those British navvies now filling the lower deck of HMS Perseverance.

They left Balaklava late in the afternoon with their shipload of sick and wounded—some for Scutari, some for the hospitals on the coast, a few officers for Malta. It had been reasonably good weather when they had left the harbor, but at this season of the year, the Euxine was seldom quiet for many hours together, and before they had got halfway across, a storm was raging furiously, the black waves upheaving as if they would at every moment engulf the ship with her cargo of life and half-life.

Captain Broadwood stood on the quarterdeck speaking with the

first mate, Margate, when the young corporal with the badge of the Sixty-third approached them, making with one hand a military salute while with the other he held on to save himself from being washed overboard. "Captain, will you be in smooth water soon?" he shouted. He lowered his head, an expression in his eyes which reflected the scene of human misery he'd just left below deck.

What was Captain Broadwood to do but tell the truth. "Lad," he shouted, "the ship scarce makes any headway in this sea. There will be no smooth water for the next twenty-four hours anyway."

The corporal nodded slowly, as though in resignation. As he turned away, the captain called after him, "Wait," feeling the need to offer some solace to such a despairing face. "Isn't all taut and dry below? And the doctor's with your mate, isn't he? All the ship's comforts are at his service. Does he want anything?"

The corporal turned back. "He won't live much longer, Captain. He never could stand the sea, or so he says, even when he was the man he used to be. He wants . . . fresh air, that's all."

In the face of such an earnest entreaty, Captain Broadwood weakened. "Go ahead," he said gruffly, "bring him up, though I can't imagine what healing powers you'll find in that sea."

As he gestured roughly toward the swells beyond the deck, he saw the corporal hurry off; then he stepped inside the captain's bridge. Which friend? he wondered. The corporal had boarded with two.

"Bear a hand," he shouted to several of his crew. A few minutes later, they had arranged a makeshift bed beneath one of the quarterdeck boats. And a few moments after that, the grim procession emerged from the lower deck, a doctor in the lead carrying one end of the litter, the corporal supporting the opposite end, and hovering close was the young man with the clipped right wing, his good hand tightly grasping the limp hand of his friend.

Captain Broadwood indicated the makeshift bed, then stood away. It had been his intention to take refuge in his own cabin. But something caught his interest, some measure of devotion with which the young man knelt beside his friend. The captain noticed then that everyone else was standing away, the doctor as though to say that he'd done all that medical science could do, and even the corporal, clearly not wanting to intrude on so intimate a moment. He did linger long enough to place his own coat about the kneeling man's shoulders, then stepped back and left them alone, the young man on his knees beside the litter, the older man lying motionless, as though death

had already descended and had somehow failed to announce its presence.

But a few minutes later, with the wind shrieking about him, and the salt sea foam splashing on his face, he revived for a time. His eyes opened and moved directly to the young man's face. He whispered something, though Captain Broadwood couldn't hear over the wail of the wind. But whatever it was, the young man smiled, a stiff muscle spasm which did little to alleviate the desperate look of grief on his face.

As the man revived even more, Captain Broadwood moved a step closer, drawn forward by a combination of pleasure that perhaps the harsh air was proving medicinal, and his curiosity to know the nature of the bond between the two men. Clearly they were separated by age, and something else, class perhaps. There was a roughness to the man on the litter, something about the texture of the complexion which suggested that he was a man who had worked outdoors most of his life, quite opposite from the young man bending over him, whose features, while strong, bore a refinement.

They were not of the same fabric, these two. Yet how to account for the clear love which existed between them? In that moment the wind seemed to subside, as though nature herself saw the need for a moment's calm, and for the first time Captain Broadwood heard the young man's voice clearly. "Jack, we'll go to Eden Point when we get home. You'll be welcome there, I know. You'll see for yourself how beautiful it is, a perfect place to heal."

But the man on the litter merely looked up into the gray churning heavens. "John," he whispered, "promise me . . . that you will . . . see Elizabeth," he begged, "and forgive her. She . . . loves you so much."

Suddenly he pressed his head back against the litter, one hand grasping his stomach. The corporal started forward and was restrained by the doctor, who with a shake of his head sealed the man's fate. Nothing could be done.

The young man was kneeling over him again, speaking his name. "Jack, listen to me, please . . ." Captain Broadwood heard the break in his voice, saw that left hand trembling as it moved over the man's chest, caressing, always caressing, then back to his forehead, lovingly stroking the graying hair.

As for the man on the litter, his lips and face were as pale as wax, his eyes sunken in their blackened sockets, his features damp from the salt spray.

Again he seemed to revive, though energy was fast going. Grasping the young man's hand, he drew him close. "Take care of yourself, John," he said. "Years from now . . . remember me." He drew the young man close and kissed him. With his eyes closed, he said softly, "I. . . had not planned on . . . loving you. But I do."

The young man grasped the hand so feebly outstretched, and bent over him, tears streaming, mingling with the spray of sea which flew around that strange bed of death. "Jack . . ." he cried, half-raising the dead man to him.

One by one all turned away from that intimate embrace, unable to look any longer. Above the swells and wind, the sobs of the young man could be heard, unearthly weeping, as though he'd repressed tears for too long, and now with the legitimacy of a dead man in his arms, he could weep for everyone.

Barrack Hospital, Scutari, Mid-April 1855

With a sense of amazement Andrew sat upon his camp stool beside John's bed, a vigil which he'd maintained for the last four days, and focused on the miraculous changes which had taken place in the British hospital since he'd last seen it over a year ago.

It was a forced diversion. Anything to keep his eyes off that pale face on the pillow, growing paler in spite of the fact that according to the nurses his shoulder wound was healing.

Then why the pallor? Why were the eyes sinking deeper into shadows, and why had he refused all food and drink for four days since he'd been here? And why no response to anything Andrew said, no response to anyone for that matter.

Andrew looked closely at his friend, trying to put the horrible shipboard death of Jack Willmot out of his mind. Never had he heard a man mourn as John had mourned that day.

Overcome with his own feeling of helplessness, Andrew left the camp stool and walked a few steps to the window, seeking momentary solace in the bright warm day, again trying to absorb and digest the incredible changes which had taken place in the hospital. How changed it was, and in a rush of gratitude he thought of the Englishwoman who had almost single-handedly wrought these miraculous changes.

At some point, despite British mismanagement, hope had dawned at Scutari. Everyplace he looked, Andrew saw new order, the sick and wounded in the wards using towels and soap, knives and forks, combs and toothbrushes. The walls had been whitewashed, the beds

separated a decent distance, the sheets were clean and white, and here and there the indelible signature of a true Englishwoman was visible in the lovely bouquets of wildflowers, bringing light and color and fragrance to men who sorely needed it.

Andrew had never seen her, that Englishwoman named Nightingale, but he'd heard about her, chatting softly with other men in the ward, soldiers who wanted news from the front. Andrew had told them what he could, and in exchange had posed questions of his own, sharing tales of the old Scutari, where men prayed for death rather than recovery, and more often than not had their prayers answered.

"It's her," one had told him, his eyes seared by an exploding shell. "The lady," he whispered, "she makes the difference. Afore she come, they was cussin' and swearin' but now it's holy as a church."

Over and over again during the last four days Andrew had listened to such testimony, sensing a passionate idolatry spreading among the men. One confessed to having kissed her shadow.

Now slumped on the camp stool, Andrew brought his brief inspection to a close. Whatever her magic, Andrew's only regret was that she'd arrived too late for the thousands who had already died. Slowly he turned back to John's bed, as though his brief recess was over and now again it was time to concentrate on his friend.

"John?" he whispered. "Please look at me. You must eat. The nurse says . . ."

Feeling the need to touch him, Andrew reached for his left hand, which lay limp on the bed. But there was no response.

For a moment longer he lingered in close scrutiny of the face he knew by heart, charting the many changes, so vast that at times Andrew wondered if a mask hadn't been slipped over the old features. The long fair hair was still there, though no longer brushed, now encircling his face in a snarled and oily mat. The mouth and chin were all but obscured by the full unkempt beard which had grown in darker than his hair and showed small streaks of gray. His complexion, turned rough by his constant exposure to the Crimean winter was that of a man in his middle years. And his loss of flesh was apparent in the thinness of his neck, which stood out in sharp contrast to the heavy bandages encasing his right shoulder.

But for all that grim inventory, nothing was worse than his eyes, and before that devastating emptiness Andrew retreated. There was an additional worry plaguing him. He couldn't stay here forever at Scutari. But how could he leave John in such a condition? Confident

that Mr. Brassey would not want him to leave until all was well, he'd stayed four days, thinking every day his friend would stir and request water, a biscuit, something.

In a rush of despair Andrew was about to try again when suddenly he heard a disturbance at the far end of the ward. He looked up to see a dozen or so litter-bearers bringing new wounded through the double doors.

Andrew glanced out of the window. He'd seen no hospital ship, no new arrivals on the landing stage from Balaklava. As the ill moved past him, he saw that a few were dressed in military garb, though mottled and strange-appearing, and others were clad in plain civilian clothes, quite ragtag they were, and most peculiar of all were their faces, bronzed and sun-baked, not the rough chapness caused by the Crimean cold, but the dark brown burnt look of constant exposure to extreme heat.

As litter after litter filed past him, he noticed something else as well, the telltale symptoms of dysentery, the legs drawn up in an attempt to accommodate the searing pain in their guts, the spreading stains of brown beneath their hips, their lips parched and open.

Suddenly two orderlies shouted at him, "Move back, soldier. This one here is in need of that empty bed next to your friend."

Andrew grabbed the camp stool and moved to the window, staring in sympathy as the large man turned and twisted on the litter, his hands clutching at something about his throat, begging them to leave him be.

As the nurses approached, his screams increased, and from where Andrew stood he noticed that not once did the man's hands leave his throat. They appeared to be clasping a leather pouch of some sort.

"Here, now," one of the nurses soothed. "All we want to do is make you comfortable. You'll let us do that, won't you?"

As one of the nurses reached again for his neck, the man struggled with all his might to flee the bed, and would have, had it not been for the quick action of the three orderlies who stepped forward and restrained him.

"Very well, no need," one of the nurses said, seeing the cause of his fear. "You may keep your toy, whatever it is. I promise, we won't touch your pouch, but do let us bathe you. We only want to . . ."

About twenty minutes later the man had been bathed and dressed and now lay upon the bed, his eyes still keeping watch on all those around him. At last the orderlies stepped away, and the man, sensing

his increasing weakness, stuffed the leather pouch into his mouth, as though to say, "Try to remove it now."

As the nurses gathered up his soiled garments, Andrew moved to assist them. As he handed over a pile of soiled linen, he asked quietly, "Where are they from? I saw no ship dock at—"

The nurse shook her head. "Their ship docked at Malta, an unscheduled stop due to an outbreak of dysentery. The hospital there was filled, and we inherited the overflow. From India they are."

"Are they soldiers?" Andrew asked.

"A few," she replied. "He isn't, however," she said, looking down on her new charge. "Just an Englishman, soldier of fortune, you might say, gone off to see the world." She looked down on the man's feverish face. "Seen a bit too much of it would be my guess," she added sympathetically.

Someone called for her assistance from the end of the ward. Before she left, she glanced down on John. "And what are we going to do with your friend, Corporal?" she asked sadly. "He must eat soon." Her hand brushed across John's forehead in a loving caress. "Wouldn't it be lovely to hear him screaming like his bedmate there? I never worry quite so much when they are screaming," she concluded.

The voice from the end of the ward called to her again, and with an air of resignation she started away. As she passed the foot of John's bed, she looked back at Andrew. "Does he have a favorite food?" she asked brightly. "Our stores are somewhat limited, but Miss Nightingale believes in fighting pain with pleasure. If there is a certain treat that he might respond to . . ."

Her voice drifted off as she waited for Andrew to respond. But try as he did, he could think of nothing. Faced with his silence and the voice coming from the end of the ward, the nurse gently shrugged. "Well, I'll tend to his tray myself this evening. Perhaps between the two of us we can coax him into swallowing a few bites."

He started to thank her, when again she turned back. "What's his name again, Corporal?" she asked, an air of apology in her voice.

"Eden," he said. "John Murrey Eden."

She nodded, then she was gone.

Slowly Andrew drew a deep breath, lifted the camp stool and placed it again at John's side. As he sat wearily, he looked over at the newcomer from India in the next bed. He appeared to be sleeping. But that curious leather pouch was still in his mouth, the line of his jaw suggesting that his teeth were exerting pressure, that no one had

better dare try to remove it, or in spite of his weakened state, he'd come fighting out of his semisleep.

India, Andrew mused. What had he been doing there? For a moment he felt a surge of resentment. The man appeared able-bodied. Hadn't it occurred to him that England needed him in the Crimea, not India, where the empire was secure?

As his weary mind built a connection between the wounded silent John Murrey Eden and the man on the other side, Andrew rearranged the camp stool and turned his back on the soldier of fortune and concentrated anew on the ravaged face of his friend. He leaned forward with a resolute beginning. "John, remember Childe's, remember how we used to . . ."

But after those few words, he was defeated by the still face and the fixed staring eyes, the parched lips which were moving now, as they frequently did, in delirium, whispering only one recognizable name, though Andrew had no idea who it was or how to respond to it, a name spoken so softly that on occasion it sounded like little more than a gentle expulsion of air, the same name he'd heard John utter over and over again during the last four days and nights, a simple name which seemed to soothe him just to speak it.

"Harriet. . ."

It was a slow-falling dusk, typical of the Crimea, when the sun seemed to hang forever on the black horizon line. On the small table near John's bed rested the tray of untouched food, a tribute to female ingenuity, a deep bowl of rich red beef stew and to one side a sherry trifle, a delicacy which Andrew had never seen in the Crimea. In addition there was a pot of tea, now grown cold, and a wedge of soft white bread.

After a half hour of gentle pleading with John, the nurse had urged Andrew to eat it himself, and at first he'd been tempted. But instead he'd taken a cheese roll from the trolley as it had come through the ward, always hopeful that perhaps sometime during the night, John might stir and request sustenance.

With the coming of night, the ward was growing quiet. Bedtime medicines had been administered, the moans of pain subsiding. Andrew stood up and tried to stretch the tightness out of his legs and shoulders. He eyed the stone floor beside John's bed. For the last four nights he'd napped there, brief intervals of sleep.

How much longer could he wait here? Was John purposely starv-

ing himself? Was it an act of premeditation, or had his grief literally unhinged his mind?

Hurriedly Andrew moved to the window as though to move away from such a thought. If only Jack Willmot were here. Willmot had been the only one who could handle him.

Though not by nature deeply religious, it occurred to him to pray, though to what God he would speak and how he would address Him, he had no idea. How to begin? Our Father in Heaven . . .

It sounded stiff and childish, and in a rush of self-consciousness he lifted his head and turned away from the window. As he turned, his eye fell on the double doors at the end of the ward, on the figure of a woman standing there, looking back at him.

She appeared thin and angular. Her hair from that distance was indistinguishable, though it appeared dark, parted in the middle and drawn tightly back, a cap of white lace covering all but the rim of her face.

As she drew nearer, Andrew noticed other specifics; in her arm she clasped a heavy black notebook, and her face, coming closer, was not as old as he had first thought, scarcely a middle-aged woman.

Less than twenty feet away, she stopped. Would she stand there all evening merely gaping at him? If she had business with him, let her come forward. Growing exhausted by the curious encounter, Andrew at last rose to face her. Perhaps she was a relative and had come to visit someone, as soon as she could find him in the long rows of silent beds.

To this end, he asked courteously, "May I assist you? If you're looking for a specific patient, I'd be happy to summon a nurse."

Was he mistaken, or was that a smile on those small features?

"I need no assistance, Corporal," she said, "at least none that you can give me."

Though plainly spoken, the rebuke was not offensive.

"You don't know me, do you, Corporal?" She smiled, stepping to the foot of John's bed, her eyes falling upon that still face. Suddenly the smile faded, as though something in those ravaged features had caught her attention.

"It is him," she whispered. "When the nurse told me his name, I thought it might be, but. . ."

Andrew stepped forward. "You . . . know him?" he inquired.

Without looking up, she replied, "I knew his father, Edward Eden. And him as well," she added, "when he was just a babe. I spent my eighteenth year as a volunteer in the Ragged Schools of

London." She shook her head, obviously falling victim to nostalgia. "How much I learned from his father, Edward Eden. Oh, not scientific knowledge to be sure. Mr. Eden was sadly lacking in that department." She laughed softly, her eyes holding fast on John's face. "But what a master the man was in the art of caring. No matter how small or dirty or diseased the child, Mr. Eden's arms were always broad enough to hold it, his heart always open and receptive to the faintest cry."

Her voice seemed to drift off, and Andrew felt himself leaning forward as though fearful of losing a word. When she seemed disinclined to say anything further, Andrew said, "I'm afraid you have the advantage. My name is Andrew Rhoades. And you are . . ."

She looked up with an expression of apology. "I'm sorry," she murmured, and extended one thin white hand in an almost masculine gesture. "Miss Nightingale," she said.

It was a few seconds before Andrew recovered, and by then she'd already withdrawn her hand, placed the notebook on the foot of the bed, dragged the camp stool close and sat upon it, her head and shoulders erect, her hands folded primly in her lap, demanding of Andrew in an efficient voice, "Tell me about him. What's causing this?"

After the amazing announcement, Andrew did well to stammer, "He . . . was in the massacre, in the employ of Mr. Thomas Brassey, the . . . rail link at Section. . ."

The sound of his own voice flustered him even more, and grateful for a reprieve, he watched her bend over the bed, draw back the blanket and commence an examination of John's shoulder wound, unwrapping the bandages, asking only of Andrew that he, "Bring the candle closer."

He did as he was told and found his attention torn between the red and angry-looking shoulder wound and the woman herself, this frail female who, single-handedly had taken on all the stupidity and inefficiency of the British Army.

"Healing well enough," she pronounced. "I've seen men up and about with more."