Blood And Ice Part 25

Lucan, glowering, read the orders, then looked up at Nolan, whose horse was still pacing anxiously about, and challenged him in some way. Sinclair could not make out all the words, but he heard something to the effect of "Attack what? Attack what guns, sir?"

Sinclair traded a look with Rutherford. Was Lord Lucan- "Lord Look-On" to his idled troops-once again going to keep his men from entering the fray?

Nolan urgently repeated something, his dark curls shaking about his head, and gestured at the paper in Lord Lucan's hand. And then, with his arm thrown out toward the Russian batteries at the far end of the North Valley, and in a voice that even Sinclair could clearly hear, Nolan shouted, "There, my lord, is your enemy. There are your guns!"

Sinclair expected to see Lord Lucan go into a rage at this further impertinence and order Captain Nolan to be arrested on the spot, but instead he simply shrugged, turned his horse away, and trotted off to consult with his archenemy, Lord Cardigan. Whatever had been written in that communique, it was sufficiently important that he did not wish to ignore it or to take some unilateral action.

After several minutes of intense deliberation, Lord Cardigan saluted, not once but twice, and galloped back toward Sinclair and his fellow Lancers. Quickly, he ordered the brigade to form up in two lines, with the first line composed of the 17th Lancers, the 13th Light Dragoons, and the 11th Hussars; the second line was made up of the 4th Light Dragoons and most of the 8th Hussars. The Heavy Brigade, meanwhile, was being drawn up to their rear. The Horse Artillery, which might have been expected to follow under normal circ.u.mstances, was not ordered up-perhaps, Sinclair concluded, because the valley before them was partly plowed and consequently hard to traverse.

If he'd had to guess, Sinclair would have said that the North Valley, into which the brigade was entering, was about a mile and a quarter long, and not even a mile wide. It was a flat plain, offering no sort of cover, and on all three sides it was under the control of the Russian forces. On the Fedioukine Hills to the north, Sinclair could make out at least a dozen gun emplacements, along with several battalions of infantry. To the south, the Causeway Heights were even more fearsome, with as many as thirty guns and a field battery that had captured the redoubts earlier in the day. But it was at the end of the valley that the greatest danger of all lay. If the Light Brigade was to attack that point, it would not only have to pa.s.s through a gauntlet of fire the entire way, it would then have to ride straight up into the muzzles of a dozen cannons, backed by several lines of densely packed Russian cavalry.

For the first time in his life, Sinclair had a distinct premonition of death. It came not as a shiver, or even as an urge to flee, but as a cold, stark fact. Up until then, even as others had fallen by the wayside with cholera or fever, or been picked off by snipers in the hills, he had never truly considered his own vulnerability. He had felt impervious. But no one, staring down the bore of the North Valley, could continue in such an illusion.

Sinclair was riding in the first line with Rutherford on his left, and a young chap named Owens on his right. Sergeant Hatch had been conscripted into the second line.

"Five quid," Sinclair said to Rutherford, "that I reach the gun battery first."

"You're on," Rutherford said. "But have you got five quid?"

Sinclair laughed, and Owens managed a weak smile at overhearing the exchange. He had a receding chin and a thin face, and his skin had gone as white as whey. His hand trembled on the upright lance.

A trumpet sounded, and Sinclair fell silent, as did all of those around him. Lord Cardigan had ridden several lengths in front of the entire company, and all alone he drew his sword and raised it. In a calm voice that nonetheless carried to the men behind him, he said, "The Brigade will advance. Walk, march, trot."

The sound of the trumpet had died away, and it was only as the cavalry advanced, lances held high, that Sinclair noted the strange, almost unnatural hush that seemed to have fallen over the entire valley. No rifles were fired from the heights, no cannons boomed, no breeze rustled the short gra.s.s. All he could hear were the creaking of the leather saddles and the jingling of spurs. It was as if the whole world was holding its breath, waiting to see how this spectacle would unfold.

Sinclair held his reins loosely in his hands, knowing that the time would soon come when he would have to tighten his grip and urge Ajax on into a maelstrom of fire. The horse lifted its head, snorting at the fresh air, happy to trot at last on level, hard-packed ground. Sinclair tried to keep his gaze fixed firmly ahead, on the trim figure of Lord Cardigan, sitting erect in his saddle, his gold-laced pelisse not dangling from his shoulder, as was the custom, but worn as a coat. Cardigan never once turned around to observe his troops, for to do so, as any cavalryman knew, was to signal uncertainty, and Lord Cardigan was nothing but certain of himself. Whatever Sinclair and the other men thought of him in general, much as they might mock him for his luxurious ways and petty insistence on protocol, on that day he was an inspiring figure.

And then Sinclair saw, at the far end of the valley, a puff of smoke, as delicate and round as a dandelion head, then another. The boom of the cannon fire arrived only a second or two later, and a fountain of dirt and gra.s.s erupted into the air. The shots had fallen short, but Sinclair knew that the Russian gunners were simply finding their range. The front line had advanced no more than fifty or sixty yards, when to Sinclair's astonishment Captain Nolan broke from the ranks and raced, in a gross breach of all military etiquette, directly across Lord Cardigan's path, waving his sword; he had wheeled in his saddle and was shouting something at Cardigan that was impossible for anyone to hear over the rising thunder of the guns. For a moment, Sinclair thought that Nolan had lost his head entirely, and was trying to take over the charge. But before Cardigan could even react to this shocking display, a Russian cannonball exploded in the dirt, and a sh.e.l.l fragment ripped across Captain Nolan's chest with such savagery that Sinclair could see the man's beating heart. Then he heard a scream, like none he had ever heard before, as Nolan's b.l.o.o.d.y body, still somehow erect in the saddle, was carried back through the lines by the panic-stricken horse. The sword had dropped from Nolan's hand, but his arm remained inexplicably outstretched, as if he were still attempting to direct the attack. The scream continued, too, until the horse had bolted into the 4th Light Dragoons, where the body, finally silent, toppled from the saddle.

"Good G.o.d," Sinclair heard Rutherford mutter. "What was the man trying to do?"

Sinclair had no idea, but to see Captain Nolan, the most capable rider in the whole British cavalry, slain so soon, did not bode well. The pace of the brigade increased, but only slightly. Lord Cardigan, who had still not so much as turned in his saddle to ascertain Nolan's fate, was leading the troops in close formation and at a measured pace, for all the world as if they were simply performing a drill on a parade ground, rather than marching into a mounting cascade of fire.

"Close in!" Sinclair heard Sergeant Hatch call out behind him, ordering the riders to move up and fill in the gaps left by fallen men and horses. "Close in to the center!"

The pace picked up, and Ajax lowered his chestnut muzzle, with its blaze of white, and carried Sinclair forward, his sword and sabretache slapping at his side, his helmet lowered to shield his eyes from the bright sun. The shaft of the lance grew unwieldy in his hand, and he longed for the order to lower it and cradle it beneath his arm. And he prayed that he would survive long enough to use it.

Halfway down the valley, the brigade had come within the withering cross fire of the cannons and infantry rifles on both the Causeway Heights and the Fedioukine Hills. Musket b.a.l.l.s and cannon sh.e.l.ls, grapeshot and round, whizzed and blazed through the ranks, tearing into the horses' flanks, or knocking the riders clear out of their saddles. The troopers could no longer restrain their terrified horses, or for that matter restrain themselves, and the ranks became increasingly disarrayed as horses and men galloped forward, desperate to escape the deadly hail. Sinclair heard cheers and prayers, mingled with the agonized shrieks of wounded horses and the screams of dying men.

"Come on, Seventeenth Lancers!" he heard Sergeant Hatch shout, as his horse drew along Sinclair's right side. "Don't let the 13th get there before us!"

Where was young Owens, Sinclair wondered, or his horse? He had not even seen the man killed.

A bugle sounded, and Sinclair at last lowered his lance, and touched his spurs to Ajax's heaving sides. The battlefield was so clouded with smoke and dust and debris that Sinclair could barely make out the gun battery ahead. He could see flashes of flame, and hear the cannonb.a.l.l.s crashing through the lines, taking out a dozen men at once as if they were ninepins. The noise was deafening, so loud and harsh that he could hear nothing but a ringing din. His eyes burned from the smoke and fire, and his blood was pounding in his veins. Hors.e.m.e.n who had charged ahead of him were scattered on the ground, blown to pieces, their steeds struggling to rise on shattered or missing legs. Ajax leapt over a standard-bearer, draped across his headless mount, and confident in his master, galloped bravely into the maelstrom. The ground hurtled past as Sinclair struggled to hold the lance straight and true. Not more than fifty yards away, he could glimpse the gray uniforms and low-brimmed caps of the Russian gunners, as they frantically loaded another sh.e.l.l into the cannon. He was riding straight for its barrel as they rammed the cannonball home, but he could not get out of its way. Sergeant Hatch was close on one side, and Rutherford's horse, keening with fright, was keeping him company on the other; the empty stirrups clanked, but there wasn't any sign of its rider. Sinclair would have no choice but to vault over the gun before it could be fired. He heard cries in Russian, saw a sputtering orange torch being touched to a fuse, and with his head down and his lance extended toward the man who held the flame, he charged the gun. Ajax leapt into the air just as the cannon went off, and the last thing Sinclair remembered was flying blind through a red-hot stew of blood and smoke, guts and gunpowder ... and then nothing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

December 16, 11:45 a.m.

JUST WHEN CHARLOTTE HAD STARTED to think this might not be such a bad gig, after all-terrible weather and camp fever, true, but no big medical crises to deal with-all h.e.l.l had started breaking loose.

First, Danzig had been attacked and killed by his own husky and now-now Murphy was trying to tell her that the mutilated body lying before her on the floor of the botany lab was the dead Danzig's handiwork.

"That's not possible," she said, for the hundredth time. "I p.r.o.nounced Danzig dead myself. I st.i.tched his throat closed with my own two hands, I hit him twice-no, three times-with the defib paddles, and I saw him flatline." She knelt and put a hand to the side of Ackerley's cold neck. "And I saw him zipped into the body bag."

"Well, somehow he got out," Murphy insisted. "That's all I can tell you. Wilde and Lawson both swear to it."

If she didn't know better, she'd have asked if they were drunk at the time, or flying high on something even more potent. But she knew Michael and she knew Lawson and she knew they would never make up anything so awful. And this was indeed about as awful as it could get. The throat and shoulders had been savagely torn, and the gushing blood had saturated his shirt and pants. Somehow his gla.s.ses, though spattered with gore, had managed to stay on throughout the attack. Whoever, or whatever, had done this, was something far worse than anything she had encountered even on the worst night in the Chicago ER.

"I know you'll want to do a more thorough exam," Murphy said, nervously pacing behind her, "but in view of what's happened to Danzig, I'm not taking any chances." She had already noticed the telltale bulge of a gun and holster under his coat.

"What's that mean?"

"I'll show you."

What it meant, Charlotte discovered, was that the body was to be packed up and then loaded, by the two of them, onto a toboggan, which they then dragged, as inconspicuously as they could, around the back of the out buildings and to a seldom-used storage shed and meat locker. The old meat locker turned out to be a cavernous, dilapidated shed. In it, there were crates of c.o.ke and beer and culinary supplies. Murphy went all the way to the back, then with one arm swept a couple of cans and utensils off a long crate about three feet high. A thick metal pipe, with flaking red paint, ran along the wall just above it.

"Let's lay him down here," he said. Murphy took the shoulders, and Charlotte the feet, and they put the body down as gently and respectfully as they could. As Charlotte straightened up, she saw that the crate was stamped, in black letters, MIXED CONDIMENTS: HEINZ.

"And why is this better than taking him to the infirmary for the autopsy?" Charlotte said.

"Because we can keep it quiet," Murphy replied, "at least for a while. And it's safer here."

"Safer from what?" Whatever that Danzig situation turned out to be, did the chief really think that this mutilated corpse was going to make a comeback?

Murphy didn't answer that, but she certainly didn't like the look in his eye, or the pair of handcuffs-handcuffs?-that she now saw dangling from his back pocket. "Give me a minute alone, will you?" he said. "I'll be right out."

Charlotte went outside and stood on the ramp. The wind had really kicked up-a storm was blowing in. What in the world was going on here? Two dead in a matter of days? And though she felt terrible even thinking about it that way on a personal note she did have to wonder-was this going to look bad on her record as resident medical officer of Point Adelie?

"All squared away" Murphy said, coming up behind her and securing the door with a padlock and chain, wrapped in a tight plastic sleeve to keep the moisture out. "Needless to say, I've told Uncle Barney that this unit is off-limits till further notice."

Charlotte vowed, just to be on the safe side, never again to use a Heinz condiment of any kind.

"And I don't need to tell you, I want all of this kept on the q.t. At least until we've got a better grip on things-Danzig in particular."

December 16, 2 p.m.

Eleanor was only vaguely aware of what was going on. She remembered being helped, nearly carried, to the door of the church, then being placed atop a c.u.mbersome machine, on a sort of saddle. She had been encouraged to put her arms around the man sitting in front of her-Michael Wilde, he'd said his name was; she wondered if he was Irish-but that would have been far too forward and with her remaining strength she had resisted.

The other man had then tied a rope around her, made of some thin but st.u.r.dy fiber, and fastened the hood of her coat down tightly around her head. The machine had roared off across the snow like a stallion, but the wind, and icy spray, was so strong that, like it or not, she had had to lean her head down and rest her cheek against Michael's back. And before long, just to keep her stability, lift her arms around him.

If not for the hood, the noise might have been deafening, and as they rumbled across the barren landscape, she felt herself oddly lulled. All day, she had been growing weaker, and fighting to resist the allure of the black bottles Sinclair had left in the rectory, and now she felt the last of her energy ebbing away. Her eyes closed, and her limbs relaxed. She felt powerless, but not unpleasantly so. The rattling of the machine reminded her of the thrumming of the engines on the ship she had taken to the Crimea ... under the ever-watchful eye of Miss Nightingale. But oh, what would her employer make of a scene such as this? She knew perfectly well that Miss Nightingale disapproved of her nurses fraternizing with the soldiers or breaking with most of the social conventions. Scandal was to be avoided at all costs, and for all of her natural ease with the troops, Miss Nightingale often seemed humorless and inflexible with her female staff.

On the morning after finding Frenchie among the wounded, for instance, Eleanor had known enough to rise an hour early and creep, as quietly as she could, out of the staff quarters. The stairs were still dark, and she nearly tripped twice as she made her way down out of the tower and back to the ward where Lieutenant Le Maitre lay. But in addition to a clean shirt, she had in the pocket of her smock a sheet of folded paper and the stub of a pencil.

Although some of the men were still asleep, many others lay rocking in their beds, sick with fever or racked with pain, their eyes glazed and lips parched. Two or three of them reached out to her as she hurried by, but she had to neglect their entreaties and keep to her mission. She would have to be back at her regular post in less than an hour.

As she approached the ward, she pa.s.sed one of the surgical carts being set up for the day's b.l.o.o.d.y business. Two orderlies-one with jug ears and a cowlick standing straight up-said, "Morning, Missus. You're up bright and early." The other, a burly fellow with a badly pitted face, said, "Care to join us for a cup of tea?" He lifted a battered kettle from the cart. "Still hot."

Eleanor declined, then swiftly crossed to the far corner, where she found Le Maitre wide-awake and staring up through the broken window at the early dawn. She crouched down beside his bed, and it was only when she said, "I've come back," that he seemed to take any notice of her. "And look what I've got," she said, displaying the paper and pencil.

He licked his lips, and nodded at her. "And this, too," she said, holding up the clean shirt. "We'll get that old one off of you, and this new one on, just as soon as I've found some water for a wash." He looked at her as if he barely understood what language she was speaking. The night, she realized, had taken its toll on him.

"Frenchie," she said, in a low voice, "I'm ashamed to admit that I don't even know your true first name."

And for the first time, he smiled. "Few do."

She was so glad to see even this spark of life in him.

"It's Alphonse." He coughed, dryly, then added, "Now you know why."

She perched on the side of his bed, careful not to touch his damaged legs, and flattened the paper on her lap. "Is this letter to your family?"

He nodded, and recited an address in West Suss.e.x. She took it down and waited.

"Chers Pere et Mere, Je vous ecris depuis I'hopital en Turquie. Je dois vous dire que fed eu un accident-une chute de cheval-qui m'a bksse plutot gravement."

Eleanor's pencil hung in the air. It had never crossed her mind that Le Maitre's family might actually speak in French. "Oh, dear," she said, "I cannot write in French." She looked up and saw that he had closed his eyes to focus his thoughts better. "Can you say it in English?"

There was a rattling of wheels at the door of the ward, and several voices engaged in discussion. The hospital was waking up.

"Of course." His voice was barely a croak. "How silly of me. It's just that, at home ..." He stopped talking, then started again. "My dear mother and father, I am sending you these words from the hospital in Turkey. A friend is writing them down."

The rattling got louder.

"I'm afraid I was injured ... in a fall from my horse."

Eleanor, scrawling the words down, looked up to see the jug-eared orderly pushing the surgery cart like a flower wagon toward their corner. The other one was carrying a white screen, furled like a sail, under his arm. There was no mistaking their intentions.

"Oh, can't you wait just a little while?" Eleanor said, rising to her feet.

"Doctor's orders," the first one said, as the second dropped the base of the screen onto the floor and quickly spread it out to shield the bed from view. Until Miss Nightingale's arrival, all amputations had been done in clear view of the other patients. But Miss Nightingale, not only to ensure some measure of privacy for the amputee but to spare the others the full grisly spectacle of what might await them next, had insisted upon the use of these screens.

"The lieutenant has just begun dictating a letter to his family- surely you can attend to someone else first?"

"Eleanor?" Frenchie said, clutching at her sleeve. "Eleanor!"

She turned back to him, and saw that he had drawn a silver cigarette case out from under his mattress.

"Take this!"

It was the same case she had once seen at the Longchamps Club, after the day at the races. It bore the regiment's grim insignia-a Death's Head-and its motto, "Or Glory."

"See that my family gets it-please!"

"But one day you'll be able to give it to them yourself," she said, as he pressed it into her hand.

"Missus, we have our work to do," the burly orderly said.

She let the cigarette case fall into the pocket of her smock, as the white-haired surgeon strode toward the cot. "What's the obstruction here?" he bellowed, throwing a murderous glance at Eleanor. "We haven't got all day." He whipped the sheet away from Frenchie's mangled leg, inspected the damage for no more than a few seconds, then said, "Taylor, place the block."

The jug-eared orderly took a wooden chopping block, encrusted with dried blood, and began to wedge it under the leg to be amputated. Frenchie howled in agony.

"Smith, bind his arms."

"As for you," the surgeon said to Eleanor, "I do not recall giving permission for Miss Nightingale's protegees to interfere on my wards."

"But doctor, I was only-"

"You'll address me as the Reverend Dr. Gaines, if you must address me at all."

A cleric and a physician? Even in the short time Eleanor had served at the Barrack Hospital, she had come to dread the devoutly Christian doctors more than any others. While chloroform was, undeniably, in short supply, there was usually some to be found for the amputations, but the more pious surgeons were often opposed to its use. For them, anesthesia of any kind was a novelty, a recent invention that only served to lessen the n.o.ble and purifying pain that the Lord had ordained. She turned to look at Frenchie, whose face, now that his leg had been raised, was flushed with blood. His arms had been bound to his sides by ropes pa.s.sed under the iron bedstead. Taylor was holding a gla.s.s of whiskey to his lips, but most of it was dribbling down Frenchie's quivering chin.

"Give him the mouth guard," the doctor ordered, as he tied the strings of his white ap.r.o.n behind him, and Taylor took a worn chunk of leather and stuck it between Frenchie's teeth. "Mind you bite down on that," Taylor advised, "or you could lose your tongue." He patted him on the shoulder in an amiable way, then left his hands there, one on each side, as he stood at the head of the bed.

"All right, Smith," the doctor said, pressing a hand to the raised knee, "hold the other leg, please."

Smith leaned his weight on the right leg, with one hand on the thigh and one on the shin, while the left leg, like a turkey's neck, was stretched across the chopping block. Eleanor was standing at the foot of the bed, speechless with horror, as Dr. Gaines took a bone saw with a wooden handle from the cart. Glancing over at Eleanor, he said, "Stay if you like-you can clean up after."

But Eleanor had already decided that she could not leave. Frenchie was staring at her as if his very life hung in the balance and she could not have abandoned him at such a time. Dr. Gaines roughly adjusted the leg, making sure that a spot a few inches above the knee was positioned in the center of the block, and while he held the leg in place with one large hand, he laid the jagged blade of the saw against the green and empurpled skin-Eleanor thought, disconcertingly, of a bow being placed to the strings of a violin-then, taking a deep breath, drove the saw across and down.

A fountain of blood erupted into the air and Frenchie screamed, the mouth guard flying. His body buckled, but the doctor bore down, and before the first scream had even ended, he had drawn the blade back across, bearing down hard, and the bone had cracked, then splintered. Frenchie tried to scream again, but his agony was so great no sound came out. The leg was nearly severed from his trunk, only a few shreds of flesh and bone still connecting it, but Dr. Gaines made quick work of those, too. He ran the saw back and forth-it made a wet whistling sound-and the leg suddenly tumbled against his blood-spattered ap.r.o.n and onto his shoes. He paid no attention to it, but simply dropped the saw on the bed, and grabbing a tourniquet from the cart, tied it tightly around the geysering stump. Frenchie had pa.s.sed out. The doctor tore away the ragged ends of skin with his fingers, then took a threaded needle from the pocket of his ap.r.o.n, and proceeded to sew the wound closed with coa.r.s.e black st.i.tches. When that was done, he poured a liberal dose of grain alcohol over the madly twitching stump and said to Eleanor, "I see you're still standing."

Her legs were trembling, but yes, she had remained upright- if only to deny him the satisfaction of seeing her faint.

"We'll leave him then to your ministrations," he said, wiping his hands down the front of his ap.r.o.n. "And get rid of that," he said, nudging the severed leg with the toe of his boot. He turned and left the ward. It had all taken no more than ten minutes.

Taylor and Smith remained to gather the utensils and fold up the screen, then, touching a finger to their foreheads in farewell, the caravan moved on. "Next one's a hand," she overheard Taylor say, and Smith replied, "Short work that'll be."

The bed was soaked in blood, the floor was slick with it, but Eleanor's first order of business was to dispose of the limb. She pulled the sheet, which was already halfway off the bed, completely free, then used it to wrap the leg. Then she dropped the whole bundle in a refuse bin, fetched a bucket of water and a mop, and came back to clean the floor. The sun was up now, and the light coming through the window was a b.u.t.tery yellow; it would be a fine day. When that was done, she remembered the clean shirt she had brought, and though she didn't want to wake him for anything in the world, she wanted desperately to remove the lice-covered shirt, wash him, and put on the clean linen. He should not wake up from his terrible ordeal in such filth. As gently as she could, she lifted his shoulders from the mattress. His head lolled back listlessly, and his skin was cold. His lips were a pale blue.

"Excuse me, Missus?" a soldier in a nearby bed said.

She looked up, while still holding Frenchie.

"I do believe the man is dead."

She laid him down again, and put a hand to his heart. She felt nothing. She put her ear to his chest, and heard no sound. She fell back against the wall. A bird alighted on the windowsill behind her head, singing gaily. The tower bell rang the hour, and she knew Miss Nightingale would soon be looking for her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.

December 16, 5 p.m.

MICHAEL KNEW that if Charlotte's door was closed at that hour, the poor woman was probably trying to grab a much-needed nap, but he really didn't have a choice.

He knocked, and when there was no immediate answer, he knocked again, louder.

"Hang on, hang on," he heard, as her slippers shuffled toward the door. She opened it, wearing her reindeer sweater and a baggy pair of purple Northwestern University sweatpants. When she saw it was Michael, she said, "I've got to warn you-I just took a Xanax."