a mere woman was willing to stand her ground, how could I possibly turn tail?
We sailed a week later, in twilight, past the picturesque houses of the grand pashas; past the tomb of Barbarossa, conqueror of Algiers; past the darkening gardens amid the cypress trees, the keel of our ship trailing a dancing path of phosphorus light along the waters of the Bosphorus. In our wake flew a swarm of small birds, no bigger than robins, which are never seen to settle, but must always be in flight. The Turks, so I was told, suppose them to be the souls of women whom the Sultan has drowned.
Our journey took two days; on the morning of the second, while we were at table, a young officer in the Dragoons, in the middle of telling the company how he regretted leaving his tennis racquet at home, suddenly slumped over his plate. George, on propping him upright - he had attended him the night before on account of stomach pains - pronounced him dead. For a short while the dragoon sat there, mouth open. We too continued to sit, as though unwilling to interrupt him. When at last he was carried out, Myrtle rose and tenderly shook the breadcrumbs from his hair.
To say we landed at Varna was inaccurate; we fell down rather than disembarked, the pier being rotten. We had to wade through mud to reach solid ground. One of the horses broke a leg and had to be shot where it lay. It was dragged further out into the Black Sea, where it floated beneath a canopy of flies.
The town was in a state of considerable disorder due to its swollen population. The numbers of horses, troops and supply carts struggling up from the port made the narrow streets almost impossible to negotiate. There were rats openly burrowing among the mounds of refuse outside the provision shops. Even Myrtle remarked on the filth and confusion. My dreams of finding a pretty little house to rent, with tubs of plants on the veranda and the stem of a vine climbing to the roof, flew out of the window. Every available dwelling, beside providing refuge for numerous species of the insect world, was largely given over to human vermin, namely wine merchants and horse dealers, lured from every corner of the Levant by the heady stench of war.
George went off to report to the General Hospital, leaving Myrtle and me to wend our way some miles west of the town to where the army camp was stationed, tents pitched on either side of the road and extending upwards on to the hilly ground above a large lake formed by the river Devna. Downstream spread a second, smaller lake, the area surrounded by marshland which, though pleasant enough by day, at night gave off a noxious mist. I understood from the Greek villain who guided us there that it is in the vicinity of the military burial ground in which lie the remains of six thousand Russian victims of the plague of ‘29. After purchasing, at exorbitant prices, tents and cooking pots, we settled ourselves some distance downhill from the smaller lake. As to drinking water, there were some excellent springs nearby.
It was only a matter of hours before I realised the extent of the dreadful pickle we were in; no sooner had night fallen than a wretched procession of men, some slung over the shoulders of comrades, stumbled past our fire and vanished into the darkness. I was told they were being marched to the river to clean themselves and were, as yet, suffering from nothing more serious than diarrhoea, although there were rumours that cholera had begun to rage through the French camp situated in the supposedly healthier region to the north-east.
George joined us a day later kitted out in what was claimed to be the uniform of an officer of the 2nd division. His garments were so faded and shrunken that it proved impossible to guess at their original colour; they had obviously been worn by the former unfortunate regimental incumbent - if not all three. Obliged, at his own expense, to purchase regulation boots, he was asked to fill out numerous documents, only to be
We sailed a week later, in twilight, past the picturesque houses of the grand pashas; past the tomb of Barbarossa, conqueror of Algiers; past the darkening gardens amid the cypress trees, the keel of our ship trailing a dancing path of phosphorus light along the waters of the Bosphorus. In our wake flew a swarm of small birds, no bigger than robins, which are never seen to settle, but must always be in flight. The Turks, so I was told, suppose them to be the souls of women whom the Sultan has drowned.
Our journey took two days; on the morning of the second, while we were at table, a young officer in the Dragoons, in the middle of telling the company how he regretted leaving his tennis racquet at home, suddenly slumped over his plate. George, on propping him upright - he had attended him the night before on account of stomach pains - pronounced him dead. For a short while the dragoon sat there, mouth open. We too continued to sit, as though unwilling to interrupt him. When at last he was carried out, Myrtle rose and tenderly shook the breadcrumbs from his hair.
To say we landed at Varna was inaccurate; we fell down rather than disembarked, the pier being rotten. We had to wade through mud to reach solid ground. One of the horses broke a leg and had to be shot where it lay. It was dragged further out into the Black Sea, where it floated beneath a canopy of flies.
The town was in a state of considerable disorder due to its swollen population. The numbers of horses, troops and supply carts struggling up from the port made the narrow streets almost impossible to negotiate. There were rats openly burrowing among the mounds of refuse outside the provision shops. Even Myrtle remarked on the filth and confusion. My dreams of finding a pretty little house to rent, with tubs of plants on the veranda and the stem of a vine climbing to the roof, flew out of the window. Every available dwelling, beside providing refuge for numerous species of the insect world, was largely given over to human vermin, namely wine merchants and horse dealers, lured from every corner of the Levant by the heady stench of war.
George went off to report to the General Hospital, leaving Myrtle and me to wend our way some miles west of the town to where the army camp was stationed, tents pitched on either side of the road and extending upwards on to the hilly ground above a large lake formed by the river Devna. Downstream spread a second, smaller lake, the area surrounded by marshland which, though pleasant enough by day, at night gave off a noxious mist. I understood from the Greek villain who guided us there that it is in the vicinity of the military burial ground in which lie the remains of six thousand Russian victims of the plague of ‘29. After purchasing, at exorbitant prices, tents and cooking pots, we settled ourselves some distance downhill from the smaller lake. As to drinking water, there were some excellent springs nearby.
It was only a matter of hours before I realised the extent of the dreadful pickle we were in; no sooner had night fallen than a wretched procession of men, some slung over the shoulders of comrades, stumbled past our fire and vanished into the darkness. I was told they were being marched to the river to clean themselves and were, as yet, suffering from nothing more serious than diarrhoea, although there were rumours that cholera had begun to rage through the French camp situated in the supposedly healthier region to the north-east.
George joined us a day later kitted out in what was claimed to be the uniform of an officer of the 2nd division. His garments were so faded and shrunken that it proved impossible to guess at their original colour; they had obviously been worn by the former unfortunate regimental incumbent - if not all three. Obliged, at his own expense, to purchase regulation boots, he was asked to fill out numerous documents, only to be
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