Hope felt as if a rug had been pulled from beneath her feet. Dr Anderson was in charge of the hospital and he had always liked and appreciated Bennett. 'Why?' she gasped. 'I don't understand. Why send such an experienced surgeon up there?'

Bennett shrugged. 'He didn't give me a reason, but it's almost certainly because someone feels I've been favoured by staying down here.'

'Favoured!' she exclaimed. 'Working over eighteen hours a day!'

Bennett gave a humourless laugh. 'They do that up on the Heights too. I suppose I'm getting a reputation as a nuisance, always complaining about the lack of medicine and provisions for the sick.'

'Colonel Lawrence said that?'

'Not in so many words, but he hinted at it.'

'I suppose you can't refuse?' Even as she asked she knew the answer. An order had to be obeyed.

She felt almost faint with the shock. The three months since the hurricane had been incredibly grim for the men at the siege. While gunfire had been only sporadic and desultory on both sides during this time, and there had been no actual a.s.saults, it had been bitterly cold, with rain, sleet and snow. The Prince Prince going down with all the warm clothing, boots and other supplies they so desperately needed had been a monumental tragedy, which had become even more apparent as the winter set in. going down with all the warm clothing, boots and other supplies they so desperately needed had been a monumental tragedy, which had become even more apparent as the winter set in.

There might have been fewer wounded men during the three-month period, but the numbers of sick men had increased enormously. Both doctors and officers had made endless complaints about the men spending all night getting soaked to the skin in the trenches and having nothing dry to change into. All the men were weakened by lack of food and the fatigue of digging trenches, building fortifications and hauling heavy equipment up to the Heights, which left them exhausted. But then to be expected to sleep on the cold ground, wrapped only in a sodden worn-out greatcoat and blanket, was inhumane.

It hurt everyone working in the hospitals to discover that the newspapers back home were implying that the high mortality rate of the sick and wounded was due to their negligence. The much-publicized arrival of Florence Nightingale and her nurses in Scutari, and their reports of the terrible conditions, appeared to have turned every hack reporter into an expert on hospitals.

Many of the senior doctors in Balaclava were incensed that it had taken a well-connected lady with precious little medical experience to galvanize the government into improving conditions, when their professional advice, reports and requests for supplies had been ignored.

Yet everyone continued to do their best, even though every single day was a battle they could never win. The sick and wounded were shipped off to Scutari too fast in their opinion, just when the patients were at their most vulnerable.

Yet however difficult and in the main unrewarding the conditions in the base hospital were, it was in a different league from the field hospitals up on the Heights.

Hope had twice made the trip up there with Bennett since Christmas to take much-needed dressings and medicine, and what they'd seen had appalled them.

All gra.s.s, bushes and trees were gone, leaving only a vast muddy quagmire studded with tents. The hospitals were just marquees, the wounded and sick had to lie on the ground, and the care they received would be of only the most basic kind until some form of transport could be found to take them the six or seven long miles down a steep slope to Balaclava. Sometimes, in the worst weather, this was on the backs of their comrades.

None of the men looked like soldiers now. They were thin, gaunt, lice-ridden creatures with thick, bushy beards, often wearing bizarre hats and other pieces of non-uniform clothing over their mud-daubed, ragged official one. Russian coats and boots had been taken from the dead at Inkerman and some infantrymen wore naval pea jackets bartered from sailors. Many had old newspapers bound to their legs or body with webbing, for warmth. Some didn't even have boots, just sacking wrapped around their feet. Personal hygiene was impossible as water had to be hauled a great distance and they had to contend with snow, ice and heavy rain. The only fuel available was roots, but it could take a whole day to dig up just a small bag for the cooking fires. As a result, the salted meat was often eaten semi-raw and was no doubt responsible for the increase in bowel disorders. Scurvy had appeared, along with pneumonia and various bronchial problems, and there were also many cases of frostbite. Cholera had disappeared for now, but other fevers were still just as prevalent.

Morale was at rock bottom. Many of the men brought into the hospital had said they would rather risk death in an a.s.sault on Sebastopol than continue this long-drawn-out, seemingly hopeless siege. They had told Bennett that sometimes their rations didn't turn up, and when they did, the salt pork and biscuit were so unappetizing they could hardly eat them. Hope had felt the desperation in every man she'd spoken to.

'You'll stay here,' Bennett said, his stern tone implying she was not to argue. 'They do at least value your your help in the hospital.' help in the hospital.'

'I can't stay in the house without you,' she said. 'Not with all those men.'

'The Crimea is full of men wherever you go,' he said impatiently. 'At least the ones in the house are known to you. I can't have you freezing to death or being shot at.'

'I'm coming with you,' she said stubbornly. She hated the idea of going, but she hated the idea of being apart from him still more.

'No, Hope,' he insisted. 'G.o.d knows, I'd like you by my side, but not there. It's no place for a woman.'

'But Queenie's up there, and other soldiers' wives,' she argued.

'No,' he said, his face darkening. 'You do an invaluable job here. I'll be able to ride down from time to time and I'll need the thought of you safe and snug in our room at night to keep me going.'

She knew then why he'd been awake all night. It was her he was concerned for. His own comfort didn't worry him he probably felt he owed it to the men in his regiment to be with them. He had known she'd insist on going with him, but he wasn't going to let her put herself in danger.

'I've packed my bag,' he said. 'I'm only staying now until I can hand over details of men I've been treating to other doctors. Please don't make it more difficult for me.'

Hope took a deep breath and bit back her tears. She was, after all, a soldier's wife and she must behave like one.

'Who will wash your clothes?' she said.

Bennett half-smiled. 'You. I'll bring them back with me when I visit. I'm sure I can w.a.n.gle it so I always come down with the wounded. Now, give me a kiss before the men wake up.'

It was a bittersweet kiss, and Hope clung to him, trying to blot out her fear. The firing might have stopped for the winter, but there was still the odd sniper taking pot shots. Several doctors had even died of diseases caught from their patients because hygiene was so bad. And she knew too that Bennett would be outspoken at the callous way the army treated its rank and file. He just wouldn't be able to hold back.

But even above her fear for him, she was angry too that his superior officers had allowed petty jealousy to cloud their judgement. Bennett was one of the most experienced and skilled surgeons down here, and in his absence men would die who could have been saved by him. Any of the hastily recruited young doctors just out of medical school could apply tourniquets, field dressings, or splints to broken limbs, for that was all that was required up on the Heights. But it made her shudder to think that one of those inexperienced young men might be sent down here to take Bennett's place.

In early March, a month after Bennett had been sent up to the Heights, Hope took a walk out of the town to see how the construction of the siege train was progressing. It was vital, for it would put an end to the soldiers hauling heavy guns and ammunition up to the front themselves, and navvies had been brought in to speed up the work.

Hope was glad they'd brought men out from England to do this, and it was good to see big, brawny men in rude health for a change, but she, like many other people, resented their preferential treatment.

It wasn't fair that they should have large quant.i.ties of fresh meat daily, while the soldiers had none. Nor was it right that the soldiers who were already weak and sickly were expected to build huts for the navvies, while they still slept in leaky tents.

But Hope was pleased to see there had been great progress. The track was already past the village of Kadikoi, about a mile and a half out of town and close to the cavalry camp. Soon it would be right up to headquarters.

The past month had been the most miserable time. She missed Bennett so much, worried about him all the time, and felt dreadfully alone.

When Bennett had been with her, people had dropped in for a visit, and they had sometimes visited others too. But now she had to be very careful. She couldn't have male visitors for fear of gossip about her, and the few women here were either so deadly dull that she'd rather stare into her fire than spend time with them, or so uppity she felt like slapping them.

Bennett had only managed to come down twice, and both times he had been so exhausted that he had fallen asleep immediately after a bath.

Letters from home were the only thing that brightened the gloom. Nell wrote every week, and even though her letters had a frustrating lack of detail about her life, just a glimpse of her big, childlike writing made Hope feel loved. Matt had written three times on behalf of Joe and Henry too, and Amy always added a bit of village gossip at the end.

Ruth's two letters had been the most entertaining. She wrote well, in a good hand, about her three children, her husband and two stepchildren, and about her life in Bath. She thought it was very exciting and adventurous that Hope was in the Crimea and said she boasted to her friends about it. She saw Nell quite often and said she was blooming now that she knew where Hope was. But it was the little details Ruth put into her letter that pleased Hope most how her hair was growing grey and she was getting matronly, or what she'd cooked for a special dinner, and funny little things her children said. In the second letter she'd ended by saying what a great deal of catching up they'd have to do when she got back, and how there would always be room for her and Bennett in her home.

James had written his one letter in a tearing hurry, but it had been warm, with promises of another as soon as he had more time. He expressed his joy at hearing Hope was safe and well, and he told her that he was now married to Joan, who had been a parlourmaid at Littlecote. Their daughter was now four, they had a small cottage on the estate, and a second baby was due soon. He hoped that she and Bennett would come to visit when they came home.

Alice and Toby had written a joint letter just once, and Hope had got the impression that it was penned out of duty because Nell had ordered it. While this made her feel a little sad, it was understandable. They had gone into service together in Bath when Hope had still been a small child, and they'd made a life for themselves quite separate from the rest of the family.

None of her brothers and sisters had quizzed her about her disappearance. Whether this was because Nell had already explained it, or because they weren't curious, she didn't know. But it was rather odd after spending so many years worrying about their reaction to find they didn't have one.

The siege train did look impressive. The big engine at the top which would haul the train over the steepest part of the route was in place now. She just hoped that those who said this would hasten the end of the siege were right, just as she hoped that the news that Czar Nicholas had died the previous day might bring peace.

The sight of a clump of flowers growing by the roadside made her stop to look closer. They were similar to a crocus, and as they were the first tangible sign of spring, and in fact the first flowers she had seen here, she bent to pick one.

'That's almost as pretty as you, Hope!'

Startled at hearing her name, Hope stood up and turned to see Angus astride his horse, grinning down at her. The last time she'd seen him had been back in January, when he'd been beside himself with anxiety about the cavalry horses which were dying of starvation. She'd seen him limping back up the road to the cavalry camp carrying a heavy sack of oats on his shoulders.

But he was looking fit and devilishly handsome now, even if his red breeches were decidedly faded, worn and mud-splattered. His chestnut horse was very thin and now here near as sleek as she remembered in Varna, but it was a relief to see it hadn't died during that terrible period.

'How good to see you,' she said, and stroked the horse's nose. 'And good to see Brandy is getting some food again. How are your wounds?'

'What wounds?' he said, dismounting.

Hope laughed. 'Well, it wouldn't do to make you drop your breeches to check on the scar,' she said. 'But it's clearly not troubling you.'

'Thanks to you, angel fingers,' he said, taking her hand and kissing it. 'Why aren't you down there now st.i.tching up some young soldier who will remember your face till the end of time?'

'No wonder Lady Harvey got led astray,' Hope giggled. 'But you must behave. Bennett's been sent back to his regiment up on the Heights, so it wouldn't do for me to attract gossip.'

Leading his horse, Angus walked back to the harbour beside her, and they talked about Bennett's move, the Czar's death, and the tremendous increase in the number of men reporting sick during January and February.

'Morale is at an all-time low,' he sighed. 'We should have gone on the attack as soon as we got here last year. Lord Raglan is an old woman, can't make his mind up about anything. Delaying only gave the Ruskies time to build better fortifications and get in more supplies. Now we've hardly got a fit man in the whole army. Even the new bunch that arrived in January look as bad as the oldtimers now. But you, Hope, you've got a bloom about you! Why's that?'

'Have I?' she said in surprise.

'You certainly have,' he said, looking at her intently. 'You've filled out. Have you found some source of good food that you are keeping to yourself? Or could it be a happy event is expected?'

Goose-pimples erupted all over her and she looked at the Captain in horror.

'Not a happy event then,' he said, but when she didn't speak his grin faded. 'Oh dear, I've been too presumptuous. I'm so sorry, Hope, but I've come to think of you almost as family. Forgive me?'

He meant, of course, that it wasn't done for men to remark on such things as pregnancy. But her shock wasn't at his comment, but the jolt of realization that she could well be carrying a child.

Bennett had been very careful every time they made love, for clearly it would be a calamity to become pregnant in a place like this. He always withdrew before his seed was spent, often to her disappointment. But on Christmas Eve he hadn't.

It had been such a lovely evening, almost balmy, with a big, bright full moon. Some of the bandsmen from various different regiments had joined together to play their instruments on the quay. The pipers from the Highlanders came down from their camp too. For that evening the siege was forgotten. Music and singing were heard from the Russians inside Sebastopol, the French too were playing instruments up on the Heights, and not a shot was fired on either side.

Some of the Turks had slaughtered and roasted an ox. There were bottles of wine, port, brandy and rum in profusion and Hope had danced with scores of different men as there were so few women. She had bathed and put on the pink dress she'd worn on her honeymoon, and Bennett had looked so handsome in his full-dress uniform. She remembered thinking that the Rifles' tight green jacket gave him a rakish charm and enhanced the colour of his eyes.

They had been very tipsy when they had finally gone to bed, and caution had been forgotten. Bennett had transported her to places she'd never dreamed of that night. Even recalling it now sent a shiver of pleasure down her spine.

But however magical that night had been, they had shot straight back to reality soon afterwards. January had been the very worst month at the hospital, a bleak and desperate time with the sick coming in by the score each day. It was hardly surprising she couldn't remember whether she'd had her courses that month or not.

'Hope? Tell me I'm forgiven?'

Angus's plea brought her back to the present. 'Of course you are,' she said hurriedly. 'A country girl like me doesn't get the vapours at a man mentioning such things.'

'But you have turned a little pale,' he said anxiously.

'Oh, do talk of something else,' she said irritably. 'Tell me what you've been doing, it's been so long since I last saw you. Has Nell sent you any more food parcels?'

He'd had a big fruit cake at Christmas, of which he'd brought her and Bennett half. Nothing had tasted quite as good as that, at least not until another arrived for Hope in mid-January along with jars of mincemeat, several different kinds of preserves and warm mittens and scarves.

'I should think I'm about due for one any day,' he said in his more usual jocular manner. 'But of course now she has you to lavish her treats on, I'm not doing so well.'

They continued their walk, Angus remarking on all the improvements in the town. Conditions had become absolutely disgusting, for apart from all the usual mess hundreds of Turks had made a hideous shanty town behind the main street. All their waste and dead animals had been left lying around, and there was tremendous sickness in their camp. They hadn't buried their dead properly either, and this had posed the most serious health problem.

But now the main thoroughfare had been cleaned up and macadamized. New warehouses had been built and prefabricated wooden huts sent out from England had sprung up everywhere in the last few weeks. The hospital had been extended with new huts too, and further ones were being erected up by the old Genoese fort on the clifftop for convalescence.

Angus went on to tell her about his hunting exploits up on the plain with some of the other officers. In the absence of foxes they'd chased the many wild dogs that roamed around the camps. He said too that they'd come across a small band of Cossacks one day and fought them off. The way he spoke gave the impression he was one of the band of officers Bennett despised most; dull-witted, over-privileged, rich and arrogant men who carried on here as if they were still in England. But Hope knew he was none of those things. She'd met some of his troopers in the hospital and knew they'd lay down their lives for him, for he cared more for their welfare than his own. He even shared his parcels from home with his men. It saddened her to think he felt it was expedient to hide his true character behind that of a buffoon.

They parted company and Hope went into the house to change into her old dress for the hospital. But once inside her room she sat down on the bed and tried hard to remember when her last courses had come. She remembered them at the start of December because that was when they had first moved into this room. But she couldn't recall anything about January or February.

More worryingly, now that she was looking for evidence, she was aware that Angus was right in saying she'd filled out, for her clothes weren't as loose as they'd been back at the end of last year. Until now she had put that down to eating more in the cold weather. The baker often gave her a whole loaf, which she'd wolf down with some of Nell's jam. In fact, she was always hungry lately.

Then there was her reaction to certain smells! The officer next door smoked cigars, a smell she'd once liked but now couldn't bear. Horse droppings too something she'd lived with all her life had suddenly grown offensive.

Her stomach began to churn with anxiety. If she had fallen pregnant at Christmas that made her well over two months gone now! Once she showed she would be sent home, and Bennett wouldn't be allowed to go with her.

What if he was killed or he became sick and died? What would happen to her then?

She brushed that aside. Nell would help her, and so would Uncle Abel and Alice. But she didn't want to be parted from Bennett. It was bad enough at the moment, but he was after all only a few miles away. Who would take care of him if she was sent home?

Picking up the small looking-gla.s.s Gussie had given her all those years ago, she held it down to her side to see how she looked. Her stomach was as flat as it always had been, so maybe she was mistaken. She just wouldn't think about it any more.

As March slowly crept by, Hope found that it wasn't possible to ignore her problem. Each pa.s.sing day made it clearer that she was indeed pregnant, and she was undecided whether to view this with terror or joy. She had loved the newborn babies while she was in the lying-in ward at St Peter's. Just thinking of holding her own in her arms made her melt inside. But the fact remained that this was the wrong time and the wrong place for a baby.

Other men might not showany interest in their children until they could walk and talk, but Bennett was different. He'd want to deliver his baby, to be with her throughout it all. He would hate to have to send her home alone, but he'd be terrified of it being born here because of all the disease. If she was to tell him about the pregnancy, he'd be so worried it would affect his work.

Hope finally resolved not to tell him yet. News had come in that in early April there was at last to be a ma.s.sive bombardment of Sebastopol, both from the army and the navy. She had seen more big guns being brought in, and vast quant.i.ties of ammunition. With luck, that might end the siege and they could all go home.

Hope daydreamed all the time of home. Not just of seeing her family, or even England in the spring. She wanted natural order again, of knowing what to expect with each day, for everything here was disorganized and baffling.

At the end of March, just as the weather was growing warm again, all the winter clothing for the troops which had been lying in warehouses for weeks was finally distributed to the men, and wooden huts at last replaced the field hospital marquees. Bennett reported that the men had been delighted finally to get new boots, shirts, socks and flannel drawers, but were somewhat bemused by the heavy warm coats they no longer really needed. New bedsteads had arrived for the hospital too, and mattresses and even some sheets for the beds.

Hope would have taken great pleasure in these improvements if she hadn't suddenly been ordered to move to one of the new huts at the back of the hospital. Almost all the patients there were foreigners, Turks, Poles, Armenians, Croatians and a few Russians, and she felt she had been sent there for a similar reason to the one which had seen Bennett sent back to his regiment.

Almost as soon as he'd gone, she'd noticed that some of the doctors became rather disagreeable with her in little ways not answering when she asked a question, turning away when she came into the ward, calling an orderly to help them when once they would have called for her. It was, of course, possible that they had always resented her; after all, she wasn't a lady like Miss Nightingale, or an ordinary soldier's wife who could be ordered to do the roughest work. But if that had been the case, they had hidden it well all the while Bennett was here.

It seemed to her that by sending her into a ward where she couldn't communicate with anyone, and where she might be frightened, they were hoping she might leave the hospital.

Daunting was the only word for the new ward, for the patients were the very roughest of men, in the main muleteers or labourers. Most had either suffered some kind of accident in their work or were sick, and because they were civilians they couldn't be sent on to Scutari. As they didn't speak any English the duty doctor had to have an interpreter with him when he did his rounds.

But if petty jealousy or prejudice against women was behind it, Hope had no intention of letting them win their pathetic crusade. While she was offended by some of the men's filthy habits, and practically all of them were swarming with parasites, they were no worse than some of the patients at St Peter's. She could manage very well with sign language, and often she was glad that she didn't have to make conversation as she had so much else on her mind. She was a nurse, and she'd carry on until such time as she decided to leave. The patients were more important than a few bigots.

Bennett wasn't too pleased when he saw where she had been moved to, but as he only came down once a week with patients for shipping to Scutari, and had to return to the Heights the same day, he didn't have time to investigate anything.

He was happier now he had his patients in a hut, and optimistic he could deal with the outbreaks of scurvy because he'd managed to get supplies of lime juice. Cholera had raised its ugly head again, but he believed that now the weather and the rations had improved, so too would general health in the camp.

One evening, as he was leaving early on a borrowed horse, Hope asked Bennett if she could go with him. They had seen scaling ladders and grappling hooks being unloaded from a ship that afternoon, so it was clear that along with the planned bombardment there would also be an a.s.sault on the fortifications of Sebastopol.

She didn't plead with him, she only pointed out that she could be far more useful to him at the field hospital than she was here.

'I can't agree,' he said, reaching out for one of her curls and twisting it around his finger. 'It will be too dangerous once it starts.'

The gentleness of his tone and the way he looked longingly at her was evidence he was wavering. Maybe he wasn't so sure that she was entirely safe here either, not in a ward full of rough foreigners.

For a moment or two she wanted to beg him, tempted to blurt out how isolated she felt, how the two orderlies on her ward were surly, that she couldn't talk to the patients and that she felt she was being victimized just like him.

But she stopped herself in time. If she began to tell him some of it, the rest would surely follow, and once he knew about the baby, he'd never have any peace of mind. The bombardment would mean many wounded, and he needed to be single-minded in dealing with that. It wasn't fair to add to his burdens.

'You are right, of course,' she said, more bravely than she felt. 'I must stay here; it's just that I miss you so much.'