Finally—and that was where all his thoughts were tending—how could he best effect her rescue?
The obstacles to that were immense, especially because he could not see what the endgame would be. Even if he were successful at finding and freeing her, where could they flee on this ice-bound continent? He felt as if he were staring down a narrow defile to certain doom, just as he had done on that brisk October morning in Balaclava. But somehow, he reminded himself, he had survived that apocalypse, and even worse. Regardless of how black the page, he had always managed to turn it and move on to a new chapter in his life.
And he did have certain advantages, he reflected grimly. A cup of fresh seal blood rested like a chalice at his elbow, next to a book of poetry that had traveled with him all the way from England to the Crimea, and now to this dreadful outpost. He opened it, and let the pages fall where they would. His eyes dropped to the yellowed paper, stiff as parchment, and there he read…
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
Though there was precious little balm in the words for most men, for him they provided comfort. Only the poet seemed to guess the awful truth of his situation. The dogs howled, and Sinclair sawed off another slab of blubber from the dead seal lying on the table and tossed the pieces into the nave below. The dogs scrambled to get them, their claws scraping on the stone floor, their barks echoing up to the rafters.
From his tall stool behind the desecrated altar, Sinclair surveyed his empty realm. He could envision the faces of the whalers who had once occupied the pews, their faces smeared with grease and soot, their grimy clothes encrusted with dried blood. They had gazed up at that very altar, hats in hand, listening to the minister extol the virtues of the life beyond, the bounteous treasures they had laid up in Heaven to compensate them for the torments they endured day after day. They had sat there, in the desolate church—even the crucifix was rough-hewn and plain—in a frozen waste, surrounded by flensing yards and boiling cauldrons, piles of entrails and mountains of bones, and they had listened to stories of white clouds and golden sunlight, of boundless happiness and eternal life. Of a world that was not a reeking slaughterhouse…and oh, Sinclair reflected, oh, how they had been duped.
As he had once been duped by tales of glory and valor. Lying on his pallet in the Barrack Hospital, consumed with the mounting and inexplicable desire, he had been driven to a deed he had long regretted but could never undo. The bloodlust engendered by that unholy creature on the battlefield at Balaclava had proven too strong to resist, and he had preyed upon a helpless Highlander too weak to fend him off.
The Turks would have numbered him among the cursed. And he would not have disputed it.
Still, the next night, when Eleanor had come to his side, he had felt distinctly stronger. Revived. He felt that he could truly breathe again and see more clearly. Even his faculties seemed to have been restored.
Was that how it felt to be one of the damned?
But in Eleanor’s face, he had detected something troubling; he had seen what he thought was the first glimmering of the mysterious Crimean fever, and he knew the signs well; he had noted them countless times in many others. His fears were confirmed when she swayed on her feet, spilling the soup, and the orderlies had escorted her from the ward. The following evening, when it was Moira, and not Eleanor, who came to assist him, he knew the worst.
“Where is Eleanor?” he had demanded, lifting himself on one elbow from the floor. Even that was painful; he suspected he had fractured a rib or two in the fall from his horse, but there was nothing to be done for a broken rib, and anything the surgeons might attempt would no doubt kill him.
“Eleanor’s resting today,” Moira said, trying not to meet his eye as she set down the bowl of soup, still warm, and a mug of brackish water.
“The truth,” he said, clutching her sleeve.
“Miss Nightingale wishes her to gather her strength.”
“She’s ill, isn’t she?”
He could see the furtive look in her eye as she wiped a spoon on her apron pocket and put it into the soup bowl.
“Is it the fever? How far has it gone?”
Moira stifled a sob and quickly glanced away. “Eat your soup, while it’s still hot.”
“Damn the soup. How far has it gone?” His heart seized up in his chest at the very thought of the worst. “Tell me that she’s still alive.”
Moira nodded as she dabbed at her tears with a wretched excuse for a handkerchief.
“Where is she? I need to go to her.”
Moira’s head shook, and she said, “That’s impossible. She’s in the nurses’ quarters, and can’t be moved.”