His beautiful Ajax, along with eighty-five others, had been driven down into the hold of Her Majesty’s Ship Henry Wilson—a small, dark, and unbearably foul place—where almost no advance preparations had been made. There were no stalls constructed, no head collars, only tethering ropes, and even on a calm sea, the horses brushed up against each other, stepping on their neighbors’ hooves, struggling to lift their heads clear of the herd. But once the ships of the British fleet had hit the gales in the Bay of Biscay, the horses went wild with fear. Sinclair, along with many of the other cavalry officers—the ones who were not laid up with fevers or seasickness—were down in the hold, standing at their horses’ heads, trying desperately to calm and control them. But it was not possible. Each time the vessel rolled, the poor panicked beasts were pitched forward against the manger, whinnying in terror and stamping their feet on the creaking, wet boards. Cascades of water flooded down from the hatches, rivers of it sloshed around their legs, and every time one of the horses fell, it was the devil’s own business to get him righted again. When Ajax went down, tumbling in a heap atop Winslow’s horse, it took several soldiers and sailors to get them separated and standing once more. Sergeant Hatch, the India Man, seemed to be down in the hold at all times—Sinclair wondered if he ever slept or went up on deck for a breath of air that didn’t stink of dung and blood and moldering hay—but even he was unable to stem the losses. Every night horses died—of broken bones, panic, and heat prostration (there was almost no ventilation belowdecks)—and were unceremoniously thrown overboard the next day. All the way to the Mediterranean, the British fleet had left a trail of bloated, floating carcasses in its wake.
And Sinclair, though he knew he was only a young unproven lieutenant, could not help but wonder why the army had not requisitioned steamers to make the voyage. From what Rutherford had told him (and Rutherford’s father had been a lord of the admiralty under the Duke of Wellington), a steamer could make a trip in ten to twelve days that it would take a sailing ship a month or more to do. Even if it had taken a fortnight to round up enough steamships, so much of this appalling damage could have been avoided, and the troops—with their horses, in decent condition—could have arrived on the Turkish shores, ready to do battle, sooner than they would arrive now.
But no such thoughts appeared to have occurred to the command, nor to the throngs of onlookers who had attended the army’s departure. When Sinclair marched aboard the transports, in the company of the Light Brigade, the Heavy Brigade, the 60th Rifles, and the 11th Hussars, he too had been caught up in the gay atmosphere at the docks. The war, everyone believed, would be so brief that it might be over before some of them had even had the chance to use their lance or sword or rifle; the Russians, it was said, were such a lackluster fighting force that most of them had to be forced onto the field at gunpoint. Le Maitre had told Sinclair that the Russian infantry’s rifles were dummies, made of wood, like the swords the brigade used in its field exercises. As a result, many of the English officers had received permission to bring their wives along on the mission, and the ladies were outfitted in their finest, most colorful dresses. Some brought their own maids and favorite horses with them. As Sinclair scanned the crowds lining the docks and quayside, searching for a spot of pale yellow, he saw cases of wine, bouquets of flowers, and straw baskets filled with hothouse fruit being brought aboard. Hundreds of people were holding pennants of the Union Jack, others were wildly waving caps and bonnets and lace handkerchiefs, and a military band was playing martial tunes. The sun was shining brightly, and he could hardly wait for the adventure before him to unfold.
“Moira tells me it’s unlikely Miss Nightingale will give them leave,” Captain Rutherford said, leaning on his elbows at the rail and divining what Sinclair was looking for.
Sinclair glanced at his companion, whose brow was gleaming with sweat.
“I told her that this Miss Nightingale was no patriot, then,” Rutherford concluded, taking his fur pelisse from his shoulder and laying it across the rail.
Sinclair had never quite understood what bond existed between the captain and Miss Mulcahy. While his own connection to Eleanor Ames was in itself unusual—and, as anyone would have told Sinclair, held no promise in practical terms—Rutherford’s attachment to the buxom, earthy nurse Mulcahy was stranger by far. Rutherford came from a very prominent family in Dorset—he was destined for a peerage—and his family would be appalled at this liaison. Yes, it was, of course, understood that cavalry officers had their pick of the ladies in town, and that they often indulged in reckless, even unwholesome, affairs, but it was also understood that the young men would eventually come to their senses, especially on the eve of a great foreign expedition. It was the perfect time, and the perfect means, to cut the cord. It was one of the signal advantages to being in the army.