Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole - Chapter 14

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter fourteen of Wonderful Adventures of Missus Secull in Many
Lands by Mary Secoll. The sliprivox recording is in the
public domain. Chapter fourteen. I shall proceed in this chapter
to make the reader acquainted with some of the customers
of the British Hotel who came therefore its creature comforts,

(00:21):
as well as its hostesses medicines where need was. And
if he or she should be inclined to doubt or
should hesitate at accepting my experience of crimean life as
entirely credible, I beg that individual to refer to the
accounts which were given in the newspapers of the spring
of eighteen fifty five, and I feel sure they will
acquit me of any intention to exaggerate. If I were

(00:44):
to speak of all the nameless horrors of that spring
as plainly as I could, I should really disgust you.
But those I shall bring before your notice have all
something of the humorous in them, And so it ever is.
Time is a great restorre and changes surely the greatest
sorrow into a pleasing memory. The sun shines this springtime

(01:07):
upon green grass that covers the graves of the poor
fellows we left behind sadly a few short months ago.
Bright flowers grow upon ruins of batteries and crumbling trenches,
and cover the sod that presses on many, a moldering
token of the old time of battle and death. I
dare say that if I went to the Crimea now,

(01:28):
I should see a smiling landscape instead of the blood
stained scene which I shall ever associate with distress and death.
And as it is with nature, so it is with humankind.
Whenever I meet those who have survived that dreary spring
of eighteen fifty five, we seldom talk about its horrors, but,

(01:48):
remembering its transient gleams of sunshine, smile at the fun
and good nature that varied its long and weary monotony.
And now that I am anxious to remember all that
I can that will interest my readers, my memory prefers
to dwell upon what was pleasing and amusing, although the
time will never come when it will cease to retain

(02:10):
most vividly the pathos and woe of those dreadful months.
I have said that the winter had not ended when
we began operations at the British Hotel, and very often
after we considered we were fairly under Spring's influence. Our
old enemy would come back with an angry roar of
wind and rain, leveling tents, unroofing huts, destroying roads, and

(02:33):
handing over May to the command of General Fevrier. But
the sun fought bravely for us, and in time always
dispersed the leaden clouds and gilded the iron sky, and
made us cheerful gain during the end of March, the
whole of April, and a considerable portion of May. However,

(02:54):
the army was but a little better off for the
advent of Spring. The military road to the camp was
only in progress, the railway only carried ammunition. A few hours.
Reign rendered the old road all but impassable, and scarcity
often existed in the front before Sebastopol, although the frightened
and anxious Commissariat toiled hard to avert such a mishap,

(03:17):
so that very often to the British hotel came Officers
starved out on the heights above us. The dandies of
rotten Row would come down riding on sorry nags, ready
to carry back their servants were on duty in the trenches.
Anything that would be available for dinner. A single glance
at their personal appearance would suffice to show the hardships

(03:38):
of the life they were called upon to lead. Before
I left London for the Seat of War, I had
been more than once to the United Service Club, seeking
to gain the interest of officers whom I had known
in Jamaica. And I often thought afterwards of the difference
between those I saw there, trimly shaven, handsomely dressed with
spotless linen and dandy air, and these their companions, who

(04:03):
in England would resemble them, roughly, warmly dressed with great
fur caps which met their beards and left nothing exposed
but lips and nose, And not much of those You
would easily believe that soap and water were luxuries not
readily obtainable, that shirts and socks were often comforts to
dream about rather than possess, and that they were familiar

(04:26):
with horrors you would shudder to hear. Named. Tell me, reader,
can you fancy what the want of so simple a
thing as a pocket handkerchief is to put a case?
Have you ever gone out for the day without one,
sat in a draft and caught a sneezing cold in
the head. You say, the question is an unnecessarily unpleasant one.

(04:47):
And yet what I am about to tell you is true,
and the sufferer is I believe, still alive. An officer
had ridden down one day to obtain refreshments. This was
very early in the spring. Some nice fowls had just
been taken from the spit, and I offered one to him.
Paper was one of the most hardly obtainable luxuries of

(05:08):
the crimea, and I've rarely had any to waste upon
my customers. So I called out, give me your pocket handkerchief,
my son, that I may wrap it up. You see,
we could not be very particular out there, But he
smiled very bitterly as he answered, pocket handkerchief, mother, By jove,
I wish I had one. I tore my last shirt

(05:28):
into shreds a fortnight ago, and there's not a bit
of it left now. Shortly after a hundred dozen of
these useful articles came to my store, and I sold
them all to officers and men very speedily. For some time,
and until I found the task beyond my strength, I
kept up a capital table at the British Hotel. But

(05:50):
at last I gave up doing so professedly, and my
hungry customers had to make shift with whatever was on
the premises. Fortunately they were not over dainty and had
few antipathies. My duties increased so rapidly that sometimes it
was with difficulty that I found time to eat and sleep.
Could I have obtained good servants, my daily labors would

(06:12):
have been lightened greatly. But my staff never consisted of
more than a few boys, two black cooks, some turks,
one of whom Osmond had enough to do to kill
and pluck the poultry, while the others looked after the
stock and killed our goats and sheep, and as many
runaway sailors or good for noughts in search of employment
as we could, from time to time lay our hands upon.

(06:34):
But they never found my larder entirely empty. I often
used to roast a score or so of fowls daily,
besides boiling hams and tongues. Either these or a slice
from a joint of beef or mutton, you would be
pretty sure of finding at your service in the larder
of the British hotel. Would you like, gentle reader, to

(06:56):
know what other things suggestive of home and its comforts
your relatives and friends in the crimea could obtain from
the hostess of spring Hill. I do not tell you
that the following articles were all obtainable at the commencement,
but many were. The time was indeed, when had you
asked me for mock, turtle and venison, you should have
had them preserved in tins. But that was when the

(07:18):
Crimea was flooded with plenty too late alas to save
many whom want had killed. But had you been doing
your best to batter Sebastopol about the years of the
Russians in the spring and summer of the year before last,
the firm of Sekull and Day would have been happy
to have served you with I emit ordinary things linen

(07:39):
and hosiery, saddlery, caps, boots and shoes for the outer
man and for the inner man, Meat and soups of
every variety in tins. You can scarcely conceive how disgusted
we all became at last with preserved provisions. Salmon, lobsters
and oysters also in tins, which last beaten up into

(08:00):
fritters with onions, butter, eggs, pepper, and salt were very
good game. Wild fowl vegetables also preserved eggs, sardines, curry powder, cigars,
tobacco snuff, cigarette papers, tea coffee, tooth powder, and currant jelly.

(08:20):
When cargoes came in from Constantinople, we bought great supplies
of potatoes, carrots, turnips and greens. Ah, what a rush
there used to be For the greens. You might sometimes
get hot rolls, but generally speaking I bought the Turkish
bread eggmech baked at balaklava. Or had you felt too

(08:42):
ill to partake of your rough camp fare coarsely cooked
by a soldier cook who, unlike the French, could turn
his hand to few things but fighting, and had ridden
down that muddy road to the coal to see what
mother Sea coal could give you for dinner, the chances
were you would have found a good joint of mutton,
not of the fattest forsooth, For in such miserable condition

(09:04):
were the poor beasts landed that once, when there came
an urgent order from headquarters for twenty five pounds of mutton,
we had to cut up one sheep and a half
to provide the quantity. Or you would have stumbled upon
something curried, or upon a good Irish stew, nice and hot,
with plenty of onions and potatoes, or upon some capital
meat pies, I found the preserved meats were better relished,

(09:28):
cooked in this fashion, and well dockted with stimulants. Before
long I grew as familiar with the mysteries of seasoning
as any London pie man, and could accommodate myself to
the requirements of the seasons as readily. Or had there
been nothing better, you might have gone further and fared
on worse fare than one of my Welsh rabbits for
the manufacture of which I became so famous. And had

(09:52):
you been fortunate enough to have visited the British hotel
upon rice pudding Day, I warrant you would have ridden
back to your hut with kind thought of Mother Sekull's
endeavors to give you a taste of home. If I
had nothing else to be proud of, I think my
rice puddings made without milk upon the high roads to
Sebastopol would have gained me a reputation. What a shout

(10:15):
there used to be when I came out of my
little caboose, hot and flurried, and called out rice pudding Day.
My sons, some of them were baked in large shallow
pans for the men and the sick, who always said
that it reminded them of home. You would scarcely expect
to finish up your dinner with pastry, but very often
you would have found a good stock of it in

(10:36):
my larder. Whenever I had a few leisure moments, I
used to wash my hands, roll up my sleeves, and
roll out pastry. Very often I was interrupted to dispense medicines.
But if the tarts had a flavor of senna, or
the puddings tasted of rhubarb, it never interfered with their consumption.

(10:56):
I declare I never heard or read of an army
so partial to pastry as that British army before Sebastopol.
While I had a reputation for my sponge cakes that
any pastry cook in London, even Gunter, might have been
proud of. The officers, full of fun and high spirits,
used to crowd into the little kitchen. And despite all

(11:17):
my remonstrances, which were not always confined to words, for
they made me frantic sometimes, and an iron spoon is
a tempting weapon, would carry off the tarts hot from
the oven, while the good for nothing black cooks, instead
of lending me their aid, would stand by and laugh
with all their teeth. And when the hot season commenced,

(11:38):
the crowds that came to the British Hotel for my
claret and cider cups and other cooling summer drinks were
very complimentary in their expressions of appreciation of my skill. Now,
supposing that you had made a hearty dinner and were
thinking of starting homeward, if I can use so pleasant
a term in reference to your cheerless quarters, it was

(12:00):
very natural that you should be anxious to carry back
something to your hut. Perhaps you expected to be sent
into the trenches. Many a supper cooked by me has
been consumed in those fearful trenches by brave men who
could eat it with keen appetites while the messengers of
death were speeding around them. Or perhaps you had planned
a little dinner party and wanted to give your friends

(12:22):
something better than their ordinary fare. Anyhow, you would, in
all probability have some good reason for returning laden with
comforts and necessaries from spring Hill. You would not be
very particular about carrying them. You might have been a
great swell at home, where you would have shuddered if
Bond Street had seen you carrying a parcel no larger

(12:43):
than your card case. But those considerations rarely troubled you. Here.
Very likely your servant was lying crouched in a rifle pit,
having pots at the Russians, or keeping watch and ward
in the long lines of trenches, or stripped to his shirt,
shoveling powers and shot into the great guns, whose steady
raw broke the evening's calm. So if you did not

(13:06):
wait upon yourself, you would stand a very fair chance
of being starved. But you would open your knapsack if
you had brought one for me to fill it with potatoes,
and halloo out. Never mind, mother, Although the gravy from
the fowls on your saddle before you was soaking through
the little modicum of paper which was all I could
afford you, so leaden you would cheerfully start up the

(13:30):
hill of mud Hutwood, And well for you if you
did not come to grief on that treacherous sea of
mud that lay swelling between the coal and your destination.
Many a mishap ludicrous, but for their consequences happened on it.
I remember a young officer coming down one day, just
in time to carry off my last fowl and meat pie.

(13:52):
Before he had gone far. The horse so floundered in
the mud that the saddle girths broke, and while the
pies rolled in the clays oil in one direction, the
fowl flew in another. To make matters worse, the horse,
in his efforts to extricate himself, did for them entirely
and in terrible distress. The poor fellow came back for

(14:13):
me to set him up again. I shook my head
for a long time, but at last, after he had
over and over again, urged upon me pathetically that he
had two fellows coming to dine with him at six,
and nothing in the world in his hut but salt pork.
I resigned a plump fowl which I had kept back
for my own dinner. Off he started again, but soon

(14:35):
came back with, Oh, mother, I forgot all about the potatoes.
They've all rolled out upon that blank road. You must
fill my bag again. We all laughed heartily at him,
but this state of things had been rather tragical. Before
I bring this chapter to a close, I should like,

(14:55):
with the reader's permission, to describe one day of my
life in the crimea. They were all pretty much alike,
except when there was fighting upon a large scale going on,
and duty called me to the field. I was generally
up and busy by daybreak, sometimes earlier, for in the
summer my bed had no attractions strong enough to bind
me to it. After four there was plenty to do

(15:18):
before the work of the day began. There was the
poultry to pluck and prepare for cooking, which had been
killed on the previous night, the joints to be cut
up and got ready for the same purpose, the medicines
to be mixed, the store to be swept and cleaned
of very great importance. With all these things to see after,
with a few hours of quiet, before the road became

(15:39):
alive with travelers. By seven o'clock the morning coffee would
be ready, hot and refreshing, and eagerly sought for by
the officers of the army works corps engaged upon making
the great high road to the front, and the Commissariat
and gland transport men carrying stores from Balaklava to the heights.
There was always a great demand for coffee by those

(16:01):
who knew its refreshing and strengthening qualities. Milk I could
not give them. I kept it in tins for special use,
but they had it hot and strong, with plenty of
sugar and a slice of butter, which I recommend as
a capital substitute for milk. From that time until nine,
officers on duty in the neighborhood or passing by would

(16:22):
look in for breakfast, and about half past nine my
sick patients began to show themselves. In the following hour,
they came thickly, and sometimes it was past twelve before
I had got through this duty. They came with every
variety of suffering and disease. The cases I most disliked
were the frost bit and fingers and feet in the winter.

(16:43):
That over there was the hospital to visit across the way,
which was sometimes overcrowded with patients. I was a good
deal there, and as often as possible would take over
books and papers, which I used to borrow for that
purpose from my friends and the officers I knew ones.
A great packet of tracts was sent to me from
Plymouth anonymously, and these I distributed in the same manner.

(17:08):
By this time the day's news had come from the front,
and perhaps among the casualties over night there would be
some one wounded or sick who would be glad to
see me ride up with the comforts he stood most
in need of. And during the day, if any accident
occurred in the neighborhood or on the road near the
British Hotel, the men generally brought the sufferer there, whence,

(17:29):
if the hurt was serious, he would be transferred to
the hospital of the land transport opposite. I used not
always to stand upon too much ceremony when I heard
of sick or wounded officers in the front. Sometimes their
friends would ask me to go to them, though very
often I waited for no hint, but took the chance
of meeting with a kind reception. I used to think

(17:51):
of their relatives at home, who would have given so
much to possess my privilege. And more than one officer
have I startled by appearing before him and telling him
abruptly that he must have a mother, wife, or sister
at home whom he missed, and that he must therefore
be glad of some woman to take their place. Until evening,
the store would be filled with customers wanting stores, dinners

(18:14):
and luncheons, lounges and idlers seeking conversation and amusement, And
at eight o'clock the curtain descended on that day's labor,
and I could sit down and eat at leisure. It
was no easy thing to clear the store, canteen and yards,
but we determined upon adhering to the rule that nothing
should be sold after that hour, and succeeded. Anyone who

(18:36):
came after that time came simply as a friend. There
could be no necessity for any one except on extraordinary
occasions when the rule could be relaxed to purchase things
after eight o'clock, and drunkenness or excess were discouraged at
spring Hill in every way. Indeed, my few unpleasant scenes
arose chiefly from my refusing to sell liquor where I

(18:59):
saw it was wanted to be abused. I could appeal
with a clear conscience to all who knew me there
to back my assertion that I neither permitted drunkenness among
the men, nor gambling among the officers. Whatever happened elsewhere, intoxication,
cards and dice were never to be seen within the
precincts of the British Hotel. My regulations were well known,

(19:22):
and a kind hearted officer of the Royals, who was
much there, and who permitted me to use a familiarity
towards him, which I trust I never abused. Undertook to
be my Provst Marshal, but his duties were very light.
At first. We kept our store open on Sunday from
sheer necessity. But after a little while, when stores in
abundance were established at Cadaicoy and elsewhere, and the absolute

(19:46):
necessity no longer existed, Sunday became a day of most
grateful rest at spring Hill. This step also met with
opposition from the men, but again we were determined, and
again we triumphed. I am sure we needed rest. I
have often wondered since how it was that I never
fell ill or came home on urgent private affairs. I

(20:09):
am afraid that I was not sufficiently thankful to the
providence which gave me strength to carry out the work.
I loved so well and felt so happy in being
engaged upon. But although I never had a week's illness
during my campaign, the labor anxiety, and perhaps the few
trials that followed it have told upon me. I have

(20:29):
never felt since that time the strong and hearty woman
that I was when I braved with impunity the pestilence
of Navy Bay and Crusayes. It would kill me easily
now end of Chapter fourteen,