Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole - Chapter 15

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter fifteen of Wonderful Adventures of Missus Secual in Many
Lands by Mary Secull. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain, Chapter fifteen. In the last three chapters, I
have attempted, without any consideration of dates, to give my
readers some idea of my life in the Crimea. I

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am fully aware that I have jumbled up events, strangely
talking in the same page and even sentence of events
which occurred at different times. But I have three excuses
to offer for my unhistorical inexactness. In the first place,
my memory is far from trustworthy, and I kept no
written diary. In the second place, the reader must have

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had more than enough of journals and chronicles of Crimean life,
and I am the only historian of spring Hill. And
in the third place, unless I am allowed to tell
the story of my life in my own way, I
cannot tell it at all. I shall now endeavor to
describe my out of door life as much as possible,
and write of those great events in the field of

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which I was a humble witness. But I shall continue
to speak from my own experience simply, And if the
reader should be surprised at my leaving any memorable action
of the army unnoticed. He may be sure that it
is because I was mixing medicines or making good things
in the kitchen of the British Hotel, and first heard
the particulars of it, perhaps from the newspapers which came

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from home. My readers must know too that they were
much more familiar with the history of the camp at
their own firesides than we who lived in it. Just
as a spectator seeing one of the battles from a
hill as I did, the chenia knows more about it
than the combatant in the valley below, who only thinks
of the enemy whom it is his immediate duty to repel.

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So you, through the valuable aid of the cleverest man
in the whole camp, read in the Times columns the
details of that great campaign, while we, the actors in it,
had enough to do to discharge our own duties well
and rarely concerned ourselves in what seemed of such importance
to you, And so very often a desperate skirmish or

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hard fought action, the news of which created so much
sensation in England, was but a little regarded. At spring Hill.
My first experience of battle was pleasant enough before we
had been long at Spring Hill, Omar Pasha got something
for his Turks to do, and one fine morning they
were marched away towards the Russian outposts on the road

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to Badar. I accompanied them on horseback and enjoyed the sight. Amazingly,
English and French cavalry preceded the Turkish infantry over the plain,
yet full of memorials of the terrible light cavalry charge
a few months before, and while one detachment of the
Turks made a reconnaissance to the right of the Chennaia,

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another pushed their way up the hill towards Kamara, driving
in the Russian outposts after what seemed but a slight resistance.
It was very pretty to see them advance, and to
watch how every now and then little clouds of white
smoke puffed up from behind bushes and the crests of hills,
and were answered by similar puffs from the long line

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of busy skirmishers that preceded the main body. This was
my first experience of actual battle, and I felt that
strange excitement, which I do not remember on future occasions,
coupled with an earnest longing to see more of warfare
and to share in its hazards. It was not long
before my wish was gratified. I do not know much

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of the second bombardment of Sebastopol in the month of April,
although I was as assiduous as I could be in
my attendance at Cathcart's Hill. I could judge of its
severity by the long trains of wounded which passed the
British hotel. I had a stretcher laid near the door,
and very often a poor fellow was laid upon it,
out wearied by the terrible conveyance from the front. After

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this unsuccessful bombardment, it seemed to us that there was
a sudden lull in the progress of the siege, and
other things began to interest us. There were several arrivals
to talk over. Miss Nightingale came to supervise the Balaclava hospitals,
and before long she had practical experience of crimean fever.
After her came the Duke of Newcastle and the great

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high Priest of the Mysteries of Cookery, Monsieur Alexis Soyer.
He was often at spring Hill with the most smiling
of faces and in the most gorgeous of irregular uniforms,
and never failed to praise my soups and dainties. I
always flattered myself that I was this match, and with
our West Indian dishes, could of course beat him hollow

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and more than once I challenged him to a trial
of skill. But the gallant Frenchman only shrugged his shoulders
and disclaimed my challenge with many flourishes of his jeweled hands,
declaring that Madam proposed a contest where victory would cost
him his reputation for gallantry and be more disastrous than defeat,
and all because I was a woman forsooth, What nonsense

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to talk like that when I was doing the work
of half a dozen men. Then he would laugh and
declare that when our campaigns were over, we would render
rivalry impossible by combining to open the first restaurant in Europe.
There was always fun in the store when the good
natured Frenchman was there. One dark, tempestuous night, I was

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knocked up by the arrival of other visitors. These were
the first regiment of Sardinian grenadiers, who benighted on their
way to the position assigned them. Remained at spring Hill
until the morning. We soon turned out our staff and
lighted up the store and entertained the officers as well
as we could inside, while the soldiers bivouacked in the
yards around. Not a single thing was stolen or disturbed

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that night, although they had many opportunities. We all admired
and liked the Sardinians. They were honest, well disciplined fellows,
and I wish there had been no worse men or
soldiers in the Crimea. As the season advanced, many visitors
came to the Crimea from all parts of the world,
and many of them were glad to make Spring Hill

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their headquarters. We should have been better off if some
of them had spared us this compliment. A Captain Sinclair,
for instance, who could doubt any one with such a name,
stayed some time with us, had the best of everything,
and paid us most honorably with one bill upon his agents,
while we cashed another to provide him with money for

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his homeward route. He was an accomplished fellow, and I
really liked him, but unfortunately for us, he was a swindler.
I saw much of another visitor to the camp in
the Crimea, an old acquaintance of mine, with whom I
had had many a hard bout in past times the cholera.
There were many cases in the hospital of the land

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transport cor opposite, and I prescribed for men the others personally.
The raquet sold in too many of the stores in
Balaklava and Cadacoy was most pernicious, and although the authorities
forbade the sutlers to sell it under heavy penalties, it
found its way into the camp in large quantities. During May,

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and while preparations were being made for the third great
bombardment of the ill fated city, summer broke beautifully and
the weather, checkered occasionally by fitful intervals of cold and rain,
made us all cheerful. You would scarcely have believed that
the happy, good humored, and jocular visitors to the British
Hotel were the same men who had a few weeks

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before ridden gloomily through the muddy road to its door.
It was a period of relaxation, and they all enjoyed it.
Amusement was the order of the day. Races, dog hunts,
cricket matches and dinner parties were eagerly indulged in, and
in all I could be of use to provide the good,
cheer which was so essential a part of these entertainments.

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And when the warm weather came in all its intensity,
and I took to manufacture in cooling beverages for my
friends and customers. My store was always full to please.
All were somewhat difficult, and occasionally some of them were
scarcely so polite as they should have been to a
perplexed hostess who could scarcely be expected to remember that
Lieutenant A had bespoken his sangaree an instant before Captain

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B and his friends had ordered their claret cup. In
anticipation of the hot weather, I had laid in a
large stock of raspberry vinegar, which properly managed helps to
make a pleasant drink. And there was a great demand
for sangaree, claret and cider cups, the cups being battered
pewter pots. Would you like reader to know my recipe

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for the favorite claret cup. It is simple enough. Claret water,
lemon peel, sugar, nutmeg, and ice. Yes, ice, but not
often and not for long, for the eager officers soon
made an end of it. Sometimes there were dinner parties
at spring Hill, but more of these hereafter. At one

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of the earliest when the Times correspondent was to be present,
I rode down to Cadakoy, bought some calico and cut
it up into table napkins. They all laughed very heartily,
and thought perhaps of a few weeks previously when every
available piece of linen in the camp would have been
snapped up for pocket handkerchiefs. But the reader must not

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forget that all this time, although there might be only
a few short and sullen roars of the great guns
by day, few nights passed without some fighting in the trenches,
and very often the news of the morning would be
that one or other of those I knew had fallen.
These tidings often saddened me, And when I awoke in
the night and heard the thunder of the guns fiercer

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than usual, I have quite dreaded the dawn which might
ysher in bad news. The deaths in the trenches touched
me deeply. Perhaps for this reason, it was very usual,
when a young officer was ordered into the trenches, for
him to ride down to spring Hill to dine, or
to obtain something more than his ordinary fare, to brighten

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his weary hours. In those fearful ditches, they seldom failed
on these occasions to shake me by the hand at parting,
and sometimes would say, you see, Missus secal, I can't
say goodbye to the dear ones at home, so I'll
bid you goodbye for them. Perhaps you'll see them some day.
And if the Russians shoul knock me over, mother, just

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tell them I thought of them all, will you. And
although all this might be said in a light hearted manner,
it was rather solemn. I felt it to be so,
for I never failed, although who was I that I
should preach, to say something about God's providence and relying
upon it. And they were very good. No army of

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parsons could be much better than my son's. They would
listen very gravely and shake me by the hand again,
while I felt that there was nothing in the world
I would not do for them. Then very often the
men would say, I'm going in with my master to night,
Missus secul, come and look after him if he's hit.
And so often as this happened, I would pass the

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night restlessly, awaiting with anxiety the morning, and yet dreading
to hear the news it held in store for me.
I used to think it was like having a large
family of children ill with fever and dreading to hear
which one had passed away in the night. And as
often as the bad news came, I thought it my
duty to ride up to the hut of the sufferer

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and do my woman's work. But I felt it deeply.
How could it be otherwise? There was one poor boy
in the artillery, with blue eyes and light golden hair,
whom I nursed through a long and weary sickness, born
with all a man's spirit, and whom I grew to
love like a fond old fashioned mother. I thought, if

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ever angels watched over any life, they would shelter his.
But one day, but a short time after he had
left his sick bed, he was struck down on his battery,
working like a young hero. It was a long time
before I could banish from my mind the thought of
him as I saw him last, the yellow hair stiff
and stained with his life blood, and the blue eyes

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closed in the sleep of death. Of course, I saw
him buried as I did Poor h V, my old
Jamaica friend, whose kind face was so familiar to me
of old another good friend I mourned bitterly. Captain be
of the Cold Streams, a great cricketer. He had been
with me on the previous evening, had seemed dull, but

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had supped at my store, And on the following morning
a brother officer told me he was shot dead while
setting his pickets, which made me ill and unfit for
work for the whole day. MINDEU, A day was a
long time to give to sorrow in the CRIMEA. I
could give many similar instances, but why should I sadden
myself or my readers. Others have described the horrors of

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those fatal trenches, but their real history has never been written.
And perhaps it is as well that so harrowing a
tale should be left in oblivion. Such anecdotes as the
following were very current in the camp, but I have
no means of answering for its truth. Two sergeants met
in the trenches who had been schoolmates in their youth.

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Years had passed since they set out for the battle
of life by different roads, and now they met again
under the fire of a common enemy. With one impulse,
they started forward to exchange the hearty handshake and the
mutual greetings, And while their hands were still clasped, a
chance sharp killed both. End of Chapter fifteen.