Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole - Chapter 19

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nineteen and conclusion of Wonderful Adventures of Missus Secual
in Many Lands by Mary Secul. This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain. Chapter nineteen. Before the new year
was far advanced, we all began to think of going home,
making sure that peace would soon be concluded. And never

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did more welcome message come anywhere than that which brought
us intelligence of the armistice, and the firing, which had
grown more and more slack lately ceased altogether. Of course,
the army did not desire peace because they had any
distaste for fighting, so far from it, I believe the
only more welcome intelligence would have been news of a

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campaign in the field. But they were most heartily weary
of sieges, and the prospect of another year before the
gloomy north of Sebastopol damped the ardor of the most sanguine.
Before the armistice was signed, the Russians and their old
foes made advances of friendship, and the banks of the
Chennaia used to be thronged with strangers, and many strange

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acquaintances were thus begun. I was one of the first
to ride down to the Chenia, and very much delighted
seemed the Russians to see an englishwoman. I wonder if
they thought they all had my complexion. I soon entered
heartily into the then current amusement, that of exchanging coin,
et cetera with the Russians. I stole a march upon

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my companions by making the sign of the Cross upon
my bosom, upon which a Russian threw me in exchange
for some pence a little metal figure of some ugly saint.
Then we wrapped up halfpence in clay and received coins
of less value in exchange. Seeing a soldier eating some
white bread, I made signs of wanting some, and threw

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over a piece of money. I had great difficulty in
making the man understand me, but after considerable pantomime, with
surprise in his round bullet eyes, he wrapped up his
bread in some paper, then coated it with clay, and
sent it over to me. I thought it would look
well beside my brown bread taken from the strange oven

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in the terrible Radan, and that the two would typify
war and peace. There was a great traffic going on
in such things, and a wag of an officer who
could talk Russian imperfectly. Set himself to work to persuade
an innocent Russian that I was his wife, and having
succeeded in doing so, promptly offered to dispose of me

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for the medal hanging at his breast. The last firing
of any consequence was the salutes with which the good
tidings of peace were received by army and navy. After
this soon began the homegoing, with happy faces and light hearts,
and some kind thoughts and warm tears for the comrades
left behind. I was very glad to hear of peace also,

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although it must have been apparent to everyone that it
would cause our ruin. We had lately made extensive additions
to our store and out houses. Our shelves were filled
with articles laid in at a great cost, and which
were now unsaleable, and which it would be equally impossible
to carry home. Everything from our stud of horses and
mules down to our latest consignments from home must be

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sold for any price, and as it happened, for many
things worth a year ago their weight in gold, no
purchaser could now be found. However, more of this hereafter.
Before leaving the Crimea, I made various excursions into the interior,
visiting Simpheropol and BACHCHISERII. I traveled a Simperopol with a

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pretty large party and had a very amusing journey. My
companions were young and full of fun, and tried hard
to persuade the Russians that I was Queen Victoria by
paying me the most absurd reverence. When this failed, they
fell back a little and declared that I was the
Queen's first cousin. Anyhow, they attracted crowds about me, and

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I came quite a lioness in the streets of Simferopol,
until the arrival of some highlanders in their uniform cut
me out. My excursion to Bactriceri was still more amusing
and pleasant. I found it necessary to go to beat
up a Russian merchant who, after the declaration of peace,
had purchased stores of us, and some young officers made

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up a party for the purpose. We hired an araba,
filled it with straw and some boxes to sit upon,
and set out very early with two old umbrellas to
shield us from the midday sun and the night dews.
We had whithers a hamper carefully packed before parting with
a cold duck, some cold meat a tart et cetera.

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The tartar's two horses were soon knocked up, and the
fellow obtained a third at a little village, and so
we rolled on until midday, when thoroughly exhausted, we left
our clumsy vehicle and carried our hamper beneath the shade
of a beautiful cherry tree, and determined to lunch. Upon
opening it, the first thing that met our eyes was

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a fine rat, who made a speedy escape. Somewhat gravely,
we proceeded to unpack its contents, without caring to express
our fears to one another, and quite soon enough we
found them. Realized how or where the rat had gained
access to our hamper, it was impossible to say, but
he had made no bad use of his time, and

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both wings of the cold duck had flown, while the
tart was considerably mangled. Sad discovery this for people who,
although hungry, were still squeamish. We made out as well
we could with the cold beef, and gave the rest
to our tartar driver, who had apparently no disinclination to
eating after the rat, and would very likely have despised

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us heartily for such weakness. After dinner, we went on
more briskly and succeeded in reaching back Chiserai. My journey
was perfectly unavailing. I could not find my debtor at home,
and if I had, I was told it would take
three weeks before the Russian law would assist me to
recover my claim. Determined, however, to have some compensation, I

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carried off a raven who had been croaking angrily at
my intrusion before. We had been long on our homeward journey. However,
Lieutenant c sat upon it, of course accidentally, and we
threw it to its relatives, the Crows. As the spring advanced,
the troops began to move away at a brisk pace.

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As they passed the Iron House upon the coal Old
for the crimea where so much of life's action had
been compressed into so short a space of time, they
would stop and give us a parting cheer, while very
often the band struck up some familiar tune of that
home they were so gladly seeking, and very often the
kind hearted officers would find time to run into the

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British hotel to bid us goodbye and give us a
farewell shake of the hand. For you see war like
death is a great leveler, and mutual suffering and endurance
had made us all friends. My dear missus secual and
my dear mister Day, wrote one on a scrap of
paper left on the counter. I have called here four

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times this day to wish you good bye. I am
so sorry I was not fortunate enough to see you.
I shall still hope to see you to morrow morning.
We march at seven a m. And yet all this
going home seemed strange and somewhat sad, and sometimes I
felt that I could not sympathize with the glad and

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happy faces of those who were looking forward to the
delights of home and the joy of seeing once more
the old familiar faces remembered so fondly in the fearful
trenches and the hard fought battlefields. Now and then we
would see a lounger with a blank face, taking no
interest in the bustle of departure, And with him I

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acknowledged to have more fellow feeling than with the others,
For he, as well as I, clearly had no home
to go to. He was a soldier by choice and
necessity as well as by profession. He had no home,
no loved ones, the peace would bring no particular pleasure
to him, whereas war and action were necessary to his existence,

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gave him excitement, occupation, the chance of promotion now and then.
But seldom, however, you came across such a disappointed one.
Was it not so with me? Had I not been
happy through the months of toil and danger, never knowing
what fear or depression was finding every moment of the day,

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mortgaged hours in advance, and earning sound sleep and contentment
by sheer hard work, What better or happier lot could
possibly befall me? And alas, how likely was it that
my present occupation gone, I might long in vain for
another so stirring and so useful. Besides which, it was

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pretty sure that I should go to England poorer than
I left it. And although I was not ashamed of poverty,
beginning life again in the autumn, I mean late in
the summer of life is hard uphill work. Peace concluded.
The little jealousies which may have sprung up between the
French and their allies seemed forgotten, and everyone was anxious

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ere the parting came to make the most of the
time yet left in improving old friendships and founding new
among others, the forty seventh, encamped near the Woronzov Road,
gave a grand parting entertainment to a large company of
their French neighbors, at which many offices of high rank
were present. I was applied to by the Committee of

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Management to superintend the affair, and for the last time
in the Crimea, the health of Madame Sekul was proposed
and duly honored. I had grown so accustomed to the
honor that I had no difficulty in returning thanks in
a speech which Colonel b interpreted amid roars of laughter
to the French guests. As the various regiments moved off,

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I received many acknowledgments from those who thought they owed
me gratitude, little presents, warm farewell words, kind letters, full
of grateful acknowledgments for services so small. I had forgotten
them long long ago. How easy it is to reach
warm hearts, little thoughtful acts of kindness, even from the humblest,

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and these touched me the most. I value the letters
received from the working men far more than the testimonials
of their officers. I have nothing to gain from the former,
and can point to their testimony fearlessly I am strongly
tempted to insert some of these acknowledgments, but I will
confine myself to one camp near Kerane. June sixteenth, eighteen

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fifty six, my dear missus secual, as you were about
to leave the Crimea, I avail myself of the only
opportunity which may occur for some time to acknowledge my
gratitude to you, and to thank you for the kindness
which I, in common with many others, received at your
hands when attacked with cholera in the spring of eighteen

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fifty five. But I have no language to do it suitably.
I am truly sensible that your kindness far exceeded my
claims upon your sympathy. It is said by some of
your friends. I hope truly that you are going to England.
There can be none from the Crimea more welcome there,
for your kindness in the sick tent and your heroism

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in the battlefield have endeared you to the whole army.
I am sure, when her most gracious Majesty the Queen
shall have become acquainted with the service you have gratuitously
rendered to so many of her brave soldiers, her generous
heart will thank you, for you have been an instrument
in the hands of the Almighty to preserve many a
gallant heart, to the Empire, to fight and win her battles,

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if ever again war may become a necessity. Please to
accept this from your most grateful, humble servant, W. J.
But I had other friends in the crimea, friends who
could never thank me. Some of them lay in their
last sleep beneath indistinguishable mounds of earth, some in the

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half filled trenches, a few beneath the blue waters of
the Euxine. I might in vain attempt to gather the
wild flowers which sprung up above many of their graves.
But I knew where some lay, and could visit their
last homes on earth, and to all the cemeteries where
friends rested so calmly, sleeping well after a life's work

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nobly done. I went many times, lingering long over many
a mound that bore the names of those whom I
had been familiar with in life, thinking of what they
had been and what I had known of them. Over
some I planted shrubs and flowers, Little lilac trees obtained
with no small trouble, and flowering evergreens which looked quite

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gay and pretty. Ere I left, and may in time
become great trees and witness strange scenes, or be cut
down as fuel for another besieging army who can tell.
And from many graves I picked up pebbles and plucked
simple wild flowers or tufts of grass as memorials for
relatives at home. How pretty the cemeteries used to look

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beneath the blue, peaceful sky, neatly enclosed with stone walls,
and full of the gravestones reared by friends over friends.
I met many here, thoughtfully taking their last look of
the resting places of those they knew and loved. I
saw many a proud head bowed down above them. I
knew that many a proud heart laid aside its pride

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here and stood in the presence of death, humble and childlike.
And by the clasped hand and moistened eye, I knew
that from many a heart sped upward a grateful prayer
to the Providence, which had thought fit in his judgment
to take some, and in his mercy to spare the rest.

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Some three weeks before the Crimea was finally evacuated, we
moved from our old quarters to Balaklava, where we had
obtained permission to fit up a store for the short
time which would elapse before the last Red Coat left
Russian soil. The poor old British hotel we could do
nothing with it. The iron house was pulled down and

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packed up for conveyance home. But the Russians got all
of the outhouses and sheds which was not used as fuel.
All the kitchen fittings and stoves that had cost us
so much fell also into their hands. I only wish
some cook worthy to possess them has them now. We
could sell nothing. Our horses were almost given away. Our

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large stores of provisions, et cetera were at any one's service.
It makes my heart sick to talk of the really
alarming sacrifices we made. The Russians crowded down ostensibly to purchase,
in reality to plunder prime cheeses, which had cost us
tenpence a pound was sold to them for less than

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a penny a pound. For wine for which we had
paid forty eight shillings a dozen, they bid four shillings.
I could not stand this, and in a fit of desperation,
I snatched up a hammer and broke up case after case,
while the bystanders held out their hands and caught the
ruby stream. It may have been wrong, but I was

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too excited to think. There was no more of my
own people to give it to, and I would rather
not present it to our old foes. We were among
the last to leave the Crimea. Before going I borrowed
a horse easy enough now, and rode up the old,
well known road, how unfamiliar in its loneliness and quiet,

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to Cathcart's Hill. I wished once more to impress the
scene upon my mind. It was a beautifully clear evening,
and we could see miles away across the darkening sea.
I spent some time there with my companions, pointing out
to each other the sights of scenes we all remembered
so well. There were the trenches, already becoming indistinguishable, out

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of which on the eighth of September we had seen
the storming parties tumble in confused and scattered bodies before
they ran up the broken height of the Radan. There
the Malakov, into which we had also seen the luckier
French pour in one unbroken stream. Below lay the crumbling
city and the quiet harbor, with scarce a ripple on

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its surface, while around stretched away the deserted huts for miles.
It was with something like regret that we said to
one another that the play was fairly over, that peace
had wrung the curtain down, and that we humble actors
in some of its most stirring scenes, must seek engagements elsewhere.

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I lingered behind, and stooping down once more, all gathered
little tufts of grass and some simple blossoms from above,
the graves of some who in life had been very
kind to me, And I left behind in exchange a
few tears which were sincere. A few days later, and
I stood on board a crowded steamer, taking my last

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look of the shores of the Crimea end of Chapter
nineteen conclusion. I did not return to England by the
most direct route, but took the opportunity of seeing more
of men and manners in yet other lands. Arrived in
England at last, we set to work bravely at Aldershot

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to retrieve our fallen fortunes and stem off the ruin
originated in the Crimea. But all in vain and at
last defeated by fortune, But not I think disgraced. We
were obliged to capitulate on very honorable conditions. In plain truth,
the old Crimean firm of Seakull and Day was dissolved finally,

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and its partners had to recommence the world anew and
so ended our campaign. One of us started only the
other day for the Antipodes, while the other is ready
to take any journey to any place where a stout
heart and too experienced hands may be of use. Perhaps
it would be right if I were to express more

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shame and annoyance than I really feel at the pecuniarily
disastrous issue of my Crimean adventures. But I cannot. I
really cannot. When I would try and feel ashamed of
myself for being poor and helpless, I only experienced a
glow of pride at the other and more pleasing events
of my career. When I think of the few whom

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I failed to pay in full, and so far from
blaming me, some of them are now my firmest friends,
I cannot help remembering also the many who profess themselves
indebted to me. Let me, in as few words as possible,
state the results of my Crimean campaign. To be sure,
I returned from it shaken in health. I came home wounded,

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as many others did. Few constitutions indeed were the better
for those winters before Sebastopol, and I was too hard
worked not to feel their effects. For a little labor
fatigues me. Now I cannot watch by sick beds as
I could. A week's want of rest quite knocks me up. Now.
Then I returned bankrupt in fortune, whereas others in my

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position may have come back to England rich and prosperous,
I found myself poor, beggared. So few words can tell
what I have lost. But what have I gained? I
should need a volume to describe that fairly, so much
is it, and so cheaply purchased by suffering ten times
worse than what I have experienced. I have more than

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once heard people say that they would gladly suffer illness
to enjoy the delights of convalescence, and so by enduring
a few days pain, gain the tender love of relatives
and sympathy of friends. And on this principle I rejoice
in the trials which have borne me such pleasures as
those I now enjoy. For wherever I go, I am

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sure to meet some smiling face every step I take.
In the crowded London streets may bring me in contact
with some friend forgotten by me, perhaps, but who soon
reminds me of our old life before Sebastopol. It seems
very long ago now, when I was of use to
him and he to me. Where, indeed, do I not

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find friends in omnibuses, in river steamboats, in places of
public amusement, in quiet streets and courts, where taking short
cuts I lose my way. Ofttimes spring up old familiar
faces to remind me of the months spent on Spring Hill.
The sentries at Whitehall relax from the discharge of their

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important duty of guarding nothing to give me a smile
of recognition. My very newspaper offices look friendly as I
pass them by. Busy printing house yard puts on a
cheering smile, and the punch office in Fleet Street sometimes
laughs out right. Now, would all this have happened if
I had returned to England a rich woman? Surely not

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a few more words? Ere I bring these egotistical remarks
to a close. It is naturally with feelings of pride
and pleasure that I allude to the committee recently organized
to aid me, And if I indulge in the vanity
of placing their names before my readers. It is simply
because every one of the following noblemen and gentlemen knew
me in the Crimea, and by consenting to assist me,

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now record publicly their opinion of my services there. And
yet I may, reasonably, on other grounds, be proud of
the fact that it has been stated publicly that my
present embarrassments originated in my charities and incessant labors among
the army by Major General Lord Rokeby k c B,
hs H. Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar c B His Grace,

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the Duke of Wellington, His Grace, the Duke of Newcastle,
the Right Honorable Lord Ward, General Sir John Burgoyne k
c B, Major General Sir Richard Airy k c B,
Rear Admiral Sir Stephen Lushington k c B, Colonel McMurdo
c B, Colonel Chapman c B, Lieutenant Colonel Ridley c B,

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Major the Honorable F. Keane W. H. Russell Esquire, Times
Correspondent W. T. Doyne, Esquire. End of Wonderful Adventures of
Missus Sekull in Many Lands by Mary Secull, recording by
cry Samuel