Valerie's Russia (18 page)

Whatever Valerie thought of the man from Siberia, there was no doubt that he could work miracles.

Once their hunger had been assuaged, thoughts turned once more to the news from St Petersburg.

‘What will you do now, Sophia?’ asked Valerie.

It was surprisingly easy to talk to her. With the men gone they were all in the same situation. Women with no husbands, or lovers, or brothers, to lead them.

‘I shall return to St Petersburg tomorrow with Vera,’ said Sophia. ‘I must know where Pyotr is being sent and will find out all the details in the capital.’

‘Write to me,’ said the countess. ‘Pyotr may not have the time and I wish to know everything. Write and tell me what is happening to our beloved Russia. And remind Conrad to take a boy with him to the station so he can bring back the other carriage,’ she told Valerie.

Valerie nodded, then they all sat in silent thought, wondering when they would see the men they loved again.

T
he following days passed slowly and the three women at Mavara lived as if in a vacuum, uncertain what to do with their lives. Once Sophia had departed, time seemed to stand still as they waited for news from the outside world.

Valerie wrote to Grand Duchess Olga, hoping that now such a colossal event had occurred the past drama with Rasputin could be forgotten by Olga, and she would be able to reply in her old friendly style.

Certainly Tassya’s enmity had disappeared since the devastating news of war, and she was seeking Valerie’s company once more.

‘Sorry I was so nasty to you,’ she said, coming up to join Valerie one afternoon whilst Countess Irina had her nap in the adjoining bedroom. ‘Can we forget all about that, please, and be friends again?’

‘I would like nothing better,’ said Valerie, lifting her head from the grey dress she was patching, and smiling. ‘I will never like Grigorii Rasputin, but he has to be praised for what he has done for you. Sit down and rest your legs – they mustn’t be overworked in your excitement.’

Tassya grinned, flinging herself into the big apricot armchair opposite her companion.

‘They do get weary, but I wake up every morning with joy in my heart, knowing I can get out of bed and go anywhere I like
without calling for Dunya.’ Her face sobered. ‘I just wish Pyotr and Andrei could have seen me walking.’

‘They will come down on leave and that is why you must learn all you can from your mother, Tassya. Learn about the estate and see that it remains in good order for when Pyotr comes home.’

Tassya nodded. ‘I’ll do that. It will keep me busy whilst we wait.’

Valerie also managed to keep occupied, attending to the countess’s every need, but she was not content and longed for something to fill her mind until she saw Pyotr again.

Their plans for the future had been hopelessly disrupted by the war and she didn’t know where to go, or what to do. Pyotr had said stay at Mavara until he contacted her. But it might be weeks, months even, before she heard from him and she couldn’t make Mavara her home because of Sophia.

And what about the betrothed couple? Would Pyotr get leave in time for the wedding? Would they come down to Mavara in September as man and wife? Would Sophia then stay on as mistress of the estate?

All she had to remind her of Pyotr was a small knotted kerchief, the scarlet one she had worn on their ride through the wheatfields, and which she had found in her bedroom when returning from the picnic. Inside was a scrap of paper wrapped around ten roubles, on which was written: ‘Use this to buy yourself a new dress’.

Valerie put the money away in her empty purse. She had no intention of buying anything at present. But the little note with Pyotr’s strong, downward-stroked handwriting, was folded and slipped into her bodice close to her heart.

The first letter to arrive at Mavara was for Valerie. It was from Grand Duchess Olga, and was as warm and friendly as Valerie had hoped.

‘… We are all well and very busy at Catherine Palace, which has been converted into a military hospital,’ she wrote. ‘Mother is in her element organizing a nursing course for me and Tatiana and Anna Vyrubova, and soon we will be assisting in the wards. Dear Valerie, I do wish you were here but if you can ever get to Kiev try and work in a hospital there.

‘I fear that casualties will be heavy as the war progresses, and nursing is something we can do well. It is also a splendid way of helping our brave men.…’

Olga also informed Valerie that her father, in a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, had changed the name of his capital to the Slav word – Petrograd.

So it was St Petersburg no longer. Yet another change in this ever-changing world. Valerie was grateful for Olga’s news and suddenly confident about her own future. At last she knew what she was going to do.

Nurses would be needed more and more as the weeks went by. Her knowledge of Russian was good enough for her to understand most of what was said even if her speech was not perfect. And if, God forbid, Pyotr were ever wounded and sent home to recuperate, she would know exactly how to care for him.

Fortunately she had the money he had left her. She would ask Conrad to drive her to Kamenka and she would take the first train to Kiev. Then she would offer her assistance at the first hospital she found there.

Valerie knew her decision would not please the countess, but Tassya was quite capable of running the household with Feodor, and Galina could assist the countess.

Valerie was quite determined and a great weight had lifted from her chest. She would get away from Mavara at last and had the money to pay for her escape.

Getting away was far from easy, however, as both the countess
and her daughter became angrier and angrier on seeing that Valerie meant every word she said.

‘Quite ridiculous!’ snapped Countess Irina, knowing that her life would become desolate without the company of the English girl.

She would be cared for by Galina, or Masha, or whoever else she demanded to help her. But none of the peasants possessed Valerie’s quiet intelligence; none would laugh at her dry comments, nor show the sympathy that Valerie portrayed.

‘How can you possibly nurse when you are a girl of decent upbringing and breeding? Have you any idea of the injuries of war? Have you any notion of the appalling stench, and the sight of mangled, screaming young bodies begging to die?’

Valerie was not going to be put off by unpleasant thoughts. Besides, her upbringing and breeding had not been considered at Mavara when she had carried endless trays up and down the stairs, washed and dressed the grumbling countess, and been frequently disturbed at night. In a way, she had been trained in advance for what was to come. Apart from the injuries.

‘I shall learn how to cope,’ she said.

‘Well,
I
think you are mean!’ said Tassya. ‘Leaving us in the lurch and going off to do what
you
want. What about us here? What about Mother and me? And I heard Pyotr telling you to stay at Mavara,’ she ended defiantly.

‘I am thinking of Pyotr,’ said Valerie, ‘and of Andrei Odarka. If either of them should be wounded and sent back here to convalesce, would
you
know how to care for their wounds?’

‘No, but we have servants enough to help. We could manage.’

‘Well I intend learning all I can and nothing you say will prevent me from going. But I will send you my address the moment I have found accommodation and I promise you—’ she looked at her companions with steady eyes – ‘if Pyotr or Andrei should be returned here injured, I will give up my
work at the hospital and come back to nurse them. Does that satisfy you?’

The countess remained silent, but Tassya nodded, and the following week Conrad drove Valerie to Kamenka where she caught the train to Kiev and her new life.

In a large square off the Kreschatik – the Street of the Cross Valerie was accepted at once as a nursing student in the hospital.

And at the end of August came news of a massive Russian defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg, which made her thankful she had made the move when she had.

‘Fortunately for us it is on the Northern Front,’ said the harassed Nurse-in-Charge, ‘so we should not have to take in too many extra casualties.’

She did not have nearly enough nurses, nor beds, but as the southern armies were holding their own against the Austrians, all the wounded being transferred back to her hospital in Kiev were adequately cared for at present.

‘Pray for continual victories in the south,’ she told her nurses with a grim smile, ‘and we will be able to cope.’

Every night Valerie wondered where Pyotr had been sent. She had received no news of him, although Tassya had promised to write. She prayed that he was fighting the Austrians and had not been sent to the Northern Front, where the real battle-grounds lay against the vastly efficient German armies.

She had been fortunate in finding a room in a house but five minutes walk from the hospital. In her white uniform with the red cross on the sleeve and the nun-like headdress that fell to her shoulders, she felt capable and proficient.

Valerie liked the other girls who were nursing students with her, and respected the large, severe-faced Nurse-in-Charge. But
her feet in their sturdy black leather shoes ached from endless standing on the hard, cold floors of the ward, and her heart ached for the pain and misery she saw daily.

What conditions were like in the north she dared not contemplate, for the Battle of Tannenberg was said to have cost Russia 100,000 men. Here in the south, despite glorious victories over the Austrians in Galicia, there were still fearful injuries.

Every day hundreds of wounded and dying men were brought into Kiev by Red Cross trains.

‘Keep smiling,’ said the Nurse-in-Charge. ‘The men must never see you upset, or worried, about their condition.’

Valerie often remembered Countess Irina’s words of gloom as she washed torn flesh and tried to bandage what was left of it, whilst still looking cheerful. Even worse than the war injuries were the amputations, which took place daily in the operating room.

Rotten fingers were removed stinking of poisoned blood, as were entire arms and legs. Terrible, shattering wounds in the groin were unbearable to look at, but had to be washed and cleaned, painted with iodine and smeared with Vaseline, before being covered over as gently as possible.

Dear God, don’t let this happen to Pyotr, she prayed, remembering his fine masculine body brimming with good health and beauty. For these young men had also been fit and splendid once, until war robbed them of their splendour, some even of their manhood.

Then one day came the news she had feared.

‘
H
ey, nurse, you come from somewhere near Kamenka, don’t you?’

The Nurse-in-Charge came striding down the long corridor that led to the stairs and halted in front of the weary English girl.

Valerie nodded, wondering what was to follow. She was about to leave the hospital and return to her room for a few hours of desperately needed sleep.

‘Then go into the lower ward and see if you can get any sense out of the patient by the door. We can get nothing from him and all his papers have been destroyed. One of the nurses thought she heard him mentioning Kamenka when he was delirious. He is awake now, but remains silent. Go and see if you can find out who he is, Valerie Marsh.’

Could it be Pyotr? Valerie’s heart began to thud.

‘Is he badly injured?’

‘Not nearly as bad as some, but he doesn’t seem to
want
to recover. Go and see what you can do. If he is determined to die we can use his bed.’

The Nurse-in-Charge had no time for awkward patients when so many were desperate for attention, and grateful for what the nurses were doing for them. The little foreigner had a
way with her, a gentleness that seemed to calm and comfort even the most distressed of the wounded soldiers. Maybe she could sort out the difficult newcomer.

Valerie hurried down the stairs and flung open the door to the lower ward, her fatigue forgotten. To her right was a body so completely bandaged she couldn’t see his face. But on the other side, sitting up against his pillows and staring ahead of him, was Pyotr.

His left hand and arm were bandaged, as was his head so his hair was not visible. But beneath the strips that half-covered his face, his right eye blazed out in bitter anger above his strong nose and tightly clamped lips. She had recognized that profile at once.

Slowly Valerie walked to the bed and looked down at him.

‘Hello, Pyotr,’ she said.

He glanced up and then away again, without a smile. But he knew her.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

‘I came to Kiev to be trained as a nursing sister. I wanted to help all the brave men in this terrible war. Oh, Petya, it is so good to see you again.’ She couldn’t put her arms around him for fear of hurting him, but she fell to her knees and gently touched his good hand. ‘Thank God you are safe. I have worried so much about you. Are you in pain? What happened to you?’

She gazed at the man she loved wanting to kiss his hard-pressed lips and stroke his lean cheek. His skin was still tanned despite his wounds and appeared very brown beneath the white bandages. But there was nothing welcoming about his hostile position.

‘Go away,’ he said. ‘I don’t wish to talk.’

He turned his head away from her loving face and looked across at the endless row of beds all filled with broken, immobile bodies.

God! How he wished he were dead.

He had tried so hard to save his friend. He had seen Andrei fall from his horse a few yards away and had dismounted, intending to run to him. But in that instant a shell had exploded throwing him to one side and opening up a crater large enough to bury a house.

Shell splinters had pierced his left side and he had been unconscious for days. But once they had operated to remove the fragments, he had regained enough of his senses to ask about Andrei.

His friend had vanished along with twenty others, he was informed. Then he, Count Pyotr Silakov, was transferred to Kiev.

In a very short period of time at the front, Pyotr had realized that cavalry was of little use in modern warfare. The Russian cavalry, with its shining sabres and pounding horses, was totally helpless against the machine guns of the enemy.

Their bravery was never in doubt, but the reckless gallantry of the charge was quickly demolished when superior artillery scythed down the Russian ranks like rows of wheat.

As Andrei Odarka had said, aeons ago it seemed now, Russia possessed the men, but was sadly lacking in rifles, munitions, and artillery. And, thought Pyotr bitterly, because of the enormous size of his beloved land, lack of sufficient railways made it impossible to transport supplies to where they were most needed.

To make matters worse, he had lost his best friend and been sent away from the front to recover in a hospital ward.

What use would he be to anyone with a mutilated arm and disfigured face? Pyotr’s head ached abominably and he couldn’t bear Valerie Marsh seeing him like this. What the hell was she doing trotting around in that stiff white uniform and those ugly boots?

The other nurses irritated him with their bossy ways and quick capable hands, but Valerie was not going to touch him. He had always been the strong one in the past, the demanding lover with searching fingers and caressing lips. He was not going to lie there, hideous and helpless, whilst she prodded and poked him.

Pyotr wanted to be left alone to sink ever deeper into misery and hatred of the entire world.

‘Nurse!’ he shouted, raising his head and yelling across the quiet ward. ‘I want the Nurse-in-Charge to get this foreign girl away from me!’

At first Valerie was worried by the change in Pyotr. This was a stranger and not the man she had once adored. Had the head wound affected his sanity?

But as she watched his tense, furious face and heard the strength in his voice, she suspected that he was not as badly hurt as she had feared and that his pride was probably the most wounded part of him.

Remembering the handsome and confident young officer with whom she had fallen in love, Valerie knew his injuries must be depressing him. But Pyotr had to understand how fortunate he was.

She thought of the young man who had died in her arms that very morning, and of the two who would surely die that night, or next day. Two young lads who lay uncomplaining, thankful for her comforting words as they waited for death in unrelieved agony.

Grimly she dragged her weary body to its feet.

‘I will not come again, Count Pyotr Silakov,’ she said loudly, causing him to turn his head in surprise at the sound of her voice. ‘Go on, yell as much as you like though I doubt if anyone will come. We are all too busy caring for the ones who really need us, and who are grateful for the hours we spend trying to help them. You should be glad you still have a life
ahead of you. I will make sure your family is informed of your whereabouts.’

Then she turned on her sturdy black heel and marched out of the ward.