The Street Philosopher - By Matthew Plampin Page 0,2

had been pulled up on to the stones and disgorged its civilian cargo, then had to be loaded with pale, moaning soldiers, each one bound to a stretcher, before it could sail back. Like every other operation that day, lifting the sick up to the ship once they reached her was made many times more difficult by the swell. At least two had been lost to the waves.

The invalids were receiving a great deal of attention from those leaving the Arthur. The majority were soldiers’ wives who had been camped out with the army throughout the miserable summer in Varna, but left behind when the invasion force had set sail for the Crimea. Rows of anxious faces, framed by grimy bonnets, poked over the deck rail, both hopeful and fearful that someone familiar might be among those being carried aboard so precariously. They gasped when the sailors stumbled, and they wailed when men went into the sea; but they’d already seen far too much death that year to be badly shocked.

Kitson approached the cholera cases awaiting evacuation. They were laid out in lines across the shingle like rotten railway sleepers. He looked at the soldiers’ stained uniforms, streaked with vomit and faeces, their waxy, agonised faces, their rigid limbs that poked out awkwardly from under their blankets like snapped branches, and felt nothing but relief that he had so far managed to escape infection. This cold-hearted reaction would have shamed him six months earlier. Like the soldiers’ wives, however, like everyone on the campaign, he had grown somewhat hardened against the misery of others.

He picked his way around to where the disembarked wives had gathered in a large crowd, huddled against the wind, shawls drawn in close around them. Many were calling out names at the invalids, in the slight hope of eliciting responses from them. The only able-bodied men present were the servants of the few officers’ wives who had been obliged to travel aboard the Arthur, standing alongside their mistresses, a little apart from the grubby spouses of the common soldiery. There was no one present who might conceivably be Mr Styles. Kitson perched on a coil of thick navy rope and lit a cigar, settling down to wait.

Before long, another longboat scraped up on to the shore. Drab civilians piled over its sides, many not waiting for the landing planks in their eagerness to walk again upon dry land. As they dispersed, drifting off into a maze of crates, sacks and assorted pieces of military machinery, Kitson noticed a man vault athletically out of the boat. He threw a leather folder and a canvas bag to the ground, and turned quickly to offer his arm to a slender young woman who was stepping on to the top of a landing plank, holding up the hem of her skirts before descending with practised grace. The poise and careful courtesy of this interaction appeared entirely out of place in that dreary, chaotic afternoon. As Kitson watched, the man retrieved his belongings and the pair started in his direction, the lady’s gloved hand in his elbow, their heads lowered against the breeze. A group of sailors heaved a large mahogany trunk from the longboat, puffing as they rushed it inland, overtaking the strolling couple. After thirty yards or so, they set it down with a groan; the black chest was so heavy that it sank several inches into the pebbles. Rubbing their sore palms together, the blue-jackets promptly returned to their boats.

There were some distant screams as a warhorse leapt from the foam close to the soldiers’ wives, trampling several of the cholera cases as it galloped off into the landing zone. The pair, who had by now reached the chest, both looked around to find the source of this sound, giving Kitson his first proper sight of their faces. He caught his breath: the woman was Madeleine Boyce. Grinding out his cigar on the navy rope, he got to his feet and walked towards them.

Mrs Madeleine Boyce was a lady of considerable reputation. Although only a shade above twenty, her fame as a beauty was already well established. That afternoon, as ever, her clothes were immaculate; a grey silk dress with a dark blue bonnet and cloak, unostentatious but radiating quiet expensiveness. Her cheeks bore the slightest flush from the sharp sea wind and the cold spray it carried. A few strands of dark hair had escaped from under her bonnet, and trailed across her cheek. Seeing Kitson approach,