William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

took the opportunity to prepare a hot gruel and use half of one of the bottles of gin to clean some dishes and utensils.
    There was a noise in the doorway and she looked up to see Mary come limping in carrying two pails of water she had drawn from the well in the next street. In the candlelight she looked like a grotesque milkmaid, her shoulders bent, her hair blowing over her face from the wind and rain outside. Her plain stuff dress was wet across the top and her skirts trailed in the mud. She lived locally and had come to help because her sister was one of those afflicted. She set the pails down with an involuntary grunt of relief, then smiled at Hester.
    “There y’are, miss. Bit o’ rain in ’em, but I s’pose that don’t ’urt none. Yer want them ’ot?”
    “Yes, I’ll add them to this,” Hester accepted, indicating the cauldron she was stirring on top of one of the potbellied stoves.
    “Were it like this in the Crimea?” Mary asked in a husky whisper, just in case some poor creature should be sleeping rather than insensible.
    “Yes, a bit,” Hester replied. “Except, of course, we had gunshot wounds as well, and amputations, and gangrene. But we had lots of fever too.”
    “Think I’d like to ’ave bin there,” Mary said, stretching and bending her back after the weight of the water. “Gotta be better than ’ere. Nearly married a sol’jer once.” Shesmiled fleetingly at the memory of romance. “Then I went and married Ernie instead. Just a brickie, ’e were, but sort o’ gentle.” She sniffed. “ ’E’d a’ never made the army. ’Is legs was bad. Rickets w’en ’e were a kid. Does that to yer, rickets does.” She stretched again and moved closer to the stove, her wet skirts slapping against her legs, her boots squelching. “Died o’ consumption, ’e did. ’E could read, could Ernie. Captain o’ the Men o’ Death, ’e called it. Consumption, I mean. Read that somewhere, ’e did.” She eyed the gruel and lifted one of the pails to pour in a gallon of water to thin it.
    “Thank you,” Hester acknowledged. “He sounds special.”
    “ ’E were,” Mary said stoically. “Miss ’im I do, poor bleeder. Me sister Dora wanted to get out of ’ere. Never thought it’d be in a coffin, leastways not yet. Not that there’s many as gets out ter anythink much different. There were Ginny Motson. Pretty, she were, an’ smart as yer like. Dunno wot ’appened to ’er, nor w’ere she went, but up west somewhere. Real bettered ’erself, she did. Learned ter talk proper, an’ be’ave like a lady, or least summink like.”
    Hester refrained from speculating that it was probably into a brothel. The dream of freedom was too precious to destroy.
    “Reckon as she got married,” Mary went on. “ ’Ope so. Liked ’er I did. D’yer want more water, miss?”
    “Not yet, thank you.”
    “Oh—there’s someone sick, poor devil.” Mary darted forward to pick up a pan and go to assist. Enid came out of the shadows on the far side, her face white, her thick and naturally wavy hair piled a little crooked, and a long splash of candle tallow on the bosom of her dress.
    “The little boy at the end is very weak,” she said huskily. “I don’t think he’ll last the night. I almost wish he’d go quickly, to ease his suffering, and yet when he does, I’ll wish he hadn’t.” She sniffed and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Isn’t it ridiculous? I first saw him only a few hoursago, and yet I care so much it twists inside me. I’ve never even heard him speak.”
    “Time has nothing to do with it,” Hester replied in a whisper, adding salt and sugar liberally to the gruel. It was necessary to replenish what the body lost. Her own memories crowded her mind, soldiers she had seen for perhaps only an hour or two, and yet their agonized faces remained in her memory, the courage with which some of them bore their wounds and the breaking of their own bodies. One was sharp before her vision even now. She could see his blood-smeared features superimposed in the cauldron of gruel she was stirring, the smile he forced on his lips, his fair mustache and the mangled mass where his right shoulder had been. He had bled to death, and there had been nothing she could do to help him.
    “I suppose not.” Enid picked up the dishes, wrinkled her nose at the lingering odor of the gin, and began to ladle out a little gruel into about six of them. “I don’t know who can eat, but we’d