The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon Page B

moustache pricked my skin but his lips were soft; he tasted of tea and his tongue jabbed insistently between my teeth. I was so shocked that it was all I could do not to jerk my head away. Afterwards I hung in his arms and turned away my face. “I’m tired of waiting,” he whispered.
    I nodded, he drew my hand through his arm, and we walked on, just a very few steps across the lawn, over the paved terrace, and up the three steps to the house.
    “At last,” called Mother, pushing aside her letter and putting up her cheek to be kissed by Henry. Father flung down his paper, Aunt Isabella held out a limp hand, and Rosa sprang to her feet so that her drawing materials went rattling to the floor. “Finally, the medical second cousin,” she said, looking him in the eye and shaking hands with a vigor learnt from Miss Leigh Smith.
    Henry helped gather up the charcoals then surveyed the room fondly as if to check that everything was in place. Lamp-light fell on the patterns of roses in the pale green carpet, on the swags and tassels which held back the pink summer curtains, on the little round table at which my mother had been writing her letter, and on Rosa’s golden head. Meanwhile, dazed by what had happened in the garden, I sank down in my chair, picked up my sewing, and made a succession of bad stitches.
    Father at once engaged Henry in a conversation about the war. “They are hanging about,” he said, “Gallipoli, Malta, Constantinople. They should be taking up strongholds along the coast of Russia itself. Inaction is poison to an invading army. When you were out there, could you see any reason why they would become so entrenched?”
    “Only that Constantinople and Varna in Bulgaria, where the troops are based, are both very beautiful places. Perhaps our generals prefer to go sightseeing rather than to battle. At any rate, it’s surely better that nobody is killing each other yet.”
    “Apparently you were sent to ensure that proper arrangements had been made for casualties. What were your recommendations?” asked Rosa.
    There was a moment of surprised silence at the boldness of her clear, feminine voice. Henry stared at her for a moment and I was afraid that she had offended him. “Nothing extraordinary, as I recall, Miss Barr. Everything has changed with the advent of steamships. The wounded soldiers can be transported home in a matter of days, so emergency field stations are all that’s required. But there may not be any major battles to speak of. Warfare is so different now—the threat of our superior fire-power might well be enough.”
    “Of course there will be battles. It’s hardly likely that the government will go to the great expense of sending thousands of troops out there only to bring them home again.”
    “Token battles, we hope. The Russians are in for a tough time, given the sophistication of our weapons. Our new rifles, for instance, are lethally accurate from a considerable distance.”
    “A great opportunity for those young men,” said Father. “I wish I was twenty years younger.”
    “And yet the generals in charge, as I understand it, are all old men,” said Rosa. “Lord Raglan, for instance, is sixty-five years old, and has only got one arm, for goodness’ sake. Isn’t it the case that most of them served under Wellington in the wars against Bonaparte forty-odd years ago?”
    “Experience tells more than youth, Rosa. You’ll learn that in time. My niece is a very impatient young lady,” said Father fondly. “She has shaken us all up.”
    “But in a war when, as you say, there are new weapons, what good will these old men be? ” her voice rang out, and she put her head on one side as if to challenge Henry.
    “I can’t comment,” said Henry, laughing. “I’m a medical man, not a tactician. Though it’s certainly the case that in medicine we young men long to shake up the system but are kept down by the caution of our old masters.”
    “The truth is,” said Rosa,