The Wild Rose (31 page)

Willa looked at the tall sand dune. Close to the top of it, men were scooping out a shallow trench in the sand with their hands. More were laying wires in it, then smoothing the sand back over them. They stayed close together as they worked, so as not to make footprints all over the dune.

Lawrence was still speaking, asking Auda if the men behind the dune, about a hundred in all, were ready, when he abruptly stopped speaking and placed his hand on the iron rail. He was perfectly still, listening, it seemed, with his entire being.

Willa looked down the track. She could see nothing, only the two iron rails stretching away into the desert.

“They’re coming,” Lawrence said crisply. “Auda, get the men in position. Willa, brush our tracks away. I’ll take care of the wires. Go!”

As Lawrence and Auda picked up the boxes of dynamite and charges and hurried over the dune with them, Willa stuffed her camera into the carrying case dangling from her neck and grabbed the broom lying on the tracks. Moving quickly, she swept sand over the hole Lawrence had dug for the dynamite, then began working her way backward up the dune, brushing away all evidence of their presence, taking care not to disturb the wires lying only inches under the sand. She was panting by the time she finished. Sand, with its constant shifting, was hard on her artificial leg and took more effort to maneuver in.

As soon as she got over the top of the dune, she threw the broom down, crouched low, and pulled her camera from its case. She tossed the case aside and started shooting. She panned over the men crouched only a few feet below her, rifles ready, then focused in on Lawrence, who was feverishly attaching the wires to the plunger box. She could see the tension in his face. They could hear the train now. It was traveling fast.

There was no guarantee any of this would work and they all knew it. The connection might be bad. The charges, or dynamite, might be faulty. Their work, the deadly risks they were taking, might all be for nothing.

Lawrence finished with the wires. He readied his own rifle, slung it over his back, then bent his head, listening. They could chance no lookout at the top of the dune. The Turks were wary. They’d have their own lookout, and very likely a sharpshooter, in the front of the train. Lawrence would start his countdown when he heard the engine pass them by. By the time he got to one, the middle of the train would be over the dynamite. That’s when he’d press the plunger. There would be a tremendous explosion. Train cars would be blown apart. Those that remained would likely tumble off the tracks. Then Lawrence, Auda, and the men would rush down the dune, rifles raised, to complete the attack.

They waited silently now, nerves taut, as the train drew closer. Lawrence with one hand on the box, the other on the plunger.

“Ten, nine, eight, seven . . . ,” he began.

The men closed their eyes, took deep breaths, and prayed.

Willa inched closer to the top of the dune, her camera ready. Please let this work, she said silently. Please. For Lawrence. For Arabia. For the whole wretched war-torn world.

“. . . six, five, four, three . . .”

Like a racehorse out of its gate, Willa shot over the top of the dune. She knelt in the sand, trained her camera on the section of track where the dynamite lay buried, and started her film rolling. For what seemed like an eternity, there was nothing, just the train . . . wary faces in its windows . . . a mouth opening in surprise . . . a rifle barrel pointed at her . . . and then it came—the explosion.

There was a blinding light and then a sound like the end of the world, as the force of the explosion tore two cars apart and sent three more tumbling down the embankment. Willa felt herself pushed violently back into the dune. She felt sand, sharp as needles, driven into her hands and face. Felt shrapnel raining down around her. A piece of charred wood hit her arm, tearing her shirt and ripping her skin. She barely felt it; she was only relieved it hadn’t hit her camera.

And then there was smoke, thick and black, and the shouts and screams of the injured. A battle cry went up behind her, a lone voice. It was joined by others, and then the men were streaming down the dune past her, already firing on the train.

Willa raced down with them, stumbling in the shifting sand, nearly falling, righting herself, all the while keeping her film rolling.

She heard the sound of bullets flying past her—felt the impact of one lodging itself in the sand only inches from her left foot. A man next to her fell, his head blown off. She felt his blood, warm and wet, on her cheek. And still she ran on, panning over the train, focusing in on the skirmishing, capturing the expression of a tribesman as he thanked Allah that his bullet had found its mark.

The battle raged for nearly an hour. And then it was over. The Turkish commander surrendered. Prisoners were taken. Loot plundered. The remaining train cars were set on fire. Auda had lost eight men. The Turks, many more. And Willa had got it all on film, stopping only once, when the shooting was over, to load a new roll.

Lawrence would later say that it had been a close battle, that the Turks had nearly won it. They all knew what that meant. If they’d lost, they’d be dead now. The Turks might’ve taken Lawrence prisoner, but they’d likely have shot everyone else.

Willa didn’t care. She’d never felt fear, not for a second. She’d felt only a mad determination to film Lawrence and his men at battle. And a wild and raw hope that for a few moments there would be no pain, no sorrow, no guilt, just the sweet nothingness of forgetting.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Captain Seamus Finnegan, standing on the bridge of his destroyer,
Hawk,
looked out over the sparkling waters of the southeast Mediterranean with a pair of binoculars. The expression on his deeply tanned face was troubled.

They were out there. Under the calm blue waters, German U-boats were gliding, as dark and silent as sharks. He could feel them, and he would find them.

As he lowered his binoculars, his lieutenant, David Walker, appeared by his side. “They want to draw us out. Away from the coast,” he said.

“I am aware of that, Mr. Walker,” Seamie said. “They cannot hit us unless they do. Nor, however, can we hit them.”

“Our orders, sir, are clearly stated. They say we are to patrol the coastline for German vessels.”

“Our orders, Mr. Walker, are to win this war,” Seamie said curtly. “And I, and this crew, of which you are a part, will do our utmost to carry them out. Is that clear?”

“Eminently. Sir,” Walker said tightly.

Seamie raised his binoculars again, ending the conversation. David Walker was a coward, and Seamie could not abide cowards. Walker constantly tried to couch fear for his own personal safety in a feigned concern for protocol. Seamie had been trying to have him transferred off the
Hawk
for the last four months. He made a mental note now to redouble his efforts.

Unlike Walker, Seamie, a heavily decorated naval captain, had been personally responsible for sinking three German warships and had been a member of various crews on dreadnoughts and destroyers that had together sunk another eight. It was an impressive record, and one that had not been achieved by fretting over his own safety.

He had joined the Royal Navy a day after Britain declared war on Germany. Because of his extensive seafaring experience and knowledge, and the courage he’d demonstrated on two Antarctic expeditions, he was made an officer—a sublieutenant—directly upon enlisting. His courageous conduct during the hellish Battle of Gallipoli in 1915, when the Allies tried and failed to force their way through the Dardanelles to Istanbul, had gained him the rank of full lieutenant, and his bravery during the Battle of Jutland, off the coast of Denmark in the North Sea, in which his ship had sunk two German battle cruisers, had made him a captain.

Many called him brave; some, like Walker, called him reckless—behind his back, of course. But Seamie knew that he wasn’t reckless. He took risks, yes, but that was what one did in a war, and the risks he took were very carefully calculated. He knew his crew and what they could do, and he knew his ship—every nut and bolt of her. The
Hawk
was no great tub of a battleship, a sitting duck for U-boats. Lighter and faster than the dreadnoughts, she was made for patrolling, for raiding enemy harbors, harrying minelayers, and ferreting out U-boats. The
Hawk
’s bow had been specially fortified for ramming surfacing submarines. Her shallow draft made it difficult for their torpedoes to hit her. She’d been equipped with hydrophones for detecting submerged U-boats and depth charges for destroying them.

Seamie lowered his glasses again, mulling the question. They were only half a mile out from Haifa, a port town in western Arabia. They could play it safe and travel north or south along the coastline, searching for suspicious-looking vessels, or they could make for the open water—a more dangerous proposition.

The Germans had an effective intelligence-gathering force, for too often they knew the exact positions of British ships in the Mediterranean. It was as if they had some shadowy phantom of a chess master, constantly moving his pieces closer and closer to the
Hawk
and her sister ships. Seamie often wondered where this master was. In Berlin? London? Arabia? He thought it most likely that the man, whoever he was, was here. He had to be. Seamie and the other ships’ captains rarely relayed messages on their ships’ whereabouts by radio, fearing they would be intercepted. For someone to know so much about their movements, that someone—or his sources—had to be nearby. Watching the ships. Overhearing talk in the port towns, the bazaars, the officers’ messes.

Thanks to Britain’s own highly effective Secret Service Bureau, Seamie and the Allied captains often knew where Germany’s ships were, too, but not her U-boats. The U-boats were a different thing completely, much harder to track—even with the advantage of intercepted German messages.

Seamie well understood the consequences of failing to find a U-boat before it found them. He had seen the devastation a submarine’s torpedoes could wreak. He’d seen the explosions and the fires, heard the screams of dying men, had helped recover the broken and charred bodies. He had read, as had the entire world, of the sinking of the
Lusitania
, and the deaths of nearly twelve hundred of its passengers, civilians all—an act so reviled, it had pulled the United States, a country reluctant to sacrifice its sons on foreign battlefields, into the war.

But he did not allow himself to think about those consequences. He did not think about the possibility of his death, or his men’s. He did not think about the wives and children his crew had left back in England. He did not think of his own child, James, the young son whom he loved so dearly, or his wife, Jennie, whom he did not. He did not think of the woman he did love, Willa Alden. All he thought of was the necessity of sending enemy sailors to their graves before they sent him, and his crew, to theirs.

“Mr. Ellis,” he said now to his quartermaster, “set a course bearing three hundred degrees north.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Ellis said.

“Open waters, sir?” Walker asked.

“Yes, Mr. Walker. Open waters.”

“But sir, the report from SSB said—” Walker began.

Seamie knew what report Walker meant. The SSB had received intelligence that Germany had increased the number of U-boats in the southeastern Mediterranean, with an eye toward wiping out the Allied naval presence there and, by so doing, weakening Britain’s grip on the important strongholds of Port Said, Cairo, Jaffa, and Haifa.

“The reports are only that—reports,” he said now. “They may have been planted by the Germans to keep us close to shore. They may be entirely false.”

“And they may be entirely real,” Walker said.

Seamie gave the man an icy, dismissive glance. “Cold feet, Mr. Walker? Perhaps we should stay right here and knit. We’ll knit you some socks to warm them,” he said.

Walker flushed red. “No, sir. Of course not. I just—”

But Seamie had already turned his back on the man.

“Full speed ahead,” he said.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Fiona, dressed in a handsome cream silk suit and standing in an ornate and cavernous room in Buckingham Palace, held her breath as Britain’s sovereign, King George V, raised his pen.

For a few seconds, a strong, dizzying feeling of unreality gripped her. For a few seconds, she simply could not believe that this was happening, that she was here, with Joe and Katie, with the prime minister, with Millicent Fawcett and Sylvia Pankhurst and other suffragist leaders, watching the king giving his royal assent to the Representation of the People Act of 1918, the Fourth Reform Act.

Joe, at her side in his wheelchair, took her hand. Katie, on her other side, whispered, “Are you all right, Mum?”

She nodded, tears glistening in her eyes. She had worked for this, fought for this, spent time in Holloway prison for this, and now here she was, watching the king signing an act of Parliament that would grant voting rights to a large segment of British women.

Fiona had read the bill many times. She practically knew it word for word. It decreed that women over the age of thirty, who were married, or who were single but met certain basic property requirements, could vote in Parliamentary elections. A separate act had additionally decreed that women over the age of twenty-one could stand for Parliament.

Fiona knew that the act had come about because Millicent Fawcett and her group—to which Fiona belonged—had quietly, but forcefully, continued to nonviolently petition government for the vote all during the war, at the same time that the Pankhursts and the WSPU had stopped their violent protests and supported the war effort. In addition, the young women of Britain had made a splendid example of themselves as they took up the jobs British men left when they enlisted, especially jobs in the munitions factories.

Fiona knew that the women of Britain had earned this day, and yet she could still barely comprehend it. It was a proud day, a historic day, and as the king bent over the document, she was filled with emotion that the dream had become reality, that she, at the age of forty-seven, finally had the vote, and that her daughters would have it, too. It was not enough, she knew that—the voting age for women must be lowered—but it was a start, and a very sweet victory after such a long and bitter struggle.

As she watched the king scribble his signature across the document, a million memories raced through her mind. For a moment, she was not a wife and mother, not a successful tea merchant; she was a seventeen-year-old girl, a poor tea-packer in Whitechapel, struggling to make ends meet. Then, after her father’s and mother’s murders, she was a young woman on the run, struggling to survive.

She remembered her early battles—to get herself and Seamie out of London, to get to America and start a business there. She remembered how she’d fought to make her first shop—a shop she shared with her uncle Michael, her father’s brother—a success. She remembered fighting for her first husband’s—Nicholas Soames’s—health, and his life. For justice against William Burton, her father’s killer.

She’d fought for her own life after William Burton had threatened to kill her and had tried to make good on that threat. She’d fought for her brother Sid’s life after he’d been wrongly accused of murdering Gemma Dean, an East London actress. She’d fought for Joe’s life after he’d nearly been murdered himself at the hands of the villain Frankie Betts.

And she continued to fight now, she and Joe both. Together they’d set up two hospitals—one in France and one in Oxfordshire, at Wickersham Hall, Maud’s old and sprawling estate, which now belonged to India—for wounded British veterans, and they fought constantly for funding.

Katie, now nineteen, fought, too. She was reading history at Magdalene College and hoped to graduate with a first this coming spring, when she would promptly leave the dreaming spires of Oxford for the teeming streets of Whitechapel. There she planned to set up a proper office and print shop for the Labour newspaper she’d started four years ago, the
Battle Cry
. Her circulation was two thousand strong now and growing. Though still only an undergraduate, she routinely got interviews from leading political figures, keen to put their policies and arguments across to the young readership the
Battle Cry
served. She’d been arrested several times at suffragette marches, had had her eye blackened, and had even had the windows of her room at the college put out by thugs working for an Oxfordshire factory owner whose abusive practices she’d publicized. Not easily intimidated, Katie shrugged these damages off, considering them mere bumps and bruises from the rough-and-tumble of politics and journalism.

And then there was Charlie, Fiona’s eldest boy. He fought every day of his life now—on the front lines in France. He’d enlisted two years ago at the age of fifteen. He’d told his parents he was going on a camping trip with some mates, but he’d gone to see a recruiting sergeant instead. He’d lied about his age, joined the army, and three days later, he was shipped off to the Somme. Fiona and Joe found out from a postcard he sent them from Dover. And by then it was too late; he was gone. Fiona had wanted him found and brought back, but Joe said it was pointless—even if they managed to bring him home, he’d just slip off again the first chance he got. She worried about him constantly now and dreaded every unexpected knock on the door, every telegram, every official-looking envelope that arrived in the post.

Three and a half horrible years had passed since August of 1914. The jaunty, boisterous mood that had greeted the declaration of war had quickly changed with the first reports of heavy fighting in Belgium and then that brave country’s defeat. The ones who had said there would be a few quick, decisive battles and then the Germans would limp back home defeated had been dead wrong. The Germans had pressed on through Belgium into France, and the resulting carnage had been unspeakable. Millions had been killed, soldiers and civilians. Lives, towns, entire countries had been ripped apart. Every day, Fiona hoped to hear that it was ending, hoped to hear of some decisive victory that would tip the scales in the Allies’ favor. And every day passed without one.

It seemed to her sometimes as if the struggles never ended. She had come so far in her life, she and Joe both, and she’d tried to bring others with her—through her charitable endeavors, through the East End schools she and Joe funded, and through her fight for women’s suffrage. And today, for one brief, shining moment, it seemed as if she’d finally won a battle—she and the other women who’d fought so hard for the right to vote. For once, they’d won. The knowledge of the victory they’d achieved at home gave her hope that victory could be achieved abroad as well. America was now involved in the fighting. With her men, money, and might added to the Allies’ side, the war would end soon. It had to. Before there were no men left to fight it.

The king finished signing. He raised his pen. There was applause—some polite, some, like Fiona’s, a bit more boisterous—and then there were photographs and tea and cakes and champagne.

Joe was buttonholed by another MP. Katie hurried off to try to get a quick interview with the new prime minister, Mr. Lloyd George. Millicent and Sylvia were busily giving interviews, and Fiona, overwhelmed by her emotion, slipped away for a few minutes, to a corner of the huge state room, to collect herself.

She pulled a handkerchief from her purse, dabbed at her eyes, discreetly blew her nose, then stood by a window, staring out at the wintery February day until she felt she could converse once more without bursting into tears. She was just about to turn around and join the rest of the king’s audience when she felt a soft cheek pressed against her own and an arm around her shoulders. It was Katie.

“Mum, are you really all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine, luv.”

“Then why aren’t you with everyone else? You should be clinking champagne glasses with the king and Mr. Lloyd George, instead of moping in a corner.”

Fiona smiled. “You’re absolutely right. And I will. I was just feeling a little tired, that’s all. As you do at the end of big things,” she said.

Kate took hold of Fiona by both shoulders now. Her excitement was palpable. “But, Mum,” she said, “it’s not the end of anything. Not at all.”

“It isn’t?” Fiona said, looking at her daughter’s bright, beautiful face, looking into her fierce, intelligent blue eyes.

“No. I’ve decided that I’m going to stand for Parliament on the Labour ticket. I can’t wait until I’m thirty to participate in my own government. I just can’t. Mr. Lloyd George might’ve placed a high age bar on voting—he couldn’t have us women wielding too much influence in government, now, could he? But he set a lower one on standing for Parliament. I can’t vote for eleven more years, but I can run as soon as I turn twenty-one—which is less than two years away. And I will. As soon as I’m out of university, I’m going to start planning my campaign.”

“Oh, Katie,” Fiona said, her eyes shining. “That’s the most wonderful news. I’m so excited. And so proud.”

“Thank you, Mum. I hoped you would be. Oh, look! The king’s free. Be right back!”

“The king? Katie, you’re not going to . . .” Her voice trailed off. It was too late. Katie was making her way over to the monarch.

Fiona felt someone take her hand and squeeze it. It was Joe. “Looks like she’s gone off to buttonhole old King George,” he said.

“You don’t think she’s going to give him a copy of this week’s
Battle Cry,
do you?” Fiona said. “She’s got articles by Ben Tillet, Ella Rosen, Annie Besant, and Millicent Fawcett in there. Every firebrand in London. She’ll give him heart palpitations.”

“She’s already giving him heart palpitations,” Joe said, “and it’s not because of her newspaper.”

Fiona laughed. The king was looking at Katie, motioning for her to come forward. He was smiling at her. Of course he was, Fiona thought. Katie had that effect on men. With her black hair, blue eyes, and slender figure, she was a beauty.

“Have you heard her news, then?” Joe asked.

“I have,” Fiona said. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with it, would you now?” she added, raising an eyebrow.

Joe shook his head. “Katie makes her own decisions. She’s her own girl, you know that.”

“I certainly do.”

Joe smiled roguishly. “I
will
say I’m pleased she’s going into the family business, though,” he said.

“Politics, the family business,” Fiona said wonderingly. “It used to be barrows and the docks. Who’d have thought it, Joe? Back when we were our children’s ages, I mean. Who’d ever have believed it?”

Katie dropped a curtsy to the king, then stood up straight, squared her shoulders, and started talking. Joe and Fiona couldn’t hear what she was saying, but they both watched as the king, nodding his head, leaned in closer to listen.

“Poor sod,” Joe said. “He has no idea what he’s in for.”

Fiona shook her head, then she said, “You know, luv, earlier tonight, I thought it was ended. I thought the struggle—at least one of them—was over. I thought . . .”

Joe was about to answer, but his words died away also, as he and Fiona, both incredulous, watched their daughter pull a folded copy of the
Battle Cry
from her purse and hand it to the king.

“Yes, Fee? What were you saying?” Joe said, when he could find his voice again.

“Forget what I was saying,” Fiona said, laughing. “Nothing’s over. Nothing’s ended. With our Katie in the fray, it’s only just beginning.”

“Joe! There you are!” a familiar voice said. Fiona turned. David Lloyd George was at Joe’s side. “Greetings, Mrs. Bristow. How are you today? Well, I trust. I must tell you both, that daughter of yours is a firecracker of a girl. Just had the most fascinating conversation with her. All about her newspaper. She gave me a copy and made me promise to subscribe. She’s an excellent saleswoman, and as smart as a whip!”

“Takes after her mum, she does,” Joe said proudly.

“She also told me that she planned to run for Parliament just as soon as she turned twenty-one,” Lloyd George said. He smiled at Joe and added, “I think you’d better watch out for your job, old boy.”

Joe smiled back and said, “Actually, Prime Minister, I think you’d better watch out for
yours
!”