He stood behind his chair, her words helping to restore some of his pride. “Yes, yes, quite right, Mrs. Bishop.”
Trace seized the moment and stood. “Thank you, Captain, for a delicious dinner. Please give my compliments to your very talented cook. I hope you’ll excuse me, but it’s getting late, and I must return to the hotel to write a letter to Edward. As you can imagine, he waits for my letters impatiently.”
“Of course he does, Mrs. Bishop. Letters from home keep a soldier living and fighting. I’ll have my caretaker, Hans, take you back to your hotel.”
The sour maid, Anneke, appeared from nowhere and opened the front door, staring at Trace with a grim expression.
Trace paused on the threshold, glancing toward the stairs. “Captain, please give my regards to Juana-Luisa and tell her I hope she feels better in the morning.”
He snapped to attention. “Yes, I will, Mrs. Bishop. Good night then.”
In the backseat of the car, as Trace was driven off into the night, she had the uncomfortable feeling that, despite her best efforts, Captain MacLeod had taken offense. Of course he had; he was not one who could easily accept rejection.
Trace decided she would send a note to Nonnie the very next morning, inquiring about her health. She could not bear to think of not seeing her daughter again.
CHAPTER 25
Two days later, Trace’s hotel room telephone rang. It was 10 in the morning. Who could be calling? She left the bathroom and picked up the heavy black handset receiver.
“Hello…”
“This is the hotel operator, Mrs. Bishop,” the male voice said. “A Miss MacLeod is in the lobby and she wishes to see you.”
Trace brightened. “I’ll be right down.”
Five minutes later, Trace embraced Nonnie in the hotel lobby, and after they were seated on a pink couch with carved cherubs, Nonnie took Trace’s hand.
“Father doesn’t know I’m here.”
Trace struggled to remain calm. “What has happened?”
“I read your note, but only after I pleaded with father to let me see it. He wasn’t going to let me.”
“Why not?” Trace asked.
“I don’t know. He’s been drinking heavily again. He’s fallen back into his dark moods. After I read your note, he told me he was going to terminate our music lessons.”
“But why?” Trace asked, suddenly alarmed. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, but I had to come see you. I told him I was going into Velp. Trace, he is so changed since Sunday night when we had dinner. Did you two have an argument or disagreement?”
Trace sighed. She couldn’t tell Nonnie the truth, that she had basically shot her father down, although politely. “No, we parted amicably. Everything was fine.”
Nonnie looked away, distressed. “When I told him I would not give up my lessons with you, he flew into a rage. I thought he was going to slap me. He said I’d never see you again, that you were just another opportunist.”
Trace held Nonnie’s hands. “Listen to me, Nonnie. Forgive me, but I’m going to call you Nonnie. Listen, I don’t want to come between you and your father.”
Nonnie’s voice broke with emotion. “You’re not going to leave me, are you, Trace? Please say no.”
“Of course I’m not going to leave you. We’ll work something out. Maybe you can come to Paris with me, or England, when Edward and I move there.”
“My father would never let me go.”
“Let’s never say never, Nonnie. We’ll work it out. Just let this blow over and we’ll make some plans. You’re 18 years old now. You’re a grown woman. You’ll be able to choose for yourself what kind of life you want to live.”
Nonnie looked deeply into Trace’s eyes, hers brimming with tears. “Forgive me, Trace, but I feel so close to you. You’ve been such a good friend. I was hoping we could travel to America together.”
Trace felt a sinking feeling, but she forced a smile. “Anything is possible, Nonnie. Let’s just stay calm until your father is in a better mood. I’m sure he’ll change his mind about the music lessons, and everything will return to the way it was. Until then, I have no plans to leave, so I’ll be here. In the meantime, if you can get away now and then, come by and we’ll spend time together.”
Feeling reassured, Nonnie nodded and then drew Trace in for a hug. “I’m so glad you came into my life, Trace.”
Trace felt the sudden sweetness of the moment turn sour. Something told her Captain MacLeod would never relent. He’d never let her give Nonnie music lessons again. What was she going to do?
The next morning, on Tuesday, September 12, Trace’s plans were shattered. She awoke when she heard a light knock on her door. She sat upright, feeling blunted and worried about Nonnie. She’d had a little too much wine at dinner the night before. She pushed out of bed and staggered to the door.
“Yes… Who is it?”
“A telegram for you, Mrs. Bishop.”
Trace sighed as she opened the door a few inches and squinted a look. The bellhop slipped the telegram to her through the narrow space.
Looking with blurry eyes, she took the telegram and studied it. “I’ll tip you later… if that’s all right?”
The bellhop gave a little bow, touched two fingers to the bill of his blue cap and retreated.
Trace blundered over to the draperies, drawing them back enough for a stream of sunlight to enter and illuminate the telegram. She slumped down into a chair, turned the envelope over in her hand, staring numbly, postponing the inevitable. Finally, with effort, she slid a thumb along the seam and opened it. Retrieving it, she gave a little shake of the page, tilting it toward the light. It was dated Monday, September 11th, 1916.
COME AT ONCE TO PARIS. EDWARD SICK. HE’S ASKING FOR YOU. BRITISH RED CROSS HOSPITAL NO.8 PARIS
MATA HARI
Stunned, Trace dropped the page.
A little over an hour later, she was packed and at the front desk paying her bill. She slid an envelope addressed to Juana-Luisa MacLeod toward the desk clerk and asked him to post it for her. The bellhop had already deposited her bags in the waiting cab, and she was anxious to leave.
As she thanked the front desk clerk and paused to tip the bellhop, she turned unsteadily, noticing a man staring at her from just inside the hotel entrance. He was a tall, erect man in his forties, with a somber, beseeching expression, and nervous eyes.
Trace started forward, head down, ignoring him, the cab waiting at the curb. As she passed the man, he spoke to her in a loud whisper.
“Mrs. Bishop?”
Trace stopped and ventured a look.
“Yes…?”
“Can we talk?”
“I’m leaving. I’m in a hurry. I don’t know you.”
“Just for a few minutes… Please. It is important.”
His accent sounded German.
Trace glanced about, self-consciously. The desk clerk was watching. So was the bellhop.
She lowered her voice, not meeting his gaze. “What do you want?”
From inside his tweed jacket pocket, he produced an envelope. “Will you please give this to Mata Hari?”
Startled, she shot him a look.
“Please. It is very important.”
A shiver of cold fear crawled up her spine. “No, I won't,” she said, exiting the hotel for the car. He followed, limping, and as the cab driver opened the door for her and Trace ducked into the back seat, the man stopped short, only a few feet away, his wounded eyes drawing her in.
The brawny, flat-nosed cab driver gave the man a belligerent once-over. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked, fist on his hips.
The man thrust out the envelope. “Please, Mrs. Bishop. You’ll be saving lives. Many lives.”
The cab driver looked at Trace for instructions. “Shall I send him off, Madam?”
Trace was conflicted. The man touched her in some inexplicable way. There was a deep sadness about him, as if something had been broken inside. She thought of Sevuk
Andranikian. Against her better judgment, she nodded. The man rushed forward, handing off the little envelope through the open window. She took it.
“God bless you, Mrs. Bishop.”
And then he was gone, limping off toward a grove of trees.
The train was delayed leaving The Hague, and Trace spent anxious minutes shifting in her seat, frequently asking the irritable conductor for updates. When the train finally got underway, it stopped in Brussels to pick up more passengers. From there it was slow, crowded and smoke-filled. It went thundering along toward France, its shrill, moaning whistle fitting the passengers’ melancholy moods.
At the French border, surly, stony-eyed soldiers barked orders, and checked papers and passports. When Trace presented hers, one particularly sinister-looking soldier glared at her.
“Where are you going?” he asked in French.
“Paris.”
“Why?”
She fumbled her French but managed to say, “To see my wounded husband in the hospital. He’s a flyer.”
He returned her passport, winking a flirtatious smile. “Of course, you are, Madam American,” he said in English. “Of course, he’s your husband. I know about you women Americans.”
She turned away, disgusted. The war is making animals of us all, she thought.
The train made unscheduled stops, picking up wounded, bandaged soldiers, their young faces ashen, pinched with pain. They were being attended to by Red Cross nurses who also looked war weary. At various local stops, additional wounded soldiers boarded and sat with low chins and sloping shoulders, their vacant eyes staring off into remote distances.
“One of these soldiers could be Edward,” Trace whispered to herself.
As the train entered the outskirts of Paris, Trace allowed only brief thoughts of Edward, and every time she thought of him, she felt a jagged pain of fear and foreboding. She’d been traveling for nearly eight hours, and she’d only eaten some bread, cheese and coffee in The Hague train station. As hungry as she was, she couldn’t even think about stopping for food until she saw Edward.
Mata Hari had sent the telegram over a day ago. How long had Edward been ill? What kind of illness? Was it serious? Was he conscious? Had he been wounded? Would he know her? And then there was the worst thought of all: Was he still alive?
Trace exited the train at the Montparnasse station and wandered for ten minutes before she found a taxi. She asked the driver in English if he knew where the British Red Cross Hospital Number Eight was located.
He shrugged, and she repeated the question in French.
“Oui, Madam, it’s at the Baltic and Corn Exchange.”
Inside the taxi, Trace shut her eyes and lulled her head back, listening to the hum of traffic, the squeaky horns, the rattle of street carts. She prayed to God that she would find Edward alive.
“Madam…” the driver said, twisting around to face her. “We are here.”
Trace sat up, eyes open, blinking. She must have drifted off to sleep.
Trace paid and exited. She faced a gated arched entrance, flanked by 12-foot stone walls. As she approached the gate, two British soldiers emerged from a guard booth. They checked her passport and listened, sympathetically, as she told them she was there to see Captain Edward Bishop.
Inside, a stocky, square-jawed soldier escorted her up a flight of stairs, across a brown marble polished floor, under a high vaulted ceiling and circular windows, to a wide lobby desk. A pleasant, round-faced woman in her 30s, wearing a nurse’s cap and a full white nursing uniform with the Red Cross badge printed on her brassard, lifted her eyes from a clipboard.
Trace gave her all the pertinent information about Edward, trying not to sound frightened, irritable or impatient.
The nurse looked Trace over with some interest. “Are you feeling well, Mrs. Bishop?”
Trace was jarred by the question. “Feeling well? Yes. Fine. May I please see my husband?”
“Very well. You look quite pale. Can I get you some tea and bread?”
“No, thank you. I just want to see my husband.”
A thin orderly appeared, dressed in a white jacket. He escorted Trace up a flight of circular white marble stairs, their footfalls echoing in the muted silence. Halfway down a long broad hallway, Trace followed the orderly left, into a room that held fifteen single beds, all lined against the back wall, under tall windows that let in good light. Trace stood there, the blood pounding in her temples, her eyes darting about, seeking Edward.
The orderly nodded forward, and Trace swallowed back panic as she moved across the hospital ward. She passed men with drawn faces, anxious looks, and rigid muscles where bullets had struck. There were the multiple wounded, their bodies having been riddled with large or small shell fragments. Some of their limbs were in Thomas’s splints due to multiple compound fractures. Others had stumps of torn-off limbs.
Five nurses were active, some quietly speaking with the soldiers, some dressing wounds, others scribbling notes in charts. All five nurses became alert when they saw Trace approach Edward's bed, fourth from the left. Trace didn't realize she was holding her breath until she shuddered, feeling light-headed, weaving unsteadily toward him.
There he was. Her handsome Edward. She stared down at him. He lay in partial shadow under a sheet, drawn up to his chin. He had changed. His handsome face was pallid, worn and thin. He had aged. His damp hair, combed back from his sweaty brow, had thinned.
“Edward…” Trace whispered, fighting back tears. If he awakened, he did not need to see her crying.
A young nurse was suddenly at her side. “Are you Mrs. Bishop?” she asked, softly, in a British accent.
Trace looked at her with weary, startled eyes. “What’s the matter with him?”
The nurse folded her hands at her waist, her kind eyes placid. “Mrs. Bishop, I’m Nurse Benningfield. Your husband was found two miles from his airfield, still seated in his airplane. His air machine had been severely damaged, but he had managed to land it, with only minor injuries. When help arrived, Captain Bishop could not move, and he could not speak. It took a long time before he was coaxed out of the cockpit. He was taken to a local field hospital and examined. He had minor cuts and bruises, and a bullet had grazed his shoulder, but other than that he was physically okay. But he didn’t respond to questioning, and he would not speak. He just stared. Unfortunately, while he was there, he caught pneumonia.”
Trace took in the gravity of the nurse’s words, her mind steadying with an effort. Trace knew that in 1916, there were no antibiotics to fight pneumonia. Edward’s body would have to fight it off.
Nurse Benningfield continued. “He was moved here five days ago.”
“Why wasn’t I called? Why has it taken so long?”
“We didn’t know where you were, Mrs. Bishop. Edward did speak your name now and then, but he didn’t say how to get in touch with you. Finally, a flyer mate of his, a Captain Masloff, learned what had happened to Captain Bishop, and he was instrumental in your husband being admitted here.”
Trace stared beyond Nurse Benningfield, her mind in turmoil. When she spoke, it was as if she were in a trance. “Edward has PTSD. He just couldn’t fly anymore. Don’t you see? He just couldn’t go on. That’s why he couldn’t move or speak. He has PTSD.”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Bishop. I’m afraid I don’t know what PTSD is.”
Trace looked beyond the nurse, her eyes unblinking. “Post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“I’m unfamiliar with that, Mrs. Bishop.”
“Of course you are, nurse,” Trace said, sadly. “Of course you are, because it won’t be recognized until sometime in the 1980s. I don’t know exactly when.”
Trace’s voice tried to speak, faltered, and then started again, each word trembling out of her mouth. “You see, Edward has been in combat for months and months. He has seen death and dying constantly. He has seen friends die in fiery crashes; he has seen soldiers on the ground die by the thousands. Edward is mentally, emoti
onally and spiritually exhausted. Don’t you see? He can’t give anymore. He can’t do anymore. He can’t fly anymore. He has done enough for this stupid, pointless war.”
Trace exhaled a frustrated breath, folding her arms tightly against her chest, resting her sad eyes on Edward. “Edward is tired and sick… He needs to go home.”
Nurse Benningfield looked on with sorrow and compassion. She lowered her eyes and spoke at a near whisper. “He’s a strong young man, Mrs. Bishop. We’re optimistic.”
Trace shook her head, glancing away toward the exit, determination rising. “Okay, I need to get Edward out of here. I need to get him home to England. I need to get him out of here as soon as possible.”
Nurse Benningfield avoided Trace’s eyes. “I don’t think he’s ready to be moved, Mrs. Bishop. He’s too weak. He needs care and rest. Much rest.”
“I’ve got to get him out of here,” Trace said, her voice filled with stress and urgency.
Nurse Benningfield saw that in Trace’s current state, there was no reasoning with her. “Okay, Mrs. Bishop, I will need to speak with Nurse Beckworth, the head nurse.
“Can you take me to her, please? Can you take me now?”
“Yes… if you wish.”
“Do you know if my husband’s family has been contacted?”
“Yes, I believe so. I’m not positive about that, but that is the protocol.”
Trace peeled back the sheet and took hold of Edward’s cold, clammy hand. She gently squeezed it. “It’s all right, Edward, my darling. You just sleep now. I’m going to take you home.”
Head Nurse Beckworth was a big-boned, matronly woman, whose graying hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She sat in a small, clean, windowless office on the third floor, behind a walnut desk that was stacked with papers in wire in/out baskets. She wore a darker color uniform, which Trace assumed indicated a higher rank.
After Nurse Benningfield explained Trace’s request, she left, leaving Nurse Beckworth and Trace in a brief silence. The nurse made a steeple of her hands and leveled her full gaze on Trace.
The Lost Mata Hari Ring Page 19
