The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  As soon as the last of John’s brood was belowdecks, with a caution to leave the man lying on the floor there alone, Sid pushed off, John gunned the engine, and they were under way again. It took only a quarter of an hour to get to their second destination, a Millwall wharf. BRISTOW was painted on the old brick building, in tall white letters. Two men were waiting for them on the dock there—one was in a wheelchair, the other was pacing and smoking a cigar.

  Burgess stopped pacing when he saw the boat, and went to the edge of the dock to catch the line Sid threw him. When the boat was tied, Sid went belowdecks, cut the ropes that bound Flynn’s legs, and told him to climb the ladder. Sid helped him from below, since his hands were still cuffed, and John from above. Together they got him off the boat and onto the dock.

  “George, Joe,” Sid said, “I’d like you to meet Jack Flynn.”

  Sir George shook his head in amazement. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You did it.”

  “Keep hold of him,” Sid cautioned, making Flynn sit down on the dock. “He’s slippery as an eel.”

  Sid turned back to John. “Go now,” he said quietly. “Get out of London. Get out of the life.”

  John nodded. “Sid, I … I don’t know how to thank you.” “Because of you, I get to watch me kids grow up. That’s all the thanks I need,” Sid said. “Go. The more distance you can put between yourself and Billy Madden, the better.”

  “I’ll see you again, Sid,” John said. “One day.”

  Sid smiled. “You will, John.”

  Sid untied the line and threw it to John. He waved as the boat pulled away from the dock. He hoped he would see John again. He truly did. He wanted things to go well for John and his family, but there were no guarantees. It took a long time to outrun your old life. He knew that well enough.

  Sid gave one last wave, then he turned around. “That’s one problem solved. Now, let’s get Mr. Flynn up and out of here,” he said.

  He and Sir George hoisted Flynn to his feet. They half marched, half carried him down the dock, to the warehouse. Joe came behind them in his chair.

  “Were you able to get the telegram sent off?” Sid asked Burgess.

  Ever since he’d seen the contents of the envelope Jennie had given Joe, with all of its information on British ships in the Mediterranean, Sid had been worried sick about Seamie. As they left the hospital where Jennie had been quarantined, Joe had promised him he’d get Sir George to telegraph warnings to naval command in the Mideast and to the ships themselves.

  “We were,” Burgess said now, “but it’s a long and arduous chain of telegraphing to get a message from London to the Mideast. We cabled our offices in Haifa and we cabled the Exeter herself, but we’re still awaiting confirmations. We hope to have them in another day or two.”

  “Thank God,” Sid said. “That’s a relief. A huge, bloody relief.”

  Sid, Burgess, Joe, and their prisoner were just about to enter the warehouse when they were hailed from the dock by a boat that had just pulled up to it.

  “Jack Flynn!” shouted a male voice. “This is Chief Superintendent Stevens, of Scotland Yard. You are under arrest. Give yourself up immediately!”

  “What the—” Joe started to say.

  “Bloody hell!” Sid bellowed, as a beam from a bull’s-eye lantern was shined in his face, blinding him.

  “Stop! All of you!” It was the voice again. “Grab them!”

  Sid heard footsteps—many of them—on the dock. Within seconds, he, Joe, and Sir George were surrounded by police officers.

  “Who are you? What are doing? What is the meaning of this?” Burgess spluttered.

  “I’m Chief Superintendent Stevens,” a tall man in uniform said. “I’m here to arrest Jack Flynn on suspicion of receiving stolen property. I’ll be taking you in for questioning as well.”

  “You’ll be doing nothing of the sort!” he said, blocking Stevens’s access to Flynn.

  Stevens gently, but firmly, pushed Burgess aside. “Your name, sir?” he said to Burgess, as he took Flynn’s arm and pulled the man toward him.

  “Do you not know who I am, you damned ninny? I am Sir George Burgess, Second Sea Lord! Put your hands on me again, and I’ll personally see to it that you’re demoted to constable. Walking the beat in a one-horse village in Cheshire! Unhand that man! He’s a German spy.”

  Stevens gave a quick nod to one of his men. In a twinkling, the officer had slapped handcuffs on Burgess, Joe, and Sid.

  “You’re making a mistake, Chief Superintendent,” Joe said.

  Stevens turned to him. “Am I now? And who might you be?”

  “Joe Bristow, MP for Hackney. Sir George is right about Flynn—he’s a German operative. I can prove it. He has an envelope on him. It contains carbons of letters written by Sir George and stolen from his office. The letters detail secret information on the whereabouts of British ships—information that Flynn’s been passing to Berlin via ships in the North Sea. Open it. You’ll see.”

  Stevens weighed Joe’s words. Looking skeptical, he walked over to Flynn and opened the man’s jacket. He found a large yellow envelope, folded over, inside the breast pocket and pulled it out.

  Sid, who’d been holding his breath, quietly let it out, relieved. That was the same envelope Joe had received from Jennie. He recognized it. Now Stevens would see that they were right. He’d release them and allow them to take Flynn with them, to be held and questioned by Burgess and the Secret Service.

  Stevens opened the envelope. He looked inside and smiled, then he tilted it and poured its contents—an assortment of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds—into his hand. Some of his officers moved in for a closer look.

  “You’re looking at about fifty thousand pounds’ worth of stones, lads,” he said. “Stolen from a jewelers’ in Brighton and bound for Amsterdam.” He threw a dark look in Joe’s direction. “I don’t know who those three are, or what they’re doing here on a wharf in the middle of the night with Jack Flynn, but I mean to take them in and find out. What I do know is that Flynn is a notorious fence. We’ve been following him for some time, but we’ve never been able to catch him with the goods on him. Not until tonight, eh, Jack?” Stevens said, winking at Flynn. He carefully poured the jewels back into the envelope. “I only wish we’d been able to catch the boatman, too. The one who’s been helping Flynn get his swag to Holland. He was moving too fast, though. It was either follow him or nab Flynn. Take them aboard, lads. All of them.”

  The three men were seated together on the deck of the boat. Joe’s chair was secured so that it could not roll about the deck as the boat turned and maneuvered back upriver. Flynn was taken belowdecks. Sid looked at him as he was walked past them, and he could’ve sworn that he saw the ghost of a smile on his face.

  “This is preposterous. A complete and utter farce!” Burgess spat, when they were under way. “It was the same envelope that came from Jennie Finnegan. The very same. I’m positive of it,” he added. “There was even a carbon smudge on the flap. I distinctly remember it. What the devil happened?”

  “Someone got to Flynn,” Sid said. “Told him he was about to get nicked. Someone who didn’t want him sent down as a spy. They got to the envelope, too. They took out the carbons and put in the jewels. Told him to go through with the run as usual. That’s all worrying … but what’s really worrying is that the someone is powerful enough to get the Yard to play along with it all.”

  They all fell silent as Sid’s words sank in, then Burgess said, “But why? Why not just tell him to bolt? To get out of London? Go underground? Why go through the whole elaborate charade of arresting him as a fence? And taking us in, too? I’m sure they’ll hold us for all of ten minutes, then release us with full apologies.”

  “Because that same someone wanted to prove us wrong. To discredit us. To put paid to our theories about von Brandt, Flynn, and Gladys Bigelow. Make it all look like utter nonsense,” Sid said.

  “But who would want to do that? Who else knew?” Burgess said. �
��Whom did you tell?”

  “No one,” Joe said.

  “Likewise,” Sid replied. “No one knew except the three of us. Unless you told someone, Sir George.”

  “I told Churchill. He told Asquith,” Burgess said. “It can only mean one thing …”

  “That Churchill’s working for the kaiser,” Sid said drily. “And Asquith, too.”

  Joe laughed, but his eyes turned hard and his voice grim as he said, “It means that Max von Brandt is still alive. He has to be. Because someone, someone quite high up, is working very bloody hard to protect him.”

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  Willa heard a woman singing, soft and low. She had heard the song before, but she couldn’t remember where. Gentle hands sponged her brow, her cheeks, her neck. Her body felt cool. The terrible burning had stopped. She felt peaceful and light, as light as a desert breeze. She felt as if she were floating in a clear oasis lake, and that Seamie was nearby. She wanted to stay this way forever. In this beautiful place. With Seamie. And yet she could not, for something was not right. There was something she was supposed to remember, something she was supposed to do.

  She sat up with a gasp and opened her eyes. “Lawrence,” she said hoarsely. “The maps … I have to get to Lawrence. …” Her head started spinning from the sudden motion. She groaned.

  “Shh, Willa Alden. Lie down,” a woman’s voice said. “Lie down now.”

  Willa looked behind herself, in the direction the voice had come from. A Bedouin woman stood there, wringing out a cloth over a basin. She turned around and smiled. Willa knew her face.

  “Fatima?” she said. “Is that you?”

  “It is.”

  “Fatima, I have to get to Lawrence. I have to tell him about the maps. I have to go.”

  Fatima hurried to the bedside and eased Willa back against her pillow. “Everything is fine. Just fine. Now, lie down.”

  “But there’s a trap. The Turks are waiting for Lawrence!”

  “Lawrence is safe. Faisal, Auda, Khalaf al Mor—all of them are safe. Do you not remember?”

  “No. I … I can’t remember anything. Everything’s so hazy. Where are they?”

  “In Damascus, of course.”

  Willa blinked. “You mean …,” she started to say.

  Fatima smiled. “They have taken the city, Willa. Damascus is in the hands of the British, and Arabia, at long last, is once again in the hands of the Arabs. Allah be praised!”

  Willa closed her eyes. She whooped for joy, then laughed out loud, then started to cough.

  “Quiet yourself, please,” Fatima scolded. “You have been very ill. It was cholera. We despaired of your life. More than once. You are not out of danger yet and must spend many days recovering.”

  “Tell me what happened, Fatima. My mind is so foggy. I remember being at a village with some goatherds, and nothing after that,” Willa said.

  “You rode almost all the way into Lawrence’s camp,” Fatima said, “but it was his old camp. Lawrence’s riders found you, though you were half-dead when they did, so I am not surprised you remember nothing. You talked of maps. Lawrence searched your saddlebags after you were brought into camp. He found all that you had brought him. He saw how the Turks had positioned themselves, how they had set a trap for him.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He avoided it, of course! He and his troops rode east of the Turks. Beni Sakhr, Howeitat, Rwala—all rode as one. They skirted the danger. The English sheik Allenby met them at Damascus, and together they took the city.”

  “They did it, Fatima,” Willa whispered.

  “Indeed they did,” Fatima said. “Because of you, Willa Alden. Had you not arrived with the maps when you did, they would have ridden directly towards the Turkish soldiers and would have been attacked.”

  “How do you know all this?” Willa asked.

  “We have had a messenger from Damascus. A man whom Khalaf sent. Here, drink this. You must have water now.”

  Fatima helped her sit up a little and held the glass while Willa drank from it.

  “Thank you,” Willa said when she had finished.

  “It is nothing,” Fatima said. “Only a little water.”

  “I mean thank you for saving me, Fatima. More people die from cholera than survive it. I owe you my life now.”

  “Oh, no. Not me,” Fatima said. “I did very little. The credit belongs to another.”

  “Really?” Willa said. “Who?”

  “Seamus Finnegan.”

  Willa thought she might be hallucinating again. “What did you say?” she whispered.

  “Seamus Finnegan. He was in Haifa when he heard what had happened to you. Apparently, your brother, too, is in Haifa, and word got to him that an airplane you were riding in crashed in the desert.” Fatima explained how Seamie had hunted for her and how he’d finally found her. “He brought you back here,” she said, “and somehow, only Allah knows how, he kept you from dying. I only arrived when the worst was already over.”

  Seamie, here with her. In the desert. Willa couldn’t believe it. It was so unreal that it made her head spin all over again. Her heart filled with love and gratitude and sadness for this man whom she loved so much, whom fate brought back to her again and again, and yet never allowed her to have.

  “I thought he was here, Fatima,” she said. “The whole time I was sick, I thought he was here. I remember him talking … talking to God, I think. No, talking to you. Asking you to bargain with God. Asking Him to take Seamie’s life and spare mine. But when I woke up, I was sure I’d only dreamt it.”

  “You did not. He was truly here.”

  “Where is he now? Could you ask him to come, Fatima?” Willa asked. “I want to see him.”

  Fatima looked at her sadly. “I cannot. He left camp. He’s gone.”

  “But why? Why would he do such a thing? Why would he leave without even saying good-bye?” Willa asked, stricken.

  “He had to get to Haifa. To take command of a ship,” Fatima said.

  “Yes, I remember now. He told me he had to go,” Willa said tiredly. “Things are coming back to me, but in bits and pieces.”

  “He left a letter for you,” Fatima said. She went to the small table where the basin of water stood and picked up a piece of paper, folded in two, that was next to the basin. Willa opened the letter with trembling hands and read it.

  My darling Willa,

  I am sorry to leave you before you are awake, but I know that you are out of the woods now and will only get better under Fatima’s care.

  I hope you will understand that I had no choice but to leave. I am due to take command of the ship Exeter, and must get back to Haifa quickly.

  Perhaps someday I will see you again and you can tell me exactly how you came to be riding alone through the desert, so sick and so weary, with maps from the German high command in your possession. I’m sure it will be a hell of a story. Most everything that you do is.

  Take care of yourself, Willa. Please. You have no idea how close you came this time. Closer, I think, than you came when you fell at Kili. Stop punishing yourself. For my sake, if not your own. We’ve made our mistakes. We’re paying for them. But I don’t know how I’d go on if something happened to you. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t there in my head, and my heart, every time I look up at the night sky or smell the sea or climb to the top of something—a mountain, an ice wall, or a bloody great sand dune—just to see what’s beyond it.

  I love you, Willa. Whether it’s bad or good, I love you. I always have and I always will. Don’t you ever take that away from me.

  Yours, Seamie

  Willa folded the letter closed. She wished she could cry. Crying would help. But she couldn’t. The pain she felt was too deep for tears.

  Fatima took the letter and put it back on the table. “The letter has caused you grief. I can see it. I would not have given it to you if I had known it would. You must ask Allah for help. He listens. He hears. He answers our prayers. H
e has answered mine. He will answer yours. And Seamus Finnegan’s, too.”

  Willa smiled tiredly. She was quite sure God listened to Fatima, but He did not listen to her. And she doubted He listened to Seamie, either.

  She thought again of how Seamie had asked Fatima to ask God to spare Willa’s life. He’d said he’d give his own, if only God would spare hers.

  A sudden chill gripped her at the memory. Why had he said that? she wondered. He shouldn’t have.

  She fervently hoped that Fatima was wrong and that she was right. She hoped that God did not listen to Seamus Finnegan.

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  “Report, Mr. Walker?” Seamie asked his lieutenant.

  “All clear, sir. We’ve sighted nothing all morning. Not even a fishing boat.”

  “Strange,” Seamie said. “Commander Giddings was certain he’d seen something. Right about where we are now. He was certain it was a German gunboat. Said he pursued her, but she eluded him.”

  “She must’ve realized she’d been spotted. Probably cleared off,” Walker said.

  Seamie, squinting out over the brilliant blue sea, nodded. “Could well be. Keep me informed, Mr. Walker.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Set a course for north-northeast, Mr. Ellis,” Seamie said. “Tell the gunners to take their positions. I’d like to take a look around the northern coast of the island.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the quartermaster said.

  Seamie and the crew of the Exeter were patrolling off the coast of Cyprus. Shortly before they’d left port—about twenty-four hours ago—Peter Giddings, the commander of a ship that had just returned to Haifa to refuel—had come aboard to tell Seamie that he’d seen a German gunboat at the top of Famagusta Bay. He’d followed it, but the gunboat had disappeared around the island’s northeastern tip. His fuel was low, Giddings said, or he would’ve given chase. He cautioned Seamie to keep his eyes open for the boat.

  “I’m worried that Gerry may be using it as a decoy,” Giddings said. “He may be hoping to draw us around the point, where other gunboats are lying in wait.”