The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Fiona hurried into the house and up the stairs to Joe’s study, but he was not there. She checked their bedroom, thinking perhaps he’d tired himself and gone to lie down for a few minutes, but he wasn’t there, either.

  As she was walking back downstairs, she happened to glance out the huge round window at the top of the second-floor landing and spotted him. He was in the orchards. Sitting in his wheelchair. Alone.

  “What is he doing all the way down there?” she wondered aloud, a bit put out. It was just like her husband to go off and admire his fruit trees when his mother’s cake was about to be served.

  She hurried back down the stairs, over the east lawn, and down the gently sloping hill that led to the orchards. Joe had planted the trees long ago, years ago, before he and Fiona were married. Their limbs were dotted with ripening fruit. In another month or so, she and the children would be picking pippin apples and rosy Anjou pears.

  Joe was sitting at the far end of the orchard, where the trees gave way to another hill and the River Thames beyond it. Fiona could just see him from where she stood. He was gazing out over the water, his face lifted to the flawless evening sky. It was nearly eight o’clock. The soft summer light had begun to wane. Dusk would come down soon and, with it, the night’s first silvery stars. Fiona would have stopped and left Joe to his enjoyment, if she hadn’t been so irritated with him.

  “Joe!” she called loudly, waving at him. He must’ve heard her, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t even turn around.

  Red-faced and flushed now, she hoisted up her skirts and started running, making her way between two rows of pear trees. When she was ten or so yards from him, she called to him again.

  “Joseph Bristow! Have you not heard me calling you? Your mother’s cake is about to be served, and—”

  Joe turned to her now and her words fell away. His face was a picture of devastation. She saw that he held a piece of paper in his hand. It looked like a telegram.

  “Joe, what is it? What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “It’s all going to change soon, Fee. It’s all going to end,” he said softly.

  “What will, luv? What’s going to change?”

  “This. Our lives. Others’ lives. England. Europe. All of it. It’s begun,” he said. “Three days ago, Germany declared war on Russia and France.”

  “I know that,” Fiona said. “The whole world knows it. It’s been in all the papers. But England’s not involved in it. We still have hope, Joe. The war is only on the continent. It’s a European war and there’s still a chance of containing it.”

  Joe shook his head. “The Germans invaded Belgium this morning,” he said, “a neutral country. All our diplomatic efforts have failed.” He held the paper he’d been holding out to her. “It’s from Downing Street,” he said. “A messenger brought it about an hour ago.”

  “Asquith needed to send a messenger? He couldn’t have rung?” Fiona asked.

  “No. Not for this.”

  Fiona took it from him.

  Classified, the first line read.

  3 August 1914, the second line read.

  And then the third line, and Fiona knew that Joe was right, that their lives would never be the same.

  At 1900 hours this evening, Great Britain declared war on Germany.

  Part Two

  FEBRUARY

  1918

  HEJAZ, ARABIA

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Willa Alden spoke loudly and heatedly to the man kneeling down by the railroad tie, pointing at him for emphasis with the slender red cylinder she was holding.

  “You know what pictures like that could do for the cause, Tom,” she said. “They’ll bring interest, support, and money. You need all three. Especially now with the push to Damascus.”

  “I won’t hear of it. It’s far too dangerous. You’re to stay behind the dunes with the rest of us.”

  “I can’t get the shot from behind a bloody sand dune!”

  “You also can’t get shot behind a bloody sand dune,” Lawrence said matter-of-factly. “Stop waving that dynamite around, please, and hand it to me.”

  Willa did so, sighing. “I suppose you’ll want the charges next?” she said.

  “Rather difficult to blow up a train without them,” Lawrence replied, carefully placing the dynamite next to several other sticks in the hollow he’d dug underneath the tie. His supply of guncotton, his preferred explosive, had run out.

  Willa crouched down by a wooden box, carefully lifted out two gelatin charges, and handed them to him. One slip and they’d both be blown sky high. She should’ve been frightened by the thought, but she’d long ago learned that only those with something to lose were afraid of dying.

  Lawrence connected the charges to a pair of wires stretching away from the tracks, across the sands, and over the nearest dune, then carefully positioned them. Willa helped him as he worked, handing him wire strippers, screwdrivers, whatever he asked for. Sweat, caused by the brutal Arabian sun, poured down his deeply tanned face. His blue eyes, made even bluer by the white head scarf he wore, were focused on his task.

  They were on a raid, Lawrence and his men. They were rigging explosives just north of Al-‘Ula, under the tracks of the Hejaz Railway, a line that ran from Damascus to Medina and had been built by the Turks to strengthen their hold over their Arab domains. Lawrence’s mission was to blow up a train known to be carrying Turkish soldiers, guns, and gold, for a strike against Turkey was a strike against Germany and Austria-Hungary, Turkey’s Central Powers allies. It was also a strike for Arabia’s independence from its Turkish masters.

  Willa was there to document the raid, as she had many times before. Her images, and the copy she wrote to accompany them, were couriered to Cairo, where Lawrence’s commanding officer—General Allenby—reviewed them, then released them to Downing Street, who, in turn, released them to the press.

  This time, however, Willa didn’t want to stay behind the dunes during the action, photographing only the befores and afters. She’d got her hands on a Bell & Howell, a small motion picture camera—she’d been hounding Allenby for it for more than a year—and she wanted to shoot live footage as the raid was happening.

  She wanted to capture the victories, as she’d told Lawrence, because victories would rally support, but there was another, equally urgent reason why Willa wanted to film the raid—she desperately wanted to show the West the brutal, beautiful place that was Arabia, and to document its people’s fierce struggle for autonomy.

  Large swaths of Arabia had been—and still were—under the control of the Ottoman Empire, but Britain wanted to change that, for the British had seen an advantage in helping the native tribes rise up and throw off the Turks. If Turkish troops were engaged fending off guerrilla fighters in Arabia, they could not attack the Suez Canal and attempt to take it from the British, as they had already tried to do. Furthermore, with the Turks gone from Arabia, and the Arabs their allies, the British would have new access to, and greater influence in, the Middle East.

  To achieve this aim, the British had cultivated ties with Hussein, sharif of Mecca, and his son, Faisal. Faisal, it was determined, would lead the revolt against the Turks, and Britain would help fund it. Lawrence, who had spent his postgraduate years traveling in Arabia, digging among its ruins and studying the people, their customs, and their language, was made advisor to Faisal. With Lawrence’s help, and the use of guerrilla tactics, the desert fighters—known as the Arab irregulars—had already taken a number of garrison towns. They were also able to tie up Turkish troops by blowing up sections of the Hejaz Railway—preferably when a Turkish train was passing over them—thereby forcing the Turks to defend it constantly.

  Willa had been in the desert for three years now, and she had come to love this wild, impossible place, and its wild, impossible people. She loved the proud and fierce Bedouin men, the tribal women with their blue robes, their veils and jewels, their language and songs. She loved the shy, darting children. And she loved Tom Lawren
ce.

  She didn’t love him as she loved Seamus Finnegan. Seamie had her heart and her soul, and he always would. She loved him, still, even though she knew she could never again have him. The pain of that knowledge tortured her every day, as did the pain of her remorse for loving a man who belonged to someone else. There had been times, during the long passage to Cairo, that she’d sat alone in her cabin, pills in one hand, a glass of water in the other, ready to take her own life. She hadn’t been able to do it, though. Suicide was the cowardly way out. She deserved her pain, deserved to suffer for what she’d done.

  Lawrence she loved as friend and brother, for he was both those things to her. Back in 1914, when she’d left Seamie and was leaving London, brokenhearted, guilt-ridden, and despairing, Lawrence had brought her to Cairo, to the Intelligence Department’s Arab Bureau, and had found her work in the Maps Department. It was her job to alter and expand the map of the Arabian Peninsula as information on the Turks’ movements and encampments, and those of the various desert tribes, became known.

  The position Tom Lawrence had secured for her was an important one, one that kept her so inundated with work during the day that she had no time to think of anything else. No time to remember and grieve. He’d helped her forget, if only for a few hours a day, that she had lost Seamie Finnegan forever. The opium she bought in the back streets of Cairo helped her forget at night. And that was the only thing she wanted now—a way to forget. A way to forget Seamie and what they’d had. A way to forget she’d ever loved him, for their love was not a good thing, it was dangerous and destructive. To them and everyone around them.

  When Lawrence had left Cairo to go into the desert and fight with Arab troops under the command of Emir Faisal, Willa had followed him. She had resigned her position, cut her hair off, donned britches and a head scarf, packed her cameras, and set out into the desert on a camel. Everyone at the Arab Bureau said Tom was going to get himself killed out there. Maybe he could get her killed, too. Dying in service of one’s country was an honorable death, she thought, a far better death than suicide.

  Lawrence was furious with her when she caught up with him, at a rough campsite near Medina. General Allenby was furious with her, too. He sent word from Cairo telling her that she couldn’t be at a campsite with men. She couldn’t be a lone woman in the desert. She couldn’t stay. She would have to return to Cairo. Both Lawrence and Allenby badgered her and would not stop.

  Until they saw her pictures.

  Pictures of the blond, blue-eyed Lawrence, striking in white Arab robes, a golden dagger at his waist, and of the dark-haired, handsome Faisal, with his shrewd and piercing eyes. Pictures of Auda Abu Tayi, a fierce Bedouin, a Howeitat chief who fought with Lawrence, and of the defiant desert fighters—the Arab irregulars. Pictures of the Bedouin encampments. The red cliffs of Wadi Rum, the Valley of the Moon. The endless dunes. The shimmering waters of the Red Sea.

  “So?” she’d said to Allenby as she slapped a stack of them down on his desk back in Cairo. She’d returned with him under the pretense of cooperating with his demands, but really she’d only gone back to develop her film.

  The general had picked the photographs up, one after the other, and though he’d tried his best to hide it, Willa saw that he was impressed. And that he saw the possibilities the images presented.

  “Mmm. Yes. Quite nice,” he said.

  “They’re better than nice, sir, and you know it. They’ll capture people’s imaginations. Their sympathies. Their hearts. Everyone in the world will be rooting for Lawrence and for Arabia. He’ll become a hero. I’ll write dispatches to go with them. Reports from the desert front.”

  Allenby looked out of his window, brow furrowed, saying nothing.

  “Can I go back?” Willa asked him.

  “For now,” he replied.

  That was in 1915. Willa had ridden with Lawrence and his men ever since. She’d photographed them and written about them, and her reports had been published in every major newspaper in the world. Because Allenby was worried about the public’s reaction to a woman riding with soldiers, Willa filed her reports under a pseudonym: Alden Williams. Because of her, Tom Lawrence was now Lawrence of Arabia. Every man who read about him admired him. Every woman fell in love with him. Every schoolboy wanted to be him.

  Against all odds, Lawrence and his desert fighters had pulled off some stunning victories against the much stronger Turkish Army, but the final routing of the Turks hinged on the Arabs’ ability to push northward and capture Aqaba, and then the biggest prize: Damascus. Willa had followed Lawrence this far, and she would follow him farther yet, until they won the fight and gained independence for Arabia, or died in the attempt.

  As she watched him now, finishing with the charges, her hands unconsciously went to her camera, and before she knew what she was doing, she was shooting him again.

  “Trying to get footage of me blowing myself up?” he asked her.

  “Let me do it, Tom. Let me shoot the whole thing,” she said, “the train coming, the explosion, the heat of the battle, and the victory. What amazing footage that would be. Cairo will send it to London and London will give it to Pathé and it will be on every newsreel in the world and Allenby will get more funds.”

  “You’ll spook them, Willa,” Lawrence said. “If the Turks see you, they’ll know something’s up. They’ll stop the train, search for our device, and disable it. Then they’ll search for us.”

  “I won’t spook them. I’ll wait until the countdown and run out on three. Three seconds are all I need. I know it. I’ve timed myself. Out on three and not before. No one can stop a locomotive in three seconds. You know that.”

  “He is right, Sidi,” a voice behind her said, using a very respectful term of address. “You should let him do this thing. If anyone can do it, he can. He is the bravest man I know.”

  It was Auda abu Tayi. Auda called Willa “him” because he refused to believe she was a woman. Even now after years together in the desert. No woman could handle camels as she did, or shoot a rifle. No woman could navigate as well.

  “It’s Sidi now, it is, Auda?” Lawrence said. “That makes a change. Usually you roar at me like I was your camel boy.”

  “You must let him do this. His pictures bring money from Cairo. We need money for the push to Damascus. My men must eat.”

  “Victories are important, Tom,” Willa said quietly.

  “Yes, Willa, they certainly are,” Lawrence said.

  “I meant to the people back home. It keeps up their morale. Gives them hope. Lets them know that their sons and brothers and fathers have not died in vain.”

  Lawrence turned his blue eyes, troubled and searching now, upon her. “What happened to you?” he asked her. “What are you trying to forget? Or whom?”

  Willa looked away. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “Something must’ve happened. Something terrible. Why else do you insist on taking such chances? None of us is mad enough to go over the dune before the charge goes off. None but you.”

  “He is a warrior, Sidi. He is brave,” Auda said.

  Lawrence shook his head. “No, Auda. Bravery is feeling fear but doing the thing anyway. Willa Alden feels no fear.”

  “Let me do it, Tom,” Willa said stubbornly.

  Lawrence looked away from her, down the track, deliberating. “Out on three,” he finally said. “Not one tenth of one second before.”

  Willa nodded. She was excited. She’d never filmed a full attack, start to finish. “How much longer have we got?” she asked.

  “By the best of my calculations, a half hour,” he replied. “How are the men coming with the wires?”

  “They are almost done,” Auda said.

  “Good,” Lawrence said. “All we’ve got to do now is connect the wires to the plunger box. Then wait.”

  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.