George Washington's Ghost

Maud felt like she was a girl again, sitting in the back of her parents’ car setting off on a summer holiday, or for a spring or autumn weekend in the country. Granted, today she was not bickering with her brother or pestering her poor mother and father for ice cream or chocolates. Today, she was far too preoccupied with the last few days… making up for lost time with her very own hero!

And, my oh my, how they had made up for that lost time!

Several times every night and at least once every daytime, too.

Maud had decided that she was going to be very happily married to Mister Albert Stanton!

The Royal Navy had thought of practically everything; apart, that was, for washrooms for the relatively small female contingent in the welcoming party. If ever a woman needed to be reminded that it was a man’s world; the provision of ‘public bathroom facilities’ for the female half of the population, always confirmed it. Nevertheless, she had quiescently queued with the others, sanguine for once because nothing was going to rain on her parade.

The day Albert had got back to Long Island they had headed straight for her plush West Side Apartment and fallen, literally, straight into bed. The next few days she had visited his flat, a much better potential love nest, collected some ‘things’ from her place and pretty much, moved in with her beau and quickly, lost track of time. Albert was already working on a book about his adventures in Spain, and being keenly courted by likely publishers.

Coincidentally, he had only spoken to Kate Lincoln yesterday. Maud had listened from the bedroom, realised that her husband-to-be was conversing not with a woman in the news, or a ‘contact’ but with a friend who had, incongruously, possibly been as worried as she had been when he was reported lost in Spain. Albert had proudly told Kate that he and Maud were to be married ‘as soon as possible.’

It was only a few days ago, that Kate’s husband had been officially posted missing presumed dead, one of the hundreds of casualties of the first barbaric act of the war in the south and west.

“What do you think about the stories coming out of Germany, Albert?” One older, trench-coated newspaperman asked as the couple sat together at a trestle table in the reception hangar.

Several menacing, gull-winged Goshawk scouts lined one end of the building, heavy equipment had been moved out of the way to accommodate the buffet breakfast counters where sausages, bacon and eggs sizzled on hotplates, and Navy stewards poured endless cups of tea and cocoa, buttering slice after slice of fresh bread. Plates and cutlery sang in constant collisions, and the throng built-up as every new bus disgorged its passengers.

“Germany?” Albert Stanton frowned, like Maud he had not really been paying much attention to the news the last few days.

“Parts of Berlin are supposed to be battlegrounds. The story is the Electors tried to elect some mad guy from Bavaria to replace the old Kaiser and the Crown Prince called in the Imperial Guard to acclaim him Emperor!”

Maud was blinking disbelief.

That sounded like the sort of thing that happened when the Roman Empire was going down the tubes!

Her intended was earnestly scratching his chin.

“Um, the last time I heard about a civil war I went charging off to see what I was missing,” he recollected ruefully. He glanced conspiratorially at Maud. “That’s a mistake I won’t make again!”

He introduced Maud to the other man.

“This is Fred Barnett of the Albany Express

,” he explained, grinning broadly. “He taught me all I know. Fred, this is Maud Daventry-Jones, who has done me the honour of accepting my proposal to be my wife.”

The other journalist heartily slapped Albert on the back and reached over to shake Maud’s hand.  He was a large, florid man with thinning hair and a physiognomy with a naturally sceptical look which had suddenly transformed into sunny satisfaction as he digested his younger friend’s news.

“Some people are cut out to be war correspondents,” he remarked wryly, “hopefully, somebody not a million miles from here has learned his lesson now!”

There was a lot of hanging around with nobody knowing what was going on that morning. Albert Stanton explained to9 Maud that this was pretty much ‘par for the course’ in most reporters’ days.

Maud did not care.

She was constantly being introduced to Albert’s friends, acquaintances, and detractors. It was a little disconcerting to discover how many people wanted to speak to her beau, and to be photographed with him and at Albert’s insistence, her.

“Ah, the famous Mister Stanton, a broad, bluff, ruddy-faced naval officer with an unbelievable number of rings on the cuffs of his dress uniform and a chest bulging full of medal ribbons, declaimed from a distance, as he approached with his sword clanking, pursued by a retinue of other senior officers.