Flower of Heaven (3 page)

As he had wished, Father Dick had a letter waiting for him from Jack Bumpus, who was nowhere to be found. According to one of the nuns at the clinic, Jack had left the following morning after the two priests had departed for the stricken village. “Dear Dick,” the note read, “Sorry for the trouble I may have caused you and Father McNeil. Wish I could stay to explain more but I just thought of a way to get off this island and I can’t pass it up. I got your address from your luggage tags and I’ll contact you soon, if all goes well.” The note was simply signed Jack and was followed by a postscript, “The $100 is for the mission as I promised. Please destroy this note after you’ve read it.”

For the remainder of the week, there was little other excitement at the mission and, as Father Dick relaxed on the screened-in porch one evening, he couldn’t help but think about the strange incident with Jack Bumpus just several days earlier. It would have been nice to know more about this man who was out of Father Dick’s life almost as quickly as he had entered it.

“Better get packed before you turn in, Dick,” said Father McNeil as he joined Father Dick with a glass of brandy in each hand. “I’ve got to take you to the airport early tomorrow. You know how bad the travel schedules are at the airport, as much as I’d love for you to stay longer. If you should hear from Mr. Bumpus when you get back, do me a favor and send me his address, will you? I’d like to thank him for his donation to the mission, and he didn’t even stay more than one night. Nice fellow that Mr. Bumpus.”

The next evening Father Dick was back in New England and at St. Matthew’s. He had the unusual feeling during the return flight home that he would hear from Jack Bumpus again. Whether he wanted to or not, he really wasn’t sure.

“I heard from Jack Bumpus three weeks after my return from Haiti,” Father Dick related to Jim who, by now, was content in sitting back and listening to this account involving an old comrade.

Father Dick had received a letter from Bumpus with a passport included; Father McNeil’s passport. Jack had apparently removed Father McNeil’s picture from the passport and had replaced it with his own, dressed in a priest’s black suit. As the letter continued, Father McNeil’s black suit had been damaged by Bumpus accidentally and was in no condition to be returned. Enclosed was $200 in cash to cover the cost of replacing the suit. He asked Father Dick to mail the passport to Father McNeil with the money and to offer his apologies the best way he saw fit.

The letter was postmarked from San Diego with a post office box number only. Jack Bumpus closed by telling Father Dick that if he could repay the favor someday, he would.

“That’s how I know Jack Bumpus, Mr. Howard,” said Father Dick, “and now, ten years later, I needed a favor and I wrote to the same box number and he gave me your name. He really thinks highly of you, Mr. Howard. Were the two of you close in your military days?”

“Close? Nobody got too close to Jack, Father,” said Jim shaking his head. “Jack believed that if you didn’t get too close to somebody in combat, you wouldn’t become emotional if something happened to one of your men. He was strictly by the book. A job had to be done and he wouldn’t let any personal feelings sway his decision when he had to send guys out on a mission back in ‘Nam.”

“Then why did he recommend that I contact you?” Father Dick questioned.

“Because he saved my skin over there and he knows that I owe him my life, that’s why,” Jim countered. “The fact that I can speak five languages, spent my early Army career in the Military Police and a couple of years as a private investigator before this job, I’m sure that’s all got a lot to do with it also, Father, whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Jim recollected how the two men had been on a patrol one day in the delta. Major Bumpus made it a practice of moving his men slowly and cautiously when on missions in the jungle area. He knew all too well the booby traps and primitive weaponry used by the Vietcong. Jack had been one of the few officers who had signed on for a second tour of duty in Vietnam. A rare breed, a man more interested in what he was fighting for than most others assigned to him, but Jack was about to make a mistake. He was about to get involved with one of his men. It’s not the kind of thing you can get ready for, it sort of just happens and you have to address it at the moment as best you can.

No Vietcong had been sighted that day and by 1500 hours, Bumpus gave word to start heading back to camp. As if acting on instinct, Jack suddenly yanked Corporal Jim Howard by the collar and threw him fiercely to the ground. With the flick of his rifle point, Jack flipped a thin wire across the trail two feet in front of Howard. Like a catapult, a rope sprung up from the ground and whipped across the path, slamming hard against a wall of wooden spikes carefully concealed in the brush. As quick as he had thrown Howard down, Jack picked him up and motioned him to move on. Jim Howard was frozen in his tracks and just kept staring at the wall of spikes that had his name written all over it. Jack Bumpus stayed at Howard’s side for the remainder of the patrol duty until they were returned to friendly lines.

“You got to watch these trails, Son,” Bumpus had told him, “the VCs always like to sucker you in on those neat little trails.” From that moment on, until he returned to the States, Jim Howard stuck to Jack Bumpus in other combat encounters, and virtually stood by his side. As much as he tried to avoid it, Jack got to know Jim Howard in spite of his reluctance to get too close to any of his men. Jim was different, he had told him when he and Jim said goodbye to each other on Jim’s last day in Vietnam. Jim had taken orders well and had performed his military duties with intelligence, Jack had informed him as they shook hands near the landing pad as the helicopter approached for one last time, as far as Jim was concerned.

Jim Howard’s mind was far away from Rhode Island now, Father Dick noticed, and the daze that came over him as he related the life-saving tale and the ensuing friendship that developed. Father Dick couldn’t help but visualize how frightening the whole experience of the Vietnam War must have been.

“What can I do for you, Father,” Jim snapped as if coming out of a hypnotic trance, “Jack’s calling in his chit. I wonder how come he isn’t taking care of this himself.”

Father Dick told Jim that the letter from Jack Bumpus only said that he was unable to personally help because of an illness, which prevented him from making the trip to New England. There was no mention of the nature or extent of the illness but that one other person he could think of, Jim Howard, who, coincidentally, was now in the area, could only address the seriousness of Father Dick’s request.

“This must be big, Father, what did you do, steal money from the poor box?” Jim sarcastically replied, knowing that his smart remarks were out of character for him. It was as if the association with Jack Bumpus brought out his crude military past laden with this type of talk. “I’m sorry, Father, a bad joke,” quickly shouted Howard, realizing the serious look that was still so evident on Father Dick’s face.

Father Dick got up from his chair, stared out the parlor window and, with one hand clasping the crucifix around his neck, turned to Jim Howard.

“I need your help, Mr. Howard. I need someone to help me find my two sons.”

.

CHAPTER 3

Françoise Jeannette Dupont was born June 12, 1932 in Paris, France to Louis and Jacqueline Dupont. The fifth child and only girl, Françoise’s birth brought temporary joy to a household struggling to make ends meet in a city beset with poor living and working conditions.

In 1932, Paris was beginning to feel the effects of the world economic depression that started to spread across the globe in 1929 and 1930. Unemployment statistics grew daily and lack of work became a serious problem. There were over six million inhabitants in and around Paris, with the population in the city increasing rapidly from the immigration of Russians, Poles, and Jews driven out by the disturbances present in Eastern Europe. This influx to Paris put additional strain on an already bleak job market.

Louis Dupont was employed as a desk clerk on the night shift at the Hotel Colbert on Rue D’hôtel Colbert. He had been associated with the hotel since he was eighteen years old and held various jobs, first as a janitor and then a bellboy, until becoming a desk clerk at the age of twenty-five. Now, in his early forties, Louis was good at his job, so good that the hotel manager very seldom needed anyone else to assist Louis on his shift. Besides that, Louis had never missed a day of work due to illness and was considered one of the most dependable workers in the hotel. The Hotel Colbert was an old Parisian establishment near the cathedral of Notre Dame and had been in operation for nearly one hundred years. Tradition abounded and the old-fashioned way of catering to the hotel’s clientele kept it in competition with many newer hotels cropping up in the city. Louis would never disgrace the hotel in any way and was liked and respected by almost all the other employees as a loyal person and friend.

After his shift ended, usually around 8:00 a.m., Louis would stop at the Bon Marche, a food shop, to check out the daily morning bargains from yesterday’s leftovers. It was a long walk for Louis, nearly an hour by the time he had finished at the local shop, to the apartment he rented on the third floor in the Issy section of Paris. He was always warmly greeted by his wife Jacqueline who had herself been up since 5:00 a.m. to feed her pride and joy and only girl, Françoise. She almost looked content in spite of the grueling task of caring for four other growing children, all boys, ranging from sixteen to four, and all four years apart. At thirty-six years old, Jacqueline looked more like fifty. She would await Louis’s arrival each morning to sit with him and chat about the upcoming day’s activities while he ate his breakfast. The sixteen-year-old was already up and gone to work. A carpenter’s helper, Marcel Dupont had been lucky enough to find work on the Exposition grounds near home. The Exposition was to be the site of the 1937 World’s Fair and, although five years away, work there was available if you had the skills. Young Marcel had worked for local carpenters for nearly four years and the Exposition job came when local carpentry work was at a virtual standstill because of the poor economy.

Jacqueline would do laundry for the Broussais Hospital, a short distance from home, from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. and return home in time to greet the other three boys on their return from school. Louis would watch over Françoise during that time while catching as much sleep as he could. At 2:00 p.m. Louis would be awakened by the gentle touch of his returning wife, who found these few moments each day to be alone with Louis. This was the time when they made love, in the afternoon, the only time they were truly alone to talk of the better days to come when they would have saved enough money to move to a better place, or even to buy their own home outside the city. Fortunately for them, the French government had frozen rents because of the poor times. Every extra franc they earned would be set aside for their dream of better days. But for now, Louis and Jacqueline were content on making ends meet and on using some of the extra money to cater to the newest member of the Dupont family.