Hatteras Light

by Philip Gerard

  “That’s two of us.” It was hard to ignore the weapons so close at hand.

  “Dad—did you ever know a German?”

  “Well, there’s a family lives on Ocracoke that’s real German, Schaeffer. Oysterman and his wife. And then there’s Fetterman and his people. But they’re not real German, not that way. They’re mixed up with everybody else by now. Why?”

  Brian stood at the wheel as if steering, though they were at the mercy of currents and wind just now. “Just wondering, that’s all. This U-boat. I was just wondering what kind of people could do that.”

  Alvin shook his head and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Beats me, boy. God knows who they are. God knows who any of us are …” He regretted now his bravado in heading north when common sense and safety dictated the opposite course. He should have considered the boy. He realized all at once that he had never considered the boy, and turned away in shame.

  “You worry so much,” Brian said. “You act like we’ll never make it home.”

  “And you? You don’t worry?”

  Brian shook his head slowly. “Why should I? You’ve always brought us home before.”

  Alvin Dant reached for the binoculars. He rubbed his eyes, and considered what a troublesome thing is faith.

  6

  WHEN THE FIRST SHELL SNAPPED the telephone pole, Malcolm and Chief Lord bounded to the door of the station almost in stride. Cy Magillicutty tried the phone and found it dead. The rest of them rushed to the windows or followed Malcolm.

  Malcolm had a wild moment of panic when he ran around to the side of the station and looked toward his house, fearful for Mary. He wanted to run to her, and he took two strides in that direction as other shells fell, and then reined himself in. He had to stay at the station. He was Keeper. He cast an anxious eye toward the striped tower. He stood and watched the shells land, until the one that came near the station knocked him down. And except for Jack, he had never been knocked down by anything or anyone in his life.

  Homer was plunging and rearing in the corral. Chief Lord handled him, calmed him when at last the shelling stopped.

  Malcolm’s ears rang in the abrupt silence. He stood uncertainly for a long, swimmy moment until his head cleared. Then he saw it: the flat, gray hull cutting the water offshore, barely visible between horizon and sea. It was smaller than he had imagined. He could make out three men on the tower and two more standing by the forward cannon. He had never seen anything like it. He wondered: how did Fetterman know? He ran inside for his glass and then stood in front of the open doors of the boathouse, staring after the U-boat.

  They were two officers, by their hats, smallish men. And beside them an even slighter figure, blond, hatless, blue shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows.

  “Can you see them?” Chief Lord asked. “Can you see the Hun devils?”

  Malcolm shook his head. “He’s only a boy,” he said, and stared through the glass until the U-boat was well gone down the coast. He watched it fire again, the flash coming long before the crack of the gun, like lightning.

  INSIDE THE STATIONHOUSE, Malcolm Royal lowered his body into a hard-backed chair and clasped his hands on the table in a two-handed fist. Chief Lord leaned against the wall nearby. MacSween came over. Cy Magillicutty sat down opposite Malcolm, and the rest followed suit, finding places around the table.

  “This is getting serious,” Cyrus said. “How much longer can we let this go on?”

  There was a general murmuring.

  “How long will the telephone be down?” MacSween wanted to know.

  “Count on a couple of days anyway,” Malcolm said. “Never mind. We’ll use runners and signal lamps, the way our grandfathers did.”

  The men nodded and mumbled agreement, their collective voice steady as surf.

  Toby Bannister, whose great-grandfather had been shipwrecked on the island and whose people now imported lumber, looked thoughtful. “You should know, Malcolm, there’s an oiler headed our way. My brother’s on it.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight, tomorrow. Three days, maybe. You know how they are, what with the war on. You can’t count on schedules. He always sends word, though. Thinks it’s good luck for me to wave to him off the Light, no matter how far out he is.”

  “Then we’ll be going out before long, I’m afraid. Chief—”

  “Yo.”

  “Send a runner down to the Inlet. Have them pass it on.”

  “How about north?”

  “Cyrus?”

  “Yo.”

  “Waste no time.”

  “I’ll be pulling my oar when the time comes.”

  “I know.”

  The two men left on their errands, but the others stayed in place. It was an unofficial meeting. They wanted Malcolm to tell them what would happen.

  “I can’t tell you what it’s going to be, boys,” he said. “But I can tell you we’ll go out as often as we have to, U-boat or no. Anybody who feels he can’t take that kind of risk …”

  He had said all he was going to. There was bad weather reported coming up from the Keys, and a warship patrolling their waters.

  “I was thinking,” MacSween said. “Suppose it’s more than one. Suppose there’s a whole wolfpack—I’ve read about them. Maybe there’s going to be an invasion—”

  “That’s enough,” Malcolm said. “Visit your families during the days. Nights, I want every hand on station.”

  Later, he faced the austerity of the logbook’s blank, smooth pages. He chewed on the end of his pen awhile, got up twice, finally sat himself down with the same effort of will it had required to keep the logbook day after day, year after year. After the date and time, he wrote: Shelled today by Gmn. U-boat. Same sunk lightship, sure. All overnight liberty cancelled for duration of threat.

  And signed it, as always, stared at his own signature wonderingly, aware of the power and the magic: Malcolm Royal, Keeper.

  God willing, he would keep them.

  7

  MARY ROYAL FOUND Keith’s arms as soon as the first shell burst. Aware of how ridiculous it seemed, Keith sat down hard in a stuffed chair with Mary on his lap, shielding her with his arms, stroking her head and pushing it into his chest. Without her he would have panicked. Through the curtained window he could see the shape of his brother’s station, shouting distance away, and at that moment he shut his eyes and kissed Mary’s hair in a way he had dreamed of doing.

  He held her, and the noise of the shells seemed to quiet. The concussions no longer felt as if they were in his own chest. He did not know if she even felt his kisses, but they sat together for a long time after the shelling had stopped.

  1

  LIEUTENANT HALSTEAD STOOD hesitating on Dorothy Dant’s doorstep when the shelling started. It was not close enough to be dangerous, but he recognized a moment of destiny when it showed itself.

  He pushed her inside and steadied himself on the doorjamb. “We’re under attack. I’ve got to get the boat out.”

  Before Dorothy could answer, he was sprinting up the road toward the slip. He had picked a hell of a time to go courting, and he cursed himself as his arms pumped and his feet kicked high in his spring. It took four minutes to cover the distance to the cut in the dunes, another minute to reach his crew. They were good boys, already prepared to get under way.

  He took his helmet from Cross. “Shove off, Mister Cross.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  He relayed the order. The gunners shucked the rainproof sleeves off their gun barrels. The engineer revved the engines and they started headlong into their first wartime engagement. Halstead, who had not seen the inside of a church since his days at Sacred Heart High School in Philadelphia, made the sign of the cross.

  It was no trick to find the U-boat. She was knifing along at flank speed, but the motor torpedo boat was faster in the short sprint. All Halstead had to do was steer toward the sound of the cannon. He ordered the guns loaded and was struck by how calm and authoritative his voice sound
ed. He stood beside Cross at the wheel in a manner he hoped was heroic.

  “Is there a reason you’re not zigzagging?” Jack Royal shouted at him. “He’s had all day to find the range.”

  Royal was right, he thought. He must not be too daring his first time out. “Left fifteen degrees, Mister Cross. We’ll come in from the sea. He won’t be looking for us that way.”

  The cigar boat answered the wheel like a racing plane. The sheer speed of the thing unnerved him a little. He had seen plenty of ones like it capsized during training. It was not a forgiving boat. He was more at home on a sailboat. Before the war, he used to take his father’s sloop out on the Delaware Bay. That was a boat that could take the weather. Royal was right about that, too: if Sealion ran into weather, they’d have all they could handle and more.

  Jack Royal said: “You’re using your head now, Halstead. I mean, Lieutenant. Can these guys shoot?”

  Halstead glanced back at the machine gunner and then forward to the cannoneer. He honestly didn’t know how they would do. They were steady shots when it came to raking target barges, but target barges didn’t fire back. They might go to pieces, all of them.

  “They’ll be all right, Mister Royal.”

  “Just wondering.”

  “What can you tell me about these waters?”

  “We’re close in to the shoals now, but it won’t matter. You draw so shallow. If he comes in, this Heinie will have more trouble than you. He can’t go under very deep here. If he does, I’d throw your torpedoes at him.”

  “That’s unorthodox.”

  Jack Royal sighed. He was trying to encourage this upstart, give him sensible advice. God knows, someone better. Jack knew these waters, he knew that was how to do it, common sense told him that much. Any other way would just be a shoot-out. “Have it your own way, Horatio. I’m just saying.”

  Halstead started to reprimand him, but caught himself. Royal might be right. There was nothing in the articles of engagement about this kind of encounter, so he would just have to chance it. He would loose one, and keep one. That would cover him. That’s what he told Royal. The spray was flying but good now, the wind coming head on. He had always imagined it this way: salt spray stinging his cheeks, the rush in his ears from wind and engines, the boat slapping across the gray waves into harm’s way, the men at his side trusting their lives to him.

  The U-boat had not spotted them yet.

  “I would not save anything,” Jack Royal said. “I would take my best shot with all my fish and get the hell out. He can’t chase you very close in or he’ll beach on the shoals and break up with the tide—”

  “We’ll fire one torpedo, Mister Royal. We can’t take unnecessary risks.”

  “You’ll capsize us if you fire only one!”

  Halstead gave the order to ready the starboard tube.

  He was in an interesting position now, with the U-boat silhouetted between him and the island in the pale gold of a dying sun. He had the bastard broadside, and he raced the throttle and made his run at the enemy at full speed and no turning back. A classic maneuver. Binoculars were of no use now, they were closing too fast. He could read the surprise on their faces.

  2

  KRAFT, the first mate, spotted the American subchaser and raised the alarm. Captain Stracken swiveled his glasses and his face twitched. The American was crazy, coming at him headlong. He decided there must be another boat, a trap, a setup. Bergen had the forward deck gun on him and was fast finding the range, walking his shots across the water toward his bows. The American was running right into his pattern. Bergen was a scientific gunner, ein Techniker.

  The aft gunner set up a crossfire.

  Max Wien thought they had hit the American amidships, but he couldn’t tell, because just at that moment the captain shoved him out of the way toward the hatch and the first rounds from the American speedster whistled close over their heads.

  The captain ordered all hands below, and the gunners scrambled down the hatch like foxes going to ground.

  “He has fired a torpedo, Kapitän” Kraft said.

  “Does he have Wasserbombe?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The captain gave an order and the helmsman wheeled the rudder to place his vessel head-on with the American. Already they were diving, Max’s shipmates vaulting through the companionway like football players and piling in a heap in the forward torpedo room as the nose of the boat settled fast under their ballast. Max Wien listened to the hull for the sound of a propeller and smelled rank humanity all around him. He lay there, he could do nothing else. He wondered if he would hear the explosion. They were running right into the torpedo. Madness, unless it saved them, then it would be genius. The sweat popped out of his pores like beads of oil.

  3

  JACK ROYAL HAD THE WHEEL. Mister Cross was down, and so was the engineer. There was a hole in the filmsy starboard armor, and the metal was scorched. The mate sat between his feet, rubbing his head from the concussion.

  Jack was shaking, but he kept his eye on the U-boat as it began to slip under the waves barely fifty yards ahead.

  The machine gunner had not fired yet for fear of hitting their own cockpit, since the action so far had been head-on. But now with one torpedo gone, Jack veered hard left, crossing the U-boat’s bow. The machine gunner raked the conning tower just before it disappeared. Jack saw the torpedo had gone wide, and he cursed. There was nothing to do now. If the Hun came back up, he’d have them easy. Darkness was coming on and the seas were building.

  He held the wheel against the mate’s protests and turned full throttle back toward the Bight of Hatteras. It was all he could do to hold her steady with only one screw turning and a heavy port list, but he wasn’t shaking anymore. The machine gun had calmed him.

  4

  THE MOTORCAR AND TRUCK, bearing the insignia of the United States Navy, debarked the ferry at the head of the island, Oregon Inlet, and proceeded south along the only road worth the name through Chicamacomico and Kinnakeet toward Cape Hatteras. It took them three hours.

  An ensign and a chief petty officer rode in the car. They had come all the way from Portsmouth. The truck, manned by two sailors in rumpled work blues, was carrying torpedoes, ammunition, and provisions for Halstead’s command. They stopped at Littlejohn’s to ask directions to the naval base, and Fetterman watched them with a dull eye.

  “Government business,” the ensign said curtly. Out the window Littlejohn saw the others in the truck and shook his head.

  “You don’t say. I thought there’d be more of you along some of these days,” he said. “I had hoped I was mistaken, but I should have known better.”

  He told them which cut to take in the dunes, but he didn’t mention the earlier bombardment, or the fact that Halstead had taken his boat out to engage the enemy, or that Jack Royal was aboard. Nor did he explain why a dozen men and women loitered in the store, waiting for news. He didn’t explain any of that to them, because they didn’t ask.

  Littlejohn decided he wasn’t liking the way things were turning out at all.

  5

  DOROTHY DANT FOUND Keith sitting on the couch with Mary, holding her hand. She thought it odd for a moment, but she had other things on her mind.

  “The Navy’s gone out,” she said. “Tim’s taken his boat to get the German.”

  “Tim? Halstead?” Keith stood up. He thought he ought to go over to the station and see about his brother. He felt as guilty as a thief in church, and was convinced it showed on his face. He had the excuse of circumstance, but he didn’t want it.

  “The shelling was pretty close here, wasn’t it,” Dorothy said.

  “Too close, if you ask me.” Mary’s voice sounded stiff and unnatural. “Can I get you a cup of tea?”

  “Hey, what’s going on here?” Dorothy was kidding at first, until neither one of them answered. Then she turned and left. Keith went after her. He shouted to her, but the wind carried off his words. She didn’t turn. The breeze had tu
rned into a wind now, and Keith leaned into it, following Dorothy through the dunes onto the beach. They had courted on this beach, had slept together cupped in the folds of the dunes.

  He kept her in sight all the way up the beach and finally caught her on the point, where he held to her in the wind, trying to know just what he had done wrong, or what to do next.

  6

  MALCOLM WATCHED the torpedoboat come over the swells from the south, and from the way she was riding he could tell she was in trouble. The seas had risen to four feet, and the boat was damaged, listing hard to port.

  “Chief, it’s time,” Malcolm said.

  Chief Lord put Homer in his traces, and the men marched behind the boatcarriage down the beach toward the slip. In weather the slip was not a good anchorage, but it had one advantage: the currents off the point, where the Labrador met the Gulf Stream, would naturally eddy a small boat inshore.

  “He’ll bring her in,” Cyrus said. “It’s a rough landing, but he’ll manage.”

  MacSween wasn’t so sure. “He’s not had much experience at this sort of thing, has he. You’d think they’d have sent an older hand.”

  They stood a hundred feet from the slip now watching the slow progress of the little motor torpedoboat. From the trouble the helmsman was having, Malcolm guessed one of the propellers was damaged.

  “Jack’s with him, ain’t he,” Chief Lord said.

  Malcolm nodded, squinting into the wind, never taking his eyes off the boat. He would have to recognize the exact second when the odds shifted, and get his boat away in short order. His crewmen were filed along both sides of the boatcarriage, ready to launch her and man oars before he could finish giving the command.

  “They’re coming in,” Chief said. “That boy is bringing her in.”

  Then she was close enough for Malcolm to recognize the helmsman. He nodded. “Good boy, Jack,” he said to the wind.

  “Good for him,” Chief said, laying a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder.

  “They’re going to make it!” Cyrus said. “That pipsqueak is going to bring her home.”

  Now they were all waving and yelling encouragement as the narrow hull knifed through the first of the big waves breaking over the shoals. The shallower the water, the higher the waves, and the greater the chance of her being caught in the curl instead of being able to simply ride the swell. This was pretty shallow water, Malcolm knew, even with the tide in.