Hatteras Light

by Philip Gerard

  “Good boy,” Malcolm said.

  “How do you like running with that Navy daredevil, Jack?” Keith said.

  Jack didn’t answer him. Instead he turned away and poured himself a cup of tea. He stirred it for quite a while, though he added no sugar or cream to it. None of them drank it that way, but there was always sugar and fresh cream on the table next to the stove. Jack fiddled and stirred.

  “What’s got into you?” Keith said.

  Jack turned abruptly and spilt hot tea across the fingers of his hand holding the cup, though if he was burned he did not show it. “Go back up north,” he said. “You’re just a tourist here now, and you know it.”

  “That’s not fair,” Malcolm said.

  “Don’t talk to me about fair. Was it fair for him to go trotting off to college and leave it all to us?”

  “I paid my own freight. I had a scholarship.”

  Jack put down his teacup. “That’s not the point.”

  “You can believe what you like,” Keith said.

  “I damn well don’t need your permission for that—”

  “For the love of God, Jack! He’s been gone three and a half years, and this is how you treat him.”

  Jack was nearly shouting now. “He should have stayed away. He had his chance to come home.”

  “I didn’t know,” Keith said. “How was I to know?” But there was no forgiveness in Jack’s face.

  During Keith’s first year at Harvard, his mother had taken ill. They had thought it was the cancer, but the doctor couldn’t be sure and Mrs. Royal steadfastly refused to go to the hospital in Norfolk. Keith had felt afterward that if he had only been there, he would have hauled her bodily to the hospital, never mind her wishes. But it had happened in December, when he was off on a skiing holiday in the Berkshires. Three days after the funeral he had returned to Cambridge and found a telegram. He had crossed the Charles River to a bar, where he got riotously drunk with no explanations to anybody, including the bartender, who felt sorry for him and hired a cab at his own expense to get Keith back to his room.

  “We’ve been over this,” Malcolm said, his voice weary with anger at the edge of it. “I think you blame yourself. That’s it, isn’t it? You blame yourself.”

  Jack raised a hand then abruptly lowered it to his uniform pants, slapping at some dirt. He’s afraid of Malcolm, Keith thought, and smiled just a little.

  “It was not right, what you did.” Jack finally said.

  “It was out of my hands.”

  “She asked for you,” Jack said.

  “What?”

  “I can’t say it any plainer, boy. Do you understand? She asked for you. She kept asking for you, all night long. She died like that, asking for you.”

  Jack turned away. Malcolm averted his eyes. Silence settled on them. For Keith, the scene lost its clarity and the faces of his brothers lost definition and familiarity. He went to the window and looked out, thinking of his mother, trying to recall the contours of her face, the gray lights of her eyes. Malcolm laid a hand on his shoulder. Keith continued staring.

  “Come over and have some tea,” Malcolm said.

  “All right.”

  Jack had gone upstairs, his booted footsteps echoing behind him.

  “It wasn’t as bad as all that,” Malcolm said.

  They sat together, and Keith recognized a love that saddened him, because he didn’t believe his soul was great enough for it.

  “So how is Mary holding up?” Malcolm said.

  “Fine. Too much of her own company, maybe.”

  Malcolm nodded. “She does get lonesome. Sometimes I cannot figure out why I do it, what keeps me here year after year. But it’s all I ever wanted to do.”

  “Why don’t you go home tonight? I’ll come for you if there’s trouble.”

  “There are rules. You know that.”

  “It’s not the rules, it’s tradition. That’s all it is. It doesn’t make sense anymore, not with the telephone and the wireless. And the others taking turns going home to their families. You’re not fooling anybody.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Look, when’s the last time you went off station?”

  “Maybe you’re right. You know that Toby is in the tower?”

  “He’ll be all right. He wouldn’t sleep anyway. He has to have something to do.”

  Suddenly Malcolm felt profoundly tired. He would be only a shout away in case of trouble at the station. He got up and put on his hat, and then Jack came downstairs. “Going somewhere?” he said.

  Malcolm sat back down, relit his pipe, and sat, smoking. Keith wondered again if he should have come back at all.

  1

  IN THE PURE GOLD LIGHT of dawn, Tim Halstead’s refitted rumrunner Sealion gleamed with cold, hard lines. She was a dangerous, sleek boat, and he climbed aboard past the night sentry with an easy step, his hat newly cocked a little to one side.

  He had something like a smile on his face, and he had none of that nervous look about him anymore. He ran a hand over the rebuilt torpedo sleeve, paced the immaculate, narrow deck to the stern, where two explosive canisters were poised in their Y-guns. Depth bombs.

  The warrant officer who had come down in the car promised unlimited supplies and ordnance from the base at Portsmouth. “You shoot them, we’ll reload them,” he said. Halstead would have been embarrassed with pride a few days ago. Now he realized that behind the warrant officer’s generosity lay the discouraging fact that there wasn’t a free cutter anywhere on the coast, from the Keys to the Virginia Capes. There was submarine activity off New York and Massachusetts. A wolfpack, it was rumored. Thirteen vessels lost in a single week, five of them fighting ships of the line. There were priorities, and no help for Hatteras but his own cigar boat. Halstead had all the torpedoes, ammunition, and depth charges he wanted, and a truck to deliver them to the slip. They had given his dead engineer a medal. They were big on medals these days. Halstead himself might even get one, but the thought did not cheer him. Their freedom with decorations only meant that things were getting worse. The war was coming home at last.

  Jack Royal sauntered aboard like a cocky midshipman, and Halstead, neither angry nor irritable, said, “You’re late, Mister Royal. I was getting ready to send a man to fetch you.”

  “I never miss a fool’s errand.”

  “If you’re trying to bait me, save your breath.” It was going to be a bright day. He kicked the steel of the torpedo sleeve lightly with the heel of his shoe. He gave his orders, the big engines turned over, and then he took his place in the cockpit, reached for his big Navy glasses, and looked out to sea. He wondered if he would see the German today, and he wondered too about Dorothy’s father, whether or not he was still alive. Now as the men cast off and the engines throttled up, it occurred to Halstead that the Sealion was built for running away, not for chasing.

  2

  MALCOLM ROYAL SLEPT later than he had wanted to. He awoke all at once and panicked. Something had jarred him out of dreaming, and he was downstairs in a hurry, buttoning his tunic as he vaulted the stairs.

  “Morning,” Toby Bannister said. “There’s some griddle cakes and hominy, if you’re interested.”

  “Toby.”

  “It was quiet,” Toby said.

  Malcolm nodded.

  “It’s all right,” Toby said.

  “I know, I know.”

  “Halstead’s gone out.”

  “Jack with him?”

  “Don’t worry, now.”

  “Have you seen Keith?”

  “You’re a mother hen this morning, Malcolm. He went home a couple of hours ago.”

  Malcolm went out onto the porch and gradually his heart calmed down. He squinted through the glare toward his house and imagined Mary still asleep in her bed. She always slept stilly and woke fresh and unruffled and all at once, the way Malcolm never did. His sleep was usually a struggle, interrupted by a babble of voices, foreign and familiar, and he would wake relieved, exhaust
ed from his dreams and troubled by the voices. He stretched, imagined Mary slipping out of bed and cooling her face in the basin, combing and pinning her hair, then moving downstairs to heat water for coffee. Whether he slept at home or not, he usually drank coffee with Mary in the kitchen mornings.

  Somehow the thought depressed him. His dreams had again been full of words, a confusion of words, soundless and jumbled as bees in a jar.

  He stood and listened to it all for a moment: the murmur of men’s voices from the mess, the snorting of Homer in his stable, the soft rush of a breeze in his ears, the waves, subdued, sounding a long way off.

  He thought he would go home for a while this morning. Maybe he would do that.

  3

  THE CAPTAIN SURFACED the U-boat early and far out to sea. He had run them very far north and out of the shipping lanes to get his breath. He had been counting torpedoes. He had started this patrol with a dozen, and he had four left. He was learning to fight with his deck cannons, learning to be a surface raider again, and he wanted time to think, time to inspect his boat, time to plan.

  He summoned Max Wien to the tower.

  “Tell me,” the captain said in German. “Why haven’t they sent a destroyer after me?”

  The first officer busied himself with his glasses, but Max could tell he was listening. Perhaps he was miffed that the captain should be consulting a common seaman on matters of strategy. Two other men were out of earshot, poised in the metal-railed crow’s nests along either side of the tower. Bergen and his assistant stood ready at the forward gun. The aftergun was still manteled.

  “They don’t have one, I suppose,” Max said. “Maybe we are doing better than we expected.”

  The captain nodded and lit a cigar, a rare pleasure. There was, of course, no smoking belowdecks when they ran submerged. Air was too precious. The captain pointed with his cigar. It was not a rude gesture but an elegant one, the kind that comes naturally to gentlemen sipping brandy in a softly lighted library after dinner.

  “Yes, I think you are right about that. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing. Wir haben Kontackt verloren.” We have lost our ears.

  For the first time Max noticed that the radio mast was gone. There were ragged holes in the wall of the tower, and dents on the hatch cover.

  “He was a good shot, Captain.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Glück gehabt,” the mate said, the glasses held to his face like long, doubled fists. Lucky.

  The captain ignored him. “I like talking to you, Max. You are a man of sense. You do not overlook the obvious. You would be surprised at how many of us do.”

  Max said nothing. He had seen men overstep their bounds. He was in a position to get fresh air as often as the officers, and he would do nothing to jeopardize that. He was not surprised it had come to this: that a man should organize his loyalties to insure a little room for breathing.

  “Did you ever expect we would go this far?”

  Max had to answer a direct question. “There are many who would like to be in our place, Captain.”

  “Oh, enough of that. We’re a long way from the recruiting office now. We can talk as men. We are living on borrowed time in the enemy’s home waters without a radio—how long do you think we can keep it up?”

  He didn’t think the captain really wanted an answer.

  “Sometimes, Max, sometimes I think we have come too far.”

  “Kapitän—” The mate turned from his glasses to make his objection.

  “It’s all right, Kraft. Keep your lookout.” He enjoyed his cigar a moment. “You know what we are doing here, Max? Have you thought about it, cowering down below waiting for the depth bombs to come, listening to the bullets piercing our flimsy hull? You men down there all must have thought about it.” He poked his finger into one of the holes, and a little blood came off the end of it. He stanched it with his thumb.

  “Ich tue meine Pflicht, Kapitän. What else can I do?”

  “Yes, duty.” The captain puffed his cigar slowly, savoring it. The smell was acrid against the salt air, and to Max it was a little nauseating. “You answer well, but you do not sound very enthusiastic.” He laughed shortly, then his face took on a stern cast, his eyes set. Now he looks like a U-boat commander again, Max thought.

  “We are collecting chips for the bargaining table, Max. When we talk armistice with the English, we must not appear too eager. We cannot afford to be weak. We must do as much damage as we can and make them afraid of what we can do. In other words, we must be as theatrical as possible. And if we do things that—well. It is imperative that we come to terms quickly, before we are found out—”

  “Kapitän!”

  The mate was at his elbow now, his eyes fierce with judgment, as if he had been betrayed.

  “It’s all right, Kraft. Who will hear us? It is no less a duty because it is unpleasant. That is the noblest duty, don’t you agree? We have never been in a position to do more for our country than at this moment—don’t you see that?”

  Max and the mate both assented mutely.

  “We will speak of this again, but only up here and only when I say. These are brave men. There is no reason to rob them of hope. It will not make them fight any better.”

  Kraft was silent, unsure. He could not tell if his captain was a traitor or a hero.

  Max watched Stracken puff smoke against the wind, watched the submarine’s bow cut through the green bright water, watched Bergen lean into his deck gun, fooling with the sights. “If I may ask, Captain,” Max said, “why did you tell me these things?”

  The captain puffed his cigar and threw it overboard before he answered. “You’re right, of course, but whom else do I have to tell?”

  The starboard watch sang out: a boat on the horizon.

  Kraft squinted into his glasses. “It looks like a fisherman, Captain.”

  Max reluctantly made to leave the tower for his duties below.

  “Max, stay up awhile. Let’s see who this fisherman is.”

  Max listened to orders relayed down the hatch and lost in the silence there. Bergen’s loader chambered a shell and Bergen wheeled the gun to firing elevation. The engines churned, closing the distance between the two boats.

  4

  BRIAN DANT KNEW they were being watched several minutes before the long, low shape of the U-boat appeared on the port beam. From the point his father had chosen his course, Brian had been sure this time would come. The pang of recognition unnerved him, but he quickly recovered. He was not after adventure, had not envisioned himself the hero of his own fantasy. He was simply a quiet boy who liked being out on the water. He had no use for heroism. The Malcolm Royals of this world were the heroes. Still, it was just as he had imagined it: the U-boat cruising toward them with all the grace of a log, its hull the color of sharkskin, the crew gaunt and sullen, their faces livid as the faces of corpses.

  “Dad—we have company,” he said. He picked up the shark rifle with all the reluctance of a ditchdigger taking up his spade after the lunch hour.

  “Don’t do anything just yet, boy. Let’s see what they want.”

  “I think that’s clear.”

  “Maybe they’ll leave us be.”

  “Maybe. What can we do?”

  Alvin didn’t answer. Instead, he studied the submarine through binoculars, watched four men inflating a rubber boat on the foredeck under the barrel of the deck cannon, the sun almost directly behind them. Aft, two men were stripping the mantel off another gun. Alvin fingered the grip of his shotgun. He didn’t need binoculars now to keep track of the rubber boat of armed men fast making for them, and he didn’t have to look again to know that both deck cannons were trained on his flimsy pilothouse. There was nothing he could do.

  “What do they want?” Brian said. “Why are they coming over?” And again Alvin said nothing.

  “Maybe they want fresh fish,” Brian said.

  “Then I’m glad I don’t have any.”

  When the ru
bber boat was a dozen yards off, one of the Germans hailed Alvin in English. “Hallo on the Pelican. We will not harm you. We will board you with armed men. Please do not resist.”

  “Just like them,” Alvin said to the boy. “Don’t even ask my permission. Well, what are we going to do?” He stepped out of the pilothouse, leaving the shotgun behind, in the locker. He told Brian to stow the rifle, too. Once on deck, he cupped his hands. “Hallo in the dinghy. Come aboard. We are not armed.” Not really, he thought. It wasn’t the time for explanations.

  The Germans handled the dinghy efficiently and soon tied up alongside the Pelican. Two men trained rifles on the pilothouse, while a minor officer wearing medical insignia and the interpreter who had hailed Alvin came aboard. Both wore sidearms.

  “Good day to you,” Max said. He thought they might as well be polite about this. Maybe they’d get further.

  “What do you want on my boat?”

  “Please, please. How many in your crew, Captain?”

  “Just me and my boy. Brian, come out here.” Brian’s face appeared at the pilothouse window, but he didn’t come down. All at once, Alvin knew what was on his mind. He found it hard to speak slowly and clearly.

  “Good. Brian—please do as your father says. Come down here.”

  Brian did not move.

  “How old is he?” Max asked.

  “Just fourteen.”

  “I see.” But the officer, impatient, was already beckoning one of the boarding party to bring the boy down. Max caught the look in Alvin Dant’s eye. Or Alvin swore he did, because the interpreter raised an arm to stop the man. “Wait. His father will bring him down.”

  Alvin, grateful, nodded, turned, walked slowly to the pilothouse. Inside, Brian had his hands on the rifle.

  “Put it down, boy,” Alvin whispered in a voice without hope or power.

  “Why?”

  “It’s no good.”

  “They’re just going to kill us—don’t you know that? I could get them all.”

  “No, Brian, it won’t work.”

  “I could, you know.”

  “Not the ones on the U-boat, boy. Use your head.”

  Brian stood holding the rifle. Alvin did not really believe he was going to put it down. The boy had got an idea in his head. Had become suddenly and totally independent.