Word of Honor

by Nelson DeMille

  The water seemed warm, and the swells were undulating with a soothing rhythm. A hazy moon with its beautiful corona looked down on him, and Tyson felt strangely in tune with his world.

  He was vaguely aware of floating beneath the North Haven Bridge, through the inlet, and past the lighted Long Wharf a few hundred yards to his left. He floated through the ship opening in the stone jetty and out into the great harbor. He tried to move his right leg but found that the knee had seized up. “Damn it.” This had happened before, and it would pass if he let it rest.

  After what seemed like a long time, he felt the tidal pull slackening. A while later he was conscious of a change in direction caused by the land breeze coming from Shelter Island to the north. He tried to picture a map of the coastal region around Sag Harbor and concluded that if the wind prevailed from the north and the tide began its flood, he should wind up at the disco on the Long Wharf. In his underwear. He laughed and swore at the same time. He tried to flex his knee, but it seemed tighter.

  After a time Tyson noticed that the wind was picking up, and small but ominous whitecaps broke over his body. What was worse, the wind had come around and was blowing from the south and west now, taking him away from Sag Harbor, out to sea. The water that had seemed so warm was cooling him rapidly, and the wind, too, had a chill in it. He found he was having difficulty catching his breath now, diminishing his ability to stay afloat. “No good.”

  He righted himself and treaded water with his arms and good leg. He scanned the horizons for boats, but his visibility was limited by the rising sea as the swells gave way to the first random breaking waves, and for the first time he was frightened.

  Tyson was lifted onto the crown of a large swell and looked around quickly. There were boat lights on all horizons, but none of the craft seemed close enough to hail. The lights of Sag Harbor twinkled enticingly about a quarter mile to his southwest, but they may as well have been on the hazy blue moon. The changing tide was too slack to pull him back, and his drift was determined by the rising wind from the southwest. To the northeast Tyson saw the Cedar Point Lighthouse, beyond which was Gardiners Bay where he was headed, and beyond that the Atlantic, next stop France.

  The swell flattened, and Tyson dropped into a trough. He tried to distance himself from the problem and think about it objectively as he’d done in combat. As for passing boats, they’d have to be passing damned close to see him at night with these waves. And if he was reading the wind and tide right, it didn’t seem likely he’d be washed ashore anywhere. But if he was, it might not be on a sandy beach because too much of these coastlines were bulkheaded with rock and timber. That was all the bad news except for sharks, which he wouldn’t think about. The good news was that he was able to think at all.

  As he expected, the waves began to build, and floating on his back became impossible. He tried to ride the back of the waves, slipping down into the trough before the wave ascended and crested, then timing the next wave to break before it reached him so that he was lifted again on the back of that curling wave and dropped into the following trough. The wavelengths and periods of crest were still far enough apart to do that, and the heights were running only three to four feet. But this seemed to be changing for the worse.

  Tyson thought he saw a boat’s lights nearby as he was lifted onto a wave. But the sea had become too loud to waste his breath calling. And his field of vision and his own visibility were narrowly confined within the walls of the black and white water around him. The moon and stars had disappeared, and the night was darker. The smell and taste of brine began to churn his stomach, and he heaved up a mouthful of seawater.

  He was fighting for his life now. He suddenly realized that if he didn’t make it they’d think it was suicide. “No. No!”

  He pictured his house in Baypoint, its deck lighted in the distance, and he saw himself moving closer to it. David and Marcy were having a quiet dinner at the round redwood table. A candle lamp burned between them, and he saw their faces in the flickering light and heard the soft sussurant sound of the radio playing, Willie Nelson drawling out “All of Me.”

  As he’d feared, the wavelengths and the intervals of crest shortened as the heights rose. The troughs were shorter, less than ten feet from the back of one wave to the wall of the oncoming one. The curl of an eight-foot wave blocked the sky above him like an unrolling canopy, then crashed down around him, blinding and deafening him.

  As he struggled to the surface, fighting for air, he knew there was no riding this out any longer. One or two more like that and he’d be gone.

  Tyson concentrated on his numbed knee, trying to will it to respond, to move, to get his leg kicking. In his youth, before Vietnam, before the Purple Heart, he’d swum in worse seas than this, far out into the treacherous Atlantic, out of sight of land. This is a goddamned harbor. Benjamin Tyson will not drown in a harbor, in moderately high seas, in the middle of summer. No. He shouted, “FUCK NAM! FUCK NAM! FUCK NAM!” He shouted until the words were indistinct, even to his own ears. “Fucknam, fucknam, fucknam, fucknam—!”

  He marveled at lights that could be so bright and hands that could be so clean. The white sheets felt cool against his naked body, and the hovering nurses were solicitous. The USS Repose, he thought, was a halfway station between death and life, a salvage ship that collected the flotsam and jetsam from the ravaged shore.

  You’re going home, soldier.

  You’ll have complete recovery of that knee.

  Oh, the nurses at Letterman are going to love this one.

  Here are your personal effects, Lieutenant.

  There will be no disability.

  Seen some shit, did you, ace?

  There’s a movie in the lecture hall tonight, Ben. Would you like me to take you?

  This war is obscene. Obscene.

  Captain Wills and Lieutenant Mercado have been transferred to another ward. They’re fine. No, you can’t see them.

  No psychological counseling recommended. This one has all his marbles.

  Your brigade commander is coming aboard to pin medals on pajamas. Some men fake sleep, then he pins it on their sheets. Your choice.

  You’re flying to Da Nang tomorrow. They want you at a special awards ceremony in Hue next week.

  I don’t know where they keep the corpses, Lieutenant. What difference does it make?

  You’ll be able to run, jump, swim, play tennis, even climb mountains.

  No combat duty.

  Good luck, Tyson.

  Good-bye, Ben.

  That knee will be good as new in a month. Swimming will be good for it.

  The white life ring lay about ten feet to his left, then it moved far away in a backswell and disappeared. It surfaced again and shot across the churning waters directly at him as though it were homing in by remote control.

  Tyson grabbed it firmly with both hands, ducked under it, and slipped up into the hole. The lifeline tautened and broke water. Tyson followed the dripping line with his eyes and for the first time saw the lighted boat not fifty feet from him. It was a cabin cruiser, about a forty-footer, with a flying bridge. Tyson bobbed in the wake of the craft, then as he drew closer felt the churning turbulence of the propellers. As he was pulled closer he saw across the white transom the boat’s name: Tranquillity II. Then everything went black.

  Tyson opened his eyes. He was aware that he was wrapped in a robe. He tried to stand but couldn’t.

  A man knelt beside him. “Dick Keppler.” He pulled aside the flap of the robe exposing Tyson’s right knee. “War wound?”

  Tyson looked at him.

  Dick Keppler said, “They have a sort of signature—pockmarks where minute particles of debris were blown in by an explosive force. Don’t get that from a football injury. Seen it before. Is this what’s bothering you?”

  Tyson realized the man must be an M.D. He replied, “Just fatigued. Cramped.”

  “Could be. You’ll be back on the courts in a week.”

  “No combat duty.
”

  The doctor laughed. “No. Here, let me help you up.”

  Tyson took his arm and stood. A woman who introduced herself as Alice handed him an eight-foot gaffing hook, and Tyson supported himself with it. He asked if they could take him to Baypoint, and within fifteen minutes they approached the Baypoint Peninsula. Tyson scanned the near shore and pointed. “There.”

  Keppler cut the throttle and swung to starboard, heading for the long dock. Tyson felt the keel scrape bottom once or twice before the boat eased alongside the dock.

  Alice looped a line around a piling, and everyone shook hands. Tyson said, “If you’ll wait, I’ll return the robe and gaff.”

  Dr. Keppler replied, “Keep them as a souvenir. Do you need a hand getting up those rocks?”

  “No, just get me started.”

  Keppler jumped onto the dock, took Tyson’s hand, and helped him ashore. “Thanks again.” They exchanged farewells.

  Tyson stood on the rickety dock and watched the Tranquillity ease back into the channel. They waved and he waved in return.

  Tyson rested his weight on the gaff pole and turned toward the shore.

  He climbed the rocks backward, in a sitting position, and reached the lawn. He stood and looked at the house set back a hundred feet. The deck was lit, and he could see someone reclining in a lounge chair. He moved across the lawn using the gaff as a walking staff. As he drew near he saw through the deck rail that there were in fact two people in the lounge chair, lying face-to-face groping at each other. The woman had her back to him, and he could see that her T-shirt was hiked up to her armpits. Tyson coughed and took a few more steps.

  The man on the lounge chair jumped up and adjusted his trousers, then came quickly to the rail. “Who’s that?”

  “Hello, David.”

  “Dad! Dad!”

  David vaulted over the rail onto the lawn and stopped short. “What happened?”

  “Where?”

  David seemed confused. “What . . . why . . . ?”

  Tyson could see the girl had gotten herself together and was standing at the railing. Tyson imagined he presented an odd appearance dressed in a white robe, barefoot, with his hair tangled, and leaning on a gaff pole. Tyson said, “I was boating with friends. Went swimming, got a cramp, and they dropped me off. Introduce your friend.”

  “Oh . . . right.” David looked over his shoulder, then back to his father, then again to the girl. “Right. This is my dad—Melinda. Dad, Melinda.”

  Tyson said, “Hello, Dad.”

  Melinda laughed. “Nice meeting you.”

  Tyson started toward the steps, and David took his arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Just a bad cramp.” He walked up to the terrace and sat in a folding chair. “Where’s your mother?”

  “Oh, out. Be back at ten.”

  Tyson nodded.

  David said, “Are you staying . . . ?” He glanced quickly at Melinda.

  Tyson yawned. “I guess. I live here, don’t I? How about getting me some kind of cordial? Straight up.”

  “Right.” David darted into the house.

  Tyson and Melinda regarded each other for some time. Tyson judged her to be older than David by a few years. She was a nice golden brown, a little pudgy but cute. “Live here?”

  “Just for the summer. We live in Manhattan.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “Down the road. The gray-shingled house.”

  “That narrows it down to twenty.”

  She laughed. “Green shutters.” She added, “Last name is Jordan. My father comes out on weekends. My mother is having dinner with Mrs. Tyson.”

  Tyson nodded. That answered the question he would not ask David and also told him that the Anderson cover was blown. He supposed it didn’t matter. “And you and David are baby-sitting each other?”

  She smiled with only enough embarrassment to show she knew she should be but wasn’t. Tyson recalled the summer his father had discovered him in a beached skiff with a tarp over it. The skiff rocking on the sand must have looked suspicious if not ghostly. Tyson smiled.

  David returned with a half-filled tumbler. “Crème de cacao. Okay?”

  It wasn’t, but Tyson assured him it was. “Sorry to butt in on your time together.”

  David and Melinda made sounds of protest though Tyson knew they must be frustrated. Tyson sipped on the liqueur. He felt an odd burning in his throat and stomach and thought he might get sick. He put the drink down on the armrest and took a deep breath.

  David said, “You don’t look good.”

  “I’m just tired. I’m not sick or anything.” Tyson added, “I’m going upstairs to shower the salt off. Then I’m going to catch some z’s.” He raised himself on the arms of the chair and grasped the gaff pole with his right hand. “No, I don’t need help. Just slide the door open.”

  Melinda slid the screen back, and Tyson passed into the living room. He called back, “David, I have a shark boat chartered for tomorrow. Be downstairs by five A.M.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Tyson climbed the stairs the way he’d climbed the rocks, buttocks first, then crawled into the large bedroom. He laid the gaff against the footboard, climbed into the low platform bed, and stretched out. He yawned. “Shower.” He yawned again. The evening had taken on an unreal quality: the old town, the mist, Picard, the bay, the Tranquillity and her crew, the climb to his house, and finally David into some heavy petting. Little David. Time flies. He closed his eyes, and his last thought was that he should not be here. He should be, he knew, at the bottom of the sea.

  CHAPTER

  24

  “You smell like a fish.”

  “I feel like a fish. A cod, I think.”

  “What happened?”

  Tyson yawned and rubbed his eyes. Marcy’s face came into clearer focus above him. She was sitting on the edge of the bed close to him. He noticed that the gaffing hook was still at the foot of the bed. The window was open, and the breeze rustled the blinds. The night-table lamps were on, and the room was softly lit.

  “Whose robe is that?” she asked.

  “Dick’s.”

  “I think it’s a woman’s robe.”

  “Then it must be Alice’s.”

  “Who is Alice?”

  “She’s married to Dick.” Tyson raised himself and sat up against the headboard. “The people on the boat. Didn’t David tell you?”

  “Yes. Why were you swimming in the cove with these people, bare-assed?” She parted his robe, exposing his groin.

  He pulled the robe back. “I didn’t start off bare-assed. Don’t I get a hello?”

  “Hello.” She asked, “How do you know these people?”

  “Met them while I was swimming. They took me aboard.”

  “I see.” She glanced at his bare knee. “How does it feel?”

  “Fine. I’ve been soaking it in salt water.”

  “Very funny. Can you move it?”

  He tried to flex his knee. “Not yet.” Tyson looked at his wife. Her normal olive complexion was nearly black, and the white of her teeth and eyes contrasted starkly against her skin. She wore a white jumpsuit, cut low in the front, revealing the curve of her tanned breasts. When she leaned over, Tyson could see she was braless and saw the white flesh an inch above her nipples. She looked at him. “Are you staying or visiting?”

  He replied, “My shark trip is booked for tomorrow. I thought I’d stay here tonight.”

  She smiled without humor. “I think you’ve had enough of the sea.”

  “We’ll see how the knee feels.”

  She asked, “How did you get here? To Sag Harbor?”

  “Rented a car.”

  “Where’s the car?”

  “On the other side of the cove.”

  “Where are your clothes?”

  “In my pocket. Cut the inquisition. I’ll need to borrow the Volvo in the morning and some money. I’ll bring you a mako to clean and fillet.”

&nb
sp; She seemed pensive, then asked softly, “You didn’t try to . . . you know?”

  Tyson began to reply in the negative, then said, “I don’t know. . . . I think I just wanted to swim. I was swimming here actually.”

  She nodded dubiously.

  He said, “I came about as close as you can get and still get back. Now that I’ve caught a glimpse of the far shore my curiosity is satisfied. I don’t want to go there. Not for some time.”

  “I hope not.” Marcy stood and went to the French doors leading to the balcony. She looked out into the cove as she spoke. “How are you making out in the big city?”

  “Okay. Paul Stein has a nice apartment. You were there once before he got divorced.” He added, “It’s a little lonely. How about you?”

  “I’m doing fine. Lots of people we know are here. Coincidentally, Paul stopped by, and we had dinner. He wanted to let me know he wasn’t promoting our separation by loaning you his apartment.”

  “That was thoughtful.”

  She turned from the window and faced him. “Also, Jim, my boss, came by. We went swimming. And Phil Sloan was out last weekend.”

  “Sounds like a public rest house. I thought we were hiding out.”

  “I’m not hiding.” She took a step toward him. “It’s idiotic and sneaky. And it doesn’t work. Those two guys who are renting next door knew who I was right away.”

  Tyson didn’t reply.

  Marcy inquired in a neutral tone, “What are you doing with yourself?”

  Tyson shrugged. “Not much. Reading, exercising, walking a lot. I’ve never been unemployed. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Are you keeping out of trouble?”

  He smiled.

  She frowned in return, a mock-annoyed frown. “I don’t like you out of my sight, Tyson.”

  He didn’t respond, but he felt a little happier. Against his better judgment he asked, “Are you keeping out of trouble?”

  She shrugged.

  Tyson waited.

  Marcy moved to the side of the bed. She said, “Jim came with his wife. So did Phil. Paul Stein had his girlfriend with him, and the two guys next door are married—to each other.” She laughed. “God, it’s true that all the men are taken, gay, mental basket cases, too young, too old, or sexual deviates.”