The Lieutenant looked hurt. Anything that either of them might say would only make it worse and Bob did not want to explain his feelings to someone who was younger than he, who had looked up to him once and who had listened to his advice.
“It wasn’t the Captain’s fault he was on the Board,” Bill Howe said. “He said he’s got to see you. You’re just acting childish, Bob.”
That last remark made Bob Bolles angry.
“I’ll act the way I damned please,” he said. “All right. Come on.”
They began walking up the street past the shops again.
“Bob,” Bill Howe began, “you shouldn’t take it this way. The Captain thinks a lot of you. He says so.”
“For God’s sake,” Bob Bolles said, “shut up!”
The boy was hurt, but he shut up. It was all a good deal worse than Bob had thought it would be. Everything that he was trying to forget came back. He felt exactly as he had when they had told him he had been passed over. He felt the same anger and the same bitterness. Burke had not been his commanding officer, but Burke had been on the Board.
Harry Burke was in a bedroom on the third floor of the hotel. His coat was off and he was lounging in an armchair with a tall lime-juice drink in front of him. He looked about the same as he had when Bob Bolles had seen him last—forty-five, with gray in his hair, thin and acid and leathery. He stood up and held out his hand.
“So you found him, did you, Howe?” he said. “Bob, it’s nice to see you.” Bob Bolles did not answer and he did not shake hands.
“You’d better go, Howe,” the Captain said, and neither of them spoke until the door closed. “I never thought you couldn’t take it, Bob,” he said.
Bob drew in his breath sharply. It did not help to realize that he was making a fool of himself when he had intended to be calm and casual.
“Let’s skip how I act,” he said. “You went into that with charts and numbers, didn’t you?”
“All right,” the Captain answered. If he had gotten mad it would have been better, but he did not get mad. “How about a drink?”
“I don’t rank enough,” Bob said, “to drink with you. What did you want me for?”
Captain Burke sat down again and waved to another chair.
“Listen, Bob,” he said. “I wish you wouldn’t take it personally. Everybody’s name comes up. I couldn’t help being on the selection board. You didn’t seem to make much of a hit with one of your last C.O.’s and we couldn’t disregard the way he rated you.”
“Look here,” Bob said. “I won the Schiff Trophy. Didn’t that make any difference? It was personal prejudice and you know it.”
“Maybe it was,” Burke answered. “They couldn’t select you on your record, but you needn’t have got mad. You should have waited. The next selection board might have been entirely different. You knew it would consist of an entirely new group of officers. Look what happened to Spike Jones last year. He was selected after a ‘pass-over.’ Plenty are, you know.”
“It was personal prejudice,” Bob said again. “I’ve been trying to forget it. Let’s skip it.”
He saw Harry Burke still looking cool and friendly, and what was worse, he knew that Burke felt sorry for him.
“You don’t look as though you had done much of a job forgetting it,” Burke said.
“If this is all you want to see me about,” Bob said, “I’m going.”
But he knew he was not going to go. Now that he was there he would have to go through with it.
“That isn’t why I wanted to see you,” Captain Burke said. “What good has it done, spending all that money on a schooner and bumming around in it? Now, wait a minute. Sit down. Don’t take it personally, Bob. A lot of other good boys missed out on their half stripe. One of your commanding officers gave you a two-point five in co-operation, but he thought you were a damned good flyer. If you hadn’t written out your resignation—”
“If I were a ‘yes man’ I’d have got a four,” Bob said. “Is there any good reason why I should sit here—”
“The reason is it will do you good to hear some common sense,” Captain Burke told him. “That particular commanding officer had some reasons for what he gave you. There was the time when you took that plane to call on that girl in Baltimore. And there was the time at Kelly’s in Panama during the maneuvers.”
“My C.O. didn’t give me a chance,” Bob said.
“You could have a chance now,” the Captain answered. “If you went up to Washington—”
“Thanks,” Bob told him. “Why should I go to Washington? I was perfectly right and you know it.”
There was a moment’s silence and Captain Burke sat looking at him, and Bob Bolles looked out the window toward the harbor.
“Bob,” Harry Burke said, “you shouldn’t have thrown it all away, without waiting for another selection board.”
Perhaps he was right, but it was finished.
“I’m glad to be out of it,” Bob said.
“Listen, Bob,” Captain Burke asked. “How would you like it if you were with me? On the Smedley for a couple of weeks?”
He thought he had put it all away from him, but he knew he hadn’t as soon as Harry Burke asked him that question.
He had tried to tell himself a good many times that it had not been as bad as a court-martial. Yet in a way it was worse than that, because being passed over for promotion had been a reflection on his personality. It made him doubt himself and it made him hate to see anyone whom he had ever known.
“Do you know what the C.O. said?” Bob asked. “In his opinion my attitude made me unfitted to carry out any mission. How would you like to have that stamped on you?”
“Listen, Bob,” Captain Burke said. “That’s water over the dam.” He had the same look that other friends had worn when Bob Bolles had talked to them—the embarrassed look of people who do not want to listen.
Bob Bolles did not answer.
“Well,” he said finally, “don’t be sorry for me. I can’t take that, Harry.”
“How about coming aboard?” Captain Burke asked again. “A couple of weeks on the Smedley?”
“What’s the idea?” Bob Bolles asked. “How does a civilian rate that?”
“They say you’ve been cruising around the Caribbean quite a bit,” Harry Burke said. “That’s so, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s so,” Bob Bolles answered. “Since I bought the schooner I’ve been aboard her nearly all the time. I know every rum joint in the Caribbean—Guiana, Trinidad, La Guayra. I’ve put the Thistlewood into a lot of funny places—just to get away from myself. It doesn’t work. You can’t.”
Harry Burke’s manner was suddenly brisk and cheerful.
“Well, you’re just what we want,” he said. “I’ll take you on as a pilot. I have Naval Intelligence Authorization. It’s just what I’ve been telling Welles.”
“Who’s Welles?” Bob Bolles asked.
Captain Burke looked up at the ceiling.
“Intelligence,” he said. “He’s with us on this trip. We’re on a sort of wild goose chase, looking for something. I told Welles you might have some ideas.”
“What are you looking for?” Bob Bolles asked. “Or is it confidential?”
“It’s confidential,” Harry Burke answered, “but I can tell you some of it. While you’ve been out here have you ever heard of the Aquitane, a French merchant vessel, five thousand tons, Captain LeBœuf, Commander?”
Bob Bolles remembered the Aquitane.
“If you’re looking for her, Harry,” he said, “you’d better learn deep diving. She was down here taking on cargo at Guadeloupe, but they sank her last June off the Bay of Biscay. You don’t mean to say they don’t know that in Washington?”
“They’re not as bad as that up there,” Harry Burke said, and he smiled. “There’s a rumor—it may not mean anything, but it’s important enough to have Intelligence down here with us—there’s a rumor that two of the crew were picked up and brought to Brest. In
telligence got their story through the British. LeBœuf was carrying something—something he had taken aboard in New York.”
“You know,” Bob Bolles said, “cargo ships usually do.”
“Not always something that worries Washington,” Harry Burke answered. “This was for the French Government. LeBœuf was down here when he got the news that the whole business in France had collapsed. The story is that he left what he was carrying down here somewhere, because he didn’t want the Nazis to get it. Now the word is the Nazis know it too and they’re looking for the crate.”
“Crate?” Bob Bolles repeated.
Harry Burke pursed his lips together as though he had tasted something sour. He was clearly trying to decide how far he could go in explaining a confidential mission.
“Suppose it was a knocked-down plane,” he said. The Captain’s face was wrinkled and careful.
“I didn’t know,” Bob Bolles told him, “you were so short of planes back home.”
He sat there wondering what the Captain would answer.
“It isn’t the plane as much as a part of it,” Harry Burke said. “If it’s at the bottom of the sea that’s all right. It’s a gadget we don’t want used by anybody else. Just one was turned out as a sample. France had an interest. It doesn’t matter what it is, except that it’s important.”
“Not the bomb sight?” Bob Bolles asked.
The Captain shook his head.
“Never mind what it is, as long as you know it’s important. I’d like you to come along.”
“Why?” Bob Bolles asked.
“Well—” Harry Burke looked at his glass, but he did not touch it, and then he looked back at Bob Bolles. “If the Aquitane dropped that plane off it wasn’t at one of the regular ports, or we’d have known about it. If it’s anywhere it’s been left at some out-of-the-way place, some old harbor.”
Bob Bolles did not answer. The Captain, sitting there in his clean white uniform, reminded him of what he had lost, and he was filled again with his old resentment.
“It’ll do you good,” Burke was saying. “It’s time you got hold of yourself.”
Slowly Bob Bolles pushed himself out of his chair and stood up.
“So you’re trying to give me a hand, are you?” he asked. “Thanks. I don’t need it.”
“Now wait a minute, Bob,” Harry Burke began.
“It’s nice of you,” Bob said, “thinking this up for me, but I can worry along by myself. You can get along without me all right and you know you can.” He put his hands in his pockets and smiled. “Besides, I’ve got business. The Thistlewood was chartered for a month this morning. We’re leaving this afternoon.”
Captain Burke loosened his coat collar with his forefinger and pushed his head forward.
“You mean right this morning somebody wanted to charter that schooner of yours?”
“Yes,” Bob answered, “right this morning. It was quite a lucky break. The cops had just asked me to leave.”
“Yes,” Harry Burke said, “I’d heard about that.”
“Well, you needn’t worry about it,” Bob said. “I’m all right. Don’t have me on your mind.”
“What sort of a party is it?” Harry Burke asked. “What did they want with you?”
Bob Bolles laughed.
“Nothing to worry you or your Mr. Welles of the Intelligence,” he said. “A couple from New York, a lawyer and his wife, both a little nervous, just down here for a rest.”
The sharpness left the Captain’s face and he looked at Bob again as he had before, in an embarrassed, friendly way, and then he stood up too.
“Whoever they are, I wish you’d walk out on them. Let them relax with someone else. You could be a big help to us. It’s time you saw some friends.”
Bob felt hot and uncomfortable. He had never realized how through he was, how definitely everything was finished.
“Captain,” he said, “it doesn’t work. I wouldn’t ship with you as an outsider for a million dollars. Just get it into your head that it’s good-by to all that. Incidentally, there’s quite a lot in the world besides the Navy. Well, so long.”
“Bob,” Harry Burke said, “haven’t you got any sense? What’s the use of your making a mess of your life? It’s about time you straightened out, Bob. I wish you could look at yourself in a mirror.”
“I did,” Bob Bolles answered, “right this morning.” Then he lost control of his voice. “God almighty, are you trying to put me on the carpet?”
“Quite a picture, isn’t it?” said Harry Burke. “You taking out a sailing party?”
Bob Bolles turned on his heel and opened the door.
“Wait a minute,” Harry Burke called. “Come back, Bob.”
Bob closed the door behind him and walked down the hall toward the stairs. If you started out in one direction you had to keep right on. Yet when he closed the door he had a feeling that he had closed it on the last chance he would ever know. He had the feeling of being completely without a country, entirely by himself. His familiar feeling of doubt was eating at him again and what he needed was a drink.
He walked past the desk, hoping that the clerk was not looking at him. He walked so fast that he almost ran into a small man near the door. It was the Japanese he had seen that morning.
“Why,” Bob said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you, Mr. Moto.”
Mr. Moto stepped aside and bowed.
“Thank you,” he said. “So very careless of me too, Mr. Bolles.”
“Selling shirts to the guests?” Bob Bolles asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Moto, “oh, yes, shirts.”
CHAPTER V
There were moments when Bob Bolles wondered why he had bought the Thistlewood, but he had never regretted the impulse. He had bought her in Florida, from the former owner, after a hurricane had ripped her from her moorings and had smashed her on a breakwater. With the help of a yard owner he had towed her ashore and had made a great many of the repairs himself. Even so, nearly all his savings had been consumed in making the Thistlewood fit for sea again. Five minutes after he had bought her and had passed through the first excitement of ownership he realized that she was too big for him. She had been built for ocean races with a skipper and a crew of three or four, and she had carried a lot of sail. Since he could never have afforded such a luxury as man power, he had used all his ingenuity to fix her so that two men might handle her, and the job on the whole had been satisfactory. It was true that her new rigging looked clumsy and her masts too short, but even in rough weather it was possible to manage with the assistance of one other able hand. For almost two years he had lived upon the Thistlewood, and he was proud that she was shipshape, no matter how she might look.
When a boatman from the public pier rowed him out to her that afternoon Bob Bolles felt as he often did—that he might have gone clean to pieces if it had not been for the Thistlewood.
Her hull, as she lay there in the blue water, was light and graceful. Tom had already got the sails up without his help. They looked small for her size as they slatted idly in the gentle breeze. He paid the boatman and climbed into the roomy, comfortable cockpit and looked forward over the cabin skylight to the open hatch of what had been the crew’s quarters. The cabin doors were open and he walked down the steps into the cabin’s musty shadow. Mattresses and pillows had grown dingy like all the other furnishings so that the cabin had assumed the air of an apartment occupied by a decayed gentleman, but it was all neat and shipshape. The galley with its little stove near the stateroom was stocked with canned goods. All his belongings had been removed from the stateroom so that it was fresh and neat, with its berth newly made and its little porthole half open. Tom must have worked hard to have got everything ready. Tom was busy forward, arranging a bunk opposite his own. Bob’s clothes were still in disorder on the vacant bunk above it, his oilskins, rubber boots, and rifles. He told Tom to leave it, that they could fix it later, and they went up into the bows and took a few turns on the capstan and got t
he cover off the jib. They stowed away a tarpaulin and looked at the sail locker.
“We’ll check the provisions,” Bob said.
He had left with Henry a standard list of necessities, but Mr. Kingman had evidently elaborated on it. He had added whisky, four cases of wine and all sorts of expensive canned goods.
“They’re not taking any chances,” Bob said, “in case they want to cross the ocean.”
He was busy for almost an hour going over everything, not such a difficult job, since he had always prided himself on keeping the Thistlewood ready for sea.
“Tom,” he asked, “why did you take my guns forward?”
“I just thought you might like them, sar,” Tom said, “with strangers aboard.”
Tom was always suspicious. He had never liked strangers on the Thistlewood.
“Now, listen,” Bob told him. “This is just a lady and a gentleman from New York and their valet. Oh, well, all right. Leave the guns there.”
Five minutes later Tom called that a boat was coming and Bob came out of the cabin to watch it. A long white launch was moving across the harbor. He could see a pile of boxes and suitcases and the boatman and four people in the stern. One of them was Henry. He saw Mrs. Kingman with a blue scarf around her hat and Mr. Kingman and a short squat man who would be the valet. They were alongside a minute later, climbing up the little ladder into the cockpit. Henry came first, then Mr. Kingman, then Mrs. Kingman.
“Greetings, Skipper,” Mr. Kingman said. He looked at the sails and at the boom moving lazily above his head. “Here we are. Are you ready to push—shove off?”
Clearly he was unfamiliar with the sea.
“We can get under way any time you want,” Bob said, “as soon as we get your gear aboard. Hello, Mrs. Kingman.”
He held out his hand to her to help her aboard. She laid her hand in his and gripped his hand firmly but not too firmly. All he could see in her was a pleased anticipation of a new adventure, nothing more, and she seemed to have forgotten everything else. She seemed to have forgotten what she had asked him, or at any rate she did not want to bring it up. Still holding his hand, she jumped lightly into the cockpit, with a quick little laugh, but he saw her look at Mr. Kingman before she spoke.
Last Laugh, Mr. Moto Page 5