by Sarah Sundin
“Range three-double-oh,” the talker called.
Jim’s lungs filled with lead. Only a minute left to roll back all five depth charges on the rack and free Ozzie’s hand—what remained of it.
Two of the men wrestled with the top depth charge, barely budging it. Ten men would be required to roll back all the charges, if they could even squeeze into the cramped space. How long would that take? More than a minute. Much longer. Then the destroyer could only drop half the depth charges, completing only half the pattern. The chance of the U-boat surviving to torpedo them would be doubled.
But what about Ozzie? The young man’s face wrenched in agony, sweat beaded on his forehead, and his arm twisted at an awkward angle to relieve pressure on his smashed fingers.
Jim’s breath came hard. He gripped the upper rails of the rack as if they were the jaws of an animal trap, as if he could pry them apart and save Ozzie’s hand, Lillian’s leg.
But he couldn’t. Lillian lost her leg. Ozzie would lose those two fingers.
“Range two-double-oh. Sound contact lost,” the talker said. “Mr. Avery, sir, should I tell the captain we’re down to one rack?”
Jim stared at the man in his headphones. They were close enough to lose sound contact. They had to release the depth charges in thirty seconds. If they did, Ozzie would lose the other two fingers on that hand. What if the contact was a whale? A pocket of cold water? What if Jim sacrificed Ozzie’s hand for nothing?
But what if it was a U-boat? What if they only dropped half the charges, and the U-boat survived to sink the Atwood with Ozzie and two hundred other men on board?
Jim had to decide, and he had to decide now.
Time to be an officer. Time to be bold. He straightened up. “Hill, switch back to bridge control.”
“What? He’ll lose his hand.”
“That’s an order. Do it now.”
Hill’s square face agitated, but he leaned over and flipped the lever.
“Please don’t,” Ozzie cried. “Please, sir. Please don’t.”
“Call for a medical team,” Jim told the talker, then he circled the rack and set his hand on Ozzie’s shoulder. “Get as much of your arm out of the way as you can. I’m sorry, but we need to sink that sub before it sinks us.”
The man scrunched his eyes shut, tears streaming down his cheeks, and Jim clenched his shoulder.
Behind Jim, the port rack clicked, and a depth charge splashed into the water, set to explode at one hundred feet.
Five seconds. Ozzie’s muscles tensed beneath Jim’s hand.
Five, four, three, two, one.
The lever clicked. The charges rolled forward. Ozzie screeched.
As soon as the charge rolled by, Jim grabbed his shoulders and pulled him free. “Come on, men. Get him out of here.”
Sailors dragged the screaming man away from the racks, to the open space behind the number four gun mount.
A loud hollow explosion sounded behind the ship. The stern heaved out of the water, and Jim fought to keep his balance. The water turned white in a rapidly spreading circle, then a giant plume erupted in the center. The first depth charge.
Two more depth charges rolled off the stern. Three more explosions fired, churning up the sea.
Jim leaned back against the smoke generator, his breath galloping. A group huddled around Ozzie. Some of the men held him down while a pharmacist’s mate wrapped gauze around four bloody stumps.
The Atwood shifted to a circling pattern, and the Y-gun fired both 300-pound depth charges.
No further sound contacts. No torpedo wakes in their direction. But no oil or debris rose to the surface.
Jim stood there, gloved hand splayed on the cold steel of the smoke generator, while blood froze on the depth charge rack and the medical team helped young Ozzie Douglas down to sick bay to start a new life without the fingers on his right hand.
A vile taste filled Jim’s mouth. For the second time in his life, he’d acted boldly. And for the second time in his life, someone had been maimed.
28
Boston
Friday, October 24, 1941
Mary leaned in to Mr. Pennington’s office. “I’m off to see Agent Sheffield. I’ll be right back.”
Her boss shook his white head. “I do wish you’d stop. Your grandfather will have me tarred and feathered if anything happens to you.”
“Thank you for your concern, but nothing will happen. I only take notes.” She waved and departed. No need to tell Mr. Pennington how daring she’d been lately, even sitting behind suspects in the cafeteria to record conversations. Inadmissible evidence, Agent Sheffield told her, but still valuable information.
Mary’s heels clicked down the hallway. The FBI agent’s sudden appreciation for her skills should have served as vindication but instead only reminded her of the role she’d played in Ira Kaplan’s arrest. That guilt motivated her to find the real saboteur.
She descended the stairs. Things were heating up. At first the errors in the shipyard looked like sloppy work, but now it looked like a deliberate attempt to slow production.
Rumors of sabotage abounded in Massachusetts lately. Down in Fall River two weeks before, a fire had broken out at the Firestone plant, destroying thirty thousand tons of crude rubber, 12 percent of the American stockpile. No one knew how it started, but everyone had a theory.
Mary paused at the base of the stairs and gripped the banister. If only she could discuss things with Jim. Never again. She had to release him, and how it hurt.
Why had she kissed him? That complicated matters. Now he knew she cared. Now he’d feel sorry for her when he chose Quintessa. How cruel it would be to force him to choose. No, she couldn’t have that. She had to assure him that she wanted him and Quintessa together.
She hauled a breath into her burning lungs. If she loved Jim, if she loved Quintessa, she could do this.
Mary straightened her shoulders and entered the FBI agents’ office. Frank Fiske leaned over Agent Sheffield’s desk, examining a blueprint.
The agent smiled at Mary. “Ah, Miss Stirling. This week’s report?”
Mary’s smile stiffened. She didn’t care to have anyone other than the FBI agents and Mr. Pennington know about her notes, and now Mr. Fiske gave her a curious look.
“Perfect timing.” Agent Sheffield took her report, skimmed it, and set it down. “I have another job for you. I already have permission from Mr. Pennington.”
“Oh?” The excitement of being included in the investigation mixed with her frustration at being singled out. She respected Mr. Fiske but kept him on her suspect list. After all, he had motive, means, and opportunity, and she wouldn’t be impartial if she excluded him.
“A job?” the leadingman asked.
Agent Sheffield rolled up the blueprint on his desk. “You want me to talk to Weldon Winslow. Miss Stirling took thorough and accurate notes when Mr. Kaplan was arrested, and I’d like to employ her stenography skills again. I’ll see you later, Mr. Fiske.”
Agent Hayes unfolded his long form from his desk chair, gave Mary a silent nod, and held open the office door for her.
After the leadingman headed back to the docks, Mary followed the two agents next door to Building 38. “May I ask what this is about?”
Once inside, Agent Sheffield climbed the stairs. “I don’t want to confuse you with technical details, but Fiske’s crew has had problems.”
“I heard. The holes were drilled too large for the bolts, so several entire sections had to be scrapped. Then they assembled another section using too-small bolts, which weakened the structure.”
The agent stood on the landing and raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes.”
Mary raised her sweetest smile. “A girl picks up some technical know-how in four years at a shipyard.”
He continued on his way. “Mr. Fiske checked again. Everything had been constructed according to the blueprints.”
In the hallway, Mary fell in beside the gentlemen. “So the blueprints are the
origin of the errors?” The blueprints came from Mr. Winslow’s office.
Thoughts careened in her mind. Mr. Winslow, with his desire to aid Britain, had motive, but he hardly seemed the radical bomb-building type. Did he have the mechanical expertise to build and install a bomb? She’d never once seen him on the docks.
The agents marched down the aisle in the drafting room, and all the draftsmen stopped and stared. The scrutiny made Mary’s skin crawl. She wasn’t trying to display herself, yet everyone was looking at her.
Agent Sheffield knocked on Mr. Winslow’s door and entered the office.
Mr. Winslow’s eyes widened, then he stood and offered his hand. “Agent Sheffield, Agent Hayes. To what do I owe the pleasure? And Miss Stirling. Always a pleasure.”
Mary shook his slight, soft hand, noting his clean, manicured nails. Did the man even know how to use a hammer or a wrench? How could they think him guilty of sabotage?
Agent Sheffield pulled up a chair for Mary, then sat across from Mr. Winslow’s desk, thumping his shoes onto the desktop. “Do you know why I’m here?”
Mr. Winslow stared at the agent’s shoes, his lips thinned. “I can’t imagine.”
“Why don’t you tell me how your plans make it into blueprints and end up on the docks?”
Mary opened her notebook and started a new page of notes.
Mr. Winslow straightened the blotter on his desk. “It’s rather straightforward. I draw up preliminary plans with all the specifications. I pass them on to the draftsman assigned to that project. He draws up the final diagram, has the blueprint developed, and delivers it to the leadingman.”
Agent Sheffield lit a cigarette without offering one to Mr. Winslow. “Have you heard about the bolts on the Fiske crew?”
“Yes, I have. I can’t imagine what happened. It’s all rather strange.”
“Here’s the situation.” The agent angled cigarette smoke over the desk. “We had an independent inspector come in. He verified the construction was performed exactly to the specifications on the blueprints.”
“Exactly? That can’t be. Do you—do you think I made a mistake? Even if I did, it hardly seems like the FBI’s jurisdic—wait. You don’t think I did it on purpose?” The edge of the blotter rolled in Winslow’s grasp.
Agent Sheffield shrugged and tipped his wooden chair back. “Tell me—what should I think?”
Mary took notes rapidly, her gaze darting back and forth between her notebook and the men. She didn’t want to miss even one nuanced gesture.
Mr. Winslow’s fingers skittered around as if he were typing on a miniature typewriter. “Why would I do anything to jeopardize our ships or our men? I want to help Britain, and the best way I can help is by getting these destroyers out to sea. Why would I slow production? You ought to look at the men who want to keep us off the seas and out of the war.”
Mary anchored her tongue between her teeth so she wouldn’t mention the theory that Winslow could be framing someone to stir up public sentiment in favor of the war.
Mr. Winslow thumped his fists on the desk. “O’Donnell!”
“O’Donnell?” Agent Sheffield sounded as if he’d never heard the name before, although it appeared in each of Mary’s reports.
“George O’Donnell.” Mr. Winslow ran his hand over his pomaded brown hair. “Of course. He’s the loudest isolationist I know. He’s the draftsman assigned to Fiske’s crew. He draws up the blueprints from my plans. He could alter them. He’s the one. It’s him, I tell—”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” A gruff voice rose from the office entrance.
Mary whipped around.
George O’Donnell filled the doorway. “You’d love to make me look bad. You’re the one who altered the plans, you and Kaplan in cahoots, I bet you. Then you pin it on me. Pin it on the isolationist. That’d get the papers in a fit, drive us right into the war.”
Mr. Winslow rose from his chair, his fingers still working on the desktop. “I could say the same about you. You altered the plans to make me look guilty, make it look as if I were trying to get us into the war.”
O’Donnell entered the office, fists clenched by his side. “You and Kaplan. Yeah, you’d need help, someone willing to get dirt under his nails. I wouldn’t be surprised if that French girl were in on this too, always sticking her nose into things around here.”
“French girl?” Mary said, pen still. “Yvette?”
O’Donnell looked down at her, his heavy salt-and-pepper brows drawn together. “Yeah. Young. Brunette. Long foreign name.”
Mary doodled on the corner of her page to look indifferent. Yvette had mentioned her fascination with drafting, the time she spent in the drafting room.
Agent Hayes stood and grasped the doorknob. “Excuse us, Mr. O’Donnell. This is a private meeting. We’ll speak with you later.”
A twitch in Agent Sheffield’s upper lip told Mary he was perfectly happy listening to the men incriminate each other.
Agent Hayes shut the door behind Mr. O’Donnell and took his seat.
A long stream of cigarette smoke rose from Sheffield’s mouth. “Then there’s the matter of Winslow Shipbuilding Company. Your family.”
“They’re not my family.” Mr. Winslow’s voice went taut, and he fiddled with his fingers. “They may have raised me, but they aren’t my family. My wife and children are. I made my own way in this world, no thanks to them, and I have no share in their lives or in their company.”
Agent Sheffield rested his forearms on the desk and cocked his head. “You’re shaking pretty hard, Mr. Winslow. Perhaps you should see a doctor about that.”
The men stared each other down, and Mary held her breath. What sort of message had passed between them? What was that about?
Mr. Winslow’s hands dropped to the handle of his desk drawer. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be shaking? I’m not accustomed to such accusations.”
“Of course not. A gentleman like you.” Agent Sheffield planted his hands on his knees, grunted, and stood. He reached across the desk to shake Winslow’s hand, blowing cigarette smoke in his face. “As you said, always a pleasure.”
Mr. Winslow drew away and choked back a cough. “Yes. A pleasure.”
Mary capped her pen. She’d never seen such bad manners from the FBI agent, as if he were deliberately trying to annoy the patrician naval architect. He’d succeeded.
“Come along.” Sheffield motioned for Agent Hayes and Mary to follow him.
Mary turned back to give Mr. Winslow a polite farewell. “Good-bye.”
“Yes. Good-bye.” His smile stretched over his teeth. In his open desk drawer, his hand clenched a small object.
For a man who insisted he wasn’t guilty, he sure acted guilty. And yet the idea of Weldon Winslow rigging and installing a bomb seemed ludicrous. Unless he had help.
Mary followed the agents into the hallway.
“What do you think?” Agent Hayes asked.
“I think . . .” Sheffield glanced at Mary, then leaned closer to Hayes, his voice low. “I think a spring wound this tight is bound to pop.”
Whatever did he mean by that? Mary resisted the urge to write it down, but she memorized it.
Both Winslow and O’Donnell did act tightly wound, but when—and how—would they pop?
29
Saturday, November 1, 1941
“Ever since we said good-bye, I couldn’t wait to say hello.” Jim rehearsed his line as he strolled past the Bunker Hill Monument toward Mary’s apartment, his head ducked against the rain.
In the gleam of the street lamps, raindrops shimmered in the puddles. Surely Mary was at home on a rainy Saturday evening. Perhaps he should have called first, but he wanted to surprise her. Since she wouldn’t have gone to work today, she wouldn’t know the Atwood had come into port this afternoon.
After the ordeal of their first convoy escort, Durant had given all the men liberty tonight except a skeleton crew. Jim couldn’t shake the images of Ozzie Douglas’s mangled hand
and of those three bodies in the water when they’d returned to the sunken freighter. At least they’d been able to save the other three sailors—Norwegians who didn’t speak a lick of English.
Tonight he could talk with Mary. The other officers praised Jim’s actions that day and said he’d done the right thing. Even Mitch Hadley and Dick Reinhardt were impressed. But the accolades sat wrong, like an ill-fitting uniform. Mary would listen. She’d understand.
He headed down Monument Avenue. If it weren’t for the rain, he wouldn’t even need his overcoat. After the North Atlantic, forty-five degrees felt balmy. Besides, he felt warm inside. In just a minute, he’d hold Mary in his arms and give her the hello he’d imagined all month.
He broke into a jog. At her building, he glanced up to the window. A dark figure, silhouetted by golden light, parted the curtains. Jim waved and grinned. She waved, and the curtains dropped.
Jim took the stairs two at a time and raised his hand to knock. Excited feminine chatter on the other side of the door made him pause. Didn’t sound like Mary or Yvette, but it did sound like his return was welcome.
“Ever since we said good-bye,” he murmured, “I couldn’t wait to say—”
The door flung open. “Hello, Jim.”
A beautiful blonde stood in his path, everything about her as dazzling as in his memories. “Quintessa?”
“Look at you, poor thing. Out in the rain without an umbrella.” She sprang forward, pulled him into the entryway, and took off his cover. “But don’t you look wonderful?”
Jim smoothed his hair as if the gesture would smooth his thoughts. “When—when did you get into town?”
“Over a month ago. The day you left, would you believe it?” Her eyes danced, all green and gold. “But I’ve had a swell time. I’m working at Filene’s, and it’s the best job I’ve ever had. I haven’t been this happy in ages.”
“Filene’s? You have a job? Here?” He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. This was the longest Quintessa had ever aimed conversation his direction. She’d never been rude, just focused appropriately on Hugh.
“I moved to Boston. Isn’t it exciting? I’ll tell you all about it over dinner. When I heard how much fun you and Mary were having, I just had to come.”