by Sarah Sundin
Mary’s breath seized. Were one or more of the men there?
What should she do now? The safe thing would be to wait for either the Marines or the FBI. But what if no calls had been made? Could she afford to wait?
Mary hugged herself against the night chill. “What should I do, Lord? Stay safely in harbor? Or sail into possible danger?”
A breeze came from behind her, lifting the hem of her coat and raising a wry smile. “All right, Lord. If anything happens, I’ll say you pushed me.”
She was no soldier, no detective with a weapon. She was a secretary, an observer. So she’d observe.
Mary slipped off her heels and set them by a bollard. She also set down her purse with her notepad inside, outlining her thoughts. If anything happened to her, perhaps Agent Sheffield could use her notes to arrest Mr. Fiske.
She padded down the wooden pier. A brand-new pair of stockings, about to be ruined.
Her eyes strained into the darkness, and her ears into the silence. The familiar shipyard sights and sounds seemed foreign and forbidding—the giant cranes looming black overhead, the lap of water against the caisson gate at the end of the dry dock, the faint city noises in the background.
No motion met her eyes, no voices entered her ears. As she neared the pump house at the end of the pier, her steps slowed and she held her breath.
Sounds, metallic sounds, but from the caisson. Thumps, scrapes. From inside the caisson.
Mary studied the huge bowed steel gate that held back the seawater, a structure with pumps inside to remove seawater from the dry dock. The caisson contained portholes with pipes to the harbor. When those pipes were opened, seawater would flood in to float the ships.
Her mouth went dry. Was that Mr. Fiske’s plan? Was he inside the caisson, preparing to open the pipes and flood the dock? If the destroyers were floated now, without lines securing them to bollards on the pier, the ships would tip over and be damaged. And where were Mr. Winslow and Mr. Bauer? What part did they play in the plot?
Mary crept up to the pump house and peeked through the window in the door. No signs of life inside, but she didn’t dare open the door.
Someone moaned behind her.
She whipped around. The moans came from deep inside the dry dock. Mary rushed to the edge and dropped to her knees. About four feet of space separated the steel hull from the granite dock, filled with wooden scaffolding. At the bottom next to the caisson, over thirty feet below her, lay a dark figure, rolling around.
“Hello?” Mary said in a stage whisper.
“Yes? Hello? Who’s there? Help me.” That was Mr. Winslow, his voice slurred. He groaned. “I’m tied up. My hand—I think he broke it.”
“Who did this? Where is he?” Mary glanced around, eyes wide and searching.
“Mr. Fiske. He’s going to flood—”
“Shh. I’m coming. Be quiet.” The metallic sounds inside the caisson hadn’t ceased, but she couldn’t take a chance Fiske might hear her.
Mary found the stairs cut into the wall of the dry dock, angling toward the middle of the hull, and she made her way down.
The granite wall rose high on one side, the steel hull on the other. Almost no light penetrated the abyss.
Her breath ratcheted its way deep into her lungs. What if Mr. Fiske opened the pipes now, when she and Mr. Winslow were down here?
Mary climbed through the maze of vertical and horizontal beams supporting the hull, scraping her legs. Something jabbed the sole of her foot, and she bit back a cry. Silence was as vital as speed.
Her leg bumped into something soft and warm, and she gasped. A body? Mr. Bauer?
Mary fell to her knees. A man’s body lay facedown, and she rolled him over. “Mr. Bauer?” she whispered.
No response. No movement. She pressed her fingers under his chin—a slow steady pulse met her fingertips. “Thank you, Lord.”
But how could she drag an unconscious man up the stairs?
Mr. Winslow would have to help. “Lord, please send the FBI, the Marines, or both.”
Leaving Mr. Bauer, Mary worked her way down to Mr. Winslow.
“Miss Stirling? What are you doing here?”
“Shh. Keep your voice down. How can I help?”
The man pushed himself up to sitting and leaned back against the caisson. “My feet. He tangled them up in electrical wire. I can’t get free. That’s the story he plans to tell, that I tangled my feet in the wire and plunged to my death. After I sabotaged the gate and made it look like Bauer did it.”
Mary found his feet and felt around. A mess of wires wound around both feet, but she couldn’t see worth beans. “Come on, we have to hurry. You have to help.”
He hunched over. “I—I can’t. After he knocked me out, he broke my hand, my right hand. I can’t move it, and it hurts like—like the dickens.” The pain in his voice confirmed his words.
Mary slipped her fingers into a loop of wire and tried to loosen it. She stared up at the caisson hovering over her. The sounds inside continued. Perhaps Fiske hadn’t heard them.
“Why are you here?” Mr. Winslow asked.
She didn’t have time. “Never mind that for now. I know why you came—I talked to your wife—but what happened after you arrived?”
“Fiske was in my office. He said he’d found my . . . my . . .”
“Your codeine?”
A heavy sigh. “He said he found it here in the pump house with an odd assortment of tools. He wanted to show me before he called the FBI. Like a fool, I agreed. As soon as we stepped inside, he put a gun to my head.”
Mary’s fingers stilled. He had a gun. “He forced you to call Mr. Bauer.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I’ll tell you later.” She worked one loop over his foot and felt for another one. “What happened next?”
“He—he had a script for me to read to Bauer. He told me to say anything necessary to convince the man to come here. If I failed, he’d shoot me. Well, I succeeded, so instead of shooting me, he brought me into the bowels of this dry dock and knocked me out cold.”
That loop didn’t loosen at all, so she tried another. “Mr. Bauer’s down here too. Unconscious but alive.”
“Oh no. He drugged him with my codeine. That’s how he’s framing me. He ground up about a dozen tablets in a mug and filled it with coffee. After all, how else could a weakling like me overpower such a man?” He sounded as bitter as codeine-laced coffee.
Mary murmured her sympathy and pried a loop over his foot.
“He’s framing me.” Pain and anger frayed his voice. “He forced me to apply my fingerprints to the medication vial, the coffee mug, the tools he’s using—and his gun.”
“Shh.”
“Now he’s in the caisson. He said he painted ‘Heil Hitler’ and swastikas everywhere. He wants it to look as if I did the damage, as if I wanted it to scream of Nazi sabotage. But everyone knows Bauer isn’t a Nazi. Is Fiske that desperate? He honestly thinks the American public will attribute this to a crazy interventionist? That they’ll rise up in furor and return to the false comfort of isolationism? That—”
“Shh. We have to make sure you and Mr. Bauer survive to testify against him.” No doubt, Mr. Fiske had become unhinged as his plans collapsed, one after another, and the country spiraled down into war. “Can you wiggle your feet, help me out?”
A mighty gurgle overhead, and water gushed out of a pipe, arching over Mary’s head.
Cold water splashed her, and she squealed before she could stop herself. “Come on. We have to hurry.”
He wiggled, she pulled. Water splashed off the hull, drenched her back. Another loop, another. Mr. Winslow kicked and squirmed, loosening the ties. Mary fumbled at them with cold wet fingers.
“There!” She yanked the last one free. “Come on. I need your help with Mr. Bauer.”
Water frothed around her feet, and she pulled Mr. Winslow to standing. He sagged back against the caisson and groaned. “My head. He hit me—he hit me
hard.” He doubled over and vomited.
Although her stomach turned, she couldn’t afford to be queasy. Their lives were at stake. “Come on. We have to get to Bauer, get to the stairs.”
The second pipe opened, baptizing the infant ship.
Mary headed toward the stairs, stepping over beams, ducking under scaffolding, each step plunging into icy water, her foot, her ankle. Her arms shook from the cold.
“Mr. Bauer!” Water lapped against his cheeks, and Mary lifted his shoulders. “Come on, Mr. Bauer. Wake up. Please wake up.”
“He won’t.” Winslow’s voice dipped lower than their chances of survival. “That much codeine will knock him out for hours. I should know.”
“You have to help me. We have to work together.”
“I—I’ll try. My hand—”
“Use your good hand, here under his shoulder. I’ll get his other side. The water’s almost up to the lowest beam. We might be able to float him through.”
She sloshed through the knee-high water, banging her shins against the horizontal beams, cradling Mr. Bauer’s head with one hand while she and Mr. Winslow guided his shoulders over.
A loud rush signaled the opening of a third pipe.
Mary’s teeth chattered, and the water rose to mid-thigh, swirling the hem of her coat. If that became water-logged, it would hold her down. “Here. Support his shoulders. I need to take off my coat. You should too when I’m done.”
She shrugged off her coat and abandoned it. If she survived, she’d be happy she’d taken her old brown coat rather than her new red one.
After Mr. Winslow took off his coat, he helped her remove Mr. Bauer’s. The less weight they had to drag, the better.
Above her, beams creaked.
“Oh no.” If the water rose enough to float the ships, the scaffolding would fall free, and the hulls would tip over.
“Come on, hurry!” Water rose to her hips, making her skirt balloon around her, but she had no time to worry about modesty.
The stairs had to be close. The water was almost up to the next beam, forcing them to submerge Mr. Bauer to get him through the opening. The poor man.
A loud thunk, and Mr. Winslow cried out and cussed. “Clobbered my head.”
“Shh! We still don’t know where Mr. Fiske is.”
“I’m right here.”
41
South of Iceland
Jim clambered onto the deck and got to his feet. “Come on, Mack. Let’s see what we can do.”
He followed Mack Gillis down the slanting deck.
“Avery! Hey, Avery!” That was Mitch Hadley’s voice.
Jim spun around.
Hadley was serving in communications tonight. He must have been destroying records in the radio room. He motioned with his thumb to the cargo net. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“Men are trapped in number two gun mount.”
“Captain ordered abandon ship.”
“Yes.” Jim walked backward, intent on his goal. “He gave me a personal direct order to do so.”
“You—you’re disobeying a direct order?” A tone of awe entered Hadley’s voice. “You’re not floating?”
“Nope. Making waves.” Most likely a wave that’d drown him. Despite the destruction all around, despite the crackle of flames and the shouts of men and the acrid stench of smoke, despite the almost-certain death facing him, a smile crept up. “You don’t have to help me.”
Hadley paused, then loped toward him. “Are you kidding? And let Floating Jim get all the medals and commendations?”
Jim turned and dashed to the gun mount. “Most likely posthumous medals, you know.”
“The more of us working, the more likely some of us will live.”
“Thanks.” Jim shot him a grateful look. “Those are good men in there. They deserve a chance.”
The door to the handling room stood open. Jim poked his head in. Empty, thank goodness. Seven men safe.
Up to the gun mount. The ladder to the platform had been ripped away, so the men used pipes and dangling lines to get to the top.
Mack plastered his hands to the mangled wall of the mount. “Hank! Udell! Freddie! Can you hear me?”
Jim yanked on the twisted door, but it wouldn’t budge. “We need something to use as a crowbar.”
“The ladder!” Hadley leapt back down to the deck and handed the ladder up to Jim.
“That might work.” He jammed the end of the ladder into gaps in the door frame.
The ship creaked and tipped more to stern, to starboard. The fire heated the metal beneath Jim’s feet. If the flames reached the ammunition in the handling room down there, it’d be over in a gruesome flash.
“Come on! Hurry!” Jim and Mack leaned hard on the ladder, and the door squealed in protest. “Hadley, get back up here!”
“Already here.” He joined in.
The three men shoved with all their might, feet sliding on the deck. Jim didn’t want to think what was making the deck slippery. Fuel oil. Had to be fuel oil.
“O God, strengthen my hands!” The door popped open, and Jim flopped to his knees. “Out, out! Everyone out.”
But Mack climbed in. “Hank! You okay?”
“Come on! Come on!” Jim grabbed the first hand he reached.
The hot case man tumbled out the door. “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”
“How bad is it?” Jim inspected the man for injuries, while Mack helped the powder man out.
“One man dead. Lots of men is hurt.”
“You’re in good shape. Start getting these men off the ship. Fast as you can.” Jim leaned inside. “Everyone out. Come on!”
One by one, the men climbed out. Mack assisted his brother, who was bleeding badly from the head. “That’s the last of ’em, sir. Except Udell.”
“Stay with your brother.” Jim motioned him to the cargo net. “Thanks for your help.”
“Udell’s in bad shape, sir.” Mack looped his arm around Hank’s waist. “Doesn’t want to leave.”
Jim groaned and glanced at Hadley. “Coming with me?”
“In for a penny, in for a pound, my mama always said.”
“Let’s hope we’re not in for a pounding.” Jim climbed through the door, fighting to keep his balance on the tilted deck.
“Mr. Avery?” Udell’s voice came out strained in the darkness. “What are you doing? Get out of here.”
“Not without you.” He yanked his flashlight from his pocket and aimed it at the voice.
Udell shielded his eyes from the beam. “I ain’t going. Look at my feet. Just look.”
With his stomach in his throat, Jim angled the beam down, to the twisted, bloody remains of Homer Udell’s feet. “Oh no.”
“I ain’t never walking again. I’m a sailor. My life is over.”
Light-headed, dry mouthed, Jim couldn’t stop staring. Just like Lillian. Only this wasn’t Jim’s fault. And didn’t Lillian’s life disprove Udell’s statement?
Jim licked his lips. “Don’t talk like that. We’ll get you help.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Udell’s voice climbed and broke.
“I don’t know,” Hadley said, “but can we figure it out on the other ship?”
“Great idea.” Jim slipped his flashlight into his pocket. “You’re coming with us. Durant ordered everyone to abandon ship, and that includes you and me and Mr. Hadley.”
“Yeah.” Hadley climbed out the door, then reached in and beckoned. “Mr. Avery and I are already in trouble. Don’t make it worse for us.”
Jim squeezed beside Udell and shoved his shoulder and hip. “Come on. Your hands still work. Scoot to the door.”
“If you weren’t officers, I’d cuss you out.”
“Go ahead.” Hadley pulled the petty officer’s arm. “I’ll return the favor, you stubborn old sea salt.”
When Jim grabbed the man around the knees to lift him through the door, Udell rewarded him with a couple dozen of the Navy’s best swear words.
The
ship shifted to starboard, at least thirty degrees. Jim sucked in a breath, half icy, half fiery. They had to get off the ship fast so they wouldn’t get pulled under when it sank.
“Come on. Let’s go.” Jim anchored his hand under one shoulder.
Hadley grabbed the other, and they dragged Udell up to the edge of the gun platform and swung his legs over the side.
Jim slid down to the deck. Hadley lowered Udell, and Jim braced the wounded man’s fall.
Then Jim and Hadley took Udell under the arms again and made their way up the inclined deck. Jim ignored the petty officer’s moans and cries. If he had to hurt the man to save his life, so be it.
Breathing hard, coughing from the smoke, Jim grasped one of the poles that held the lifelines and heaved himself forward, muscles screaming.
No cargo net on this section of the hull, but with the destroyer at such an angle, they could just slide into the water.
Water covered with burning fuel oil.
Jim groaned. He’d seen the training film on how to escape through burning oil, but he’d prayed he’d never have to use it.
A shout rang out across the gap. On the other destroyer, men pointed to the three men on the Atwood.
Jim waved. He needed their attention and help.
He and Hadley stuck their heads under the lifeline, straddled the tilted deck edge, and helped Udell into the same position. The gun captain looked pale, his eyes rolling, his posture slumped. He was going into shock from the blood loss. All the more reason to hurry.
“Burning oil,” Hadley said with a growl.
“We know what to do.” Jim unfastened his life vest. “Take off your life vests so we can stay submerged below the fire. I’ll slide down first, clear a hole in the flames. You follow with Udell. Get to me right away so I can help. Swim low and fast. When we come up for air, thrash like crazy to beat off the flames.”
Hadley tossed aside his vest. “That’d better be a big shiny medal.”
Jim grinned at him. Live or die, he’d done his best, and he’d even gained a friend in the process.
Following the instructions in the training film, Jim tore off his coat, unbuttoned his shirt except for the top button, and flipped the tails up and over his head to protect his face from the oil and flames.