The Keeper's Son

by Homer Hickam

  Max clutched the rim of the tower fairing. What the hell was Krebs doing? But then another part of his mind, the analytical part, wondered how it was the British had managed to catch them. They’d been on a collision course as if they knew exactly where the U-560 was. But how was that possible in this fog?

  Krebs maneuvered until the U-boat was bows-on with the destroyer. The English had stopped firing and Max realized why. Krebs had brought them in so close the destroyer crews couldn’t crank their guns low enough to hit them. But the U-560’s deck gun was perfectly leveled. Max could count the rivets on the destroyer as it flew past on an opposite heading. Startled faces popped along the rail above them. If any of them had a sidearm, he could have shot the U-boat crew as they sped past. But Krebs had completely surprised the English. The tables had been turned. He had them! “Give them hell, boys!” Krebs yelled. “Fire!”

  There was only time for one round but it was well placed, pounding the destroyer in its fat stern. Max and all the men on the tower ducked as steel-plate shrapnel burst from the explosion. A man screamed, a lookout, and fell on his back. Max looked to see Winkler with a jagged shard of English steel stuck in his throat, a fountain of blood erupting around it. The other lookouts turned, goggle-eyed, frozen in shock.

  Krebs glanced at Winkler and grimaced. “All right, boys,” he said as calmly as if it were part of the usual routine. “Let’s go below.” He called through the hatch. “Chief, take us down.” The lookouts pushed to get to the safety of the tower control room, dropping one by one below. Winkler was left lying in a spreading pool of gore.

  The U-560 began to drop by the bow. The destroyer had stopped dead in the water. Her stern was on fire. From the top of her wheelhouse, machine guns opened up. Rounds pounded into the tower. Krebs ducked below the fairing, careful to protect his knee. One of the eighty-eight crew fell clambering up the tower ladder. At first, Max thought the man had slipped in Winkler’s blood but then saw he was clutching his arm, blood streaming through his fingers. A ricochet had caught him.

  Krebs crawled over beside Winkler. The man’s eyes were open, wide and staring, but still had a spark of life to them. When Krebs took his hand, it was soft, and cold. “You did well today, Winkler,” he said. “You did your duty.” Krebs looked up and saw Max. “Number One, help me with this man.”

  A shell from the destroyer shrieked over the narrow U-boat stern and exploded. The British, though still adrift, had gotten the U-560 back into the sights of their big guns. Max and Krebs grasped Winkler under his arms and gently handed him down. Another round whistled in, this one so close Max thought he could feel its hot breath. When it exploded, it sent him flying into the tower fairing. Dazed, he searched for the pain of wounds or broken bones. He looked up to find Krebs beside him. “Really, Max. All those gymnastics at your age!” Krebs dragged him to the hatch.

  Dully, Max knew that it must have murdered Krebs’s knee to put both their weight on it. “Am I dying?”

  “Just the wind knocked out of you, I think,” Krebs answered through gritted teeth.

  Krebs was the last man down, descending the ladder by hopping on one foot to save his knee. He pulled the hatch shut and threw over the latch just as the water closed over the U-boat. Winkler, lying on the floor near the attack periscope, made a horrible, gurgling sound, then stopped gasping. Men who had knelt around him stood up and moved away. The smell of his blood, like hot iron, filled the control room.

  “Down to twenty meters, Herr Kaleu,” the Chief announced in a formal voice.

  “Let’s take a look at the enemy,” Krebs said. He stiffly lowered himself onto the periscope tractor seat, reversed his cap to get the brim out of the way, and pushed his face into the eyepiece. He swiveled the periscope and ran it up and down. “Fog. It’s all I see.”

  “Engines are up on the destroyer,” Pretch called from the sound closet. “She’s maneuvering.”

  “Take us down to sixty meters, Chief,” Krebs said. He lowered the periscope and took a towel from someone and wiped his face. The towel came away smeared with the scarlet streaks of Winkler’s blood. “We’re going to catch hell from that destroyer up there, I suppose.” He looked around at the eighty-eight crew. “But our boys gave the English a kick in their ass as we went by, didn’t you?”

  The deck gun crew grinned at their commander but the others in the control room kept their worried expressions. They anxiously craned their faces toward the surface as if they could make out the destroyer coming after them. All they saw, of course, was grimy, rusted steel.

  Max crawled over to Winkler and closed the man’s eyes. “We must clean up the blood,” he said, but before anyone could respond, the first depth charge detonated. The U-560 rang as if it were a bell suddenly struck by a great hammer. It lurched over on its starboard side, then rocked violently back. The crew in the control tower shouted and held on as they were lashed and whipsawed by a dozen more explosions. Some men closed their eyes, their lips moving in silent prayer. Others cursed. All found any kind of protrusion, a stanchion or a wheel, and clung to it as if it might save them.

  Krebs kept his voice low and steady. “Rig for silent running, Chief, and take us to ninety meters.” He took off his white captain’s cap, splattered with blood, and ran a hand through his greasy, reddish brown hair, and toted up the odds while hell descended on his boat. Every eye was on him, each man filled with desperate hope that Krebs would come up with something yet again to save them.

  Krebs ran his eyes across his boys and saw their fear. Then he had a startling revelation. Radar. It had to be aboard that destroyer to find them in the middle of that miserable fog. And if a small destroyer had radar, then that meant the English were putting the sets on every antisubmarine ship they had. If that was so, it was only a matter of time for the Unterseeboot. Each of them was going to be picked off, one by one. Radar would seek them out on the surface and ASDIC beneath the waves. There would be no place to hide. The revelation was so startling, it must have registered on his face. “Kaleu,” one of eighty-eight crewmen said, “shall we make it this time?”

  “We’ll make it,” Krebs said confidently. “Don’t you worry. We’ll make it and then I’m going to take all you boys home.”

  As their U-boat writhed in agony from the bombs exploding all around them, the men of the U-560 stopped praying and cursing and instead cheered. Max had to smile. Krebs had said exactly the right thing at the right time. Talk about Fingerspitzengefühl. “Home” had been the word the crew most needed to hear. All they had to do was survive one more terrible attack and that’s where they were going because Krebs had told them so. “Hoorah for our Kaleu!” someone yelled as the word spread throughout the boat. Then the entire crew picked up the cheer and added, “Hoorah for the fatherland! Hoorah for home!”

  Max did not cheer. Instead, he listened in amazement and smelled blood in his nostrils. Surely, he thought, we are all insane.

  6

  It was Josh’s opinion that there was no better way to start the day than with a cup of coffee properly adjusted with a splash of Mount Gay rum, a heaping tablespoon of sugar, and a dollop of milk from Sally, the Hammerhead’s resident cow. It was a recipe that seemed to soften nearly every prospect for the day, even if it included rough weather or unhappy women. Josh called his morning formula Barbados Sunrise.

  Josh was having a leisurely Saturday morning breakfast of flapjacks and Appalachian honey and working on his second cup of Sunrise when he heard a most unusual sound, an engine that wasn’t a boat engine. And it was just outside the hotel. When he went out to see what it was, he was astonished to find one of the new utility four-wheel-drive military vehicles designated a GP, for general purpose, or jeep. Chief Glendale was sitting proudly behind its wheel. “What do you think, sir? Just came in on the ferry.”

  “I didn’t know we’d ordered one,” Josh confessed, which was no surprise to Chief Glendale since he had forged the ensign’s signature on the requisition. “How’s it take to the san
d?”

  Chief Glendale was a big, leather-faced man, big in his spirits as well as his voice, which was loud as a foghorn. A Killakeeter, too, though he’d spent nearly thirty years away in one posting or the other, pretty much all over the world. He was back on the island to finish out his career. He gave Josh a full-toothed grin (courtesy of the Coast Guard, who’d provided him the choppers) and bragged, “She goes like the wind, sir, yes, she does! Like the wind! You want to try her?”

  Josh wanted, in fact, nothing more. Queenie and Buckets had come to stand beside him and they were both atremble with excitement at seeing four wheels in Killakeet sand. Queenie wasn’t so excited, however, that she did not see an opportunity when it presented itself. “Law, Josh, wait a minute!” she exclaimed, and disappeared through the door. She soon returned holding a basket of fruit—apples and bananas and grapes. “I’ve made this up for little Dosie. Josh, you could take it down there for me in your new thingamabob.”

  “It’s a jeep, ma’am,” Chief Glendale said, tipping his hat to her.

  Queenie shot eye-arrows at Glendale, then presented her basket to Josh. “How about it?” she demanded.

  “Well, I guess I could . . .”

  “Fine.” She handed the basket over, then crossed her arms so there was no way Josh could hand it back. Then, just to make certain, Queenie went inside, though she peeked through the windows. She couldn’t wait to tell the ladies what she’d done. They’d plotted and schemed on how to get Josh and the Crossan girl together, and now she’d managed it.

  Chief Glendale climbed out of the jeep just as Purdy the pelican hopped into the passenger seat. The chief thought nothing of it and neither did Josh or Buckets. Purdy went pretty much wherever he liked. “Go ahead, sir. Take her for a spin,” Chief Glendale said grandly.

  Josh went upstairs and pulled on his brown leather jacket, climbed in the jeep, and roared down Walk to the Base and across the dunes and down onto the beach. He’d driven a jeep before—the headquarters at Ketchikan had gotten two and he’d stolen one for a ride—and he knew their tricks, which were all wonderful. Why, it would scale just about any sand hill and you could even run her a bit out into the surf without getting stuck. He laid the windshield flat on the hood so that the crisp salt wind whistled past his ears as he barged down the beach, yeehawing at the top of his lungs. When he flashed past the lighthouse, his father came out on the parapet and waved him on. Purdy was having a fine time, too, holding his wings out as if flying low.

  The Crossan House was about a mile south of the lighthouse. It sat alone behind a stretch of sand hills and had a grand vista of the sea. Josh knew the place well, though it had been a while since he’d visited it. During the summers, he had often come up from the lighthouse to play with the Crossan boys—Randy and Bart, those were their names. What great games they’d played pretending to be pirates or cowboys and Indians or soldiers amongst the sand dunes and creeks and woods of the island. Josh wondered what had become of them and supposed their sister—Dosie—might fill him in. He tried to remember exactly what she’d looked like but failed, although he recalled, oddly enough, that she usually had the faint smell of milk about her.

  Josh stopped the jeep in the front yard, which was just more sand, and walked up with the basket and knocked on the screen door. The wooden door behind it was propped open by a stack of books. When nobody answered his knock, he hallooed once, waited, then went inside. In the parlor, he saw two small, silver-framed photographs on a table. One he recognized was of Mr. and Mrs. Crossan, the other of the entire family, the boys Bart and Randy when they were perhaps ten and eight years old or so, their arms crossed, looking sternly into the camera. Mrs. Crossan held a little girl, which Josh presumed was Dosie.

  Josh left the basket in the parlor and went through the kitchen and looked out and noticed the double doors of the stable were open. There, he found little Herman Guthrie, mucking out the stall. “Missus ain’t here,” he said. “Gone for a ride toward Miracle Point.” He looked suspiciously at Josh. “What do you want with her?”

  “I have gift from Queenie O’Neal,” he said. “Say, you ever seen a jeep?”

  Josh led Herman around to the square little truck and the boy ran around it three times he was so excited. “I’d give just about anything to go for a ride in it!” he cried, but then settled himself down. “But I’ve got work, promised Miss Crossan to get it done before she came back.”

  “Well, we’ll do it later, Herman, and that’s a promise.”

  Herman nodded sadly, allowed a sigh, and trudged back to the stables. He cheered himself up by remembering he was the richest boy on Killakeet.

  Josh climbed back into the jeep. “Well, let’s go find her, Purdy, what say?” Purdy lifted his wings, ready to fly as long as he could do it sitting down.

  As he drove along, Josh kept his eye out for dead fish or birds that might be hurt, or sea turtles laying eggs, or the remnants of wrecked ships, or trash. All would tell him a story of the sea, how the animals were doing out there, and what kind of people might be coasting by.

  Miles of wet sand played out before him, backed by a line of sand hills, topped with waving sea oats. Josh liked the way the dunes changed color as the sun passed through its daily quadrants, a rosy pink in the morning, variations of tan and beige as the day wore on, a feathery blue at dusk. The dunes, sculpted by the wind, were like small mountains and valleys with dips and whorls and hollows. Scattered remnants of whelk and scallop and moon-snail shells littered them, and when the sun caught their pearly remains, they twinkled like stars.

  Josh drove past Thurlow’s Lump, the highest point on Killakeet, a massive dune near the center of the island. It had been named after Josh’s great-grandfather Josiah Thurlow, the first keeper. The story was that a horrendous hurricane had swamped nearly the entire island, and old Keeper Jim had led the survivors to the dune as their last refuge. There, along with wild ponies and raccoons and deer and dogs and cats, all looking for sanctuary, they had dug into the sand for their only protection against the furious wind and raging sea. Not all had survived, people or animals, but those who did had gone on to repopulate Killakeet.

  Josh drove on, crossing the dunes and going inland. A mile south of the Lump, he came to a creek curtained by broomstraw rush and joebells. As a boy, Josh had caught snapping turtles from the creek. They’d go after just about any kind of bait tied to a string, and once they latched on, they could be dragged right out. But a snapping turtle was as fast as it was mean. One of them could snip off a finger or a toe in half a second, given the chance. Josh meant the turtles no harm and was sorry they were so cross about it. He just liked to look at them and ponder their cruel eyes and wonder why they were always so angry. Josh got mad sometimes, too, but he couldn’t imagine going through life always mad at everything. Keeper Jack had explained it to him. Anger, he said, is sometimes just another way of being afraid.

  Josh kept driving until he’d gone as far as he could go, which was Miracle Point on the southwest end of the island. Generations of Killakeet preachers had held sunrise services on Easter Sunday at this extremity of land. It was also a place the wild ponies liked to come to dig for water. He got out of the jeep, looked around, and spotted some hoofprints, not of the ponies, but of a shod horse. He started following them. Across the dunes, on the heap of sand that tumbled down from the edge of Teach Woods to Loon Pond, he came upon a young woman dressed in a checked shirt and khaki jodhpurs and high, brown leather boots. She was sitting on a sand hill, her elbows on her knees and binoculars to her eyes. Tethered to a myrtle bush behind her was a big brown mare who was watching in the same direction as intently as the woman.

  Josh followed their gaze and saw three wild ponies, two mares and a colt. He recognized both of the mares. One was called Tawny, based on the color of her coat, and the other was Jezzie, an ancient mare. The colt was surely Tawny’s. They all had a good start on their shaggy winter’s coat. Tawny was digging in the sand while the colt frisked around.
Old Jezzie trotted after the colt and nudged it back to where its mother was still digging. Pony school was in session.

  The woman took no note of Josh and kept studying the horses. Spilling below her straw hat was dark brown hair that draped down to touch her shoulders and a few strands that fell across her face, which Josh found, for some reason, oddly endearing. He might have watched her longer but her mare noticed him and snorted a warning. When the woman turned, she put a finger to her lips, then beckoned him over.

  Josh sat down on the sand beside her, a respectable four feet away. He didn’t know why but his heart was beating a little faster. There was something lively about her eyes. And, though he sniffed the air, she smelled nothing of milk, just a womanly scent. She said, in a near-whisper, “I think they’re teaching the colt how to find water.”

  “The mares teach the colts everything,” Josh said.

  The woman put out her hand. “I’m Theodosia Crossan. Everybody calls me Dosie.”

  Josh took her hand, which had strength to it. “Josh Thurlow.”

  She gave him a smile, his first. He thought it an oddly poignant smile. “I know who you are,” she said.

  “I remember you, too, though you were just a little girl.”

  Her smile faltered but then she found it again. “I was thirteen years old when I last saw you. And I used to follow you around everywhere.”

  As much as he tried, Josh just couldn’t recall her as anything but a girl of about eight. “How are your brothers, and your folks?” he asked, thinking he’d best change the subject.

  “Bart and Randy are both on Wall Street, married with kids. Daddy lost nearly everything in 1929 but, thank goodness, never sold our house here. Mama’s happy. She’s got grandchildren now. And Daddy’s back in the money a little. He’s a steel man, you know, and steel’s coming back.”