The Keeper's Son

by Homer Hickam

  They shook hands across the little table.

  Phimble asked Feller, “Do you have a sonar set aboard?”

  “Sure,” Feller answered. “A QCN-4 Echo Ranging-Listening set.”

  “That’s what we have. Do you have a good man on it?”

  “Two good men,” Allison answered. “Why?” Josh filled in. “Our man could use some training. He was never sent to school.”

  “Have him come across,” Allison replied. “We’ll send him back in a week all ready to ping.”

  “We’ll do it, sir,” Josh said gratefully.

  Hands were shaken once more all around.

  The appraisals, the coffee, the sitting, the conversation, and the accepted idea of sending Jimmy Padgett off on the Diana for training was completed, so the officers went topside filled with a sense of accomplishment. For Josh’s edification, Allison ran his crew through a general-quarters drill, and it was impressive to see the Diana boys turn to under the sound of a pulsating alarm, each man quickly finding his station, the swift, thrilling rustle of the tarps being thrown off the machine guns topside and the three-inch gun forward, the racks of depth charges unlocked, the calls coming in one after the other to the bridge that all was in readiness.

  The Maudie Janes watched the drill. “Damn, they’re good,” Bobby said.

  “But can they fish?” Again demanded.

  “Shut up on the fishing, for gosh sake!” Ready said. “We already got it down on our list.”

  Jimmy was brought across and introduced to the Diana’s sonar operators. Josh took the boy aside. “I’ll tell your family where you are and what you’re doing.”

  Jimmy looked as if he were about to cry, but said, “Yes, sir.” He fingered his tub cap, turning it in his hands.

  “Have you ever been away from Killakeet for a week, Jimmy?”

  “Never more than two days, sir. When we go into Morehead City to pick up the mail, you know.”

  “Well, it will be all right. You’ll find these boys are fine fellows. There’s also Joe Bird. You know him well enough. It’ll be like visiting friends and relatives.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jimmy’s eyes were large and a little wet. “How am I supposed to get back?”

  “How would you do it if you were fishing and your boat broke down in Norfolk?”

  Jimmy gave it some thought. “Likely I’d hitch rides on fishing boats and maybe take a ferry or two.”

  “There you go. Here’s five dollars for the ferry boats and the cutter stores if you need anything.”

  Jimmy took the crumpled bill and then delivered up a brave smile as he went off with one of the Diana’s sonar men.

  After the officers returned and the eighty-three-footer got under way, the Maudie Janes made a number of surreptitious hand signals, catcalls, and gibes toward the Dianas, who returned them all in kind. Jimmy was seen leaning on the rail of the cutter, looking dismal. “We’ll see you in a week, Jimmy!” Josh called across the water. Jimmy responded with a wan smile and a halfhearted wave and the Diana sped away.

  Josh looked to the horizon where he could see at least a dozen tankers and freighters. “Take us on out there, Eureka,” he said, nodding toward the line of merchies. “We’ll run along with those big ladies for a while.”

  Ready was nearby. “We ain’t going in, sir?”

  “Not for a while.”

  Ready made an excuse and disappeared below, to add yet another gripe to the list. Two of them, in fact. Jimmy sent off with strangers was one. Stay out too long was the other. It was going to be a helluva list. Ready wasn’t sure how poor Mister Thurlow was going to bear it.

  19

  Christmas Eve found the Maudie Jane out on the Stream. Jimmy had still not returned. Some of the crew thought maybe he had been kidnapped by the evil Diana boys. Frustration was rife. “Ain’t we even going in for Christmas?” Millie moaned to Stobs during a smoke break at the stern. Stobs usually had the straight skinny, being the radioman and all and in the wheelhouse able to hear the skipper and Bosun Phimble talk things over.

  “Skipper ain’t said,” Stobs replied, flipping his cigarette butt into the sea.

  “He ain’t said much of nothing lately except to call all these damned drills,” Ready groused. “I reckon it’s time we let loose with our list.”

  “Poor Mister Thurlow,” Once said. “I hope his feelings won’t be too hurt.”

  Millie produced the list. It was covered solid with gripes, front and back. “This is really going to knock the stuffing out of the skipper,” he said sadly.

  “Well, he asked for it,” Ready snapped, then tucked the list in his pocket and climbed topside to ask for a moment of Ensign Thurlow’s time.

  “What’s up, Ready?” Josh asked.

  “Serious stuff, sir.”

  “I see. Well, let’s talk over a cup of coffee. Suit you?”

  Ready had a stern, no-fooling expression on his face. “That’ll do,” he said.

  They repaired to the galley and Josh asked Millie to take a break, then poured two steaming mugs of hot coffee. Ready took a mug and sat down at the mess table, Josh sitting opposite. “Millie makes a good cup of joe,” Josh said, savoring his mug.

  Ready demonstrated that he was in no mood for idle talk by drawing out the list and smoothing it on the tabletop. “The subject is crew morale, Mister Thurlow,” he said formally, and pushed the sheet of notebook paper over.

  Josh took the sheet and put it under one of his elbows. “I see,” he said. “Go on.”

  This threw Ready. He’d expected Mister Thurlow to take a long minute to read the list, then ask Ready how to repair the damage. Instead, the big ensign just sat there, drinking his coffee, the piss-and-moan list firm under his elbow.

  “Well, sir,” Ready improvised, “it’s like this. Our morale stinks. See, we can’t take no more of these drills and all of this other bilge you and Bosun Phimble has been laying on us. We’re about worn-out and I guess you’d say that’s the long and short of it.”

  Josh made a sympathetic nod. “I had no idea,” he said in a soft tone.

  Ready thought this was a good start. In fact, he was glad the skipper wasn’t looking at the list. The way he was telling it was going to make a greater impact. “Oh, it’s awful, sir,” Ready went on. “You don’t see it the way we do, of course, you being an officer and all. But this running around and getting up in the middle of the night looking for boys what ain’t fallen overboard, and dodging colliding ships that ain’t colliding, and looking for German subs which ain’t nowhere around, and dropping depth charges that we ain’t got, and aiming the machine gun what ain’t got no ammo! Now that don’t make no sense at all, no matter how you look at it. The boys and me, we’d just soon go back to the way we used to patrol, coming in every night except when we fish, which we all agree we need to get back to doing, if you don’t mind.”

  “A Killakeeter that don’t fish is liable to miss it,” Josh allowed.

  “Yes, sir, that’s sartain.”

  There was a moment of silence. During it, Ready began to be afraid he’d hurt the skipper’s feelings. He wondered if he should say something to soften his complaint.

  “Ready,” Josh said, “I’m curious about something. Do you think I’m your friend?”

  Ready was relieved. He was going to get to reassure Mister Thurlow that all the boys still liked him. He grinned and nodded eagerly. “Yes, sir, I know you are!” he exclaimed.

  “And the other boys, do they think I’m their friend, too?”

  “They sure do!”

  Josh removed his elbow from the piss-and-moan list. He set down his coffee mug. Then he began to tear the list into tiny bits in front of Ready’s startled face. The tatters drifted down like snow on the galley table. “Guess what?” Josh said in a voice that seemed to Ready as if it came from hell. “I’m not.”

  The Maudie Janes, all waiting on deck for the results of the meeting, even Fisheye and Big up from the engine room, saw Ready suddenly tear through t
he deck hatch as if a shark had bitten him in his britches. Then the skipper came up from below. He caught Ready, dragged him aft, and tossed him down beside the starboard depth-charge rack. The boys all stood frozen, their mouths dropped open.

  “General quarters!” Josh bellowed in a voice they had never heard. He caught Once Jackson trying to sneak past him. “Just in case you ain’t sure, let me show you where your station is, son!” Josh lifted Once and carried him forward like a rag doll and dropped him beside the machine gun. The rest of the boys tripped over one another to get to their positions. Even Marvin ran down to the depth-charge racks and sat at attention. When Ready got to his feet, he bawled, “Depth charges ready, sir!” He even saluted.

  Josh ignored the salute since it was improper. “Listen up!” he roared in his great raspy sea-voice, one he hadn’t used since Alaska. “I am not your friend! I am your captain! Bosun Phimble is not your friend, neither! He is my executive officer! You will not question my orders or his! You will not bitch! You will not moan! Any man who does from this day forward, I will personally lay hold of and throw him off my boat! Then we’ll have another man-overboard drill, only it won’t be a drill. Any questions?”

  Not a Maudie Jane said a word. Most didn’t even bother to breathe. “Good,” Josh said. “I’m glad we’ve had this little talk. Bosun Phimble, you are to keep the men on battle drill for an hour, then Captain’s Mast in the galley. In case you don’t know the terminology, girls, Captain’s Mast means a review of your infractions and subsequent punishment. We’re going to get shipshape on this boat if I have to bust each and every one of you down to raw recruit. If that doesn’t do it, I will kick your butts up between your ears. One way or the other, I’m going to get you ready to fight!”

  Josh glanced around at each of the boys and they jerked to attention. He lowered his voice but it still sounded like a puffing steam engine. “From here on in, if you have any complaints about the way I’m running this boat, I don’t care to hear them. And don’t tell your maws, neither. Nor your grannies. I’m preparing you for war, boys, and we’re in one, whether you like it or not, whether anyone on Killakeet likes it or not.”

  Marvin trotted over and sat down beside Josh and gave each boy a little stare and a growl of his own. “Attaboy,” Josh said, reaching down to give the dog a pat on his head. “Marvin’s the best sailor on this pohunkey boat!” he exclaimed.

  “The smartest one, too,” Ready muttered, entirely to himself.

  20

  Dosie was furious with herself. She kept thinking about Josh Thurlow, which was precisely the wrong thing for her to do. Her entire reason for coming to Killakeet was to stop being so needy, but here she was, waking up at night thinking about the big coastguardsman and his strong arms around her and how good they’d felt. She hungered to have them around her again. “Dammitohell!” she yelled, throwing her pillow across the room. Then she lay there, morosely listening to the thunder of the waves and whistle of the endless wind. “Shut up!” she yelled at the island. Killakeet responded impishly with more thunder and whistles and even rattled her windows.

  It seemed to Dosie that if life were a novel, she was just the romantic character stuck into Josh’s plot so he would have a love interest. That infuriated her even more because it wasn’t an original thought but that of her musician ex-boyfriend, who was, after all, nothing but a trumpet player in a ridiculous slouch hat worn to hide a bald spot. “Dosie, to you, life is a dime-store novel,” he’d told her after she’d once complained about their life in general. “In chapter one, you’re the lovelorn and unfulfilled woman waiting for your knight in shining armor. In chapter two, I’m the irresponsible rat bastard who completely fouls up your life. The trouble is you don’t have a chapter three where your knight shows up.”

  The really lousy thing about the son of a bitch was that he was absolutely right. Well, she was having none of it. She was throwing chapters one, two, three, and all the rest of them out. “I shall never see Josh Thurlow again,” she resolved, even though she was on an island nine miles long and two miles wide at its widest, and populated by only 174 people, one of whom was the object of her oath.

  Since her arrival, Dosie had kept fighting the empty, hopeless feelings that clawed at her much of the time. She was glad she’d hired Herman, even though he had that big crush on her. He was good company and he also taught her things, like how to prog clams and catch blue crabs with nothing more than an old fish head, a string, and a long-handled net. It made her feel useful if she could help feed herself through her own efforts. Being useful was an idea that kept having more appeal to Dosie. She began to think that maybe it was the root cause of the emptiness in her life. Until then, she had been pretty certain it was all the fault of men.

  A few days before Christmas, Herman decided to show Dosie how to gather oysters. He was a bit of an inventor and had devised a special tool, half net, half pry bar, to get them off the rocks down by Miracle Point. While he was showing off, he fell and sliced his arm on the edge of one of the razor-sharp oyster shells. Blood ran down Herman’s arm and into the ocean until a thick scarlet stream formed around him. “I’ll be fine,” Herman said, and then promptly passed out. Dosie pulled him to shore, woke him up, tore off a piece of her shirt and made a tourniquet, and made him climb onto Genie. He passed out again just as they reached her house. She left him there and jumped on Genie and went flying over the sand hills all the way to Whalebone City to get Doc.

  Fortunately, Doc Folsom was in his infirmary playing checkers with Pump Padgett and came without delay. By then, Herman had woken up again and dragged himself into one of the rockers in front. Doc took a look at the arm, then opened his black bag and pulled out a big sewing needle.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Herman demanded.

  “What do you think? You need at least six stitches.”

  The boy grasped the arms of the rocker. “Do your worst, Doc. I can take it.” But as soon as the needle touched his skin, Herman fainted again. Doc chuckled and got busy with the stitching.

  Dosie studied Doc’s technique. “Would you like to do one?” he asked.

  “I would,” Dosie said, surprising herself.

  “It’s just like sewing up two pieces of cloth. Here. Get to it.”

  Dosie got to it. She ran the needle through Herman’s skin and pulled the thread tight to pull the two sides of the cut together. It pleased her that she wasn’t bothered at all by either the blood or the sewing. That could help her be useful, she thought. Maybe she could even be a nurse or something. When she finished with a couple of stitches, Doc admired her work, then took over again.

  While Doc sewed and Herman moaned, Dosie looked out and saw the Maudie Jane passing by. Since she had decided to never see Josh again, she surprised herself when she waved at him. To her disappointment, he didn’t wave back. Crushed, she dropped her hand. Then she got angry for caring. “You ain’t chapter three, boy,” she growled under her breath.

  Herman struggled back from the darkness. “I’m much better,” he allowed, even though nobody was paying much attention to him, not even Doc. Doc had joined Dosie looking after the Maudie Jane.

  “Stay out of trouble,” Doc said to Herman after the patrol boat had finished going by.

  Dosie smiled down on Herman and Herman thought she looked pretty much like an angel. “He’s a boy who’s after trouble, I think. But a nice boy for all that.”

  “I’m not so nice,” Herman said, and would have blushed if he’d had enough blood left in him to do it.

  Doc plopped on his hat, adjusted it to its usual rakish angle, and retrieved his bag. “Glad to be of help,” he said when Dosie asked him how much she owed him.

  Dosie, despite her best intentions, kept watching the Maudie Jane until she was just a dot on the waves. “Damn you, Josh Thurlow,” she said, then imagined herself sneaking aboard his boat one night, perhaps disguised as one of his boys, and visiting him while the boat sailed beneath the stars. In her mind, hi
s cabin looked like one of those giant rooms they showed in the pirate movies with big back windows that had an ocean view. She then imagined a vast four-poster pirate’s bed. “You’re disgusting,” she muttered to herself, of herself.

  Herman healed quickly, the specialty of youth. Then he went back to oystering, just so he wouldn’t be afraid to do it. Dosie loved oysters, especially raw. Herman could only eat them steamed. “Raw ones are supposed to put boys in the mood for love,” she teased him.

  Herman said, “Puts me in the mood to puke.” He hadn’t learned how to sweet-talk a woman, quite yet. His father hadn’t gotten around to that lesson. It was about the last one a Killakeet daddy taught a Killakeet boy.

  Dosie began to get up early in the morning, well before sunrise. It was better than lying in bed alone and imagining herself lying in bed not alone. It was interesting, anyway, to walk the beach just as dawn cracked the horizon to see what had washed up in the night. She thought about things as she walked, nothing special, this or that and the other thing, and maybe a little about her being too needy, although the subject had pretty much exhausted itself in her mind. It was being useful that intrigued her now.

  At low tide, shells littered the beach and sand dollars were like biscuits strewn across the sand. When she found a broken one, she was delighted to find there were smaller pieces inside like sculpted birds of fine white china. Driftwood, twisted like gargoyles, was left gray and dry before the dunes. A few times, she found some beach glass, mostly green, a few yellows, though none so glorious as the scarlet ones Josh had shown her in the Keeper’s House. She carried many of the more interesting pieces back. Pretty soon, she had a good collection and wondered if she might start making jewelry. That would be a good thing to do, she decided. Even useful. Why, she might even sell her work.

  After a while, it seemed every time Dosie sat down to think and worry about herself, she thought of something else better to do. She hung wind chimes made of shells and string on her porch and painted a hand-lettered sign on a driftwood board and nailed it to the gatepost that said Dosie’s Delight. “Dosie’s Lament might be more in order,” she thought, but she was trying to stay positive. She also put a sign up on the stable that read Genie’s Joy. It made her laugh.