The Keeper's Son

by Homer Hickam

  Josh had been sent earlier to the tower, to tend the light. By some strange instinct, he came into the house at that very moment. One look at his father’s stricken face and Queenie sobbing was enough for him to charge upstairs. He returned, his face flushed, and angry. Only twelve years old, he had walked up to his father and struck him as hard as he could in the face, knocking Keeper Jack down.

  Keeper Jack took another drink and discovered he was angry and wanted to hurt Josh. Josh, who refused to be a keeper so as to keep the pride and tradition of the Killakeet Thurlows going; Josh who had knocked him down and then two years later lost Jacob through carelessness. No, he’d lost Jacob because he had coveted a little boat more than the safety of his own brother! And now Josh had the gall to say he wasn’t going to come to a service honoring little Jacob? Keeper Jack peered at Josh and the anger that he’d bottled up over the years started to come uncorked. He picked up his spoon and wagged it at his only remaining son. “Josh, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

  Everyone at the table stared at Keeper Jack’s flushed face.

  “The maws of your Maudie Janes have been complaining about you mistreating the boys,” he growled, diverting at the last second his complaint into something not quite as personal. “You work them too hard, they say.”

  “No more than needed, sir,” Josh responded respectfully.

  Doc interrupted Keeper Jack just as he opened his mouth to say more. “Do you see a U-boat coming over here as in the Great War, Josh?”

  “Yes, sir, I do,” Josh said forthrightly. “And more than one.”

  Keeper Jack put down his spoon and filled his whiskey glass again. “Maybe you’re getting too big for your britches,” he snarled in Josh’s direction. “Maybe you ought to listen to somebody besides that damn Negro.”

  “Bosun Phimble saved my life more than once in Alaska,” Josh replied in a stony voice. “And he’s the finest man I’ve ever known.”

  Dosie, seeing trouble already brewed, tried to get another topic going. “Queenie,” she said, “how goes the preparations for the celebration of the lighthouse?”

  “Why, very well, dear,” Queenie answered, although her voice betrayed her, trembling a little. “It should be a grand affair.”

  “I have been working on the invocation,” Preacher said, waving a duck drumstick. “It shall recall how the Killakeet Light is a lot like the Lord’s light, illuminating ships, rather than souls.”

  “Well, Preacher,” Keeper Jack rumbled, putting aside his anger with Josh for a second, “it ain’t exactly accurate to say my light ‘luminates ships.’ It shines so that ships might see it, don’t you know, rather than the other way around.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Preacher said, deflated.

  “But I get your meaning, Preacher,” Keeper Jack went on. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you gear up a prayer for my lost son? Get it ready for when we put his marker down. Josh here, of course, ain’t coming. Says he don’t think it means enough.”

  Josh said nothing, just sat looking down at his plate.

  “Stop it!” Dosie said, snapping her eyes at the Keeper. “Do you think Josh needs a reminder of what happened to his brother? Don’t you know he lives with it every second of every day?”

  The Keeper shrugged and reached for his bottle. “It’s the least he could do,” he said, “for all that he did.”

  Josh and the Keeper didn’t look at each other for the rest of the evening. The conversation dwindled to nothing. Chief Glendale sang his rendition of “A Bamboo Bungalow for Two,” accompanied by Queenie at the piano, which at least kept some semblance of a party mood alive. Midnight came and Keeper Jack, Doc, and the Preacher repaired to Doc’s infirmary to drink some more whiskey. Chief Glendale was staggering drunk and Sarah took him home. Dosie and Josh lingered outside the Hammerhead beside the jeep. “I’ll drive you back,” he said.

  “No, let’s walk,” Dosie said, kicking off her shoes. “Just to clear our heads.”

  Josh went up to his room and put on the silk scarf she had given him for Christmas and then they walked down the beach, not saying anything. Finally, the tension had built so much, Josh felt compelled to say, “I read your letter.”

  “Did you understand it?”

  “Not a word.”

  “How about the part where I said I never wanted to see you again?”

  “I took that as sort of vague,” Josh said, which made Dosie chuckle.

  When they reached the gate of Dosie’s Delight, Dosie said, “Sit in the rockers with me for a while and let’s talk.”

  They settled into the rocking chairs. The sea crashed before them, low tide. The lights of passing ships twinkled. The lamp in the lighthouse flashed its great silver beam. Josh’s rocking slowed, then he leaned over and let his arms rest on his legs. “Thank you for taking up for me,” he said. “Daddy will have a big hangover in the morning.”

  Dosie bent forward until she could look Josh in the eyes. “I think your daddy just got a little frustrated tonight because you won’t attend the service for Jacob. You ought to, you know.”

  “I want to attend,” Josh said. “But I can’t pretend that it means anything.”

  Dosie resisted the urge to pat him on the knee. “Josh, I agree with your father. Go to the service. Give him what he wants. I think he needs it, even if you don’t.”

  Josh knew Dosie was right even though he didn’t like it. He studied the lights in the darkness, then said, “I’d better shove off.” He wanted to say more but he didn’t know how.

  Josh climbed down the steps into the sand. “I’ll see you, Dosie,” he said, and went through the gate, which clacked shut behind him. Dosie’s heart, which had been racing, slowed and then she found that tears were trailing down her cheeks. She wiped at them with her fingers, then went into the kitchen and leaned against the kitchen counter, looking through the window. In the darkness, all she saw was her reflection looking back. She was startled when she heard the clack of her gate. Her heart, which she supposed had stopped, started beating again. She went outside, to find Josh on the steps. He was lit by the Milky Way and the moon. “I don’t want to go,” he said.

  “I never told you to,” she answered.

  He climbed the steps and she met him. She buried her face into his chest and his arms went around her. Dosie took Josh’s hand and led him inside. The screen door slapped shut behind them while the lights of the ships, red and green and white, kept moving past, each ship awash in the message from the Killakeet Lighthouse: Move along. All is still safe along these shores.

  22

  The U-560 was caught in a vast and potentially deadly storm. Every few hours, Krebs dipped the U-boat below to let the crew rest from the battering, but the currents, surging eastward, were too strong for the electric motors. After battling for a few miles, the batteries dwindled and he was forced to order the U-boat back to the surface to fire up the diesels and recharge. When he did, Krebs yelled at Hans to not waste a second. To surface without power was to risk being rolled over by the huge seas.

  It didn’t help that only a few veterans were left on board. During the dockyard refurbishment, the Ninth Flotilla commander had redistributed many of U-560’s men to other boats in an attempt to put experienced men with all the recruits flooding in from the training centers. The fuzzy-faced replacements, most of them nineteen or twenty years old, had trooped aboard the freshly painted U-560 with the enthusiasm of children off on a trip to a museum. Krebs had watched them, thinking they were indeed clambering inside a museum, but one of death and destruction. Now, most of them were deathly ill, too sick to rise from their bunks except to puke. Only a few of them had strength enough to moan, but those who did managed to make up for the rest. “For God’s sake!” the Chief finally roared down the pressure tube. “Stop all that howling!” The moaning stopped for a few minutes, then started up again. “Babies!” spat the Chief. “They send us babies!” He filled his ears with cotton.

  The Chief
had other concerns beside the crew. He was proud of the work he’d overseen in the shipyard. A new deck had been laid in, and the bullet holes in the superstructure repaired and painted over. The engines had been overhauled and the drive machinery taken apart, inspected, and put together again. Even the symbol of the U-560, the grinning white shark, had been repainted on the conning tower. But now, after four days of continuous storm-toss, there had come an ominous thumping in one of the drive shafts. It only made its noise at low revolutions and the Chief had no idea what was causing it. If the drive shaft was out of round in some way, it could come apart at any moment. If it had been up to him, he would have turned the boat around and headed back to Brest. But it wasn’t up to him. It was up to Krebs, who showed no inclination to do anything but beat westward.

  When the batteries were drained, Krebs signaled the chief to bring up the boat again, then climbed onto the conning tower. He was struck by a shrieking wind that clawed at his face like an angry banshee. Three days into the journey, dead reckoning told him he was about halfway across the Atlantic. He crawled along the tower through the horrific wind until he could grasp a safety tether and strap himself in. After closing the tower hatch, Max crawled up beside him and did the same. No lookouts followed. There was no need of them, not in this weather. Even the Canadians wouldn’t be out in such conditions.

  Krebs stared morosely at the thick, dark clouds sweeping past so near they seemed to be combing his hair. “What a shitty day,” he grumped.

  Max thought he saw something. Yes! It was a small freighter, its lights defiant in the storm. It was atop a huge wave, then disappeared behind it. He tapped Krebs on the shoulder and pointed to where it had been. They watched and then saw the freighter’s twin stacks appear, only to disappear once more behind a mountain of water. “Separated from a convoy, I’ll wager!” Max yelled over the shriek of the wind.

  “She won’t make it,” Krebs replied. The water ran down his face into his beard. His eyes were red-rimmed from the salt water being blown into them. “She’ll be sunk within the hour.”

  “Poor souls,” Max replied.

  An enormous wave reared up in front of them. Max only had a moment to duck behind the fairing before it broke over the tower. When he opened his eyes, the tower was completely underwater. Then, abruptly, his head was clear and the wind was howling in his ears while he gasped for air.

  Krebs signaled Max to go below. He followed, slithering through the hatch. Max caught him, then the Chief dogged the cover. “Take us down, Chief,” Krebs ordered, kneeling in a lake of water and foam and hoping he was going to vomit. He’d swallowed at least a liter of seawater. His stomach lurched and up it came in a greenish spew.

  The Chief averted his eyes from Krebs and complied, sending the signal to the engine room. The diesels whined down to let the electric motors catch up. As they did, the deep, ugly beat of what sounded like a bass drum thumped through the submarine. “That damned shaft,” the Chief muttered.

  Krebs mopped himself as dry as he could with a damp, sour towel, then sat on the cushioned bench behind the tiny navigator’s table. Max came back from the galley carrying two mugs of luke-cold coffee. Krebs gratefully took one of them, sipped it, then screwed up his face. “This tastes like shit,” he said, putting the mug down.

  Max took a healthy swig. “Really? I thought it was closer to cold piss.”

  Krebs allowed a smile, then unrolled a chart on the desk. “Well, Max, here’s my plan. Have a look.”

  The chart was of the American east coast. Max noted the line that Krebs had drawn tucked into New York harbor and then down the east coast. “Our orders are to operate only off New York, sir,” he said.

  “So I heard,” Krebs replied. “But once a cruise has begun, a commander has to take initiative based on the situation. Admiral Doenitz himself has said this many times.”

  “And what is the situation?”

  “I think we’ll be the first of the six boats across. And therefore we are duty-bound to visit New York. But as soon as we attack there, the Americans will probably be down our throat. So we will let the Type Nines handle the United States Navy and go to where the pickings should be sweet. South. Right here.”

  Max studied the chart. “Cape Hatteras,” he said.

  “Or a little farther south.” Krebs touched the islands below Hatteras one by one. “Right about here.”

  “Why there?”

  Krebs ran his finger alongside the islands. “Here the Gulf Stream starts its sweep. The Labrador Current is pinched until it’s just a sliver. Ships riding north and south come together. It’s a choke point.”

  “What about Vogel? You know he’ll be looking for you.”

  “Who?” Krebs asked, and smiled.

  In the bow torpedo room, Harro and the other torpedomen blessed Captain Krebs for taking the U-560 under. Immediately, the pounding of the waves and the tossing of the boat stopped. After the strange thumping noise passed, the only sound was a few last moans from the boys still desperately sick and the dripping of water from one of the torpedo tubes. The leak wasn’t believed to be serious but the steady dripping was annoying. Everything the torpedomen had done to stifle it hadn’t worked. “Go and lie under it, Harro,” his mate Joachim Felcher told him. “Open your mouth and drink it as it comes out. That will stop its tedious noise.”

  “You should use it to take a bath, Joachim,” Harro answered with a laugh. “You could use one.”

  “Couldn’t we all?” another boy said, and all agreed. Less than a week out of Brest, they were already foul with sweat and grime.

  The U-560 steadied and began what everybody hoped would be an hour of smooth underwater sailing. “Enjoy the quiet time,” the Chief said, coming forward to stretch his legs. “We’ll be back on the surface soon.”

  Harro asked, “Chief, have you ever been to America?”

  “I was second mate on a freighter that used to go to New York every year or so. We also sailed to Charleston to offload iron ore we picked up in Africa. Someone told me it was bound for Alabama, which is somewhere out west. Indian country, perhaps. I think the Grand Canyon is there.”

  “America is a big place,” Harro said. “I always wanted to visit it.”

  “Well, here’s your chance,” the Chief gibed. “Only I don’t think you’re going to be very welcome.”

  “I have relatives in Milwaukee,” Joachim said. “They used to write and ask my family to come and visit all the time. If only they knew one of their cousins was on his way!”

  “Where is Milwaukee?” Harro asked.

  Joachim gave it some thought. “Not too far away from New York, I shouldn’t think.”

  “They haven’t asked you to visit lately, I don’t suppose?” the Chief asked.

  Joachim shrugged. “Since the Führer took power, we haven’t heard a word.”

  The torpedo tube’s drip had filled the can beneath it and was slopping over. Harro looked around to see if anyone was going to do anything about it, but apparently no one was. He was one of the few new recruits who hadn’t gotten seasick. Sighing, he crawled out of his bunk surrounded by live torpedoes and got the can and replaced it with an empty one. Then he went back into the engine room and poured the water into the bilges. Hans, the ghoulish engine-room officer, glanced at him with disinterest. Hans was mostly deaf after three years of living in the nearly constant clatter of his beloved twin diesels. Harro was a bit afraid of him but other crew members said he was harmless, just driven a bit mad by his job. “Well, the quiet is nice for a change,” Harro said to Hans, raising his voice to overcome the man’s deafness.

  “What do you mean?” Hans demanded. There was a wildness in his eyes.

  Harro indicated the diesel engines. “I mean with these two shut down.”

  Hans lunged for him, grabbed him by his shirt, and slammed him against the air lines that ran along the bulkhead. “You will not speak of my girls this way!”

  “Hans!” It was the Chief. He grabbed the man fro
m behind and threw him to the deck plates.

  “Get out of my engine room!” Hans blared. He got up on his knees and screamed, “Get out before I throw you out!”

  “Calm down, Hans,” the Chief said. He nodded to Harro. “Go on, boy. Get back where you belong.”

  Harro ducked forward through the hatches until he got back to the safety of the bow torpedo room to lie amongst the groaning boys and the thousands of pounds of high explosives. An hour later, the boat rose again. Everything was level and quiet until the deep thumping began that announced the sickness in the drive shaft. Then came the plunging and rolling of the U-560 on the surface and the din of the diesels raising hell. “At least crazy Hans is happy now,” Harro muttered while burying his head under a pillow that stank of hydraulic fluid and his own homesick tears.

  23

  On the first morning of the New Year, Josh and Dosie sat with cups of coffee and looked out across the brightening sea, the sky behind it resplendent with the scarlet and yellow glory of a Killakeet sunrise. After admiring it properly, Josh said, “There’s a dance Saturday at the Hammerhead. Why don’t we go?”

  Dosie set her cup down and leaned over in the rocker as if her stomach hurt, which Josh suspected was not a good sign that she wanted to go to the dance. “Josh, this is so hard for me,” she said, after sitting back. “Last night was swell. Real romantic and all. It’s what I’ve been wanting ever since I laid my eyes on you down on Miracle Point. But I keep coming back to the fact that I’m just doing the same thing I’ve always done, latching onto a guy and then letting him take care of me. I’ve got to learn to take care of myself. Another time and another place, you and I . . .” She shook her head. “I have to be alone, mostly. Do you understand?”