The Keeper's Son

by Homer Hickam

  Rex and Joe had come across on the morning ferry from Morehead City along with other riders and horses of the newly formed Coast Guard Beach Patrol. The pair had been let off on the island called Killeykeets, or some such, with the rest of the troop taken on up to Ocracoke to leave a few men and their mounts, and thence to Hatteras and Currituck for the rest. Rex’s only order, received from a Coast Guard officer before going aboard the ferry, was to report in to somebody at Doakes Station. He had asked the folks at the ferry landing where he might find Doakes. After they were through staring at him and Joe, they had pointed across the island. Rex had ridden through a dense woods and then through a cut in some high dunes that led to the Atlantic Ocean. He wasn’t sure where to go from there but he spotted the lighthouse and headed for it to get more directions. The lighthouse and the house beside it were empty, so he and Joe had continued on down the beach toward a house a mile or so farther. It had also proved empty, although they had found a stable. Rex started following the hoofprints leading out of it.

  The woman and the mare came up to them. Rex doffed his hat. “Afternoon, ma’am,” he said. “Is this the way to Whalebone City?”

  “Exactly the wrong way,” Dosie answered. “If you turn around and go about three miles, you’ll be there. If you don’t mind me asking, who and what are you?”

  “Sergeant Rex Stewart of the United States Coast Guard Beach Patrol, ma’am,” Rex said, sweeping his hat. “This is my horse, Joe Johnston. Come to keep this island safe from Nazis.”

  Dosie introduced herself. “Miss Dosie Crossan. I live in that house just there. I didn’t know the Coast Guard had sergeants. Isn’t that the army or the marines?”

  Rex plopped his hat back on. “Well, they said I could call myself pretty much what I wanted to. What should be my rank, do you think?”

  “I guess you can be a sergeant,” Dosie said. “I’m not an expert on the military.”

  “Have you seen any suspicious activities?” Rex asked.

  “I was just going to Doakes to report bodies washed up on the beach.”

  Rex was astonished, then made more so when Dosie told him about the sinking of the Lady Morgan and all the dead and wounded brought ashore. She also told him a bit about Josh and the Maudie Jane, which was even at that moment out hunting U-boats. Rex patted his Winchester. “Guess I might need ol’ Winnie here.”

  “Do you want to see the bodies?” Dosie asked.

  Rex guessed it was his duty to see them so he agreed and Dosie turned Genie around. Genie seemed reluctant to break the nose-to-nose contact that she was having with Joe, who, after all, was a handsome stallion.

  At the site of the bodies, Rex dismounted and tried to come to grips with the situation. “Damnedest thing,” he said. “Who would’ve thunk it?”

  “I found some more,” Willow said.

  Reflexively, Rex filled his hand with his revolver, but then he saw it was only a girl riding bareback on a shaggy pony. They had both appeared like a puff of wind. Rex holstered the Colt, doffed his hat, and swooped it politely. “Afternoon, little lady. Who might you be?”

  “Her name’s Willow,” Dosie said. Then she whispered in Rex’s ear, “Some people say she’s a hoo-doo.”

  Willow said, “I am not a hoo-doo. I found some more and they’re not resting.” She pointed to the south.

  “I believe Willow’s found some men in a lifeboat, Sergeant Stewart,” Dosie said, squinting in the direction of her point.

  Rex climbed back aboard Joe. “Let’s have us a look,” he said.

  The lifeboat was from the tanker Esso Salt Lake City. There were six men aboard it, one of whom was badly burned. Rex and Dosie helped them to the sand hills above the beach. “I don’t even have so much as a first aid kit,” Rex said. He was starting to realize his job might be less fighting Nazis on the beach and more helping poor sailors stranded on it. “What do you think we should do?”

  Dosie gave it some thought, then said, “Use a blanket from your bedroll to cover the burned man. Then, if you head that way across the sand hills, you’ll come upon a path that will lead you to a pond of fresh water. I noticed a bailing bucket in the lifeboat. Take it and bring back water for these men. While you’re doing that, I’ll go up to Doakes, borrow the jeep, and come back with Doc Folsom. One way or the other, you wait here until I get back.”

  “Say,” Rex said, “you’re not in the Coast Guard, too, are you?”

  “No, why would you say that?”

  “Well, you seem to know exactly what to do.”

  Dosie puffed up, just a little. “I was always a good organizer,” she said.

  “Maybe you ought to join the patrol. I mean this looks like a lot of beach to cover all by myself. You and Genie would be a big help to me and Joe.”

  Dosie of the Beach Patrol. She liked the sound of it. “I wouldn’t mind being in this war,” she said.

  “I was told by an officer I could recruit some help on the island as long as they didn’t care to get paid.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Dosie said, even though she was already inclined to do it. Then, to the stranded sailors, she said, “You just wait here. Rex is going to get you some water and I’m going to fetch back a doctor.”

  “Bless you, little miss,” one of the sailors said. “You are like unto an angel.”

  Dosie leaped aboard Genie and went off on the gallop.

  33

  The U-560, going in to lie off the island, caught the little freighter steaming along as if it had all the time in the world. “We’ll use the eighty-eight millimeter on it,” Krebs decided.

  Before the gun crew could get into position, the freighter suddenly sped up and away. She was a fast little thing. Krebs was reluctant to order Hans to use full turns to catch her. “Load the G-7 in the stern torpedo tube,” he said, referring to the old-style steam-driven torpedo. It was, in fact, the only torpedo left in the stern. The old design, however, was best for what he needed, a long-distance shot at a receding target. The G-7s could go long and fast, though they produced a large amount of bubbles. Krebs doubted if it mattered whether the freighter could see the torpedo or not. Her master was not taking her on a zigzag course. He was just moving her as rapidly away from the U-560 as possible.

  Krebs accomplished the calculations and launched the torpedo, expecting to catch the freighter in the stern. But she zigzagged at the last second and was struck broadside. The explosion lifted her nearly out of the water and broke her in two. Within a few minutes, the bow went down. Krebs ordered the U-560 in closer while the Chief made an identification, then watched the freighter crew row off in lifeboats. There didn’t seem to be any casualties unless men had been trapped in the bow. “I put her as the City of Tallahassee, sir,” the Chief said. “Five thousand four hundred and forty-six gross tons carrying general cargo.”

  Krebs saw a glint of sunlight reflecting off a boat coming their way. “I think it’s the patrol boat from the island.”

  Max took a look through the Zeiss glasses. “It is. They’re coming to rescue the crew,” he concluded.

  Krebs wasn’t so sure. “Chief, take us down. Let’s take a closer look.”

  The stern of the freighter lolled in its half-sunk position, the placid sea lapping against its rust-pitted hull. She had been broken in two, the bow drifted off or sunk. “I think it’s the City of Tallahassee,” Phimble said, after a study of the shipping registry. “Five thousand four hundred and forty-six gross tons according to this. General cargo. Look there on the stern. It’s hard to see for all the rust, but its number is the Tallahassee’s all right.”

  Josh was at the wheel, idling the Maudie Jane around the ragged stern. There was charring on the exterior of the broken wheelhouse, indicative of an internal fire that had spread from below. A lifeboat hung awry on its davit fall, perhaps stranded when the freighter had rolled toward the torpedo hole, a wound that looked as if a giant hammer had beaten a huge hole in its side. Upwind, the sharp odor of ammonia pierced nasal passag
es. “Refrigerant,” Josh commented to Phimble. “I hope the crew got well away before it was released. I’ve heard of men being asphyxiated by it even out on the open sea.”

  The Maudie Janes were looking hard for bodies while hoping they wouldn’t find any. “Hey, a contact!” Jimmy called from the sonar closet, his voice shrill with excitement. “About five hundred yards dead ahead, Skipper!”

  “Remain calm, Jimmy,” Josh replied through the voice-phone after handing over the wheel to Phimble.

  “Yes, sir!” Jimmy shrieked.

  Josh grimaced and held the receiver away from his ear. “All ahead,” he said to Phimble. Phimble pushed the throttles to the stops and the Maudie Jane roared.

  Jimmy called out, now a bit calmer. “Still good contact. It’s running from us, whatever it is. Thirty degrees to starboard.”

  It was a good feeling to have a U-boat running from them. “Go help Ready with the depth charges, Eureka,” Josh ordered. “Set two charges at sixty feet. I’ll give you the signal when to let them go.”

  Krebs let Max take a turn at the scope. “She’s got depth charges in her racks,” Max observed.

  Pok! Pok!

  The sonar echoes striking the U-560 were startling. No one had been expecting them. “She’s also got ears,” Krebs said. “That settles the issue, then. Let’s get rid of this nuisance.” He took back the periscope. “Chief, is our last torpedo ready?”

  “Yes, sir, ready!”

  Josh took the wheel again and Phimble scrambled back to the racks, told Ready to set the depth on the next charges, and pulled the safety pins. Josh raised his hand, then let it drop. “Pull!” Phimble yelled at Ready on the starboard rack, then followed his own order on the portside one. The depth charges rolled overboard and splashed into the wake. A few seconds followed, and then a thunderclap shook the Maudie Jane, followed by twin geysers of foamy white seawater spewing high into the sky. Sunlight flashed through them, producing a million sparkling rainbows.

  “Why, that’s right pretty,” Again said to his brother at their stations on the bow. Marvin was with them, thumping his tail on the deck. He had an eager grin on his face. “You like chasing U-boats, don’t you, Marvin?” Again asked, squatting to pet the dog.

  “Dammit, Again, stop petting Marvin and get on that machine gun!” Josh yelled.

  • • •

  “Here they come,” Krebs said, his eyes melded with the periscope eyepiece. “Chief, take us down ten meters and then hard aport.”

  The U-560 painfully throbbed as the electrics spun up to speed, then they heard overhead the splashes of two depth charges. “Push it, Chief!” Krebs yelled.

  “It’s still moving, sir,” Jimmy said over the speaker. “Sixty degrees to port. About a hundred yards away.”

  Josh cut the eighty-three-footer in that direction, signaling Phimble and Ready to get prepared for another drop. He thought to himself, I should slow down, wait until we get right over the target and then drop the charges. He drew back on the twin throttles and the Maudie Jane dipped her bow, friction slowing her down. Jimmy yelled, his voice back up to shrill. “We’re right over it, sir!”

  Josh gave the signal and Phimble and Ready pulled the levers and the barrels rolled in. “Uh-oh,” Ready said at that instant. “I forgot to set the depths.”

  “Oh, shit,” Phimble groaned just as a volcano of blue-green water roared up under the Maudie Jane. When she came down, her transom disappeared underwater, and what looked like a tidal wave flushed Phimble and Ready nearly halfway to the wheelhouse.

  On the bow, the men hung on to the railings except for Once, who held on to Marvin. Somehow, they all managed to stay on board. Below decks, Fisheye and Big went tumbling past their engines, which, after a moment’s hesitation, fortunately kept chugging.

  On the stoop bridge, Josh had been knocked flat on his back. My God, he thought as he got up. I’ve sunk my own boat!

  Pretch announced, “Hydrophones are quiet, sir. The Americans are dead in the water.”

  Krebs ordered a return to periscope depth and took a look. The patrol boat was just sitting in front of the freighter. Some of the men aboard her seemed to be getting to their feet. “Looks like she took a hit from her own depth charges,” Krebs said, grinning. “We’ve got her now.” He called out the numbers for torpedo guidance. “All right, Chief! Los!”

  The crew of the U-560 held their collective breaths at the spewing noise of their last torpedo leaving its tube.

  “Torpedo!” Again yelled, and pointed to starboard.

  Josh looked after the point and saw, not more than a hundred yards away, the unmistakable track of a torpedo streaming straight for them. He jammed the throttles forward and the engines stuttered. “Come on, baby!” Josh yelled. “Oh, come on, you sweet Maudie Jane!”

  Krebs saw a sudden boil of white froth at the stern of the patrol boat as she began to gather way. In disbelief, he watched the torpedo sizzle past and keep going, striking the freighter. The crew of the U-560 misinterpreted the resulting explosion and raised a cheer. “Hoorah for our captain!”

  The Chief gleefully added, “Fingerspitzengefühl!”

  Then came the sound of the American sonar, its thump on the hull like the rap of ghostly knuckles. The cheering abruptly stopped.

  “I missed her,” Krebs announced.

  The faces of the men in the tower control room first registered disappointment, then turned to fear.

  I should come to the surface and fight it out, Krebs thought. Lay into them with the eighty-eight. Then he decided he had taken enough chances. “Chief, get us out of here,” he said. “Flank speed. Let’s get some room.”

  “The sub’s moving west, Skipper,” Jimmy advised.

  Josh had no choice but to let it move anywhere it wanted. The Maudie Jane’s engines needed to be inspected. Fisheye had already come up and said he was worried that one of them might be a bit mommicked.

  “Eureka, let’s get out of here.”

  “This one’s a draw, eh, Skipper?”

  “This one was just practice. Next time, we’ll get him.”

  Max found Krebs in the bow torpedo room, looking at the empty racks. He’d sent the torpedomen back to the galley to be given a cup of beer apiece. It hadn’t been their fault that their last torpedo had missed.

  “Kaleu, are you all right?”

  Krebs pretended to be inspecting the leaky torpedo tube door. “What do you think, Max?” he asked almost idly.

  “I think anybody can miss a torpedo shot on a moving target, especially if you don’t know it’s going to move.”

  “I should have anticipated it.”

  “The Americans were lucky.”

  Krebs wheeled on Max. “We’ve always been the lucky ones, Max. If we’ve lost our luck, we are in trouble.”

  “It hasn’t been luck that’s kept us alive, sir. You’ve always seen a way to get us past our scrapes. I’m confident you will continue to find a way.”

  Krebs shook his head. “I wish I was as confident as you.”

  Max started to serve up a platitude, then realized Krebs wasn’t looking for consolation. He was looking for something inside himself, the thing that had made him love matching his wits against the enemy. If he had lost that, then perhaps the U-560 was indeed in trouble. “I have hidden away a respectable bottle of schnapps, sir,” Max said. “Perhaps you would care to join me in its destruction.”

  Krebs smiled, then gripped Max’s shoulder. “What would I do without you, my friend?”

  “Today, you’d miss out on a good drink,” Max said modestly, then led the way astern to find the bottle.

  Phimble moved the Maudie Jane eastward, deeper into the Stream. A subdued Ready was acting as lookout. He had been thoroughly chewed out by both Phimble and Josh for forgetting to set the depths on the charges. To make up for it, he was determined to see everything. When he caught sight of something bobbing on the ocean off to the north, he called it out even if it was small. It proved to be a tiny boat
, very low in the water.

  Josh took a look through the binoculars that hung around his neck. It was, indeed, a tiny boat, too small by far to be this far out. “Eureka, head over to whatever that is,” he called over his shoulder.

  A few minutes later, the Maudie Jane closed to a hundred yards of the odd little boat. Josh had nearly screwed his binoculars into his eyes. It was what it was, whether he believed it or not. It was a moth boat, its hull painted a bright red, and its mast lashed to its deck.

  Josh’s mind swirled with possibilities. Abandoned wrecks off the Outer Banks, if they were placed just so, were sometimes carried north by the Gulf Stream, then sucked south by the Labrador Current, only to be caught in the Stream again, looping around.

  But, my God, seventeen years! Surely, in all that time, the little moth boat that had held Jacob, even caught between the two currents, would have been sunk by a storm or put down by a rogue wave or simply spotted and picked up. But there was no denying that it was there, bobbing placidly. Waiting.

  Phimble idled the Maudie Jane to drift in on the tiny boat. Once was on the bow, closest to it. “There’s something moving in it!” he called out. “And it’s whimpering!”

  Josh let loose of the binoculars, which fell to dangle from the strap around his neck. His vision went a bit fuzzy and then he went down on one knee. He felt as if he were suffocating. Ready reached down to help him. Phimble saw what had happened and would have come to help, too, except that there was another problem. A ghost ship had suddenly appeared, reared up on the distant horizon, and it had turned in the direction of the Maudie Jane.

  34

  Dosie arrived back with the jeep and Doc in it. Doc slogged up the dune to where Rex and the men of the Esso Salt Lake City were waiting. “I’m Doc Folsom,” he said, resting his black bag in the sand. “How you boys doing?”