“I never really stopped,” Claire said, “but something took us down to a Boston elementary school one day, and whatever it was—hungry little minds, happy little faces, their innocence … well, it sort of converted me and made me want to teach. Once in a while when I’ve been short, after taxes for example, I’ve gone up to the Queen Bee’s and done some pastry baking, and occasionally, to supplement my rent, I put in an evening with the chef at The Jarvis House. He’s quite good without me, as you know, but it keeps me from losing my touch. Mrs. Jarvis would have me in there three nights a week if I let her, but beyond special events like banquets or club dinners, I try not to interfere, and really, she can’t afford to pay me beyond what I’m already doing. That’s why I hold down the library job in the summers.”
“You are full of surprises,” Ash said.
“And I hope I always will be,” Claire said. “Just wait until you see the surprise I brought back from Portland for you.”
The surprise turned out to be a form-fitting nightgown that Ash thought put Claire one up on the famous Life magazine photo of Rita Hayworth that the crew had plastered onto nearly every bulkhead in their berthing compartments. It was, they said, what they were fighting for, and Ash had never tried to deny it. Claire, when she came out, looked so stunning that she left Ash speechless.
“You give me a whole new reason for living,” he said finally. And when he said it, he knew that he wasn’t kidding.
Ash didn’t spend more than an hour at the boatyard the following day. Arriving late in the morning, he could see at once that Anson had the work well in hand and rapidly underway, so after signing off on two additional work orders, checking with Gomez about the skeleton crew left aboard, and packing a bag to take back with him, Ash withdrew, caught the bus back to South Freeport, and spent the afternoon in bed with Claire after which the two of them dressed and went out for a stroll over the snow and a Portuguese meal in an eatery run by a retired fisherman and his wife.
“It certainly isn’t the Ritz,” Claire whispered, “but the food here is always good, particularly the shrimp, the way he blends the garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil around them.”
“And do you make this too?” Ash asked.
“Yes, but not as well as they do here. I think he may use a dash of paprika, and I haven’t tried that.”
All too swiftly the days slipped by until suddenly it was Christmas Eve. Outside, new snow had fallen, the air had gone still, and the temperature had dropped crisply to several degrees below freezing. Claire had once more cooked for the evening, serving up a fish stew according to a Galician recipe that Ash had found delicious, and then, sitting on the couch to listen to the radio, Ash had opened a bottle of Mouton Cadet that Claire particularly liked, and the two of them had listened to Lionel Barrymore’s rendering as Scrooge in a radio adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Later, they switched the dial to music. And that night, for the first time, Ash had heard Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas.”
“Haven’t you seen Holiday Inn yet?” Claire asked. “It’s a wonderful movie. Irving Berlin songs, and both Crosby and Fred Astaire at their best.”
“No,” Ash said. “About the only flicks I’ve seen since the war started are the ones I’ve been to with you, in Yarmouth.”
“Wonderful songs, wonderful dancing, delightful comedy,” Claire said. “We ought to check the papers, find where it’s showing, and go to see it in the next couple of days.”
“Sounds fine,” Ash said. “Can I give you that for Christmas? We haven’t been out to shop, and I don’t have a thing for you.”
“Oh yes you do,” Claire said, “and if it won’t conflict with your intentions, I’d like to start exchanging gifts before the bells ring tonight.”
On Christmas morning, clad in nothing more than their bath robes, Ash and Claire sat across from one another at the apartment’s kitchen table, drinking coffee and making a feast out of the cinnamon rolls that Claire had baked. In the apartment’s front room, behind their tinsel-laden Christmas tree, the radio continued to play a mixture of Christmas carols and sacred classical music in a pattern that seemed to change every 15 minutes. With the room warm enough to permit it, Claire’s robe remained fetchingly open near the top, open enough so that even with her hair in disarray after the busy night they’d spent in bed, she still looked alluring and, Ash thought, incredibly beautiful.
“I hope this won’t strike you as too abrupt,” Ash said, as Claire looked up from her plate and lifted her coffee mug to her lips, “but this war we’re in really does seem to have canceled the old rules. I want to marry you, Claire. Will you accept?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, a flush of happiness spreading across her face. “When?”
Suddenly, Ash felt warm all over. “I suppose,” he said, meeting her smile, “that it depends on what kind of wedding you want to have.”
Claire put down her coffee mug. “A girl has her dreams, Ash, and since you last went away, I’ve had a long time to dream, so if you really want to know, here’s what would please me the most.” She paused and gave Ash a penetrating stare, her face all business. “You get up, go down to the ship in the morning, and check on the work, and then you come straight back here. By then, I’ll have had time to comb my hair and get into something appropriate, and then we’ll go straight out, find the Justice of the Peace, and have him marry us. No fru-fru, no invitations, no guests, no wedding presents, no traipsing off to Niagara Falls—just you and me right here because this is the best. You’ve already brought me more happiness than I’ve ever known, and I’d be happy to live with you in sin for the rest of our lives, so marriage is simply the icing on the cake. I want to have your baby, Ash, just as soon as we can make one.”
Ash didn’t know what to say. Claire had again stolen his breath away. He’d imagined that their marriage, if Claire accepted him, would have to be put off for months while the prospective bride did whatever prospective brides liked to do before getting married. He’d imagined having to make a journey somewhere to Claire’s home, having to meet friends and family, having to endure all of the niceties that normally went with such occasions. But once more, Claire had surprised him and shown him in an instant how the rules had changed. Claire had tossed Mother’s little etiquette book straight into the fire and seized the moment, challenging Ash as she did so.
“You surprise me every time,” Ash grinned. “What, no engagement ring, no announcements by the town crier, no endless fittings for the wedding dress of the century?”
“Why would I need to do any of that if I’ve got you?” Claire said. “A pox on the whole of it!”
“I’ll do my best to be back by ten o’clock,” Ash said, “and I'll horsewhip the bus driver if he tries to dawdle.”
“That’s my man,” Claire said.
“One thing,” Ash said. “About having a family. I’d hate to interfere with your best laid plans, but perhaps we ought to give ourselves a year or two, to ourselves, the Navy permitting, and perhaps we ought to think a little about how I’m going to feed and clothe the lad—”
“Or lass,” Claire cut in.
“Or lass,” Ash confirmed, “which automatically means double the expense, I’m sure.”
“Now stop that,” Claire said, with a glint in her eye. “Little girls are quite practical to raise, and I sew.”
“Lord,” Ash said, “what will pop out next. Do you also work on cars?”
“You will be pleased to know that I can not only change a tire but also do a tune-up,” Claire said.
“You are gold beyond my wildest dreams,” Ash said, leaning across the table and giving her a kiss. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’d like to be able to support a family before we start one.”
“We’ll negotiate,” Claire said.
“And I intend to hold you to that,” Ash said.
They were married the following day at 11 am civilian time by a slightly bemused Justice of the Peace who’d stopped shoveling his sidewalk
in order to accommodate them.
“Funny hour for a wedding,” the J.P. had said, when he pronounced them man and wife. “Usually, I hold these things off until after lunch.”
“We decided to seize the moment,” Claire said.
“Lieutenant,” the J.P.’s wife, their principal witness, said as the J.P. once more wrapped a scarf around his neck and prepared to return to his snow shovel, “I’d say ya got yourself a bargain here. A woman that knows her mind’s worth a pound of salt in this world. I hope you’re very happy, the both of you.”
Taking the bus up to Bath for the afternoon, they actually did go to see Holiday Inn, Claire telling Ash that she thought it the perfect Christmas movie, a probable classic, and Ash agreeing with her. Then they took the bus down to Yarmouth and invited Mrs. Jarvis to dine with them while they sprang what they hoped would be their little surprise on her by announcing that they were married.
“My dear,” Mrs. Jarvis said to Claire, “I don’t want to disappoint you, but I marked the two of you out for one another the first time Captain Miller spoke to me about you. This war has done a lot of evil for an awful lot of people, but in a few instances, it has also done some good, and you two are the example. And Captain, I won’t take a cent in rent on the apartment, and I’m adamant about that. Consider it my wedding present to the both of you.”
Ash and Claire made the best of the three remaining days they spent together. Regardless of her objections, Ash did push her into a South Freeport jewelry store where he made her select a ring, and over her additional objections, he called down to the paymaster in Portland and arranged both for a housing allowance and for a monthly allotment from his paycheck.
“Good with money, are you?” Ash asked.
“When you get back here again,” Claire said, “you will find that I’ve built us a nest egg that will astonish you.”
“No betting on the horses, now,” Ash teased, “and no betting on the hockey games either.”
“You can count on it,” Claire said.
In bed and out of it, neither wasted the time that remained to them, but then, finally, at around 11 pm on the night of the 28th, Ash kissed Claire goodbye, helped her dry a few tears, and returned to the ship, leaving her in residence in the wartime home that they’d decided to keep.
By the time Ash got back, Solly and Hamp had already returned from New York, the crew was back on board, and Anson had pumped them enough fuel and water for their morning run down Casco Bay.
“Well,” Hamp said, dropping his feet from the top of the wardroom table to the deck as Ash came down the ladder, “look what the cats have dragged in.”
“If I find that you’ve both stowed away Chana and Keren somewhere aboard,” Ash said, “the two of you are going to be in considerable trouble. Good week in New York, was it?”
“Excellent,” Solly said. “Keren cooked, my mother cooked, and Chana burned something. We ate like kings on roasted turkey, a brilliant roast beef, and a shriveled piece of charcoal, glazed with coal black asparagus and egg hardened to the consistency of steel.”
“He exaggerates,” Hamp said. “Chana is really quite good in the kitchen.”
“He’s talking about necking,” Solly said, “not about her cooking. I advised my mother to send her daughter out for a course somewhere.”
“And what about you?” Hamp asked. “The spinster pour you some Pekoe tea? Sip, sip!”
“The spinster is no longer a spinster,” Ash said. “She is now Mrs. Miller.”
The wardroom went silent.
“You’re kidding?” Solly said. “Aren’t you?”
“Holy shit!” Hamp exclaimed. “He’s not!”
“We got married the day after Christmas,” Ash said. “And nothing could be finer. You boys should try it sometime. Gives you a whole new perspective on life.”
“Congratulations,” Solly said, rising to his feet and shaking Ash’s hand. “She’s a wonderful girl, Claire, and she’ll make you a wonderful wife. Well done, Ash. Well done!”
“Same here,” Hamp said, turning serious for once. “Chana and Keren think the world of her, and so do I. You are a lucky, lucky man. What decided you?”
“We couldn’t find a reason to wait,” Ash said. “For better or worse—and in our case, for better—the old norms seem to have disappeared and a whole new set seems to have come into play. We took a good look at the facts on Christmas morning, and then we acted on them.”
“Good decision,” Solly said. “Very.”
“I suspect that the male population of Yarmouth will go into mourning,” Hamp said.
“Seems likely,” Ash said, “that I have shown them no mercy.”
The following morning and with a strong tide running, Chaser 3 backed from the pier and once more went to war.
23
The sailors on the ammunition lighter who restored Chaser 3’s depth charges, gun ammunition, and pyrotechnics in Portland also brought out news that there had been heavy fighting in Tunisia and that the troops on Guadalcanal were pushing the beaten Japanese hard toward the western end of the island.
Teague, who came up to report their ammunition stowed, brought Ash the news.
“Guy on the lighter said that we might bag as many as ten or twenty thousand Japs out there on the Canal,” he told Ash.
“Good,” Ash said. “That’ll even the score some.”
They were away after the replenishment almost immediately, herding three empty freighters and a high riding tanker to New York. The uneventful trip took two days of rough running through high winter seas, but once they reached Raritan Bay, rather than rest, they were replenished by a tender and went out again at once, along with a PC and two other chasers, the four of them escorting two tankers and several well-loaded freighters toward a transfer to take place east of Cape May. In the midst of the transit, along the Delaware coast, the escort commander, the skipper of the PC, received a message that a tanker had gone aground off Fenwick Island shoal, broken up, and lost some of her crew overboard. A search appeared to be underway, and Ash was detached to participate, urgent warnings about safe navigation and shallow water coming through at the foot of the signal. The escort commander then ordered the two other chasers to proceed with the convoy while Ash headed toward Fenwick Island to join the search.
Arriving on station at the island and taking soundings with the lead line to avoid running aground himself, Ash joined a small Coast Guard cutter and two fishing boats that had been pressed into service. Together, the four of them combed the area out to a distance of 5 miles; finally, in the last daylight hour, Ash sighted two men floating with the current in their life jackets. One of them, an American merchant sailor—covered with oil even after hours in the sea—was already dead from exposure. The other, a man who could barely speak, was nearly so. Ash transferred the men to the Coast Guard cutter, and when the search was discontinued, hastened south to rejoin the convoy, something he did not manage to do before reaching Cape May where the ships had already been handed over to three DEs assigned to take them on to Charleston.
For a single night, Chaser 3 tied up at Cape May, replenished, and got underway again at dawn, plowing back north in company with a fleet tug, a second chaser, and two empty troopships, both of them heading for piers on the Hudson. With the seas running high, Ash found the voyage arduous. Once more, men were sick; once more, the crew found themselves reduced to eating cold sandwiches, and once more, Samarango and Stobb fought a battle, not against the Germans but merely to keep the decks swabbed down and the stench below within tolerance.
“Solly in his bunk?” Ash asked as Hamp relieved Samarango on the deck.
“Yes,” Hamp said, “and I’d be there too, in a heartbeat, if I didn’t have to stand the deck. How come you’re not in your hammock? Not indulging in a bout of masochism to make up for the absence of your wife, I hope?”
Ash ducked as a wave of spray came flying up from the bow. “My stomach feels like a churn at the moment,” Ash said. “Fac
ing the sea like this seems to be the only thing holding it in check. I can’t help wondering what the troops are going to feel like once they board those troopships and take off for parts unknown. Those things look relatively steady up alongside what we’re going through, but are they?”
“Met an officer off a troopship over Christmas,” Hamp said. “They got bunks built six high in the berthing compartments, and from what he told me, the only safe spot is in the top bunk. Guy on the bottom gets barfed on by everyone above him. He said they’re like sick dogs for the first three or four days going over, and that the interior of those things stinks to high heaven; the stench can make a man sick even when the ship is tied up fast to the pier. Once they get to England or wherever, the troops practically run off the ship in order to breath fresh air.”
“No lack of that here,” Ash said, as the two men ducked behind the wind screen, another sheet of spray flying up from the bow. “I suppose we ought to count ourselves lucky.”
“What was it like on a destroyer?” Hamp asked.
“It could get bad,” Ash said, “and once up off the tip of Long Island, it got very bad, but it was never like this. It never felt quite like plunging off a cliff and then being jerked straight up again.”
Twenty miles south of Raritan Bay, in response to an urgent dispatch, Ash fell in alongside the fleet tug and turned east on a straight course of 090 magnetic. Somewhere out there, about a hundred miles distant, a freighter, the Meldon Empire, had struck a mine. Her crew had managed somehow to stop the flooding and seal off whatever compartments were already flooded, but her bearings had seized up, so she was dead in the water, taking a pounding from the sea, and unable to get underway. The tug, if they could reach her in time, would have to bring her in; otherwise, if the pounding continued, she would probably break up and go down, taking her crew of 43 merchant sailors with her. On the strength of their depth charges and the possibility that the U-boat which had dropped the mines might still lurk in the area, Chaser 3 had been assigned to go along with the tug to give her and the freighter what protection he could, and act as escort once the tug began to tow.
Splinter on the Tide Page 25