Fire and Steel, Volume 6

by Gerald N. Lund

  He stood there, chest heaving as the car shot forward, tires screeching, back end fishtailing.

  9:21 a.m.—School Grounds near Ralph’s

  “Hey, mister!”

  Benji’s head came up and he blinked against the brightness. He was in the shade of a playground’s slide, trying to generate enough energy to get moving again, though he had not the slightest idea of where he would go. Because the sun was behind the boy who had called out to him, he was silhouetted. Taken aback, Benji got slowly to his feet and stepped out from beneath the slide, shading his eyes. “Yes?”

  Then he drew in a quick breath. It was the boy. The one from the Buick. The one whose mother. . . . “Uh . . . yes? What is it?”

  The boy took another step forward, very tentatively. And now Benji could see that he held a grocery sack in his arms. Startled, he looked around. Where had he come from?

  “Um. . . .” the boy said, moving another step closer. He glanced over his shoulder, looking back toward the street.

  Following his gaze, Benji saw a blue Buick parked at the curb. A woman was behind the wheel. She was not looking his way. Her face was in profile as she stared forward. He turned back to the boy and smiled. “What is this?” he asked, motioning to the grocery sack.

  “Um . . . my mom said to give you this.” And he held out the grocery bag.

  Benji took it, so moved that he didn’t know what to say.

  “And . . . Mom said to tell you she’s sorry for what she said.”

  Benji was reeling. The bag was full and heavy. On top he saw a package of Twinkies wrapped in a cellophane package. Twinkies! He closed his eyes. When was the last time he had eaten a Twinkie? Then he remembered himself and looked down at the boy. Benji’s voice was husky as he said, “And will you tell her that I am very, very sorry that I frightened her? And for what I said too.”

  That seemed to relax the boy, and he smiled. “Yeah! I’ll tell her.”

  Benji thought about looking toward the car again. Waving. Maybe shouting something to the boy’s mother. Instead, he dropped to one knee, set the groceries on the ground, and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Bert.”

  Benji smiled. “I had a good friend when I was growing up named Bert.” Benji extended his hand. “My name is Benjamin, but my friends mostly call me Benji.”

  The boy was beaming as he pumped his hand. “I am very pleased to meet you, Benji.” He turned and looked back at the car and waved. His mother waved back. Then the back window rolled down, and the girl was waving too.

  Benji waved back and then turned to face Bert again. “Your sister?” he guessed.

  “Yeah. Her name is Caroline.” There was a soft beep of the horn. The boy looked over his shoulder and raised a hand in acknowledgment, and then said, “I’ve gotta go. Me and Caroline have piano lessons now.”

  “Don’t want to miss those,” Benji said as he stuck out his hand again. They shook a second time. “Thank you, Bert. And thank your Mom again for the groceries. Tell her that she is a good woman.” He leaned in closer, smiling conspiratorially. “And will you tell her something else for me?”

  “Yes!”

  “Tell her that I just got into town yesterday. And that as soon as I find some work I’m going to take a bath and cut my hair and shave off my beard. Will you tell her that for me?”

  “Yup.” Bert lifted a hand. “Bye, Benji.” He turned and broke into a trot back toward the car.

  9:37 a.m.

  Benji thought about going back to the city park where he had slept. It had water, and public toilets, and lots of shade. But that would also mean sharing his food with the others. He didn’t mind that. That was the rule of the road. But somehow he sensed that Bert’s mother would not be happy about him giving the food away to others. She had come back to make peace with him—and with herself—and that obviously had not come easy for her. Benji would do nothing to dishonor what she had just done.

  So, with that settled in his mind, he moved to a grassy area of the playground where there was still some shade and settled in to see what she had given him. The sack was a treasure trove that made him a little dizzy. Four bananas. Two oranges. A loaf of bread wrapped in an old newspaper, with small jars of peanut butter and strawberry jam. A quart of milk. A small box of soda crackers. And the two Twinkies.

  Benji ate slowly, starting with two bananas and one of the oranges, refusing to be hurried, savoring every bite. Then he made two sandwiches, using an old Popsicle stick he found on the ground as a makeshift knife, and washed them down with half of the milk—real milk. Not condensed! Not powdered! Finally, and with great anticipation, he ate both of the Twinkies and finished off the milk.

  Then he lay back on the grass. He couldn’t remember a meal that had given him this much pleasure. As his eyes began to droop a few minutes later, Benji debated taking a quick nap. But he quickly pushed that idea aside. Today was not to be wasted. He was going to find work or exhaust himself trying. He got to his knees and began putting things back into the sack. Finally, he picked up the newspaper and started to wrap it back around the remaining bread. As he did so, he saw that it was a section of the Los Angeles Times, dated two days before. At the top of the page were two words that caught his eye. HELP WANTED.

  Benji gaped at the heading. The woman had brought him bread wrapped in the help wanted section of the paper? No way that could be just a coincidence. He eagerly began to scan through the entries. But his hopes were quickly dashed. The entries didn’t take up even half a column, and every one asked for something he wasn’t qualified to do: Machinists. Accountants. Banking clerks. Auto mechanics. Welders. Mechanical engineers. Electrical engineers.

  Elation was gone as quickly as it had come. Benji sighed and picked up the bread again, feeling a little foolish for his sudden burst of euphoria. As he went to place the loaf back in the sack once again, something caught his eye. This was on the back of one of the sheets. It was a printed box with bold text. He leaned in and read it quickly.

  WANTED

  Deckhands. Opportunity to travel. Mostly Asian ports. $150 per month, plus bed and board. Inquire at CMB Shipping, Dock 12, Port of Long Beach.

  Benji stared at it in disbelief. A hundred and fifty dollars a month? Plus bed and board! That couldn’t be right. He read it again, this time more slowly. He sat back, his mind racing. Just then a movement caught his eye. An older man was walking a dog on a leash. “Hey!” Benji yelled, waving one hand.

  The man stopped and turned.

  “Pardon me, sir, but how far to Long Beach from here?”

  The man turned and pointed to the south. “It’s about twenty-five miles that way.”

  “On this road?”

  “No, no.” He pointed again. “Drop down four blocks to Slauson Avenue. Stay on Slauson for five or six miles and you’ll come to Long Beach Boulevard. Turn right and go until you see the ocean, and that’ll be Long Beach.”

  June 25, 1934, 6:18 p.m.—CMB Shipping Company,

  Dock 12, Port of Long Beach

  Benji stopped and sighed in relief as he read the small brass plaque on the door: CMB Shipping Company. Even more of a relief, through the transom at the top of the door, he could see that there was a light on inside. When he had finally located dock 12, it was a few minutes past six and the first four shipping companies he had found were locked, their windows shuttered.

  He reached down and twisted the knob. It turned, and the door opened. Then he stopped. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. The room was no more than twenty feet square. It had no windows. There was one small wooden desk, a padded chair behind it and a wooden chair in front of it, and one rusting file cabinet in the corner. To the right there was a closed door—a back room, maybe, or perhaps a toilet.

  But what really took him aback was that virtually every available space, including the wooden cha
ir, was taken with stacks of loose papers and manila files. On the floor, several cardboard boxes were also filled. In the corner on top of one of the boxes there were half a dozen large rolled-up charts. Sea charts? he wondered. He assumed ships had to have some kind of maps. The top of the filing cabinet had three more rolls and two dark-green coffee cups perched near the front edge.

  The one thing that was not there was a living human being. Stepping around one of the stacks, Benji moved to the desk and rapped sharply on it. “Hello?” he called. “Anyone here?”

  There was the sound of movement, then a gruff voice. “Be right there.” Benji heard the faint sound of a toilet flushing, then footsteps. A moment later, the door opened. Benji saw that behind the door was a long, narrow room lined with shelves that were also crammed full, with another door at the far end with the word “Toilet” on it. But what held his gaze was the man who was standing there looking at him suspiciously.

  He was a short man whose body looked as though it had been carved from solid oak. His chest and arms were heavily muscled, his thighs bulged through his Levi’s, and his neck was as thick as a stovepipe. The face was as brown as saddle leather and had more wrinkles than a prune. Clearly, this man had spent a lot of time out in the sun. He had a broad forehead, large ears, a square jaw, and high, prominent cheekbones. Surprisingly blue eyes nestled beneath bushy black eyebrows that seemed to have been pasted on. He was staring at Benji, obviously taking his measure as well. Then his brows lowered. “What do you want?” he growled.

  Benji reached in his shirt pocket and retrieved the advertisement he had torn out of the paper. “You the one looking for deckhands?”

  The man glanced at the ad. There was a tiny hint of amusement in his eyes. “I am. Who did you have in mind?”

  “Me.”

  Again there was a slow, methodical assessment of Benji. “Hell’s bells, man. I didn’t advertise for scarecrows. You look like a couple of stick matches held together by a dab of glue.”

  Benji kept his face expressionless. “You feed me, I’ll put the weight back on.”

  The man grunted, and Benji couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or a bad one. “I grew up on a cattle ranch,” Benji went on. “I know how to work.”

  “Where you from, kid?”

  “Southern Utah. Desert country.”

  “You been riding the rails?”

  Benji nodded.

  “How long?”

  “Four months last summer. Since mid-April this year.”

  “You one of them Mormons?”

  That surprised Benji, but he didn’t hesitate. “I am. Does that bother you?”

  His bluntness took his interviewer by surprise. After a moment, he shook his head. “Not in the least. But the crew may give you a hard time. They don’t like do-gooders.”

  “I’m not here to baptize,” Benji responded.

  That seemed to please the man, or at least satisfy him. He reached up with one finger and pointed to Benji’s forehead. “Where’d you get that scar?”

  “Had a run-in with some railroad bulls in the Sacramento rail yards. Four of them. He used the butt of his rifle on me.”

  The man thought about that for a moment. “So you know how to handle yourself.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I don’t like to fight, Mr. . . .”

  “Call me Skipper Jack.”

  “I don’t like fighting, but yes, I can handle myself when I need to.”

  “You’ll need to.” He leaned back in his chair. “You got somewhere you need to be anytime soon?”

  “No, sir.” Then came another thought. “What is your destination?”

  “Taking a load of baled cotton to Shanghai via Hawaii.”

  “And after that?”

  The man shrugged. “We go where they need cargo delivered. May come right back here, maybe go to San Francisco or Seattle. More likely, in China we’ll pick up a load for somewhere else in Asia. May even end up taking a load through the Panama Canal and dropping it off along the east coast somewhere. Then come back the same way. We try to get back to our home port here every six to twelve months.”

  Benji’s head came up. “You ever stop in Georgia? Do they even have a port there?”

  “Yep. Port of Savannah. You got a girl there or something?”

  Benji shook his head. “Nope. The friend I was traveling with was killed in Sacramento. I’d like to find his family and tell them what happened.”

  That clearly took the man aback, and Benji thought he saw new respect in his eyes. “It’s a possibility, but not a strong one,” he answered. Again he studied Benji thoughtfully. “What’s your name?” he finally asked.

  “Benjamin Westland, but everyone calls me Benji.”

  “You running from the law, Benji?”

  That surprised him. “No.”

  “Do you have a passport?”

  “No.”

  “No problem. We can get you one in Hawaii.”

  “Does that mean I’m hired?” Benji asked.

  The man stood up and stuck out his hand. “We leave with the tide at four a.m. day after tomorrow. Don’t be late.”

  “I won’t.” As he started around the desk, Benji leaned forward. “Uh. . . .”

  “What?”

  “The bulls took every penny I had. Any chance I could sleep on the boat until we leave? Got nowhere else to go.”

  He eyed him up and down and then nodded. “The ship is the Oriental Star. A tramp steamer. It’s in berth five. Tell the bosun mate that Skipper Jack sent you. They’ll get you a bunk.”

  “Thank you. Uh. . . .”

  The captain’s head came up and he frowned. “Yes?”

  “I’d like to get a shave and a haircut. Any chance I could get a small advance on my pay?”

  “You’re kind of a pushy young pup, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what my dad says too.”

  Though his expression didn’t change, that seemed to amuse him. He took out his wallet and extracted a five-dollar bill. “That enough?”

  “More than enough, Skipper. Thank you.”

  Skipper Jack came around and clapped Benji on the arm. “Welcome aboard, Benji. There’s a barbershop two streets over and one block to the left. You can get a bath there too.” To Benji’s surprise, he again took out his wallet and handed him another five dollars. “And why don’t you buy you a couple of sets of clothes while you’re at it? Ask at the barbershop. There’s a Goodwill store not far from there.”

  Benji gave him a droll smile. “Are you suggesting you’d rather not have these clothes on your boat?”

  “It wasn’t a suggestion.”

  Chuckling, Benji turned for the door. Then he stopped again. “Uh . . . one more thing.”

  Skipper Jack sighed. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. I need to write my family and tell them where I’m going. Is there a post office nearby?”

  Skipper Jack seemed to relax. “Yeah. Ask the barber about that too. The post office is only about half a mile from there. You can leave your sack here if you want,” he added.

  “Thanks, but that’s my supper.”

  He took the grocery sack from Benji. “You’ve got ten bucks, son. Get yourself a real meal.”

  “Is that an order, Skipper?”

  There came a slow, laconic smile. “First lesson, son. Whatever I say to you should be considered an order. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Benji said with a nod. Laughing, he turned and went out the door onto the docks.

  June 30, 1934, 12:25 a.m.—Eckhardt Home

  Hans!” Emilee rolled over on her side and punched him. “Hans! Wake up!”

  There was a groan and he turned his head toward her. “What?”

  “The phone is ringing.”

  He turned away. “Then answer it.”

&
nbsp; She punched him again. “It’s after midnight. It’s not going to be for me. Hurry. It’s going to wake the children.”

  With another groan, he sat up and then threw his feet over the side of the bed and rushed to the kitchen. He snatched the earpiece from the hook and leaned in. “Hallo!”

  A raspy voice spoke softly in his ear. “Is this Herr Hans Otto Eckhardt?”

  “Ja, ja. And who is this, bitte?”

  “A friend.” The voice sounded scratchy, muffled. “Are you alone?”

  “My family is here, but they are sleeping. Who is this?”

  “I told you. I am a friend. Please listen to me very carefully. There’s not much time.”

  “Is this some kind of a joke? Tell me who you are or I will hang up right now.”

  “That would be a tragic mistake. For you and your family.” More soft, scratchy sounds, and Hans guessed now that the caller had some kind of cloth over the mouthpiece. “I will say this. I used to work in your department. You always treated me well. Now I hold a senior position in one of the ministries here in Berlin. Much of that is thanks to you. That is all I can say.”

  Hans jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He whipped around. Emilee was standing behind him, still pulling her bathrobe around her. “Who is it?” she mouthed.

  He put a finger to his lips and motioned for her to be silent. “I’m listening.”

  “I know that you are no longer employed by the party,” the voice went on, “but I am sure you still follow what is happening in Berlin.”

  “I try to.”

  “Do you know of the secret deal the Führer has made with the Army High Command?”

  “I do. I also know that the generals voted unanimously to support Hitler’s bid to replace Hindenburg as president if he puts down Roehm and his storm troopers.”

  “Ja, ja. Then you will understand better what is happening right now.”

  “Go on,” he said, fully awake now. This was no prank call.