The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  "What about the rudder and dive planes?" I said.

  "I'm freeing them now. We'll have to use a blowtorch some places, but they'll work. We're going to be repairing, improvising, patching up, making do, doing without and maybe even reinventing. But so what?" He moved one of his heavy shoulders under the rust-streaked coveralls. "We're not going on a world cruise in her, either. Or standing inspection. This tub's like an old jalopy; if it gets us there and back, that's all we need."

  "If," Linc murmured, and I saw Rosa's lips move, and she very quickly, surreptitiously, made the sign of the cross on her forehead with a thumbnail.

  But Lauffnauer was smiling faintly. "She is a good ship," he murmured, glancing slowly around the ancient little sub. "I trusted her once, and I will trust her again." He said it with such simple, absolute faith that sudden conviction surged through us all. And when Moreno, smiling, too, now, said, "O.K., gang, let's get to work," I actually tossed him a mock salute, delighted to obey.

  He and I and Vic climbed out then, and Moreno got down in the water beside the sub to resume chipping rust from the aft hydroplanes, his hat shoved back on his head, and whistling softly. Vic and I each picked out an open-end wrench from the tools, such as he had, which Moreno had laid out on the dock. And when we climbed back to start work on the diesels in the engine room, Lauffnauer and Linc were hard at work on the Kingstons again, discussing the difference between these and the ones Linc had seen on a British sub.

  At this moment I loved these people — all of them. And I began then, unscrewing a bolt from a diesel water jacket, the best moments and days of my entire life — the happiest I will ever have, in many ways, I'm certain. And I think the others felt the same way.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  The Saturday Evening Post, September 5, 1959, 232(10):39, 76, 78-81

  The U-19's Last Kill, Part Four

  She is a good ship," Frank Lauffnauer said about his little sub. "I trusted her once, and I will trust her again."

  In 1918, as a young German sailor, Lauffnauer abandoned the U-19 off Long Island, after influenza killed most of its crew. Now, forty years later, Lauffnauer found the sub, under 100 feet of water, but still watertight. With the help of his confederates — Vic, Moreno, Linc, Rosa and Hugh — he raised her. The vessel was to serve somehow in his plan to seize a fortune in paper money being taken from Argentina to Europe by Reinhold Kroll, an unapprehended Nazi war criminal.

  Corrosion had ruined the sub's batteries, but Hugh suggested using a large number of ordinary automobile batteries instead. Here is Hugh's account of the tremendous job the conspirators faced in readying the U-19 for action.

  IV

  For ten days then the pattern hardly varied. We'd awaken in darkness, dragged out of sleep by the ruthless, insistent rattle of the alarm clock; I can hear it yet. There'd be a moment of drugged confusion, my muscles, for the first few days at least, stiffened and begging for more rest. Then the same single thought would flare up in my mind again — The boat! — and my eyes would pop open, a surge of deep pleasure bringing me wide awake. Rosa would arrive within minutes and quickly prepare our breakfasts; then it was down to the sub again and work, work, work, till eleven at night, till twelve, till after one o'clock sometimes.

  We had to interrupt work occasionally, one or the other of us taking the jeep to a nearby village or town for groceries, a tool, a piece of equipment. And once Moreno and Rosa made the trip to Fire Island and our rented cottage again, taking over several suitcases full of city clothes for each of us, food, razors, toothbrushes and other supplies. Each time any of us went out we bought batteries — at a dozen or more garages, filling stations and stores for ten or fifteen miles around and in New York. And we ordered batteries by mail, Rosa filling out and mailing the orders. They were shipped in by express to various nearby towns to invented names, and during the afternoons Rosa drove around picking them up, paying for them with cash; we acquired a dozen or so a day.

  With the first of the batteries, Vic and I started, tested and then adjusted the diesels. We'd found nothing really wrong with them; they'd been in good condition forty years ago, and nothing had happened to them since. But the gaskets for the water jackets enclosing the cylinders were of copper and asbestos; they were squeezed flat by forty years of constant pressure, all elasticity gone, and we had no way of replacing them. All Vic and I could do was tighten the bolts to the last fraction of possible turn, but they leaked still, and we knew our engines might run hot.

  A lot of what we did, in fact, was makeshift, improvised, utterly unacceptable by the standards of any navy in the world. The valves of the air compressor, for example — Moreno worked on that — should have been replaced, but that wasn't possible either. And when Vic and I had the diesels running, and we tested the compressor, it wouldn't deliver full pressure, so we couldn't fill our air flasks completely. Several of the air-flask valves leaked, too, and no crew would have sailed, let alone dived, in a submarine with valves in the condition ours were.

  Weeks of work, tons of equipment and a not-so-small fortune could have been spent restoring that sub to complete fitness. Yet in ten days of hard work we finished most of all that we were able to do, and if any really major repair job had been vital, it would have been beyond us. We fixed up the sub — patched it up — as well as we could, and that's all we could do. One afternoon when all of us were lying under the sub grinding valves, we started talking about the countless things that were wrong or half wrong with the ship. Linc started to laugh quietly, and we all burst into sudden laughter. Rosa was there at the time, and she looked at us, shaking her head and smiling sardonically, almost fondly, as though we were a bunch of kids.

  All of a sudden one day I was sick of nothing but work. Late in an afternoon, climbing up out of the sub for the hundredth time, to get a tool from the dock, I turned at the top of the ladder and stood staring out at the ocean instead. Below me I could hear the delicate, steady tap of a screw-driver blade on metal — Lauffnauer adjusting a piston on a trim-tank pump — then the sudden clatter of a tool dropped on the metal deck, and Moreno cursing deep inside the sub somewhere. But now, suddenly, I was no longer interested in the sub. I stood staring out at the water and fingering my new beard — I couldn't get used to the feel of it — and saw Rosa, sitting on the dock, looking up at me.

  I acted on impulse. Beckoning to her, I climbed down, jumped over to the dock and walked out, up the path toward the shack and the jeep parked in back of it, Rosa following. I climbed in under the wheel, Rosa watching me questioningly. "Got the keys?" I said. She nodded, and I said, "Get in then," and held out my hand for the keys.

  Driving fast over the two-lane county road, I went into the village, parking on the main street just out of the business district; we always tried to draw no more attention to ourselves than necessary, but Rosa lived in the area, and they knew her long since. I had a little over forty dollars in the wallet in my denims, and I took it out and handed it to her. "Get some liquor," I said. "Whisky, gin, highball mixes, potato chips, olives, cold cuts and all the rest of it. Get plenty, and get a big sack of ice cubes; I'll pick you up outside the liquor store." I grinned at her. "Tonight we're having a party."

  Her eyes lighted up, and she climbed out, nodding eagerly; then, standing beside the jeep, she frowned. "Do you think we should?"

  "Hell, yes. We're on schedule; ahead of it, in fact. We'll make May seventeenth with a couple days to spare. Go ahead, get the stuff; we're having a party."

  We didn't even eat supper that night. Back at the shack, while Rosa was setting out our supplies on the table, I went down to the dock, and banged on the hull with a wrench. "Come on out," I yelled, "up to the shack! Everybody out!"

  Someone yelled, "What?" but I simply repeated it, and when Vic's black-bearded face — he no longer looked unshaven; it was beginning to be a beard — rose up out of the tower, I just beckoned and walked on out, up toward the shack, and I heard Vic calling the others.

  Moreno didn't
like it. He stood in the kitchen in his dirty tan coveralls, looking down at the table covered with food, liquor, glasses and ice in a big crockery bowl; then he swung to me. "What's the matter?" he said. "Ten days' work more'n you can take? You tired or something?" Suddenly his face flushed, the cords in his neck standing out as he yelled, "We haven't got time!"

  Lauffnauer touched his arm and, when Moreno's head swung around, Frank nodded before speaking. "Yes, we have," he said softly. "And we will work better for this; it is a good idea, Ed."

  Moreno yanked his arm away, his mouth opening to answer; then Linc reached past him, picked up a glass, dropped an ice cube into it and called over to Rosa, who stood leaning against wall, arms folded on her chest, glaring al Moreno. "What'll you have, Rosa?" Linc said quietly.

  She smiled, pushing herself from the wall to step over to the table. "Whisky," she said, "with ginger ale," and stood waiting while Linc began mixing her drink, and Moreno swung around and walked out the door.

  I went after him. I caught up with him on the path and said, "Wait a second, Ed." He turned swiftly, jaw muscles working, eyes narrowed, and I said, "You're wrong. You're a good commander; you've bulled this through in ten days, and we're nearly done. You've organized the work, done a beautiful job, forgot nothing. A good commander, but still a mustang. Put stripes on your sleeve and you're tougher than any officer ever was before you; drive, drive, drive, to prove you can command." I grinned at him. "But leave's important, too, and that's what this is — leave in port just before the fight. And tonight that's as important as the work; you'll have a better crew for it. That's something a commander ought to know too. Now, come on back and have a drink."

  He stood looking at me, jaw muscles still working, eyes narrowed, but he made himself weigh what I'd said. It must have been hard for a man like him; all his life, I suppose, he'd simply lashed out when opposed. Then he said it — sullenly, reluctantly — but saying it. "All right; I made a mistake. It's time to knock off for a night"— he was thinking aloud. "It's true; we got to be a good crew; damn good. And this'll help." He nodded shortly, not wanting to, but doing it. "O.K., lieutenant, let's go back."

  We had a good time. We drank a toast first, standing around the kitchen table holding our first drinks. "To the U-nineteen," Vic said, standing there black-bearded and grinning in his grease-streaked blue denims. "May she have a lot better hunting her second trip out."

  The party was started. Like a bunch of office workers at a party, we talked at first only about the work we did together, lounging on the cots, wandering back to the table for food or drinks. Then all of us had sub stories to tell, and we might have spent the evening that way, just talking and relaxing with our drinks.

  But Rosa got bored after a while, and she walked over to the radio, turned it on and found some dance music. Then she stood swaying beside the radio, softly snapping her fingers in time to the music, looking very graceful in her black slacks and sweater. Lounging on a cot, Vic watched her for a few moments, then asked her to dance, and they did.

  We all danced with her then, except Moreno. He didn't know how to dance, he muttered, and when Rosa offered to teach him, he just shook his head and got up to mix another drink, his face tight and sullen. "It's eleven-thirty," Moreno said then. "Let's knock it off now; we got work to do in the morning." And the rest of us looked up surprised; no one else had been watching the time.

  I don't blame myself for what happened then. Our little party was over, and Rosa, smiling at something Linc was saying, stood shrugging into her red jacket with the peg buttons. Then she pulled the jeep keys from her pocket and stood with them dangling from her fingers as Linc finished. Rosa had gone home every night by herself, in the jeep. But watching Rosa get ready to leave, I thought someone should see her home tonight. We'd had a party, she was a girl going home and tonight it seemed inappropriate to let her just walk out the door by herself. I looked over at Moreno, who was walking toward his cot, trying to catch his eye and suggest with a nod that he ought to drive Rosa home. But he sat down and began untying his shoelace, and I got mad. I walked around the table and touched Rosa's arm. "I'll see you home," I said. "You were the belle of the ball and deserve an escort."

  She smiled, bowing her head in acknowledgment, but I saw her glance at Moreno from the corner of her eye before replying. He wouldn't look at her; still unknotting his shoelace, he wouldn't glance up or acknowledge that he'd heard, but I saw the muscles bunch at the corners of his mouth. "Thank you," Rosa said to me then, handing me the keys. She turned to call a general good night to the others; they answered, and we walked out.

  In the jeep we crawled along our own rut road for a quarter mile. Then, turning onto the asphalt county highway, I shoved down the accelerator till we touched sixty-five and held it there. But only two or three minutes later we were slowing, pulling into the dirt driveway beside Rosa's house, and I hated to stop, unwilling to end the evening, go home and to bed, and back to the submarine in the morning. And when Rosa turned to me, eyes still sparkling from the drive, to ask if I'd like coffee, I was glad to accept.

  Rosa put coffee on to boil immediately, then took off her coat and hung it on a nail in the back of the door. I sat down at the table, and she got out cream, sugar, cups and spoons, then sat down across from me, and I took out cigarettes, gave her one and lighted them. She smiled happily. "I had a wonderful time dancing," she said. "I was almost forgetting I was a woman till tonight."

  "Well you are that," I said.

  "Yes." She nodded slowly. "And being escorted home — that completes it. You make me feel very good tonight, Hugh."

  I just nodded, smiling pleasantly; I wasn't trying to start anything. But Rosa sat staring at me. She hadn't had a lot to drink tonight, but she'd had some; and it was also the first really good time, I think, that she'd had in months. Now her eyes were happy, exuberant, and she smiled at me mischievously. "Would you like to kiss me?" she said. Her eyes laughing at me, she added, "You made me feel like a woman again, with your party tonight; it is your fault."

  I looked at her, sitting there across from me in that high-necked black sweater, ripe and desirable, her olive-skinned face still flushed at the cheekbones from the wind. "Sure," I said carefully, "any man would."

  "Oh?" Her brows rose, and she nodded. "I see." She was still laughing at me, teasing me. "So it is any man, and you are simply no different from any other; you do not commit yourself personally. Well, then"— she leaned toward me suddenly, across the table top —"go ahead, Mr. Anyman; kiss me."

  I leaned forward till our lips met, our hands on the table top supporting us as we leaned far over it, not touching in any other way. Then I kissed her, feeling the soft fullness of her lips, our mouths pressing hard together, our heads moving. Then I yanked my face away, knowing I had to if I were ever going to stop.

  Rosa — a magnificently handsome, full-figured woman sitting across from me — folded her arms on the table top and smiled. "So," she said. "That is better. I did not wish to be taken home by Mr. Anyman just because I am any woman." She picked up her cigarette from the saucer in which she'd laid it and stood up. "Now we will have our coffee."

  We just sat talking then, drinking our coffee. This, I realized, was still a girl from a little Italian fishing village, alone and widowed in a foreign country, courageous and self-reliant; and, sitting there, I felt very fond of her.

  I finished my coffee and stood up, thanking Rosa for it, and she walked to the door with me. At the door she thanked me again for taking her home. Standing in the doorway, I put an arm around her waist, drew her to me and kissed her again. But she responded only slightly, her mind somewhere else, and I let her go; the party was over, and I set out to walk home.

  I'd been there twenty minutes, I suppose; it took me another twenty to walk home; and the drive to Rosa's house couldn't have taken more than five minutes. So when I turned off the road to walk the quarter mile down to the shack, I'd been gone about forty-five minutes. The shack was dark, I s
aw, walking toward it; then I saw a cigarette glow on the little stoop, and I knew Moreno was waiting for me.

  He stood up when I was a hundred yards from the shack and walked toward me. When we met on the path, we stopped, facing each other. "Well?" I said.

  "Where you been?" he said quietly.

  "You know where I've been; taking Rosa home."

  "Take you this long to walk back?"

  I was about to explain that we'd had coffee, but I stopped myself; I owed Moreno no explanations. "What's it to you," I said, "how long I take?"

  He was silent for a moment or two, and I knew he was keeping a grip on himself, forcing himself to reply quietly. "You know damn well what it is to me," he said then. "I'm going to marry Rosa, and you or nobody else is going to start hanging around her."

  "Why, sure," I said pleasantly. "Of course. I won't spend another second alone with Rosa. Or say any more than hello, good-by and how are you—"

  "See that you don't."

  "— from the moment she tells me what you've said. Just have your fiancée tell me, Moreno, that she's going to marry you. And from then on I won't even look sideways at her."

  "She doesn't have to tell you; I'm telling—"

  "Oh, yes, she does. I leaned down a little to stare into his eyes. "She has to tell me. You've been talking about marrying Rosa for a long time now, but I haven't heard her say a word about it. You just have your fiancée say so, Moreno, next time I ask to take her home. Because there's sure going to be a next time now."

  He grinned a little in the faint starlight — mean and nasty. "You want trouble, pretty boy?" he said softly. "You'll get it; a lot more than you want." Then he turned and walked back to the shack. I followed, and inside the shack we got undressed in the darkness without another word and went to bed.

  First thing in the morning we hoisted the torpedoes out of the ship through the torpedo hatch, using the chain hoist in the dock — an awkward, but not very hard job. There were four spares plus two in the tubes, and we hauled all six of them out and lowered them to the dock along one side of the sub, and Moreno began working on one of them.