Voices at Whisper Bend

by Katherine Ayres

  “Sure, Pa.” Robbie grinned. “And Charlie, look, in the bend of the river. Look with the glass.” He pointed to the far northern bank of the Mon. “A pile of metal.”

  Pa clattered down the steps, with Robbie following right behind. Charlotte let herself sink into Pa’s captain’s chair. She heard thumps below as Pa opened the firebox and started to shovel in coal.

  She scanned the river with the glass. No sign of barges, just bits of trash carried by the rushing water. After a spell of rain like this, the banks always got littered. She turned the glass to where Robbie had pointed. Sure enough, a bigger-than-usual pile of junk covered a steep part of the bank. But who cared? Within minutes the Rose would be fired up and rolling with no real crew.

  “Down here, Lottie,” Pa shouted. “I need you on deck.”

  She tightened her oilskin and stepped down to join Pa. Rain spattered her face. The deck felt greasy underfoot.

  He pointed to one of the coiled mooring lines—a heavy rope with a loop at the end. “Stand here, at the front. The minute we spot a runaway barge, I’ll steer up close. You drop this line around the barge’s mooring pin, then haul her up tight, and we’ll tow her back to the docks, slick as a whistle.”

  “But, Pa …” There was no railing around the flat nose of the tug. Only a few feet of deck and then—river. A single slip and …

  “Easy as catching a fish, sweetheart,” Pa said. He pinched her cheek with wet, cold fingers.

  “Pa, coal barges aren’t fish, they’re whales. I can’t—”

  “’Course you can. I’ll keep my window open so we can shout to each other. Hold tight now, and cast off when I get her humming.”

  Inside the heavy gloves, Charlotte’s hands felt clammy and sore. Rain pounded the deck. Through the soles of her feet she could feel the engines begin to pump.

  Pa signaled and she cast off, loosening the heavy ropes that bound the tug to the dock pilings. Then she crept to the middle of the tug’s front. There at least she was farthest from the roiling brown water. She watched the banks as Pa brought the Rose around and headed her upstream. The engines hummed as the Rose bit into the current.

  From port to starboard, she checked the river. If only it weren’t Sunday, there’d be plenty of other boats to help. But today only the big working boats would be hauling, and they could be miles away. So it was up to her and Pa. Darn rain. Why did barges always break free? It happened every spring with high water—a cable would snap and barges would get loose. Why didn’t somebody tie them down tighter? Or could it be they tied them too tight?

  “Lottie, look ahead, starboard bank,” Pa shouted.

  She peered through the rain. A dark shape hovered on the horizon, hulking and huge. Pa steered the Rose toward starboard. As they chugged closer, Charlotte could see more clearly. It wasn’t one barge, it was two, and both of them piled high with coal.

  She clenched her fingers and turned toward the pilothouse. “Pa, what do we do?”

  He motioned her toward the starboard mooring lines. “Grab your line and get ready to throw it. I’ll bring her as close as I can.”

  “But, Pa, two barges …” Roped together side by side, they were bigger than a football field, at least sixty feet wide and three times that long.

  Pa waved her on.

  She inched out, looked upriver, and blinked hard. Hundreds of tons of coal were headed straight toward them. Sure, Pa could steer the Rose, but those barges were runaways. Charlotte knew that full barges could float any which way. They had no rudders, no controls at all. Her stomach clenched. What if they rammed into the Rose? She could nearly taste the water.

  “They’re loaded, Pa!”

  “Better full than empty,” he called back. “Empties flop around more.”

  Pa steered closer. Rain soaked Charlotte’s hair and her gloves. She uncoiled the heavy line and held the loop in both hands, watching. Fifty feet, then twenty-five. Her breath came in fast, short bursts that burned her lungs.

  She squinted through the heavy rain until she could see the mooring pins on the nearest barge. Darn, they were small. They looked like coffee cans at this distance. How close would Pa dare get? How far could she throw the line? She looked down at the rushing brown river. Mistake. Her stomach heaved.

  Pa eased the Rose closer. She could see a spill of coal along the near edge of the barge. Water surged in the gap between tug and barge, like the river was angry at being trapped.

  “Now!” Pa shouted.

  She flung the line out. The loop end snaked out like a lasso, then splashed into the river. She hauled it in again, colder and wetter than before. She’d missed the first pin.

  “Lottie, go closer.”

  She took a deep breath and half a step forward. She tossed the rope toward the second mooring pin as Pa steered parallel to the huge barge. Her line thumped the side, then splashed again. The angry river slapped at the side of the tug and pulled the rope under.

  Her feet could feel the Rose’s engine slowing as Pa kept her alongside the barge. The third mooring pin was coming. If she missed this one, they’d have to pull away and start over. She took another half step forward. There was nothing to hold onto but a cold, slippery rope. Churning water gushed between the tug and the barge. They were edging so close a person would be squished if she went overboard.

  She held her breath, then threw the line as hard and as straight as she could. The loop snagged the pin, flopped, then held.

  She yanked the line tight and forced the heavy rope into a hitching loop, and then another and another, until the first barge was secure against the nose of the tug.

  “Good work, Lottie,” Pa called. She sidestepped away from the edge, feeling the shift of weight as the tug’s engine began to haul at the corner of the barge. Charlotte knew what Pa was doing. The two barges were still dangerous, floating alongside the tug and hitched in only one place. Pa had to line up the Rose square behind the barges, so he could push them.

  He steered the tug around slowly. The engine rumbled in protest. “Get ready to secure another line, Lottie. Port side, so we can balance these babies,” Pa shouted.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. But she knew she didn’t have a choice. An inch at a time, she made her way across the slippery deck to the port-side mooring line.

  When Pa finally got the Rose lined up behind the barges, Charlotte dropped the port line over the second barge’s closest mooring pin. As she hauled in the line to secure it, the palms of her hands stung.

  Pa called her up to the pilothouse to join him. “That was some job, sailor,” he said, pulling her into his arms and hugging her tight. “How are your hands?”

  “Sore.” She stepped back and peeled off her wet gloves. Red lines cut into the palms of her hands. “Oh, Pa, I’m no sailor. I was so scared.”

  “Scared or not, you came through.” He hugged her again. Then he turned to his rudder sticks and began to steer. The Rose’s engines thrummed and groaned. Slowly the pair of barges nosed out into the middle of the muddy Mon.

  Back at the dock, Pa pulled three short blasts on the whistle to let Ma know they were coming home soon. He tied up the tug and both barges until the barge owners could come the next day to collect their coal. Then he went below to shut down the engines.

  Robbie bounded up to the deck with Pa. “Wow! Charlie, Pa says you’re a hero! You roped two barges. Me too! I kept the steam coming. Wow, look at those barges.” He grabbed Charlotte’s hand and tugged her closer to the starboard side.

  She held back.

  “What’s the matter? How come you’re shaking?”

  She closed her eyes. “I’m just cold,” she said. “Freezing. I was on deck in the rain while you were warm and dry in the engine room.”

  As they walked home, Robbie talked nonstop about the barges and the pile of metal he’d seen and how, once he got his stitches out, he’d start collecting again. “I’m gonna keep helping with the war,” he bragged.

  “You already have,” Pa told him. �
��You and your sister both.” He pointed upriver toward the railroad bridge as a train whistled in the distance. “If we hadn’t caught the barges …” His voice quit.

  Charlotte turned toward him. “What, Pa, what if we hadn’t?”

  “River’s up and running,” he said, pointing. “At the speed they were traveling, those loads could have knocked out the bridge. You know how important bridges are, especially that railroad bridge.”

  Charlotte looked where Pa pointed. As she stared, a train rounded into sight. The last time she’d looked at that bridge there’d been a train on it too. Jim’s train, full of soldiers and sailors.

  Sunday Night, May 17, 1942

  Dear Jim,

  I haven’t written for a while. First, nothing much was going on. Then we got real busy and it was hard to find time. Now I’d better write. So much has happened, if I don’t write soon, I’ll forget parts.

  This all started about three weeks ago. The President got on the radio and talked about the home front and everybody pitching in to help win the war. Even us kids. Well, you’ll be proud to know I figured out a way—we started a scrap metal drive at school. It was going swell, too.

  Then, guess what? Some low-down sneak stole all the metal. We have lots of suspects and we’re watching them close. We’ll have to work fast, for school will be out soon. Next letter I hope to tell you the wicked thief is in jail.

  I think Ma was about ready to throw ME in jail last Thursday. Robbie’s been helping us look for junk, and he’s good at it. This will be no surprise to you since he’s raided your room for marbles and stuff to use in his boats plenty of times.

  Anyway, on Thursday we went to a dump at the end of Second Avenue. He and another kid found an old car door. We were all hauling it out of the dump, but we dropped it and Robbie sliced up his hand on some broken glass in the car window. He got five stitches and a tetanus shot. Ma says no more scrapping for us.

  Now here’s the biggest surprise of all. Remember how every spring a few barges pop loose at high water? It happened again today while Pa had Robbie and me helping on the Rose. Guess who lassoed not one but two coal barges? Give up? Me, that’s who! Was I scared? You bet. Can you read my writing? I’m still shaking and it’s been hours.

  Pa was pretty tickled, and I guess it felt okay to help out. But don’t worry. I’m not planning to join the Navy and come pester you on your ship. Robbie’s the one who’s planning to do that. And I’m not sure I want to join up for factory work either. A person gets real tired and dirty. Did Ma write and tell you? She’s working at the mill. So you see, we’re all helping out, one way or another.

  Take care of yourself, Jim, and come home as quick as you can. We love you. We miss you.

  Your sister,

  Charlotte

  Charlotte stretched her fingers. It felt good to write to Jim, even if her hands got tired. Red marks from that rope still crisscrossed the palms of her hands. And she hadn’t lied to Jim—it was nearly midnight and her insides still felt wobbly.

  Jim might not even think it was worth writing about. He probably did worse things, harder and scarier things, every single day in the Navy. Rough water on the Mon, how did that compare to an ocean?

  Charlotte closed her eyes and tried to imagine what kind of ship Jim served on. She’d seen plenty of them on the newsreels at the movies—every time a new ship was finished, some movie star in an evening gown broke a bottle over the bow. Just a few miles down the Ohio River, in Ambridge, they were building battleships. Maybe using some of Ma’s steel plate. The Navy had even taken over some fancy ocean liners to use for troop ships. Imagine if Jim got to work on one of those. They were so huge, a person wouldn’t even feel like she was on the ocean. Wouldn’t have to look at the water.

  Charlotte felt a shameful heat rush into her cheeks. Here she was sitting at home, safe, and not able to sleep because she was scared of the river. Somewhere, in a huge ocean, her brother braved storms and enemy planes, rough water and torpedoes. Why was she such a coward?

  She sighed and looked back over the letter she’d written, checking it. She’d been careful. She hadn’t put in anything the censors might snip out, like their town, or the name of the mill, or what Ma was working on. No defense secrets at all.

  Then she frowned. She herself had been a censor. She’d left out something important. It wasn’t something they would cut out of her letter with their tiny, sharp scissors. But it wasn’t a thing Charlotte could admit, even to her brother. Yes, what she’d written was true. She missed him and wanted him to come home safe. But her reasons—they weren’t all so good. She scratched a few words on the back of an old arithmetic paper.

  Come home, Jim. We miss you. I miss you. I want you back here where you belong so Ma gets that gray look out of her eyes and remembers how to smile again. I miss the old Ma. And it sure would make Pa happy to have you working on the Rose like you used to. And then I wouldn’t have to.

  Charlotte blinked back tears. How could a person say such a selfish thing? Or even think it? She balled up the paper and threw it into the trash.

  CHAPTER 8

  DOWN BY THE TRACKS

  The next morning, Charlotte had to take Robbie to get his stitches out before school. She had a late-note for Robbie’s teacher and one for Mrs. Alexander too. It must have been a morning for notes, for when she reached into her desk for her history book, she found a folded scrap of paper with her name written in careful letters. She opened it quickly.

  Meet me at recess! The mystery is solved! Sophie.

  Was that possible? Had something happened this morning while she was getting Robbie to the doctor? Charlotte glanced at Betsy and motioned toward Sophie’s desk. Betsy shrugged, then turned back to her book.

  The morning seemed to go on forever. Finally lunch-time arrived, and after lunch, recess. In the school yard, Charlotte spotted Sophie partly hidden in the shadows of the building, talking to her older sister.

  Sophie looked like she was asking for something. Her sister Helen was shaking her head. Sophie turned and pointed toward Charlotte and Betsy. Helen kept on shaking her head. Finally Sophie snatched something from Helen’s pocket and hurried over to where the girls stood.

  She pulled on Charlotte’s arm. “Come on. Over there in the corner. Where nobody will see.” She held something in her hand.

  “What is it, Sophie?”

  “Charlotte?” Mrs. Alexander’s voice came up behind her.

  Sophie spun around and quickly stuck her hand into her jacket pocket.

  “Charlotte, dear, I came over to ask about your brother’s injury, but I seem to have interrupted something. Sophie, what’s that in your pocket?”

  “Nothing.”

  Mrs. Alexander held out her hand. “Sophie Jaworski …”

  Sophie reached into her pocket and pulled out two small squares of stiff paper. She gave them to the teacher, then looked down at her shoes.

  “Why … whatever is going on? The three of you, follow me.”

  Next thing Charlotte knew, the girls were upstairs sitting on stools in Mr. Costa’s science room. He and Mrs. Alexander were shaking their heads. What had Sophie gotten them into?

  “Charlotte Campbell, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. You got there just when I did.” Her voice quavered. Charlotte wasn’t a tattletale, but even if she were, this time she had no idea what Sophie was up to.

  “Betsy?”

  “Me neither. I don’t know what Sophie had.”

  “What she had is quite clear,” Mrs. Alexander said. “Mr. Costa’s draft card. And a club membership card. How and why is not clear. Sophie Jaworski, did you take these?”

  Sophie shook her head slowly. “No, ma’am. I didn’t take anything.”

  Mr. Costa frowned at them. “Jaworski. You have a sister? Helen? In the eighth grade?”

  Sophie nodded, looking more miserable every second.

  “Shall we get Helen, or do you want to tell us what happened?” Mrs.
Alexander’s eyes had turned so dark they looked black.

  “I think I know what’s going on,” the science teacher said. He sighed, then sat behind his desk. “Midmorning sometime, I discovered my wallet lying on the floor next to the windows. I checked it and no money was missing, so I thought I’d somehow dropped it. I hadn’t dropped it, though, had I, Sophie?”

  She didn’t speak, just shook her head and looked sick.

  “I don’t understand,” Mrs. Alexander said.

  By now, Charlotte was beginning to. Apparently, so was Mr. Costa. “Your sister and her friends,” he began. “They’ve had their suspicions, haven’t they?” He turned to Mrs. Alexander. “Ever since the metal was taken, the eighth grade has been buzzing like a hive of yellowjackets. Evidently, I’m one of their suspects.”

  “But why?” Mrs. Alexander looked shocked. “Sophie …”

  “That—that draft card,” Sophie stammered. “Helen says if you have one, it means you’re supposed to be in the Army. And you’re not. That other card, it says ‘Sons of Italy.’ Helen says it means you’re on the wrong side in the war. With that Mussolini …”

  Mr. Costa turned toward Sophie, and Charlotte could see how young he was. “Oh, Sophie. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to go into all this. But clearly, there’s been some confusion. A draft card simply means a man has registered for the draft. It doesn’t mean he can join up.”

  Mrs. Alexander shot such a ferocious glare at Sophie, it made Charlotte feel the tiniest bit sorry for the girl.

  Mr. Costa took a tired breath and went on. “I tried to enlist, you see. I argued and argued with Mr. Butler down at the draft board, but it didn’t do any good. They classified me 4-F—unfit for combat.” He pointed to a spot on the card. “I had rheumatic fever as a child. It damaged my heart.” He put the draft card in his pocket.

  “As you now may understand, I can’t serve in the Army, much as I’d like to. I’m not a coward or a slacker, just not strong enough. I hope my draft status is clear now, although it would have been much easier just to ask me, wouldn’t it?” He lifted the other card and looked at it before he put it in his pocket. “The Sons of Italy is a lodge, sort of like the Elks or the Moose lodges. I joined because my father asked me to. Not because of Mussolini.”