by Tracy Groot
“I hear they’re bombing the route to Dunkirk. And that some boats are blown up from beneath. That is interesting.”
“Do you know anything else?”
“Nothing more than that. It’s all a bit vague and terrifying.”
He nodded. “No one seems to know much. Well, we’re in for a bit of an adventure, then. Can’t remember the last time I dodged a bomb with a yacht.”
William smiled. “Nor I.”
“Good luck, then.”
“The same.” They shook hands, and William watched the man walk back to his friend.
“You see Cap’n John and the creepy recluse guy?” asked Murray.
“No.”
“Hey—how far is that hospital? We got time to drop in on Clare?”
“Not likely. I don’t want to risk it. Look—there’s the fellow who told us to wait.”
Lieutenant Sanderson, the man they’d met an hour ago, appeared at the door to an office. “Percy and Vance?” he called.
William raised his hand. “Here.” They made their way over to him.
“Right. I’ve sorted your paperwork and got you assigned. I’ll need signatures.” He handed them each a clipboard and a pen. “Per Lieutenant Wares, you’ll be crewing the Maggie Bright. She’s been taken down to Sheerness, where they’ll assign her a naval rating who will outfit her for the journey. She’ll go over tonight around 2200 hours. Pulled by tug to save fuel.”
“What’s this?” Murray asked of the paper.
“This is the T.124, because we are desperately fond of paperwork and even more fond of giving it names. Makes you a volunteer for one month in the service of His Majesty’s Royal Navy—welcome aboard, Yank.” He gave Murray a wink and a grin. “You’re the second American I’ve signed. The other’s an accountant. Well done—glad some of you won’t listen to your ambassador.” He pointed across the room. “You see the man over there with the ridiculous hat? He’ll get you down to Sheerness with the others. Your ride leaves in about an hour. Right? Thank you, gentlemen.” He shook their hands. “God bless, keep safe, and come home.” He consulted his list. “Randall? Goodson?”
They didn’t leave in an hour; they left in two. And by the time they finally made it to Sheerness and were reunited with the Maggie Bright, they hardly recognized her.
They were dropped off at a quay with several other men, where a great tug stood off in the harbor. Several automobiles positioned at various angles along the quay and headlands trained their headlights on the docks to illumine the bustling work; many vessels were tied to the dock, and naval men moved swiftly at their work, loading vessels with stores, painting fixtures, checking lines and engines, sometimes talking with boat owners or crewmen.
They found the Maggie Bright only because an officer led them to her, not because they recognized her.
“Oh no,” Murray groaned. “What’ve they done to you, Mags?”
A young naval rating, who couldn’t be more than twenty years old, looked up when they came aboard and gave a nod.
“Welcome aboard, shipmates. Smudge is the name. What do we call you?”
“Smudge, what’ve you done to my girl?” Murray jumped down from the boarding plank to Maggie’s deck.
“I’m William Percy. This is Murray Vance,” William said, grabbing hold of a line as he stepped down to the deck. He shook Smudge’s hand, then took off his suit coat and tossed it on a bench. He rolled up his sleeves and looked around.
Oh, Clare. No, it won’t do for you to see this.
All of Maggie’s beautiful brass fittings had been painted black, including the lovely brass bell. The salon windows and portholes had been taped over with brown paper. Any area of steel or chrome—grommets, railings, rings—had been darkened with paint. And unfortunately, some of that paint had ended up on the deck and the wood trim. Worst of all, her beautiful white transom with Maggie Bright spelled out in such artistic lettering had disappeared beneath a still-shining sheath of black.
“Anything that catches light has to be doused,” said Smudge. “Otherwise, we’re nothing but a bright shining target for the night bombers. They drop magnetic mines along the routes at night, and see what other havoc they can manage when they do.”
“Looks like she’s goin’ as the grim reaper for Halloween,” Murray muttered. “What kinda name is Smudge?”
“Smith, in some parts.”
“Smudge. Like ink. I like it. What’s this?” Murray asked, nodding at a barrel in the stern.
“That’s oil.”
“For what?”
“Dousing phosphorescence. A clever lad aboard a destroyer came up with it, a bloke who serves with my best mate.” He pointed to other barrels and boxes. “There’s petrol, paraffin, and rope. We’ve got rations below for three days. Here—you’ll wear these once we’re under way.” He gave them each a tin navy hat.
Murray held it out from him. “I ain’t wearin’ that. I’ll look stupid.”
“Um . . . yes, you will wear that. Those are orders.” A challenging flicker came to the young man’s eyes; he looked ready to put down any rebellion, and seemed to welcome the chance.
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Murray,” said William in a bored tone. “You’ve officially signed on with the RN, remember? I assume a signature in the States means the same in England? Rather oath-like?” To Smudge, he said, “Have you been there yet?”
Smudge finished staring down Murray, and turned to William. “No. But my mate has. He says it’s worse than we can possibly imagine.”
“I can imagine a lot,” said Murray unhappily, idly swinging the tin hat by the strap.
William looked around. “What’s to be done?”
“You can go below and tear up anything you can for bandages—apparently some of the fellows are in quite a state. My mate said he’s seen it all. Other than that, all is ready. We’re just waiting for the others.” He looked about. “There wasn’t much to do, readying this one, she’s in very good shape. Her engine hasn’t been run much. Cleaned out some sludge and now she’s tip-top. You should see some of the other craft. They’re desperate enough to take anything.” He consulted his watch under the light of a dock lamp. “Shouldn’t be long now. We’ll tie on to that Leviathan out there, along with three or four other vessels, and then we’ll rendezvous at Ramsgate to join up with an armed convoy.”
“Armed convoy,” William murmured, shaking his head.
“Hopefully we’ll get our orders at Ramsgate, as far as what we’re supposed to be doing on the beaches. And then—” he looked at them, excitement and apprehension and old-fashioned naval superiority on his face—“well, then we’re off for Dunkirk.”
Ten minutes out of Ramsgate and William put his suit coat back on. Half an hour, and he huddled behind Smudge in the cockpit, wrapped in a stiff piece of deck carpet. Why didn’t they think to save some of Murray’s clothing when they emptied her?
Maggie Bright followed behind a great powerful tug to which three others had tied on: a Thames fireboat which had never been to sea, another yacht similar in size to Maggie, and a beamy coastal fishing boat made for the mud flats, which had also never been to open sea. They traveled in the company of six other boats not pulled by tugs, though shepherded by an armed tug on one side, and an armed vessel on the other, one that William didn’t recognize—someone called it a Dutch ‘scoot.’ Silly word.
Everyone should have a chance to look evil straight on.
Conversation with Clare went round and round in William’s head, snatches from when they sat together at Westminster Abbey, the cab ride to the hospital, the day he met her when they sat at the restaurant and he had no clue that the girl he’d knocked over in the street would come to be . . . the sort whose words he would replay.
She took the things he felt and packaged them into sentences and spoke them aloud. She spoke them bitterly, or with joy, or with the sort of feeling that made William want to look away in distaste, only to listen keenly for what might come next.
Let him find us holding high the picture of Erich von Wechsler as proof that his own people would not have his ways.
It was the reason he carried Erich’s picture next to Cecy’s. Clare put it into words. When she had done so, it solidified what was already there into iron. Her spokenness made stronger his unspokenness.
“I’m sick,” Murray said from where he’d wedged himself in the companionway. “She’s gonna need a squad of carpenters when we’re back. Thank God Clare can’t see this.”
William, too, had a hard time not wincing every time one of the accompanying boats missed one of Maggie’s rubber fenders and thumped her hull.
From various delays, the little convoy didn’t leave Ramsgate for the Kwinte Buoy until nearly 1 a.m. They were told of three different routes mapped out by the Admiralty to Dunkirk, and theirs was called route Y. It was the longest route, stretching northeast until it doubled back toward Dunkirk at the Kwinte Buoy—but, as the skipper of their towing tug had informed them when they first set out, it was so far the safest route; easier to navigate and, so far, unseeded with magnetic mines.
But traveling in convoy meant they traveled at the top speed of the slowest boat, and a tug pulling four boats was steady but not fast; they’d heard it took a destroyer and a hospital ship six hours to complete route Y, but they were coming up on four, and had not yet rounded the buoy. William had no idea how long it would take to reach Dunkirk after that—they didn’t say.
“Channel’s uncommon calm,” Smudge said for the third time. It was his turn at the helm. He and William took turns by the hour. “Haven’t seen it like this, this time of year. Look at that—a gray carpet.” He nodded to the other boats. “Some of these skippers have never been out of sight of land. They don’t know how unusual this calm is. I am a bit worried about the Kwinte Buoy light—I’ve been up there on night patrols, it almost blinds you when you’re upon it. Anything could be hiding up there, you’d never see it.”
Smudge didn’t stop babbling. It interrupted his conversations with Clare. Then again—the droning was a nice backdrop to the picnic in his mind. He and Clare sat on a picnic cloth in the park, talking, sharing a lunch, she was laughing at something amusing he’d said . . .
“Another thing that worries me: if Dunkirk is the last Allied-held port on the continent, then straight out from the buoy to the land is enemy-held territory. Enemy-held! I wonder if they’ve occupied it yet. You know—with artillery and whatnot. If so, will they shell us from the land?”
You knock someone over on the street, you end up with: William, we have an ally. And William, we are not alone.
Maggie Bright followed obediently behind the tug on her tether, and other than the occasional nudge and spray from another boat, the passage was indeed remarkably smooth for waters known to be choppy. William kept his eyes on the tug ahead. He was assigned the task to watch for the tug’s signal if they were about to be cut loose—the tug’s skipper said if the enemy zeroed them, he’d cut them free as fast as possible to break up a large target. Smudge had to be ready to start the engine if that happened, and Murray had to be ready to watch over its transfer from petrol-start to paraffin-run. He stood on the top rung of the companionway ladder, resting on folded arms on the hatch, watching the sky.
Murray straightened, gazing ahead into the darkness. “Bobby, listen—you hear that?”
“Why do you call him Bobby, if his name is William?”
“’Cause he’s a bobby. Somethin’s coming. Somethin’ big. Straight ahead, port side. Listen to that churning.”
“What is it?” William asked, sitting up. A sudden thought came. “Are we armed?” he said to Smudge. “Do we have any guns?”
A more ridiculous question was never asked. A gun from a yacht against a German battleship or U-boat.
Hand on the helm, Smudge rose, peering ahead to port. “No guns.”
William put off the piece of carpet and went forward. He grasped the port rail, midships, and leaned an ear into the darkness.
“Them Germans got those U-boats out there?” Murray said, coming to his side.
“Shh.”
William finally heard what Murray did, and suddenly the gray carpet of the English Channel darkened as a huge form loomed left. Passing very close against starlight and a crescent moon was a massive shadow.
After an unnerving moment . . .
“Well done, mates!” someone called down, and then comments rained down from everywhere.
“Good luck!”
“Cheers for the mosquito armada!”
“Well done!”
“Thank you, men! Thank you!”
“God bless you! God keep you safe!”
Churning phosphorescence outlined the ship. The massive size could merit that of a destroyer. Smudge called out between cupped hands as she passed, “Douse it with oil!”
“Oy! Keep it down!” someone from the tug called back.
“God keep you safe,” Smudge murmured, as they watched the great live humming shadow ease away into the night.
The passing encounter, so brief, left William with an odd sense of loneliness. The shadow had teemed with life—he had sensed a great company of souls.
He’d taken no real thought of where he was bound or what awaited.
You shall go to war, and so shall I, said Mrs. Shrewsbury.
He looked southwest. What was out there, at Dunkirk? When first they left England, they’d seen a distant red glow and could hear faint explosions. They were too far away to see or hear it now, but would soon round Kwinte Buoy. What then?
Perhaps the others felt something of the same.
Smudge: “I wonder what it’s like, over there.”
Murray: “Don’t know. But I think we’re in for it.”
“Good and hearty,” said Smudge, settling back into the captain’s chair.
“Well, then, bobby,” said Murray, turning to William. “In case we get bombed I got somethin’ to say. You know that packet? A, it proves something bad got inside us. But B, there’s something else in us, too, that can beat the crap out of the bad. It’s in Clare, and Mrs. Shrew, and most of all, the Fitz. But it’s in you too, bobs. You came crashin’ down that hatch for Clare, and that’s good enough for me. That’s all I gotta say.” He banged the heel of his hand on the hatch, as if to settle it. “Anyone want somethin’ hot to drink? Might be the last for a while.”
“Tea, please. Sugar and milk,” said Smudge.
“Milk inside tea. Ain’t never gonna get used to that. Bobby?”
“The same.”
“Figures. Comin’ up.” He disappeared below, talking to himself. “Wonder what my editor would think of a Brit guy. Salamander finds him swimmin’ in a tank of milky tea. Cute little strap under his chin. Ha! Bobby the Bobby . . .”
“He’s an odd one,” commented Smudge. “What does he do for a living?”
“He’s an illustrator. Draws for the funny papers.” William pushed away from the rail and came back to the cockpit. He settled in and pulled over the carpet, then resumed watch of the tug. “He’s rather good at it, actually. Rocket Kid. There’s a longer title. I don’t read the funnies, but I’ve seen his work.”
“Not Rocket Kid and Salamander?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“You’re not serious.”
William glanced at him. “I am. His sister owns this ketch.”
Smudge made strange little stuttering noises. “And he’s below. Making my tea. I am trying very hard to act normal.” Then, “Well, in my defense, the name didn’t register! How could it, how could I think he was the Murray Vance? He’s supposed to be dead! Drowned off Sicily or Minorca or something. There was never a newspaper account, but that was the rumor. I can’t believe it. What am I going to do? The Murray Vance!”
William thought idly, Thus will I ever be known as the brother-in-law of the Murray Vance.
The shock of the thought roused sense.
You’ve known her one week, he told himself severely.
Be reasonable, man. Pull yourself together. No more picnic conversations.
“There was one comic strip where Rocket Kid and Salamander invaded a tribe of pygmy cannibals who’d taken the president of the United States and four other world leaders hostage while on safari . . . but the president wasn’t the focus, you see; it was his attaché. . . .”
Off Smudge went, while William thought of his frightening subconscious. What things went on in the deep? He was deeper than he thought if something down there had the presumption to cast up very presumptuous thoughts. He snorted. He despised the fashionable celebration of depth. His job called for clarity in the shallows: snap decisions, intuition on the fly, no mention of shatterers. Wasn’t that depth in its own right?
“—changed my life. On a personal level, you know? He’s the reason I finished school, and there he is below. Making tea.” He laughed nervously. “Won’t know how to act when he comes above.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage,” William snapped. “Shall we turn our minds to other things, such as actually steering clear of that cockleboat?”
“Oh. Right.” He adjusted to port. “I named my dog Rocket Kid. Got him a little companion dog just to name him Salamander. I’m very nervous.”
And Clare said softly in William’s head, Don’t be unkind, William.
After a moment, he offered the anxious Smudge: “Cheer up, man—he’s as down-to-earth as they come. He’s actually worse than down-to-earth. What I wonder is, how did Murray Vance manage to keep you in school?”
Off Smudge went on a happy monologue.
The little convoy would soon be upon the Kwinte Buoy, there to swing west for the beaches of Dunkirk. The first suggestion of dawn came in the east, and on the convoy sailed.
JAMIE WOKE WITH A SHOUT.
“Wonderful. Now it’s not old loony bin; it’s his master.”
Night had fallen upon the beaches at Dunkirk.
“You should’ve seen yourself,” said Griggs. “Jerking around like a frying fish.”
