by Dan Walsh
Rachel joined Jack’s grandmother in the living room. “Can I sit over here?” She pointed to a comfy looking upholstered chair. “So, I can see your face better while you talk?”
“Sure.” Grandma took a sip from her mug. “Okay, where should I begin?” It wasn’t really a question. “I don’t think I’ve told this story to anyone since that time years ago when I told it to Jack. And I guess the story really doesn’t begin with me, but with Jack. I mean, my Jack, not yours. I’m going to tell you his part of the story too, the way he told it to me.”
5
Somewhere in the North Atlantic
May 19th, 1940
Jack knew immediately something was wrong.
The Canadian sailors on their merchant ship suddenly stopped laughing and joking and began running in different directions, panicked looks on every face. An alarm had just sounded all over the ship. It looked to Jack like they were going to assigned stations. But this was a freighter, not a warship. So, these were not battle stations.
These sailors had no way of defending themselves.
“Look,” Joe Bassett said. He and Jack had been friends since high school. “They all got binoculars, and they’re all looking in the same direction. Think it’s U-boats?”
God, he hoped not. “I don’t know what else would spook them like this.” Jack, Joe and the four other Americans onboard ran to the railing nearest the side where everyone was looking. It was a windy, cloudy, overcast afternoon. Not a great deal of contrast between the color of the sky and ocean. It would be hard to spot a lone periscope sticking out of the water in conditions like these.
“Anyone see anything?” Joe said. “With all these whitecaps how can you tell if you’re seeing a periscope?”
“You can’t,” said Ozzie Holmes, one of the young pilots in their group. Ozzie was from California. “The first thing any of us’ll see is a long, straight-line about ten feet underwater, heading right for us.”
“A torpedo?” Joe said.
Ozzie nodded. “Read an interview with a survivor in the papers. No one ever saw the sub that sunk ‘em. Speaking of surviving, if we do get hit we got no chance if we don’t put on a life vest. See the Canadians? They’re wearing ‘em.” He headed for the cabin below.
Joe was just about to follow, looked at Jack. “Want me to grab yours when I’m down there?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Jack wasn’t sure how much good it would do. If they were hit by a torpedo, he gave them maybe a 50-50 chance of surviving the first few minutes. If they lived past the initial explosion, they’d be thrown in the sea. In that freezing water, with no other ships for miles around, they’d all die of hypothermia in less than an hour.
The guys returned a few minutes later wearing yellow life vests. Jack put his on. For the next thirty minutes, everyone’s eyes stayed focused on the water, scanning every section between the ship and the horizon.
Then, with little to no fanfare, the tension broke. All the sailors began putting down their binoculars and stepped away from the railings. Jack observed a blonde-haired guy named Harold coming down a set of stairs in his direction. “Everything okay now?”
“Captain gave the all clear. Looks like another false alarm.” A look of relief on his face.
“Don’t you guys feel like sitting ducks out here?” Jack said.
“We guys? In case you haven’t noticed, you guys are stuck on this tub with us.”
Jack laughed. “No, I get that. What I mean is, this ship doesn’t have any means of defending itself. Canada is officially in the war now, right? Why don’t you have any deck guns? If we did see a U-boat, you’d at least have a chance of fighting back?”
Harold walked up to the rail and stood next to Jack. “I agree with you,” he whispered. “But the captain thinks if the Germans see any deck guns, it might provoke them to attack. For now, at least some of the time, they just board ships and inspect them, make sure we’re not carrying any weapons for the Brits. They’re not sinking all of them. But I think that’s gonna change soon. Could be any day. Things are really heating up over there. Heard on the radio the Dutch surrendered to the Nazis five days ago.”
“You’re kidding?” Jack said. “Already? The Germans just launched their attack, what, nine days ago?”
“They’ve already broken through Belgium’s front lines. The day after the Dutch surrendered, German tanks crossed the River Meuse into France. More tank divisions have broken through the Ardennes. The reports are, the French army’s in retreat all up and down the line.”
Jack couldn’t believe it. The Ardennes was considered an impenetrable forest. Joe and Ozzie came over. Jack shared the news. They were as stunned as he was. When they all had talked back in Nova Scotia about what to expect on this trip, most worried whether they’d see any action at all. In the first war (called The Great War), things had pretty much reached a stalemate after the first few months. That stalemate lasted four years.
Up until now, this war seemed to be following the same crawling pace. England and France had declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland in September of last year. That was eight months ago and very little actual fighting had taken place. People in the press had nicknamed this “The Phoney War.”
Clearly now, things had changed.
“I guess it makes sense, though,” Ozzie said. “Colonel Sweeney must’ve seen this coming. Why he told us, all of a sudden, to board this boat back in Nova Scotia, instead of the one heading to France.”
“But the French and British are gonna stop the Nazis, right?” Joe said, looking at Jack then Ozzie. “This is just some kind of temporary thing, don’t you think?”
Ozzie didn’t look so sure.
Jack wasn’t, either. “I don’t know,” he said. There were some major differences between the weapons used in the Great War and now. Jack had been keeping up with all the developments in Germany over the last several years, especially since Hitler had started showing up in the news more and more. Hitler had created a new illegal air force, called the Luftwaffe, which sported some extremely fine looking fighter planes and bombers. Jack had read all kinds of stories about their exploits a few years ago during the Spanish civil war. And the new Nazi tanks seemed far superior to anything the French or British had built since the first war.
Jack had read everything he could about how quickly the Nazis had defeated Poland eight months ago. Everyone in the press kept saying, well yes, of course they did. The Poles were no match for the Germans. Some of their cavalry troops still rode on horseback. But the French and British forces were far superior to Poland. It would be a very different matter once this “Phoney War” ended and the real fighting began. And yet, here the news seemed to be saying…the Germans were doing the same thing now with Holland, Belgium and France that they had done with Poland.
No one spoke a few moments.
Jack couldn’t stop thinking about the news. The Nazis had already accomplished more in a week then they had in several years during the Great War.
For at least a few minutes, the magnitude of all this war news had pushed aside the dark thoughts that had preoccupied Jack’s mind ever since he’d come aboard this ship.
Really, even two weeks before that.
An hour later, the atmosphere on the ship had mostly returned to normal. The sense of danger from U-boats, even the anxiety stirred up by the news in Belgium and France, had subsided. Five of the six young Americans were standing along the rail enjoying the light breeze, watching the sun begin to set.
The sixth man, Seth Norman, sat on the steel deck about fifteen feet away, his knees folded up by his chest. His chin rested on his forearms. Jack couldn’t tell by the look on his face if he was angry, worried or afraid.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
Joe noticed Jack looking at Seth. “What’s up with him?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said quietly. “Something.”
“Hey Seth,” Joe yelled. “What are you doing sitting over there by yourself?
C’mon. You’re missing it. Nice breeze is blowing. The ocean’s calming down. A nice sunset is shaping up. Not a U-boat in sight.”
Seth didn’t answer. He just stared down at the deck.
“Seth?” Joe repeated.
“Leave me alone. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want off this boat.”
“What? It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think? You’re pretty much stuck here with us for the duration. At least till we reach England. But even then, it’s gonna be pretty hard to get back to the US with a phony passport.”
“Joe,” Jack said. “You’re not helping.” The man was just afraid. Jack walked over and slid down the steel wall beside him.
“What’s bugging you, Seth?”
“This isn’t what I signed up for.”
“What did you think it was gonna be like? You’re a pilot, right? How long you been flying?”
“Four years.”
“What kind of planes?”
“Jennie’s mostly. The occasional Stearman.”
“Okay then, like the rest of us, you faced death every time you hopped in the cockpit, right?”
Seth didn’t immediately answer. Finally, “Yeah, I suppose so. But that was different.”
“How?”
“In the cockpit, I got the controls in my hands. Out here? Some invisible ship can just blow us out of the water. At any time. We won’t even see it coming. It can happen when we’re asleep. Colonel Sweeney didn’t say anything about U-boats when I signed on.”
“He didn’t mention them to me, either,” Jack said. “But it was all over the newspapers.”
“I wasn’t reading the news.”
“He told you about what we’re doing being illegal, though, right? That if we got caught, we could go to jail? Lose our citizenship?”
Seth looked at him, nodded.
“That didn’t bother you? Going to prison?”
“I figured we could dodge the law easily enough. And the passports he gave us looked pretty official. I figure they’d pass muster. If not, going to prison a few years isn’t the same thing as sitting out here for weeks on a boat waiting to get blown to pieces. Or else slowly freezing to death in ice water.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. “You got me on that one, Seth.”
They sat a few moments in silence.
“If it helps any,” Jack said, “that guy Harold—you know, the blonde-haired fellow? He told me this morning, he thought we’d be in England in two days. That’s not that much further, right? We made it this far, we’ll make it the rest of the way. And you got to figure…the Nazi subs aren’t going to want to get that close to England, so we might be in the clear already.”
Seth looked up at him. “You think so? Think we won’t have any more…false alarms?”
“Maybe.”
Joe walked up. He’d caught the last few moments of their conversation. “Another way to look at this, Seth. If you do blow up from a torpedo, it’ll happen in the blink of an eye, so there’s no pain. You’d be dead before you screamed ouch. And if you don’t blow up but get tossed in the drink, if you want, I got a Colt 45 on me. I can shoot you in the head right off the bat, so you won’t freeze to death. It’ll be over before you know it.”
Jack looked up at Joe. “Was that supposed to help?”
6
An hour later, the sun had completely set. The ship moved along at a nice clip. Were they moving faster, or did it just feel that way because the water was so calm now? The dinner bell was supposed to ring any minute. Jack hoped so. He wasn’t hungry, but the activity would give his mind something else to dwell on besides the singular theme that kept plaguing his thoughts every spare moment.
He felt betrayed. By his own father.
Jack shook his head in disgust, picked a different point on the horizon. He tried focusing on the droning sound of the ship’s twin-propellers, see if that could shut down this barrage of disturbing thoughts.
It did. For about twenty seconds.
What made this thing even harder to understand was how close he and his father had always been. At least he thought they were. Growing up, it had been just the two of them. His father had been stuck in a wheelchair since before Jack was born, put there by injuries he received as a pilot during the Great War. It meant he grew up poor, but Jack didn’t care. All his friends were poor. Besides, they always got by. And because his father was disabled, Jack got to spend more time with him than most kids did with their dads.
“Say Jack, what’s that city in England we’re docking in? It’s Southampton, right?”
Jack looked toward the noise. “What?”
“C’mon, you said it yesterday, the place where we’re getting off this crate. It’s Southampton, the place where the Titanic was built, right? That’s what you said.” Joe whispered the next part. “I’m about to make an easy five bucks. This big farm boy is saying we’re heading to Liverpool.”
Joe had been Jack’s best friend for almost a decade. But Joe didn’t seem even remotely aware how upset he was. Jack looked right at him. Nope. Joe didn’t have a clue. Had that same ain’t-life-great look on his face he wore most of the time. “It’s Southampton, Joe. Bet the guy fifty bucks if you want. I heard the captain tell one of the crew members myself, the day we boarded.”
“I knew it.” Joe headed about fifteen feet down the deck toward this broad-shouldered, red-headed kid, all set to make his deal.
Jack knew he shouldn’t get mad at Joe. Some guys are just born dull. Joe thought he was just fine the way he was, said if there was a problem in their friendship, it was Jack. He was wound too tight. “Your job is to get me to think some,” he’d say. “My job is get you to lighten up.”
Jack didn’t think he’d ever lighten up about this thing. How could he? His whole life had been a lie. He hadn’t told Joe anything about it yet. Wasn’t even sure if he wanted anyone else to know. He wished he didn’t know.
“Pay up, pal.”
“I’m not paying you a thing.”
Jack turned to find Joe leaning into the face of the farm boy.
“It is Southampton, so you owe me five bucks,” Joe said.
“What, ‘cause he said so?” Farm guy pointed at Jack.
“If Jack said it, it’s a fact.”
“Not in my book.”
“Slow down,” Jack said. “I’ll tell you what…why don’t you make it double-or-nothing, payable when we dock? It’s not like it’s a matter of opinion. When we reach the port, you’ll see whether I was right, or you were. Actually, you’ll know before then. When we get close. If the ship turns north up St. George’s Channel, you’ll know it’s Liverpool. If we keep heading east in the English Channel, it’s Southampton.”
Both men seemed okay with that. They shook on it then Joe came back and stood next to Jack. “Nice goin’ Jack. Now I get ten bucks.”
“Glad you’re happy.”
“You’re sure about it being Southampton, right?”
Jack nodded. “You’ll win that bet. And here’s another tidbit. Southampton wasn’t just the place the Titanic was built. They also designed the Spitfire there.”
“Really?”
“Said so in that article you showed me the other day.”
“Guess I didn’t catch that when I read it,” Joe said. “Can you believe we get to fly those birds? I can’t wait.”
Jack smiled. “Don’t get your heart set on flying Spitfires yet. The RAF’s got Hurricanes, too. Remember? We could end up flying them.”
“Either way, they’re both like hot rods compared to those rickety Jenny’s we been flying back home.”
Joe was right about that. And Jack had to admit…that part of this adventure did excite him. Until a month ago, he and Joe had made their living wowing crowds at air shows doing stunt routines, mostly in rural areas where folks had never seen an airplane up close. Jack couldn’t imagine being at the controls of a Spitfire and having so much power in his hands.
They’d seen pictures
of them in an aviation magazine Joe bought the day before they boarded. The main article was all about the new British fighter. Jack had never seen a sleeker, faster-looking plane. All the guys were talking about it. Every one of them had read that article. Like Joe, they didn’t care too much about the political aspects of this new war.
They just wanted a chance to fly that plane.
Jack wanted that, too, but he had a totally different reason for getting to England.
He sighed as he thought about the book tucked away in the duffel bag under his bunk down below. Wedged inside its pages was a black-and-white photograph, now yellow with age. Next to it, a telegram. It was still so hard to fathom. But he knew it was true. His Dad admitted it. But then he’d said, that was all he could say. He couldn’t tell Jack anything more. If Jack wanted to know the rest of the story, he’d have to pursue the answers himself.
So that’s what he was doing. That’s why Jack was on this boat.
He still loved his Dad but felt so betrayed. In the last few days, it felt like every sure thing in Jack’s life had suddenly given way. It wasn’t just his relationship with his Dad; Jack’s faith in God had been shaken, too. His Dad had raised him going to church. Had Jack memorize and, as best he could, live by the Ten Commandments growing up.
And here his dad was…lying all that time.
Sitting there by the rail, looking out over the water, Jack thought about the photograph again. As long as he could remember, it had sat inside a small mahogany frame on his Dad’s dresser. It showed a little boy, eyes squinting in the sun, wearing a little gray suit and knickers, standing in front of an ornamental iron gate. He’d never asked his father about it before. No reason to. Jack had always assumed it was just the earliest picture his Dad had of him.
Now he knew the truth. It wasn’t him. Had never been him. And the picture was no longer safely hidden behind the confines of a frame. Jack had read the handwriting on the back. He recalled the words again, for the hundredth time since he’d first read it.
