The Keeper's Son

by Homer Hickam

  Max peered over the fairing. “What’s that?” he suddenly shouted.

  Krebs rose to look. A gray shape was riding atop a giant wave. It was the patrol boat, being flung directly at the U-560. “Get down, Max!” he yelled. “Brace yourself!”

  The great wave roared and the Maudie Jane rode its lip, then slid down its back side. Beneath the wave sat the U-560. Both craft were helpless in the grip of such awesome power. Josh, hanging on to the instrument panel, watched the U-boat tower loom at them like a blunt spear. But then the giant wave tossed the eighty-three-footer as if she was as inconsequential as a gull feather, sending her sailing over the U-boat. The Maudie Jane landed with a crash, her bow disappearing underwater before she popped up, her propellers biting into the sea. Finally, she steadied.

  Josh and Phimble had both been thrown to the deck. They crawled to their feet, then stared at each other. They had missed the U-boat by a matter of inches. Had they struck it, the Maudie Jane would have been torn to pieces. “All this ocean,” Phimble marveled, “and we almost hit the bastard.”

  Josh chanced going outside. He gripped the railing while the wind and rain brutally tried their best to throw him overboard. He ignored the murderous effort and peered into the storm, trying to see the submarine. The Germans had disappeared. Josh could only hope the Graveyard had sunk them and saved him the trouble.

  31

  For twelve days, the ocean from Nags Head to Lookout battered everything on it, be they U-boats, tankers, freighters, banana boats, or the Maudie Jane. Then, at dawn on the thirteenth day of the January blow, which by then was actually in February, the skies turned a crystal blue and the wind subsided into a gentle, though chilly breeze. The Atlantic had become so placid that a stone dropped into it would have shimmered to Bermuda. In the Stream, two U-boats came together while a freighter slowly settled nearby, rolling heavily toward a ragged, charred torpedo wound in its side. Ignored by the German sailors, lifeboats were being lowered off the stricken ship and the men aboard them were manning oars, their frightened faces turning occasionally to consider the enemy submarines.

  One of the two U-boats was the U-560. Krebs was on the tower, and his knee was bothering him. It was terribly stiff. He tentatively flexed it. It hurt like the devil but still worked. A lookout reported another U-boat had surfaced about a mile away. Krebs hauled out the powerful Zeiss glasses to study it. It was a big, black Type Nine. “Scheisse,” he cursed. “Vogel.”

  The sub next to the U-560 was Froelich’s Type Nine. “Our glorious leader,” Froelich confirmed.

  “Well done, by the way,” Krebs gibed. “I’m glad you found a vessel going slow and straight enough for you.”

  Froelich allowed a grin. “It was not one of those amazing torpedo shots for which you are so justly famous, Otto, but it will do. Happily, it was my last torpedo. We will soon be on our way home. How about you?”

  “I have two left,” Krebs answered. “It shouldn’t take too long to find targets for them and then we’ll head back across the Atlantic. I think the boys are ready to see France.”

  Both crews, except for the necessary watches below, were on their respective decks, stretching their legs for the first time since the long, violent storm had struck. A buzz rose from the crew of the U-560. France! “Ooh la la!” someone shouted.

  The three lifeboats off the sinking freighter milled around aimlessly until one of them straightened itself and began to pull in the direction of the U-boats. A man with a trimmed white beard, perhaps the captain as he was the only one in a uniform jacket, stood anxiously in the bow.

  “You should try your deck gun on a few ships before you leave,” Krebs said, looking askance at the approaching lifeboat.

  Froelich lowered his binoculars. He’d been watching Vogel’s sub, still determinedly plowing toward them. He pushed his cap to the back of his head. “I’m too low on diesel to give any kind of chase. No, another wave of boats are probably on their way over here even as we speak. It’s time for me to take my boys home.”

  The lifeboat from the sinking freighter crept in behind Froelich’s submarine. The man in the bow took his cap off and clutched it to his chest. His men all had their heads down. “Good morning, Kapitän,” he said in Spanish-accented German. “I am Captain Castro. Could you direct me to the coast?”

  Froelich looked the man over. His chief came out with the marine registry in his hand and demanded, “What ship?”

  The merchant captain answered, “San Paulo. Out of Havana.”

  “What cargo?”

  “Sand.”

  Froelich’s expression was comical. “Sand?”

  “We were in ballast, senor,” the captain replied, shrugging heavily. “That’s why we were heading south, going back to Cuba for more bauxite.”

  Krebs laughed. “You have interrupted the supply of sand to the Cubans, Plutarch. Well done!”

  “Tonnage?” Froelich’s chief droned.

  “Two thousand six hundred. The coast, senor?”

  Froelich waved distractedly to the west. “Follow the setting sun, you fool. Don’t you even know where you are?” Then he quieted his embarrassment and became solicitous. “Do you need water? Food?”

  “Sí, we have nothing.”

  Froelich sighed at the lack of preparation by some men who went to sea, then gave instructions to his chief to see to it but to be quick. He looked anxiously toward Vogel’s U-boat. Its engines could be heard clearly now. Vogel and his officers could be seen riding atop the conning tower. “As soon as you’re done,” Froelich called after the chief, “prepare to head home.”

  “Give our regards to the ladies!” crazy Hans called from the deck of the U-560, and all the boys around him picked up the shout. Froelich’s crew laughed and made rude gestures to the effect that they meant to give more than regards to the women of France.

  “I wish we were going home, too,” Harro said in a gloomy voice to Joachim.

  Joachim shrugged. “It won’t take us long to use our remaining eels,” he said. “Of course, now that you’re being trained on the radio, you don’t have to sweat loading them in their tubes. Girls like radiomen, for some reason,” Joachim added authoritatively. “It’ll be easy for you to meet girls back in France. Don’t forget me when you do.”

  “I’ve already met one,” Harro said proudly. “I think she likes me.”

  “A girl? This is news! What’s her name?”

  “Yvette, of the Crazy Dog Bar. I have twelve letters to her in the mailbag.”

  “Yvette of the Crazy Dog!” another boy exclaimed, standing nearby. “I am writing to her, too!”

  “And I!” somebody else said. There was in fact a chorus of youths confirming that they were all writing to Yvette of the Crazy Dog Bar in Brest. The Chief scratched his head. He was writing Yvette’s mother.

  Harro reddened, then hung his head. “It was different with me and Yvette than those others.”

  Joachim patted his friend on the shoulder. He knew Yvette pretty well, too, but he would never tell his friend that. “I am certain you are right,” he said.

  Vogel’s U-boat moved in alongside with Vogel scowling from its tower. When he saw Froelich’s cook bring out tins of food and jugs of water for the men in the lifeboat, he reacted with a shout. “Kapitän Froelich, it is against my express orders to assist enemy crewmen!”

  Froelich nodded to the cook to keep handing over the supplies. “They’re just Cubans, sir.”

  Vogel said something to one of his crewmen, who went down on the deck of the long, black submarine. He had a sidearm. He aimed carefully and shot once. A Cuban passing back a jug of water fell, a red stain on his back. The others shouted out an angry torrent of Spanish. The wounded man flopped over like a hooked fish, then quieted.

  The captain of the Cubans whipped his cap off again. “Sir,” he implored Vogel, “please! We are just merchant sailors. We are not at war with you.”

  Vogel ignored him. “So what’s your plan, Froelich?”


  At the moment of the shooting, Froelich had turned pale but now he was crimson with anger. “I intend to return across the Atlantic, sir, where I will report what you’ve done to the first military lawyer I can find.”

  Vogel laughed. “I act with the authority of the highest command, Froelich. The highest! We are here to bring terror to these shores, not just destruction.”

  “Why doesn’t Captain Krebs say something?” Harro whispered to Joachim. Joachim shushed him.

  At Froelich’s command, his crew filed into the U-boat. Froelich pointedly ignored Vogel and spoke only to Krebs. “Well, we’re off. Anything you want us to carry back?”

  “The mail, sir,” the Chief said, hoisting the sack.

  Krebs was so angry at Vogel for ordering the shooting of the Cuban that he did not yet trust himself to speak. He waved approval to Max. “Throw it over,” Max said, and the Chief did. Froelich’s chief caught the bag and disappeared through the galley hatch with it.

  “Anything else? Any messages to BdU?”

  “No, nothing, Plutarch,” Krebs replied. “With any luck, we’ll soon be on your heels. Good luck and remember the Biscay escape hole I told you about.”

  “I will. Godspeed, you men of the U-560.” And with that, Froelich disappeared below and his U-boat began to move toward the east, submerging quickly, leaving the U-560, Vogel’s submarine, the nearly sunken San Paulo, and her lifeboats the only vessels in a vast blue circle.

  “Are you ready for new orders, Krebs?” Vogel called.

  “Orders?” Krebs responded in a stony voice. “I have two torpedoes left and not too many eighty-eight-millimeter shells. I will be leaving soon.”

  “No, you won’t. You are to stay in the area until you hear from BdU. You will be given new coordinates for further deployment.”

  “What can I do without weapons?” Krebs asked reasonably.

  “You can wait until you’re told what to do.” Vogel made to leave the tower of his boat but he stopped and came back. “You were supposed to rendezvous with me off Montauk Point. Failure to comply with my orders again will . . .” He seemed to suddenly become conscious of the crew of the U-560 all watching him, their ears well cocked. “I want your radioman punished. He clearly did not properly relay my orders.”

  “I shall have him flogged immediately, Captain. How many lashes do you think would be best?”

  Vogel gave Krebs a long, threatening stare, then disappeared below. Soon, his U-boat was moving eastward.

  Max said, “What good does it do for us to stay here without torpedoes or eighty-eight rounds? Vogel is playing us for a fool.”

  Krebs privately agreed but said, “Get the boys below, Max.”

  As his crew filed through the tower hatch, Krebs contemplated the lifeboats and noticed that they were already angling off to the northeast, the Stream clutching them and shoving them along. The best strategy to use one of his remaining torpedoes, he thought, might be to track the lifeboats and see if the Maudie Jane might come out to rescue them. It would be a fine ambush. After more consideration, he looked to the west and said, “Let’s lay off the island just there.”

  Max was surprised by the order. “May I ask why, sir?”

  “I don’t want to use our eels until we discover what BdU has in mind. I’ve heard the boys talk about the island. We might as well play the tourist. We’ll post extra lookouts so every man can get a chance to have a look at America.”

  The lifeboats of the San Paulo kept pulling away. Krebs wondered what it would feel like to be in their situation. The Chief and some of the other hands had been merchant sailors before the war. The Chief apparently was thinking along the same lines. “Those men,” he said wistfully, “are us.”

  32

  Dosie rested her face in her hands and slowly shook her head. “I will surely go insane,” she said between her fingers. She was sitting in her parlor before a crackling driftwood fire on a glorious Killakeet morning. Sunshine shot through the shards of beach glass she’d hung in her windows, playing delightful rainbow patterns across the walls. Dosie knew it was beautiful but she couldn’t enjoy it. She’d been thinking about Josh and missing him. Even though it was still an hour before noon, she was also seriously thinking about opening a bottle of wine, just to soften her mood. Instead, she abruptly reached for her boots, pulled them on, and strode through the kitchen and out the back door, heading for the stables. “To hell with all men,” she said to Genie, who gave her a querulous nicker, as if to say, What, again? Every time Dosie had gotten lonely for Josh, or morose about the possibilities of her future and the particulars of her past, she’d saddled up Genie and gone flying into the storm.

  Though Genie bared her teeth and stamped her hooves, Dosie told her to stop acting silly. “Come on, don’t act all mehonkey,” she said, tossing the saddle on the mare’s back. Then she said, “Well, listen to my Killakeet vocabulary, why don’t you? Danged if I ain’t mommicked for a dit-dot. But I ain’t quamished, not by a sight. Even though I do long for that puck, Josh Thurlow. For sure, don’t you know, that wampus cat.” She laughed at herself, and it felt good to do it. “Yep, insane, for sartain, cattywumpus, that’s me.”

  It had been too wet to ride on the beach during the long January blow, so mostly Dosie had taken Genie through Teach Woods and across inland tracks to Whalebone City. But with the clearing skies and the gentle breeze and the bright sunshine, she decided to go south along the beach to see what she could see. Once on the sand, littered with shells and driftwood tossed ashore during the storm, Genie took a few quick steps, then slowed to a walk. Dosie felt the mare’s unhappiness and allowed her to set the pace. “I’m sorry, girl,” Dosie said. “I have no right to wear you out just because I can’t face life.” She sighed heavily.

  Genie also sighed, then plodded on, her head low, taking little note of the sandpipers scurrying ahead of her dragging hooves. A fussy seagull settled in on her haunches for a ride and, for the trouble, got a beakful of Genie’s swished tail. It flew to a sand hill and complained, though none of the other gulls much listened. Gulls tended to be complainers, Dosie had noticed, but not much interested in complaints other than their own. In that, they were like a lot of people she knew, including herself.

  Dosie was so lost in her thoughts that she failed to see the circling seagulls ahead, or the objects of their attention. She was nearly on top of them when she saw what appeared to be sodden cloth bags. Genie stopped short, and the seagulls flew off, screeching. Then Dosie saw that the “bags” were not bags at all but coats, shirts, and blouses covering the backs of drowned human beings. As if she were coming out of a dream, other objects began to coalesce before Dosie. There were heads protruding from the sand, and hands, arms, and legs.

  Dosie fought both the urge to vomit and also to wheel Genie around and go flying back up the beach. She waited herself out until her stomach calmed down. The tide was coming in. Soon, the people would be covered up. She had a responsibility to report what she’d seen, then bring others to recover the bodies. She turned in her saddle. She could still see her house less than a mile to the north.

  She clicked her tongue. “Walk on, Genie,” she said. Shoes by the dozens had been cast up, along with life rings, shattered decking, oars, and—there! A complete lifeboat. Dosie steered Genie to it but it was empty. A white square, cast ashore by a rough wave, caught her eye. At first, she thought it was a handkerchief but then she saw it was a sodden sheet of paper. Hoping it might identify the ship the bodies were from, she dismounted and carefully plucked it from the murmuring sea. To her surprise, the handwriting on it was in German. A notation along the top edge said “560” and “Krebs.” She pressed the paper against Genie’s saddle to wring out a little of the water, then inserted it carefully into her saddlebag. “They’ll want to see this, Genie,” she said, not exactly sure who “they” were. Perhaps Josh, when he came in. Or at least Chief Glendale.

  “They’re resting,” a voice, like soft wind, said.

  Dosie
nearly jumped out of her skin. A figure rose from a sand hill. It was Willow. She reminded Dosie of a wisp of smoke, the way she nearly floated when she walked. She wore a white dress and her red hair rippled like a Russian flag in the breeze.

  Dosie was also surprised to see Jezzie, the old mare, come up behind Willow. “We been watching them all day,” Willow said. “They’re resting.”

  “They’re dead, Willow,” Dosie replied.

  “ ‘Rest in peace,’ they say over the graves,” Willow replied. Then, she hopped aboard Jezzie. The mare trotted toward Miracle Point, Willow hugging her close.

  Dosie, shaking her head at crazy Willow, turned Genie toward Whalebone City. As she did, she was surprised to see another mounted figure coming down the beach. At first, she thought it might be Keeper Jack aboard Thunder, but as she got closer, she saw it was a man in a big white cowboy hat riding on a large brown stallion with a saddle glittering with silver trim. He looked like something right out of the movies.

  Rex Stewart, the best trick rider in Hollywood, and Joe Johnston, the best trick horse, trotted down the beach toward what appeared to be a woman mounted on a big mare. “Maybe we’ll find out where we are now, boy,” Rex said. He was dressed in the very same uniform, only tailored a little in the shoulders, that Gary Cooper had worn in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, a crisp khaki jacket with epaulets on the shoulders, and tight, white pants that ran down into knee-high, brown leather boots. He was also wearing the big white hat Gene Autry had given him after they’d wrapped Springtime in the Rockies. A Sam Browne belt, taken from his work on Mounties to the Rescue, completed the ensemble, from which hung a holster filled with an ivory-handled Colt forty-five revolver. Joe wore a saddle studded with silver conchas that Roy Rogers had awarded him for stunt work on Wall Street Cowboy. For that one, they’d painted Joe yellow to match Trigger’s color because Roy’s big palomino was having an off day. A Winchester 94 carbine also dangled from Joe’s saddle in a silver-studded holster.