The Keeper's Son

by Homer Hickam

  “Most of us is fine, Doc,” one of the men replied. “Sure glad to see you. Ed’s burned up pretty bad.”

  Doc knelt beside the burned man and lifted the blanket covering him. He looked, then slowly lowered the blanket.

  “Can you help him, Doc?” a crewman asked.

  Doc shook his head. “Let’s get him in the jeep. Then all you boys pile in, too. We’ll get Chief Glendale to carry Ed across to Morehead City aboard the workboat. They’ll fix him up there.”

  Dosie said, “I’ll walk back, if you don’t mind. I have a few things I want to talk over with Rex here. You can drive.”

  Doc said he’d do it, and he, Rex, and Dosie helped the sailors into the jeep. Somehow, they all squeezed in, with Ed laid across their laps. Dosie remembered she hadn’t formally introduced Rex to Doc. She corrected the oversight. Rex once more swooped his big white hat.

  “That’s a fine uniform you have there, Sergeant Stewart,” Doc said.

  “Thanks, I kind of came up with it myself. What part do you like the best?”

  “The whole thing in general. You look like a Bengal Lancer, I’d say, except without a turban.”

  “By God, you’re a smart man, Doc. This is the very same uniform Gary Cooper wore when he played the part.”

  “If every soldier was dressed like you, we’d have this war won in a week,” Doc swore, then climbed in behind the wheel of the jeep and sped off with the merchant sailors toward Whalebone City.

  Dosie and Rex and Joe Johnston started walking. “Doc seems like a good guy,” Rex said.

  “He has his ways,” Dosie said. “You’re about to find out that everybody on this island has a pretty strong personality.”

  “Well, I ought to fit right in,” Rex said, then gave Dosie a glance. “Are all of the girls on this island as pretty as you?”

  Dosie nearly blushed. The cowboy was pretty smooth. “Why, I’d say they’re mostly pretty,” she answered, “but they’re also mostly married or spoken for.”

  “How about you? Married or spoken for?”

  “I’ve pretty much sworn off men except for one. I’d swear him off, too, if I could.”

  Rex was mildly disappointed but not much. He had what he figured was about a twenty-year head start on Dosie, after all. “Why don’t you swear him off, then?”

  “Good question.”

  “And the girl, the wispy one?”

  “I guess the only one who speaks for Willow is herself.”

  They silently walked past the bodies on the beach. “Chief Glendale and Keeper Jack and a bunch of men are coming to get them,” Dosie said.

  “Who’s Keeper Jack?”

  “The keeper of the lighthouse.” Dosie nodded toward the distant spire. “He’s also the father of my honey, the one I should swear off.”

  “Is everybody related to everybody else on this island?”

  “Except for me and you, I expect that’s about right. Oh, Bosun Phimble, he’s a Hatterasser.”

  “A what?”

  “That means he’s from the island of Hatteras.”

  “Hark!” Rex called. “What’s that?” He looked over his shoulder.

  Dosie heard it before she saw it, a low drumming sound. Then she saw a long, thin boat with big bulge in its center sailing up the coast not more than a football field from the surf line.

  Rex said, “That’s an odd-looking craft.”

  Dosie squinted, then her expression turned angry. “Not so odd if it’s a German U-boat!” she cried.

  Krebs had been shaken by the encounter with the patrol boat. Why, he wondered, had he decided to run away? The U-560 was out of torpedoes but it still had its eighty-eight. He could have risen up and pummeled the patrol boat until it was nothing but splinters. Perhaps, he had finally been worn out by the war. That was the only explanation, that and the way Miriam had changed him. I’ve become soft, he griped to himself. I am no longer fit to command.

  And that, Krebs deduced, was the situation. He was quite calm about it. Sooner or later, it happened to every captain. It was an accumulation of events or simply getting older, and it meant he was a danger to himself and, more importantly, his crew. Krebs suddenly made up his mind. As soon as he got back to Brest, he was going to request to be relieved. He contemplated taking the U-560 back that very minute. Who cared what Vogel might have to say about it? Who cared, for that matter, what Doenitz might say or do? What could he do? Hang him for ignoring a verbal command from Vogel shouted across the water? It could have easily been misunderstood. Anyway, Krebs sincerely doubted the navy would hang a U-boat captain who reported in with six freighters and two tankers hanging like scalps from his belt.

  It was a pretty day. The sky was blue, the breeze warm for February, and the island with its stately lighthouse was a glorious sight. Krebs suddenly felt very free. “Max,” he asked lightly, “what do you think? Are we safe here?”

  Max had been badgering the lookouts to scour the skies. They’d seen only birds. “It looks safe enough,” he said. “I don’t think the Americans have any aircraft around here. The water is too shallow for us to maneuver, though.”

  “We’ll chance it,” Krebs said. “Let the boys come up for a look. They can air their bedding, too.”

  Max called through the hatch to the Chief and soon a dozen men who were off watch came up, to see the island they’d heard so much about, to gawk at the distant lighthouse, and the beige piles of sand, and the maritime forest, and also to hang out their mildewed blankets. Sliding past them was a little piece of the United States of America. “Look, horses!” one of the boys cried.

  Krebs smiled. There were indeed a number of horses gathered on the beach. “They’re probably the wild horses I’ve read about,” Max said. “Look how shaggy they are.”

  “There’s a girl on one of them!” another boy whooped.

  A cheer amongst the crew went up. Krebs peered at the girl with the Zeiss glasses. She was a pretty girl, dressed in a wispy white dress, her red hair rippling as her horse trotted along.

  The herd of wild horses and the girl were soon left behind and some of the men stripped off their shirts and stretched out on the deck to sunbathe. Krebs saw Harro was amongst them. The report he’d gotten from Pretch was that the boy was turning into a pretty good radioman. It was bound to mean a promotion. Harro looked up, saw Krebs watching him, and nodded. It was as much thanks as a greeting. Harro knew very well that the captain had been behind his reassignment.

  “Look, another horse,” Max said.

  Krebs saw the horse, this one not wild like the others. Two people were walking beside it. One of them was wearing a khaki uniform and a big white hat. The other one was a woman, dressed in tall boots, jodhpurs, a checked shirt, a straw hat, and a red bandanna around her neck. “They’re a colorful bunch around here,” Krebs said.

  “The man with the white hat has a pistol on his hip,” Max observed through his binoculars. “He looks like something out of a Gary Cooper movie.”

  Krebs laughed. Neither he nor Max nor any of the crew saw the woman draw the Winchester lever-action rifle from its sleeve on the silver-lined saddle.

  “Whoa there, little lady,” Rex said when he saw what Dosie was up to. “That’s a dangerous weapon.”

  “I hope so,” Dosie said, tossing it to Rex. “See that bastard on the tower in the white cap? He’s the captain. Shoot him.”

  Rex just stood there, holding the rifle in one hand. He’d never shot a human being before. A rabbit or two, over the years, but that was about it.

  “What are you waiting for?” Dosie demanded. “Can’t you hit him?”

  “From this distance, I could put a bullet through his eyeball,” Rex said. “But it don’t seem sporting, somehow. I mean he’s just riding along. And there’s all those others. Looks like they’re sunbathing and I’d say that was their blankets and mattresses and whatnot. Must be laundry day.”

  “You saw those bodies back there. Who do you think killed them? And who do you think bu
rned up poor Ed? Shoot the bastard!”

  Rex looked a little closer. “I believe that’s a machine gun they’ve got there. And that’s a mighty big gun up front, too. It’s artillery, I’d say.”

  “Well, for the love of Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” Dosie snarled, and snatched the rifle from Rex. She propped it over Joe Johnston’s saddle and took careful aim. With his tangled reddish brown beard, the captain of the U-boat reminded her of a Viking warrior. Just as she started to squeeze the trigger, he disappeared behind the fairing of the tower. “Dammit!”

  “Look, Dosie,” Rex said. “I don’t think this is a real good idea.”

  “Shut up.”

  “OK,” Rex replied, putting his hands in his pockets. He whistled and Joe Johnston pranced around, throwing off Dosie’s aim.

  “Hold still!”

  Rex whistled another combination and the horse bolted and ran up to the sand hills. Rex didn’t want Joe to get hurt.

  Without the saddle to steady her aim, Dosie wasn’t sure she could hit anybody in particular, so she shifted her aim to the group lounging on the deck. She cut loose in their general direction. “Take that, you lousy Nazis!” she yelled at the same time.

  Harro and Joachim were having a fine time. They’d enjoyed looking at the wild horses and the girl, and at the sand dunes and the forest behind it, and the squadrons of pelicans going overhead, and the seagulls making lazy patterns in the sky. Now, they’d seen the most remarkable sight, a cowboy in a white hat with a good-looking woman walking beside him and a big brown horse with a saddle all decked out in silver trim. “America is a strange and wonderful place,” Joachim decided and said so.

  “Look,” Harro said, “the horse is prancing around and now it’s running up into the forest.”

  “I bet it’s a trick horse,” Joachim said. “Cowboy horses usually are.”

  “Take cover!” Leutnant Max suddenly yelled from the tower. “She’s got a gun!”

  Some of the men dived under their mattresses. Others ran to hide behind the tower. The men at the machine gun jacked back the handle and swiveled their wicked double snouts toward the beach.

  The woman’s bullet struck the deck and ricocheted off. Krebs came up to see what was happening just as she fired again. He looked toward his boys and saw Harro fall.

  “I got one!” Dosie said. Then her expression changed from exultation to grief. “I got one,” she said again and a big tear welled up and rolled down her cheek.

  Rex took back his rifle. “I think we’d better run for it.”

  The Germans were crawling out from under their mattresses. The man who’d fallen was being helped up. The machine gun on the tower was aimed directly at Rex and Dosie. “I think it’s too late,” Dosie said.

  Rex took a look at the machine gun. “I see what you mean.” He considered raising his hands to surrender but decided not to give the Germans the satisfaction. Nonetheless, the thought crossed his mind that he sure wished he had that boy John Wayne doing this particular stunt.

  Krebs shook his head. “What is it with these Americans and their rifles?”

  “Do you want me to kill them?” the machine gun captain asked.

  “I suppose not,” Krebs replied, and went down the tower ladder to see about Harro. Joachim was bending over him. Harro was bleeding profusely from the side of his head. “Can you speak?” Krebs asked him, fearing the worst.

  “Yes, sir,” Harro said. “I tripped on one of the mattresses and hit my head on the deck.”

  “The boy’s got a hard head,” the Chief said, coming up for a look. “He’ll be all right.”

  Krebs was relieved. The boy’s survival had become important to him. “Go on below, get cleaned up. Pretch can give you a stitch if you need it.”

  “I hope I don’t need it, sir,” Harro said, touching his head gingerly.

  “Go on, now.” Krebs said. He patted the boy on his shoulder as he went past. Then he cupped his hands and yelled in English to the woman and the cowboy, “You missed!”

  Dosie wiped away her tear, then shouted back, “You’re a bunch of murderers!”

  The U-boat captain seemed to consider that charge for a moment, then yelled, “We are at war, madame! We do our duty!”

  Rex said, “Boy, his English sure is good. But maybe we shouldn’t be talking to him. There’s probably a law or a regulation against it. Loose lips sink ships and all that.”

  “I already told you to shut up,” Dosie growled.

  Rex wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Dosie went back after the U-boat captain. “You’re still a bunch of Nazi rat bastards!”

  “Are all Americans as brave as you?” the captain called. “I have a machine gun, you know. You would not stand a chance if I gave the order to fire.”

  “This is the home of the brave, bub!” Dosie cried. “And the land of the free, too, and don’t you forget it! Why don’t you go back to Germany and stay there?”

  Dosie was astonished when the men on the U-boat’s deck cheered her.

  “I think you have put forward a popular proposal to my men,” the captain said, then tipped his white cap to her and went back up to the tower. Apparently, he’d barked a command, as the other Germans followed him, carrying their bedding with them. Quickly, the deck was cleared, and the U-boat curved out from the beach and headed for deeper water. Soon, it had submerged, leaving only a froth of bubbles to mark its passage.

  Joe Johnston came plodding down from the dunes, nickering. “You’re a good boy,” Rex told him.

  “You’re a trickster is what you are,” Dosie complained. She looked at Rex. “I’m sorry I told you to shut up. But what got said needed to be said.”

  It wasn’t the first time a woman had told Rex to shut up so he wasn’t particularly upset. “Do you realize you just had a conversation with a U-boat captain?”

  Dosie gave that some thought, then shrugged and asked, “If I join the beach patrol, do you think I’ll need a uniform?”

  Rex appraised her. “Well, your jodhpurs and boots are a good start, already. How about a shirt or some such that looks sort of military?”

  Dosie snapped her fingers. “I could borrow one of Josh’s khaki shirts and cut it down! I’m pretty handy with scissors and thread.”

  “Josh?”

  “Mr. Sworn Off. He’s in the Coast Guard.”

  “Do you think he’ll miss a shirt?” Rex asked.

  “No,” Dosie said. “As far as I can tell, he wears one until it completely wears out, and then and only then puts on another.”

  “I like him already,” Rex allowed. “I’ve got an extra Sam Browne belt and holster. We just need to get you a sidearm to put in it.”

  “Oh, I have a pistol back at the house,” Dosie replied. “Daddy gave it to me since I live alone and all. It’s a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight. Daddy also has a thirty aught six deer rifle locked up in the attic.”

  “That should do it. I think you and I are going to make quite the team. Of course, like I told you, there’s no pay involved.”

  “I’m not looking for pay,” Dosie said, “just a job that means something.” She hadn’t realized how true that was until that very moment. It perked her up. “What do I have to do to join?”

  “All I did was take an oath.”

  “Give it to me, then.”

  “Raise your right hand. Do you swear to uphold the Constitution of these United States pretty much forever and die doing it, if you have to?”

  “You bet,” Dosie replied.

  “Welcome to the Coast Guard Beach Patrol. You can put your hand down now.”

  Instead, Dosie snapped a salute. “Thanks. What’s my first order?”

  “Don’t take my rifle away from me again. Also, don’t salute me. Salutes are for officers.”

  Dosie dropped her salute. “What’s my rank, by the way?”

  “What’s below sergeant?”

  “Corporal, as far as I know.”

  �
��OK, you’re an unpaid corporal for the duration.”

  Dosie was thrilled. She couldn’t wait to write her parents and her brothers and tell Josh. In the space of one afternoon, she had rescued stranded sailors, shot at a U-boat, called its captain a rat bastard to his face, and joined the United States Coast Guard Beach Patrol. Any way you measured it, Corporal Dosie Crossan of Killakeet Island was doing an important job. She was in this war with both feet, both legs, and all that came afterward.

  35

  The ghost ship was coming on fast, but first the little red moth boat had to be understood. As Josh shook off the shock and got to his feet, a teenaged boy popped his head up from the cockpit, then disappeared and then reappeared, this time with a teenaged girl. To the general amusement of the Maudie Janes, both of them were hastily rearranging their clothes. Phimble shook his finger at them. “What in the blue blazes are you two doing this far out? Don’t you know there’s a war on? Even if there wasn’t, a freighter could run you down, wouldn’t even know it.”

  Josh was concerned about the girl. “Are you all right, honey?”

  The girl, furiously blushing, finished buttoning her blouse and pushed her blonde hair back from her freckled face. She was cute as a button. “I’m OK,” she said. “Are you going to tell my parents?”

  Josh ignored her question. “Where did you come from?” he asked the boy.

  “Ocracoke, sir,” he answered, his voice an adolescent screech. “This morning. Guess that old current got us.”

  “You might have done better if you’d put up your sail,” Phimble said, grinning now like the others.

  “Let’s get you two on board,” Josh said, trying to keep a straight face. “We’ll take you to Killakeet. You can catch the ferry home.”

  “What about my boat, sir?”

  “We’ll take it with us.”

  After the couple was aboard, the Maudie Janes clustered around the girl. She seemed to like the attention, blinking her eyes hither and yon, and smiling as demurely as anyone just caught in the act of smooching on the high seas might manage. The moth boat was set between the depth-charge racks.