We were reading The New York Times, an old habit for a couple of misplaced New Yorkers. Meg was reading the business section while I read the book review. I was thinking about writing a book about my years in the Navy. But it occurred to me that so much of what I had to say was classified, it would be more like a pamphlet than a book.
Meg slapped the paper down on the table and looked at me wide-eyed.
“Harry,” she almost yelled as she picked the paper back up. “Listen to this listing in the back of the business section: ‘Ten-bedroom Bed and Breakfast in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, overlooking Narragansett Bay for sale. B&B is on one acre, and fifteen-acre adjacent parcel also available.’ I remember you saying that we should think about running a B&B when we retire. I remember what you said like it was yesterday—‘Just you and me, making people happy instead of killing them.’ Hey, honey, maybe it’s time to retire.”
Retire? I thought. I’ve got over 25 years in so I’m eligible to retire with a full pension, not that we need it with Meg’s big trust fund. Retire? Has a nice sound to it. Although I always kept it from Meg, my stiff upper lip was starting to quiver, and I think Meg was beginning to notice it. I love the Navy, but the stress of the past couple of years has been non-stop.
“Hey, baby, I feel like I’m talking to myself. What do you think about my idea? Well, say something.”
“We both have a lot of leave time accrued. How about a road trip?”
“Yesss,” Meg yelled in her usual polite manner, scaring the shit out of our maid.
Never one to procrastinate, Meg called the real estate brokerage that carried the listing. Not surprising, they were open on Sunday. “Do not even think about selling that place until we look at it,” she said to the broker in her best Navy command voice. Then she called the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to let them know we’d be away for a few days.
“It’s 11:30 now. Let’s put a few things together and head north. We can stay in Manhattan tonight and drive to Rhode Island first thing tomorrow.”
It was obvious that Meg wanted to keep the momentum going forward.
Chapter 55
On Sunday night we stayed at the Waldorf, Meg’s favorite hotel. During dinner we spoke non-stop about our upcoming adventure. A cute little old lady came to our table and asked me for my autograph. “You’re Admiral Nimitz, aren’t you?” As I said, she was old. We left Manhattan at 8 a.m. and headed for Rhode Island via Orient Point, Long Island, to take the ferry to New London. The drive along Long Island’s North Fork is beautiful, and Portsmouth is only an hour from New London.
At 12:15 we pulled up to The Barton B&B. The real estate agent was sitting on the front porch waiting for us. The place was a total wreck. It looked like a movie set designer’s idea of a “dump.” Two window shutters in front hung at a cockeyed angle. The place hadn’t been painted in about 20 years by my guess. The surrounding property looked like a primeval forest.
The agent, Phil Simonetti, was a nice guy with a good sense of humor. He made no attempt to say anything positive about the place.
“Hey, aren’t you Admiral Fenton?” he said. I guess he saw me on TV.
“Yes, I am. Meg and I are just looking for an investment.” I didn’t want rumors to start about us becoming innkeepers.
“I guess you’ve seen places worse than this—after your planes got done bombing it.”
“Well, nothing quite this bad.”
“To really appreciate the beauty of this hotel you’ll have to see inside.” Like I said, he had a good sense of humor. “Be careful where you step. The floors have, how shall I say, an antique quality to them.”
We walked into the kitchen.
“Just look at the beauty of this cabinetry,” Phil said as he opened a door. It came off in his hand. “See how convenient this is. You don’t even have to open cabinet doors, you just pull them off. Just think. This hotel is a perfect venue for raising rats. Would you folks like to see upstairs?”
“No,” we both said.
“Let me show you the rest of the property and the parcel next to it. If you can divert your eyes from this gorgeous structure, take a look at that,” he said, as we carefully stepped onto the creaking porch.
Wow, an absolutely beautiful view of Narragansett Bay with the elegant Newport Bridge in the distance to our left.
We climbed into Phil’s SUV for a tour of the grounds. “I have a friend, by the way, who owns a bulldozer.” If nothing else, Phil was entertaining.
“Why did the hotel fall apart like that?” Meg asked.
“The owner, Bob Barton, died five years ago, and his lovely kids have been brawling over what to do with it since then. I don’t think Portsmouth has ever seen so many lawsuits. The attorneys finally convinced the idiots to sell the place, split up the proceeds, and find something else to fight about.”
The property, although overgrown with weeds, looked great, with a view of the bay from every spot.
“Are building permits in place?” Meg asked.
“Yes, zoned for a hotel or a B&B. The lawyers were smart enough to make sure the permits were renewed regularly.”
“Let’s have lunch,” I said.
Phil took us to a charming little place where we had a table in a small room to ourselves. I wondered how many deals he’d done at this very table.
“Obviously the place is a dump and isn’t worth a nickel. But I know from reading an article about you two folks, that Mrs. Fenton was a VP of a big investment company before she joined the Navy. So, Meg, what are the three things to look for in real estate?”
“Location, location, and location,” Meg said.
“Exactly. Forget the wreck you just saw. What you’re looking at is prime investment property on a beautiful bay. A total of 16 acres. All with building permits in place.”
“So how much are you asking?” I asked, even though I didn’t know diddly squat about real estate values.
“Twenty million,” Phil wrote on a piece of paper and slid it to us across the table.
“Fifteen million—cash,” Meg said. “Closing to be held at your convenience.”
“How about 18?” Phil said.
“Sixteen,” Meg said without batting an eye.
“Deal,” Phil said, extending his hand.
Holy shit. I’m just a humble sailor, and I’m not used to even thinking about those kinds of numbers.
“Please send the contracts to Duane Baxter,” Meg said. “He’s an old friend of my father and his office is right nearby in Newport.”
“Duane’s am excellent lawyer and a friend. He’ll take good care of you folks.”
***
That night we stayed at the old but beautiful Viking Hotel on Bellevue Avenue in Newport. It was hard to believe that in the past few hours we bought ourselves 16 acres of hotel-zoned property on Narragansett Bay. We still had to go through the necessary formalities of a written contract and closing, of course, but we signed a binding agreement and Meg gave him a check for $150,000 as a down payment.
We were like a couple of kids planning our new life together. We went from daydreams about owning a simple B&B to a huge bayfront resort. At Meg’s insistence, we would name our resort Leyte Hall. I envisioned not just a resort, but a place of learning, sort of like Chautauqua, the beautiful village in western New York that specializes in learning vacations. I even started to put together a curriculum as we sipped our drinks. I wanted to teach a course on the war in the Pacific, just as I did at Annapolis, but this course would include my personal time travel experiences. We brainstormed on the courses that would be taught at Leyte Hall: Appreciating Opera; A Review of the Great Books; Shakespeare for Beginners; A History of the United States Navy; An Introduction to Classical Music. We were having a ball. Meg figured that my background as Chief of Naval Operations would attract a lot of Navy brass. Meg loved the idea of a natural market.
We were about to begin our new life.
Chapter 56
Two Years
Later
Meg and I retired from the Navy on the same day, two years ago. We threw a big party for our staff and friends at the Ritz Carlton in Washington. As a courtesy we invited President Matt Blake and First Lady Dee. We were blown away when they accepted.
At the end of the retirement party, as we waited for our car, Meg wrapped her arms around my neck. “Are you going to miss the Navy, honey?”
“Yes, I think I will. It gets into your blood after a while, but hey, we’re about to start another exciting life, one without so many explosions, gunfire, and dead bodies. And as long as I have you, I won’t be missing much.”
Meg’s contacts in the real estate development business put us on a fast track to building Leyte Hall. Meg and I have a knack for putting together large complicated operations, but this time the operations didn’t involve battles and planning for battles. And it sure as hell didn’t involve killing anybody. In just under two years, we were ready to open for business.
The resort was beautiful, done in Georgian style architecture in keeping with the surroundings. In addition to the main building, we constructed seven private lodges, each with a view of the bay. The main hotel included 135 guest rooms and 49 suites. On the ground floor of the main building was the ballroom, which could be divided into four separate rooms for different functions. Down the hall from the ballroom was a spa, which I think is world class. Meg’s money goes a long way in Rhode Island. We built a dock that jutted into the bay, from which our paddle wheel cruise boat would take guests on scenic trips around southern New England. Because we love to sail, we also invested in a beautiful 55-foot sailboat. The captain of our paddle wheeler was also an experienced sailor and would take guests out for a sailboat cruise once a week. We named the boat Holly after Meg’s mother.
Our first guests were a group of 30 officers from the Naval War College in Newport, a short distance from Leyte Hall. Meg and I knew Newport well, Meg having attended OCS there, and I once taught at the Naval War College. I taught my first Leyte Hall course, The War in the Pacific, that weekend. I think the students enjoyed my time travel stories as much as the military aspects of the subject.
A couple of years ago being an innkeeper was just a romantic thought. After having done it for a few months I can see why people like it. Sure, there’s the occasional obnoxious guest, but obnoxious people are all around. The nice thing when I was an admiral was that I didn’t have to put up with creeps. I would just put them on report or demote them. But as a civilian, I gradually found my talent for small diplomacies. It came natural to Meg, or at least it seemed to. She has a way of welcoming people that gets them thinking of returning before they even check in.
One afternoon we met with the George Monroe, the senior partner of our accounting firm. I would have expected to meet him at his office on Wall Street, but he said that he couldn’t wait to see Leyte Hall for himself. Although we pay him a ton of money, Meg and I arranged for a guest suite for him and his wife, free of charge.
“You guys amaze me and everybody else at the firm who worked on your account. You haven’t been open a year yet, and the numbers tell me that you’ll actually show a first-year profit, which is almost unheard of in the resort business. You two served our country well in the Navy, and now you’re serving your guests well. That’s why they come here in droves.”
***
After six non-stop months of welcoming guests and entertaining them, Meg and I wanted a vacation. We decided to take Holly on an extended cruise around New England.
Chapter 57
We had breakfast with Tim Clancy, our hotel general manager. During construction of Leyte Hall, Meg and I immersed ourselves in the hotel management business, and our first and most important task was to find an experienced manager. A name we kept hearing was Tim Clancy. People we consulted with couldn’t praise the guy enough and encouraged us to meet him and make him an offer. We hired him away from a resort on Lake George.
Two of our bellboys helped us load our provisions aboard Holly. The temperature on our early May morning was 74 degrees and not a cloud was in the sky. One of the kids untied our lines and we shoved off on our journey.
I took the helm first, and Meg handled the sails. Meg and I would switch duties as captain. She wore white shorts, showing off her beautiful legs, and a sleeveless yellow blouse. I wore khaki cargo shorts, a chambray shirt, and deck shoes. Our sailing plan was to head south into Rhode Island Sound and then head east toward Nantucket Sound, passing Martha’s Vineyard to port.
Holly was a beautiful boat, outfitted with strong stainless-steel deck gear, and every kind of electronics imaginable. Paranoid former Navy man that I was, I took a GPS fix every half hour. We were about five miles east of Martha’s Vineyard, sailing on a comfortable broad reach with the wind out of the southwest.
“Hey, put a hat on, hon. Wouldn’t want you to get that pretty nose sunburned.”
I no sooner said that when it was suddenly dark. The boat rumbled as if we were going aground.
“Oh shit, Harry, please tell me this isn’t happening.”
“I wish I could tell you that, but we both know what’s going on. We hit a goddam wormhole.”
As we expected from our previous experiences, the daylight returned in two minutes. The beautiful sun had disappeared behind clouds. The wind picked up.
“This is getting old, Harry. It’s a damn good thing you took a fix every half-hour. We should be able to find our position where we hit the wormhole.”
I looked at the GPS screen. It was blank. I wanted to kick myself for relying on electronics without writing down our position.
“Give me a line of position from that tower in the distance.”
“The compass doesn’t work,” Meg said, an uncharacteristic look of fear on her face.
“Okay, we need to take some kind of fix,” I said. “Jot down what I say, Meg. Church steeple— one point abaft the port beam; water tower—3 points abaft the port beam; cell tower—3 points on the port quarter. Flag Pole—dead astern. That’s about the sloppiest fix I’ve ever taken, but sloppy beats nothing.”
I was using the relative bearing system, where each point is 11.25 compass degrees relative to the boat. Because we had no compass to work with, the points were my estimates.
“Any vessel, any vessel, this is sailboat Holly, radio check, over.” No response after five attempts.
“Great. No GPS, no radio, no compass, no shit. We must have time travelled way into the past.”
“Let’s come about, hon. I want to head to Martha’s Vineyard so we can figure out where we are. I mean what year we’re in. Then we’ll see how good my fix was when we try to recross the wormhole.”
Looking at the paper chart—thank God I remembered not to completely rely on electronics—I steered toward the Cape Poge light house, intending to round it and head southwest for Edgartown, a place I once visited. Plenty of dock space as I recall.
“Harry, aren’t lighthouses supposed to be lit?”
My trivial pursuit brain kicked in and I remembered that the Cape Poge lighthouse was build around 1800, so that gave us a vague idea of how far back we had traveled. As we approached the light I could see a Fresnel lens—but it wasn’t lit. I recalled that the first Fresnel lens was used in 1823. But why wasn’t the goddam thing lit?
Chapter 58
As we approached a dock, we were surprised that only a few boats were tied up. No sailboats, only power. I wondered why. We pulled up next to the dock and I jumped ashore to handle the lines. Because it was low tide, the walkway up to the street was at a 45-degree angle. We couldn’t see the street until we got to the top of the walkway.
“Oh, my God,” Meg said. “We’re not in the past. Look at those late model cars. Some look brand new. And what are they all doing in the middle of the street?”
“Good question. I have another one. Where the hell are the people? This town looks deserted.”
We walked down Planting Field Way to see if we could find anybody. We p
assed by a stationery store. A newspaper in the window answered our question. The date read May 5, 2021.
“Well, that’s one mystery we unraveled, at least,” I said. “The wormhole took us a year into the future. But why the hell aren’t our electronics working?”
The only sounds we heard were our own footsteps. Meg grabbed my arm.
“Harry, look. There’s smoke a few blocks ahead.”
We walked toward the source of the smoke and saw a man cooking something over an open grill.
“Hello,” I yelled. What else do you say to the only human being we saw since we got here?
“Oh, dear Lord,” the guy shouted.
He ran, and I mean sprinted, toward us. He was a big man, about 6’5,” and skinny as a stick. He startled the hell out of me, but I noticed that he was smiling. When he got to us he wrapped his long arms around the two of us. Then he started to cry. It was obvious that he was happy to see us, but why? What’s with this guy, I wondered. I figured introductions were in order.
“I’m Harry Fenton and this is my wife, Meg. May I ask who you are?”
“I’m Roger Cramer. Oh, my God it’s great to see people. You’re not from around here, are you?”
“We’re from Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and we were out sailing on Nantucket Sound. We just tied our boat up to a pier down the road. Roger, if you don’t mind a blunt question, what the hell is going on? Where is everybody?”
“Within six months after The Event, Martha’s Vineyard emptied out. People wanted to get to a big city where there would be more food. I stayed put because I was waiting for my wife, Janey. She never showed up.” He started to cry again after he mentioned his wife. This time the tears were from sadness.
The Violent Sea Page 18
