“Cables?” said Will.
“Seven strand cable controlling the rudder.”
Will persisted, “So what can we do about this?”
“I been thinking. When I came home in 1945, I was out here one day and remember noticing the burial mound had lost a whole side of itself like a bulldozer had scraped dirt away. When I asked, some trappers told me the Easter storm in 1944 had brought in high water and washed soil away.”
Pete nodded, considering. Hank recognized the look he had when he was deep in thought.
“Matter of fact,” the Captain continued, “By the time I went to the mound a year had gone by and brush had built up.” He stabbed at the muck with his shoe.
“Perhaps this fell ‘cause of of one of these fighters training and passing overhead during the war,” said Bob Johnny.
“Possible,” agreed the Captain.
Sammy coughed and spit. “If a Thunderbolt fighter, a P47, heavy as those things were, cracked up coming in here, storm or no storm, people would know. What about the fire, the explosion?”
“I thought about that too,” said the Captain. “The plane might have been caught by the storm in a downdraft bringing it straight down. If it were out of fuel, no fire would start. This swamp was water and muck even in those days. Whatever hole the crash made, would fill right back in and appear pretty much the same a few days later with the tide coming in and out. If the storm was a bad one, the wreck would be swallowed fast.”
“I guess anything is possible,” said Pete.
“I remember the wreck Will thought was his aunt’s plane, the one found in the swamp outside Wilmington, Delaware,” Sammy said. “We went with Will to see it.”
Will smiled, “I thought she might have been wounded and confused about where she was.”
“Anyway, that wreck proved the possibility of setting down in a swamp without damage to the airplane,” said the Captain.
“Over in Delaware earth covered the wreck and pretty well preserved the metal,” said Sammy.
“Well, I think the same kind of thing happened here,” said the Captain. “If the pilot managed to set down easy and penetrate the soft mound, the fuselage could be sucked under the surface.”
“I got no doubt anything heavy would eventually sink. A lot for soft mire to support,” said Sammy.
“Five tons of aircraft,” said the Captain. “The fighter could dig a pretty good-sized tunnel entrance. It might have gotten smaller over time. That could have been what Bobby found.”
“You still paying on your reward, Will?” asked Pete.
Will stopped and stared at Pete, “You mean the reward for finding the P47? Sure, whoever finds her gets the reward.”
“I still think any airplane would break into tiny pieces,” said Sammy.
Captain Steele said, “My best guess says no. P47s were built too well.”
“Your theory ain’t helping us save this child,” said Sammy, moving back to his tractor.
“Well, I sure got you interested, Will,” said Captain Steele, grinning knowingly as he watched Will walking back and forth, the schoolteacher’s eyes on the mound and the trench.
“Like Will asked, what do we do? We’ve already torn up a lot of the mound,” said Bob Johnny.
“Will, you can bet Bob Johnny don’t want to search for no plane,” spit Sammy.
“He’ll get in too much trouble with the politicians.”
Will said, “All I’m saying is we ought to be thinking what we’ll do if we do discover a plane sunk in here.”
“Corroded and rusted,” muttered Sammy, as he climbed up to the tractor seat.
“Might be a help in finding the boy,” said the Captain. “Being out of the air, down under the ground, Sammy, rust won’t be too bad. I’m even thinking that if there’s some structure left of it, the boy might have found a refuge.”
“So what do we do?” asked Sammy.
“We get the plane out,” said Will.
“You’re crazy,” said Sammy.
“He may not be,” said Captain Steele. “Remember, Republic built tough aircraft. The Nazi pilots found that out.”
“What about Bobby?” Hank asked, picking up a shovel.
“Maybe Bobby is inside it like you say. Get Bobby out first, of course,” said Will.
“You’re damn right,” said Melissa, coming over from the radio tent where she had been helping Charlie.
Hank walked away to return to his digging. He left the decisions on the mound to Sammy.
Betty followed Hank over to the trench. “You think my brother isn’t interested in Bobby,” she said.
“Your brother is being your brother like he always does.”
“Aunt Zinnie’s estate and her last will and testament, Hank, drives him.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wrote one.”
“Didn’t your brother inherit the school from his father?” asked Hank, chopping at the wall.
“Yes,” said Betty. “The swamp was mentioned, too. Will and I don’t own the swamp. We can rent space like he does for his hunting business, but we can’t sell it for development.”
“Folks say you guys have to wait for some years to get the rights to sell.”
“Zinnie owned this land. Her last will and testament stated her body had to buried on her land, this island, so to speak. Otherwise after a certain time the swamp was to be sold to the state for an animal preserve.”
“Her body was never found so the land goes to the state and Will loses out,” said Hank.
“The estate is to be settled this year,” Betty said. “Will is frantic. We’ll lose a lot of money selling to the government.”
“You never seemed to bother about your family inheritance.”
“Hank,” she smiled, “You know I’m not a big shot. I’m glad the swamp goes for a preserve. Everything but the burial mound of Jimmy’s Nanticoke tribe is our property and covered by Zinnie’s will. Will wants to get title to all the swamp, fill parts with topsoil, and then build expensive condominiums. He’d make a lot of money doing that and he dreams of being rich like our parents and grandparents were.”
“I care about getting my boy back, Betty. If Will wants to help, fine. Otherwise he should stay the hell away from me.”
She nodded. “Finding this airplane here means he might find Zinnie’s body. She’d be buried in the Wilderness to meet the will requirements. I know his mind. I try to understand him.”
Hank returned to digging, trying to match the other men as they worked in precision against the tractor’s travels, back and forth. He had his strength back. Far down in the direction of the boat ramp and along the walkway, behind the sandbags, the children climbed the side of the mound. Hank was worried about the girl’s safety and started to wave Cathy down.
“Come here,” she called. Richard was with her.
Hank motioned to Pete. Cathy and Richard were in the middle of the mound, near the open field where the workers were filling sandbags. They were squatting down at a place more than halfway across, their weight supported by the small squares of plywood strapped to their shoes. Cathy’s face was close to the earth among some low bushes and vines, motionless if she had spotted something.
“What, Cathy?” Hank called.
“He went down into this cut.”
“Who?” asked Pete.
“Cochise.”
Hank shrugged his shoulders and started back to the trench.
“No, wait. I want to explain,” she called after him.
He turned his head toward Cathy again.
“I think he’s with Bobby,” said Cathy.
“She’s got a point,” said Pete. “The hole might go down near where Bobby is. Bobby said he felt fresh air before the cave collapsed. Breeze may have come in to a den.” Pete stood back and measured with his eyes from the trench to the hole where the children were squatting.
“The mound’s two hundred feet around. Cathy’s hole is near the center. He’d have to crawl
more than a hundred feet to get there,” Pete finally said.
“I got an idea,” said Richard.
The adults turned their heads towards the black child.
Cathy explained, “Richard can do electronics.”
Richard said, “Charlie and me could send down something to Bobby.”
“Rig a line down, something with a speaker and a mike,” said Charlie, nodding at Richard.
“If Bobby is getting air, we’d have to be sure not to wreck the hole,” said Pete. He waved to Sammy, who stopped the tractor and climbed down.
“Do something as fast as you can,” Sammy said.
Charlie, who was at his radio a hundred feet away, took off his earphones as the storm rain drizzled around him. “Richard, you come over and give me a hand in this mud. Yessir. Got to get the line to go straight down.”
“Remember, we ain’t got much time left,” said Sammy, staring out at the rising tidewater and heading to the tractor.
Richard said, “We can put some weight on the mike and speaker to make them drop faster. We’d hear on the microphone and talk on the speaker.”
“I don’t know,” said Charlie. “We can do the electronics. We just can’t be sure whether the stuff will drop.” Charlie, on a canvas chair, was more than two times the size of Richard, who stood in front of him in the tent, his head barely up to the dials of the radio.
“I want to listen,” said Melissa. “Make sure to attach the radio receiver to some loudspeakers.”
Charlie glanced at the hole. “Let’s say we are ten to twenty feet over the level of where Bobby might be,” he said. “At an angled hole path the mike might have to go thirty feet. If the hole drops good without any rough spots to hang-up, so much the better.”
“We’re hoping,” said Pete, tall over the others.
“Did you understand Captain Steele, Melissa?” asked Will.
She turned to him, “You mean about Zinnie’s airplane being down under the mound?”
“Yes. What do you think?”
“Will, we’re all more concerned about my son.”
“We got to get some more equipment up here, Melissa.”
“What effort that we are not already doing?” she asked, listening.
“Order a dredge to dig quickly,” said Will.
Pete said, “Even if we used more equipment in this storm, I figure it’s too much risk to the boy. Even the tractor we have might make the whole thing collapse on him.”
She asked Hank, “Do you think we need anything more to help Bobby? I’d pay for it.”
“Ask her for a dredge, Hank, something with a suction device, to pull the muck out,” said Will. “No danger to the boy.”
“You don’t want to help Bobby,” said Hank. “You want to dig an airplane.”
Will appealed to Melissa, “He’s not being fair, Melissa. After all, the airplane might be lost forever when this tide gets in. The trench is too slow.”
“I guess what people say is true. You are pitiful. I deserve you,” she said, walking away.
Richard left Charlie who was finishing up the electronic package material. The boy stood next to Hank, his head barely to Hank’s shoulder.
“I want to find my friend, Bobby,” he said.
“I understand,” Hank said, putting his arm around the boy.
“My dad say I can stay here until you say.”
“You spend a lot of time with your dad, don’t you?”
“We go out buddy on his twin cylinder BMW.”
“You’re lucky he takes you on his motorcycle.”
“Bobby says he likes being with you,” said Richard.
“I like him too,” said Hank.
“He didn’t want his grandfather’s letter.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“He said that his grandfather was different in the letter and he lied.”
Hank asked, surprised. “Did he say what he lied about?”
“Nossir.” Richard went on, “My father and me, this summer we are going to ride to Canada. His family lives in Montreal.”
“Montreal?” asked Hank.
“My daddy, he’s a US citizen but he came from Nigeria when he was my age. He is a chief in his tribe in Nigeria.” He paused.
“You are the chief’s son. You’ll go someday to visit your African family.”
“Like Cochise.”
“How’s that?” asked Hank.
“He’s the chief’s son, too. He’s the son of Sachem.” Richard continued, “Cochise is trying to talk to us. Cathy thinks so, too.”
Hank helped Richard get back up the side of the mound.
“You and Cathy can help Charlie with the speaker,” he said as he started to walk back to his work in the trench.
Hank’s feet were sunk in several inches of swirling black liquid, bits of reed and clusters of unearthed roots floating in the eddy. He realized the time for a chance of rescue of his son was almost gone. Tears began coming down his cheeks, their warmth mixing with the constant rain pelting his skin.
Chapter Eleven
“OK,” said Charlie, standing up. “This setup works as well as it’s going to work. Let’s get started.”
He signaled Cathy to come near from her perch at the muskrat hole. Charlie had set up the base two-meter transceiver - what had been the regular fire department radio set. He attached a speaker and microphone to the end of a transmitter wire and taped the two together so they would fall through the hole at the same time.
She asked, “OK, Charlie, what do you want me to do?”
He handed her the taped unit and a coil of thin wire. “You weigh less than me. It wouldn’t be smart for me to sit on the plywood. I’d sink the whole project. You’re going to have to do this, Cathy. You and Richard. I want you two to lower this carefully down that hole. When it stops moving, just jiggle it some and see if it won’t keep on going. If it stops completely, don’t force anything. Keep calling out your progress.”
Will did not say anything or try to prevent his daughter crawling out on the mound. He was obviously preoccupied with figuring a way to dredge out the aircraft.
Pete, however, sensed that the children were in some danger. He could see that Melissa was also concerned about risking Richard as well as Will’s daughter in the muck.
“They’ll do all right,” he said to her.
“What happens if those devices get into water?” asked Will, suddenly aware of what was going on.
“Well, maybe the tape will keep them waterproof and maybe it won’t. We’ll see,” said Charlie. “Don’t go too fast, Cathy,” he called, his voice breaking in the sudden wind. He and the Captain kept slack in the cable from the tent. From the loudspeakers came the noise of scraping as the microphone slipped further into the ground and brushed the sides of the muskrat tunnel.
“We’re down maybe two feet,” reported Cathy.
“You can start broadcasting on that speaker, Captain Steele,” said Charlie.
The captain picked up the microphone. “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. This is Captain Steele and the River Sunday Fire Department. Can you hear me?”
They heard only the noise of the wind in reply. The loudspeakers blared as they continued to produce intermittent sounds of metal against earth, the noises jarring. Each time the listeners looked up expectantly at the speakers clamped high on the light poles, each of them thinking that this might be Bobby’s first answer. Each sound was another disappointment; however, proving to be only static as Charlie shook his head to confirm that the noise meant nothing.
To Hank, each noise resembled a heartbeat. He thought about Bobby breathing, his heart pounding.
He shivered as he remembered feeling his own heartbeat in the war. His war was fighting the enemy infiltrators at the perimeter of an airbase. He never knew if he killed anyone, only that he fired and was fired at, great numbers of rounds flying in the night raids.
Maybe Bobby would be lucky like he was. Maybe his life would also be spared. An Air Force colon
el, who was one of those in charge of the facility, found out that Hank knew about gardens. Hank was brought into the next room where the colonel, a short man, sat in a metal chair. His head moved quickly from Hank’s face to different piles of papers and back again to Hank’s face. They exchanged salutes and he asked Hank to sit down, at ease.
The colonel appraised him for a few moments without speaking, still shuffling some papers on his desk.
“Private, I understand you’re a gardener.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Are you any good?”
“Yes, Sir,” Hank said.
“I like to have my bases orderly, pretty. We have visitors, sometimes from Washington. They want to see a place like home,” the colonel said.
“Yes, Sir.”
The colonel turned up his face to Hank, “Have you seen the flowers here around the buildings?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What do you think?”
“We got a need for more color spread, Sir. Move some of them around, that’s all.”
The colonel smiled. “I want you to take charge, be my gardener, do that.”
“I can try, Sir.”
“I’m going to borrow you from your outfit. You’ll stand guard when your company officers need you for fighting in this Goddamn war, but otherwise I want you working on my flowers.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Maybe we’ll both get out of here alive,” he said. “That’s all, Private.”
“Yes, Sir.”
That was his reprieve. Hank spent most of his tour planting flowers.
Hank had arranged plants to show the flags of the allied countries side by side with the colors of the flowers. He had a Republic of Vietnam flag in yellow and red and of course the Stars and Stripes in red, white, and blue. Other flags of the Australians and Koreans were also there. Some of the flowers he had to use had large petals and the configuration of the plants was difficult especially in regulating heights. His Vietnamese workers were helpful in changing the plants around to make the display attractive. The Washington visitors were very impressed and left for dinner with the colonel after congratulating Hank for his work. The Vietnamese workers were also lined up and each was given a handshake by an official. The colonel of course stood in the background and said from time to time that this was a fine example of Vietnamese and American cooperation.
Easter Sunday (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 7) Page 8
