by Peter Scott
“You don’t know who your first selectman is? How many people live on this island?” The ensign squinted for a closer look at Fuddy.
“Don’t know that either.”
“I’ll bet you know who the constable is,” said Jake.
“Dwight Chafin,” said Fuddy, glad to have an answer. “He’s in the white house on the right past the alder swamp. Up the hill.” He pointed toward town and the hill beyond.
“You’re not going to bring that nigger ashore here, are you?” Basil motioned toward Morales with his pipe stem.
“I wasn’t going to, until you said that.” Jake turned, cupped his hands and yelled to Morales, waving to him to join them. “He’s a Mexican-American and a Coast Guardsman, and that pistol in his holster is loaded. Why don’t you wait till he gets here and call him nigger to his face?”
Basil started up his truck and ground her into first gear. The hawser strained, the boulder budged, then the hawser parted in the middle with a twang that made Fuddy jump backward and Basil curse so foully that he fogged his windshield.
When Morales joined them, Jake and the ensign introduced themselves to Iris and asked her where they might find the first selectman. She patted her hair into place and directed them to Cecil, who she thought would be in the store. Iris offered them a ride—she loved a man in uniform, so rare on the island—but Jake said they would enjoy the walk.
Betty Chambers, in rolled־up dungarees and saddle shoes, hurried to Iris’s side to meet the men in white but arrived too late. As they watched, the threesome stopped to talk to Billy Mattingly and his little brother, who were pulling a wagon load of pots and pans. Billy had a carved wooden pistol stuck in his belt, and his little brother had a wooden sword; both were wearing sailor’s caps. The ensign patted Billy on the shoulder. When his superiors had turned to go, Morales stood at attention before the boys and rendered them a perfect salute. They returned it and remained at attention by their wagon until he had gone.
“Wasn’t that cute?” said Iris. “That ensign is so little, so young. He still has his dimples. But that other one is some handsome,” she said, referring to Jake.
“He’s dreamy,” said Betty, who meant Morales.
Doris Chafin was sitting in the sun on her front porch shelling peas when she looked up to see Cecil Barter and three sailors walking up her driveway. She stood up, holding the apron full of empty pods in one hand, and shouted through the screen.
“Dwight,” she called. “Dwight, come out here. This minute!”
Roused from his nap, Dwight blinked in the sunlight as Cecil introduced him to the Coast Guardsmen. Doris dumped her apron over the porch railing and smoothed it out. When Cecil introduced her, the three men removed their hats. Ensign On-derdonk’s hair was so blond, his body so thin, and his complexion so pale that he looked like a two year old in a sailor suit. Doris invited everyone inside, but Cecil said they would rather sit on the porch.
“I’ll get another chair,” said Doris. “And some refreshments.”
“I’ll just sit on the steps if you don’t mind,” said Morales. “We have a set just like them at home.”
Ensign Onderdonk took a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and held it on his knees while he talked. Jake, who had already heard this spiel several times, accepted a cigarette from Dwight and leaned back in his rocker.
Cecil listened with an air of quiet authority as the ensign explained the situation and quoted the order from Coast Guard Headquarters, Naval District Seven. All districts adjacent to the coast were ordered to form a “Coastal Picket” made up of civilian volunteers. These volunteers, “hereafter Patrolmen,” were to be properly armed and equipped, and fully instructed in the execution of their duties, which were to maintain a coastal or beach patrol system in all parts of their locale where terrain permitted.
Doris opened the screen door with her rear end and set a tray of coffee, chocolate cupcakes, and Pepsi on the little porch table. She excused herself to go back inside—and listen through the screen.
The ensign, who had never eaten chocolate cupcakes without a napkin, continued. He was authorized to issue a rifle; a Very pistol, which fired a flare; and other equipment to beach patrols on the islands in the Penobscot Bay region. Those without phone systems linking them to the mainland would each be issued a radio. The armed patrols were instructed to walk the beaches and shore to watch for anything suspicious and to report it immediately through proper channels.
The Mattingly boys—together with the Crowell brothers, who had joined them at the store—constituted the entire third and fifth grades of Maggie’s school. They tried to hide behind the big maple in the drive, but Morales saw them and waved to them to join him on the steps. They marched up single file, Billy first. Morales put his index finger over his lips and patted the step for them to sit down.
“Can we see your gun?” Vince Crowell was the smallest and the least afraid.
“You can see it, but I can’t let you hold it because it’s loaded,” answered Morales.
The boys nodded eagerly.
“Who’s this?” Morales nodded toward Betty Chambers and another teenaged girl who were coming up the road on bicycles, standing on their pedals as they began the steep hill.
“That’s Betty Chambers and Mabel Eaton,” whispered Billy. “They’re jerks.”
“Betty has big chubbies,” Vince said.
As if she had heard Vince, Betty pulled back her shoulders and stuck out her chest for a deep breath, displaying her Maid-enform miracles to a gap-mouthed Morales.
“I’ll say she does,” he whispered reverently.
Amos patrolled every day at first—at dawn one day, in the evening the next—but he found that the first bright crack of light from the sun blinded him and made observation of anything to the east impossible. So, he settled for evening patrols, stopping at the lighthouse on his way in at dark to refuel. He had always wanted sunglasses and decided that now he would get a pair.
But Amos did not know where he was going to get the energy to do everything he had to do. Normally, lobstering from dawn to mid-afternoon and then taking care of chores in the cove for himself and the others wore him out by dark. Now he had the patrolling, as well, and he would be doing it alone until the men on Matinicus and Vinalhaven got their radios, and Maggie was done with her teaching. He read the advertisements about how to stay fit and alert for the war effort. He saw pictures of men his age or older working night shifts in airplane factories, sweating with their sleeves rolled up, looking over their heads at a picture in their minds of a young man charging through smoke and explosions on a battlefield somewhere. The advertisements listed the kinds of food an older man needs to stay fit, but he did not have most of the things they recommended, and neither did the store.
His assigned area ran from southwest to northeast, following the shoal that lay eighteen miles out. When the weather permitted, he crated his lobsters in the cove at the end of the day, cleaned the boat, and sailed back out, heading due south by west from the cove and running twenty miles to Seal Island, a bare little rock out of sight of any land. There he steered close enough to see the puffins that had gathered, then set a course of twenty-five degrees to lead him along the shoal to the lighthouse. On a good night, he was home and tied up by ten. When the sea was heavy or the wind contrary, he might not pull into the cove until midnight. On nights like those, he could only fall into bed, too tired to cook or even eat, too tired to wash up or shed his dirty clothes.
It had to be the cove that suffered, that got neglected— everything but Ava’s garden, now a Victory Garden, that Maggie helped him keep. The old shed would have to wait another year for a new roof, the well cover would have to stay rotten for another season, and the field in front of Ava’s house would not get scythed, which meant that the thistles would come back, bringing the bees, and choke out the hay forever. Nothing would get a fresh coat of paint. Amos knew that it galled Ava to see the place going to hell, so he avoided her. When Walter or Lew
were around, he was either too busy to pay them any mind or so tired that he fell asleep in the chair next to them, which he regretted the next morning.
While school was still in session, he often came in from his patrol to find Maggie waiting for him on his wharf with a supper in a covered basket. She was always eager to hear whether he had seen anything and would ask for news of the men at the lighthouse. Maggie worried that Amos was losing weight and badgered him to get more rest. When he returned home late, he often found a lamp burning in his window, a meal warming on the stove, and a box of fresh food for the lighthouse crew on the counter. He knew what the old ones were saying about her being in his house and coming to see him so frequently, but he did not care.
June 25, 1942
Dear Ruth,
I thought of you this afternoon while I was hanging out the laundry. It was a perfect summer afternoon (as it is an evening now); the high white clouds, cobalt sky, and soft wind, made me feel an “inebriate of air.” I closed my eyes and saw us, just girls, in your father’s little backyard, folding all those sheets and singing that silly ditty—how did it go?
Bringing in the sheets, bringing in the sheets, Our hands smell like C/orox, bringing in the sheets.
Was that the summer that we bobbed our hair? You said I looked more like Katharine Hepburn’s Jo, than any femme fatale, and I was so flattered. I miss you.
I’m afraid that I’m writing to say I can’t come to visit this summer. Even out here (or especially out here) we are all astir with the war effort. I’m sure you understand. I hope you won’t be disappointed, as I am. I’ll miss our walks, the movies, and—most of all—you and the children, for whom photographs, though much appreciated, are poor substitutes.
You should see Gus these days; he certainly has “growed some,” as Amos says. Not physically—indeed he seems to have shed some weight—but in manliness. The war has had a way of speeding everything up for all of us. Though I hate to see the boy in him diminished, watching him mature has been a treat for me and a comfort for Leah, if only she could admit it. Amos has a new boat (“a corker”!), Gus has his own traps, and together they are making good money. As always, they are making fun of one another. But I think it’s Gus’s new friend Morales, a Coast Guardsman at the lighthouse (a Mexican-American from Boston, of all places), who has brought him out. Morales is a captivating young man who fancies himself a rogue. Last weekend the two of them went up to Stonington for a ball game and dance at the Masonic Hall. They stayed the night with George Grindle (who is a rogue), and when they came back, you’d think that Gus had been in Manhattan for the weekend—or Paris or downtown Bangor.
You said it sounds as though Amos and I have “found one another” again. I try not to let myself entertain such an idea (I think it would scare him half to death), but I do admit that seeing him more often, on this business or that, has been . . . well . . . promising. And if that’s not enough to tweak your curiosity and inspire you to write back, I’ll add, sheepishly, that I think Amos is a tad jealous of a certain Mr. Gardiner.
I hope this finds you well, dear one. I’m off to bed, if I can stay awake long enough to get there. Kiss the little ones for me, and give my best to your dear Jack, please.
Your loving country cousin,
Maggie
The Reverend Paul Hotchkiss, the summer minister, called the schoolhouse gathering to prayer. He was a barrel-chested, sonorous man, who everyone said looked like Orson Welles. Hands clasped before him, the reverend waited for the murmuring and shuffling to cease, then addressed the Lord. He asked God to bless and watch over this group and their efforts. He informed Him, and those who might not have heard the news, that the work that this group was undertaking was made even more urgent by the fact that Herr Hitler had only the day before announced that the entire Atlantic Ocean belonged to Nazi Germany, adding that any of his enemies found on it would be destroyed.
Reverend Hotchkiss looked out one window at the bay and another to the shining sea, saying, “It is your ocean, Lord, and ours too because we are in it, out here seven miles from shore. Help us to stand tall and protect our homes and families, our country. Give us the strength to overcome fear, and help us to remember always that you are our Protector. Amen.”
The minister asked Maggie, who stood by her desk at the far end of the room, to lead the group in the Pledge of Allegiance, which she did. Posted as sentinels outside the door on the porch, Morales and Gus faced the flag through the screen with their hands on their hearts.
Cecil—in a shirt and tie, and striped trousers—stood behind the table facing the rows of folded chairs, with Jake behind him and Robert Owings seated to his left. While he welcomed the group and thanked Mr. Owings, in particular, Agnes Chadwick, the wife of the governor of Connecticut, moved from her seat in the row of summer people and sat between Iris and Berna-dine, as a democratic gesture.
Jake drew a large and very accurate outline of the island on the blackboard, while Cecil presented their plan for the local shore patrols.
They had split the island into four sections, bisecting it horizontally, then vertically. Each section would be the responsibility of a group with one person in charge. Cecil read from his notes: In quadrant number one, under the capable direction of Mister Owings, the group would concentrate their vigilance on the northern head, Laundry Cove, Point Lookout, the island thoroughfare, and the mountain. Group One, consisting mostly of summer people, would also be responsible for surveillance of any and all sailboats and yachts that visited the island. Jake circled an X on the map as each of the lookout points was read.
Group Two, led by Richard Snell, had the most difficult quadrant—the remote and barely accessible southwestern end of the island, with its key points at Eli Creek, Duck Harbor Mountain, and the southern cliffs from Thunder Gulch west. Group Three, with Dick Hanson as its leader, would watch at Squeaker Cove, Head Harbor, the Eastern Ear, and Boom Beach. Group Four, the smallest, would be coordinated by Amos Coombs, who was not present but had been briefed. It was responsible for the Battery, Eaton Cove, and the cliffs between Coombs and Old Coves. Chief Gardiner’s lighthouse crew would assist Amos’s group with the surveillance of open waters.
Jake explained that the Coast Guard would provide a radio for communication with the mainland. During patrolling hours, a watch would be mounted in the church, with all groups reporting to the radio operator. In the event of an emergency, the church bell would be rung. Jake’s “very capable operator” would train an islander to use the radio.
On the porch, Gus slugged Morales in the arm, and Morales, grinning, slugged him back.
Robert Owings, dressed for action in a freshly laundered flannel shirt, rose to cover the remaining details. He said that the committee had declined the offer of weapons. They had accepted the Very pistols, binoculars, and other equipment, but to issue weapons would be a nightmare—and dangerous to boot. Those who wanted to arm themselves could do so with their own firearms—there were plenty of those on the island—or could borrow a weapon from a neighbor. Hours for the shore patrols and lookouts were to be from six to nine in the evening, at a minimum. It was acceptable, he said, for men sixteen or older to patrol alone, but women and boys under sixteen would have to be accompanied by a man, for obvious reasons.
At Maggie’s shoulder a june bug the size of a small sparrow went into a dive and slammed headfirst into the window screen with all its winged might. Having struck, it fell to the ground. Within seconds the insect recovered and soared over the swings, gained air speed in a wide turn, and made another run at the screen, with the same results.
“That’s it,” Cecil concluded. “In a nutshell. Does anyone have any questions, or suggestions?”
Iris and Richard raised their hands. Cecil called on Iris.
“Shouldn’t we teach more than one person how to use the radio? I mean ...”
“You’re right,” Jake said. “That’s a good point. We can teach you, too, if you want to volunteer.”
“
Me? Oh.” Iris pressed her lips together to erase the pucker as she did in the morning mirror, and she blushed deep red.
“So what are we supposed to do if we see spies or Germans?” Richard asked.
“Report them immediately,” Cecil said.
“And run away? I’m not gonna. Christ no.”
“These are orders, Richard.” Cecil was frosty. “We are not to engage anyone, under any circumstances. It’s not your call.”
“It will be if I’m alone on some cliff and I—”
Cecil said they would talk later and adjourned the meeting.
While others rose to leave or stood talking in clusters, Mrs. Chadwick read the wall chart that she had been squinting at during the meeting. It was a cursive exercise, a quote copied by a girl with a graceful hand, a blue ribbon pinned beneath.
The work for those who are at home seems to be obvious. First, to do our own job, whatever it is, as well as we can possibly do it. Second, to add to it everything we can do in the way of civilian defense. Now, at last, every community must go to work to build up protection from attack.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Mrs. Chadwick, who was a Republican, nodded her approval when she was done reading. Maggie, the Democrat who had supplied the quote, saw the older woman nod and smiled to herself.
She also saw Cecil and Robert Owings in the corner by the photos of the five island school graduates who were in uniform. Mr. Owings’s face was set in a false smile; he made a feint to get away, but Cecil sidestepped to block him. Mr. Owings shook his head to say no. Cecil patted his forehead with a folded handkerchief, something Maggie had never seen him do. Mr. Owings said something, then shrugged his shoulders, his palms up. Mrs. Chadwick came to his rescue. Cecil shook hands with her, then with Mr. Owings, and took his leave. He said something mean to Leah, words that made her turn away angrily. On his way out he brushed Richard aside, leaving the fisherman glaring in his wake.
