Something in the Water

by Peter Scott

  Maggie pushed the throttle ahead two notches, but Gus cried from the stern that she should cut it back; they were taking on water.

  “Willco,” she said. With one eye on Amos Coombs’s plunging bow and the other on Gus, crouched behind the bulkhead, puffing his cigar alive, she thought she must certainly be mad and wondered if Ruth would ever believe her—if she lived to tell about it. She looked at Gus’s boyish face, eyes closed in the smoke and cheeks lighted by the glowing cigar, and she prayed that she would be forgiven.

  “You said Amos could hear it—and feel it—when he passed over that one in the spring.” Gus held onto the house and leaned over the dark water. “He has sixty fathoms in here,” he said. “I don’t hear anything, do you?”

  “No I don’t.” She was too afraid to let go of the wheel. “Sixty seconds,” she said.

  Gus stood behind the barrels, cigar in mouth, sledgehammer at the ready. “You got to hang onto her when these go over,” he said, fairly shouting. “The bow’s going to rise then come crashing down. Run her up to full speed as soon as they’re overboard, and hold on.

  “There he is. Look!” Gus cried. “See how his bulk heaves the surface and how his periscope leaves that thin bubble wake, like Amos said? We’re going to cross right over him all right!”

  “Ten seconds,” she said.

  He held the cigar to the first fuse and jumped away as it spat and sparkled, leaning over to light the second. He spit on each of the barrels for luck, shouted, and knocked away the chocks with two quick blows of the sledgehammer. Red-and-white fire sprayed from the whirling fuses as the barrels rolled off the stern and dropped, one on top of the other, into the darkness below. The bow came down so quickly that it cut through a swell that broke over the windshield and house. Her legs apart and weight forward, Maggie opened the throttle and held the wheel, waiting for the explosions. The first one, a gigantic, sudden thunder below, heaved the boat up beneath them, then ruptured the surface behind them in a huge, round cloud with two wide wings of spray, the concussion knocking Gus to the deck and throwing Maggie against the wheel and bulkhead. We are going to die, she thought. Then the second drum erupted in the same way, striking them like a giant fist. She turned in time to see the final white ball of water break the surface as Gus pulled himself to his feet.

  She closed her eyes, then covered her mouth with her hand in horror. “Oh, dear God,” she said into her hand. “Oh my God, what have we done?”

  “We’re all right!” Gus shouted. He held his mouth wide open and pummeled his temples as he did at the pond when he had water in his ears. “Goddamn, are you okay? I can’t hear a damn thing. We did it, by Jesus, Maggie, we did it!”

  He scrambled over the washboard and onto the house where he could see two huge, overlapping circles of flattened sea, one of them a bright metallic sheen in the moonlight.

  “Oil, Maggie!” he shouted as he swung down onto the deck beside her.

  “Give me the wheel!” he yelled. “Go up and take a look. It’s an oil slick. We hit him!”

  “Don’t shout so.” She did not let go of the wheel or even turn aside.

  “Those poor boys,” she said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WHEN THE DOUBLE PUNCH OF THE DEPTH CHARGES STRUCK THE launch, Jake spun around as if to see, and Morales—his hands spread wide at his sides—brayed like a mule.

  “Ha Ha!” he cried. “V for victory! V for revenge!” He slapped Jake on the back, nearly upending him.

  “Baker One One, this is Baker Six,” Jake shouted into the handset. “Are you there, One One? Good God, what have you done? Answer me! Over.”

  “Baker Six, this is One One,” replied Gus even louder. “We’re fine. The boat’s okay. How about that, hey Morales?”

  Morales reached for the handset, but Jake held on to it, in no mood for a war dance. He thought Maggie must be smirking, but then realized that she wouldn’t be. “This is Six,” he said, calmer now. “We’re still in pursuit of the boat; we’re closing on him; it looks like he’s headed for Swan’s Island, around there. You’re too far back to catch us, so why don’t you take it on in. Over.”

  “We’re going to try to catch up to you, Six, like you said,” Gus answered. “Since we complied, we’re a lot lighter. Over.”

  “Roger that,” Jake conceded. “Do what you want, but keep in radio contact. Over.”

  “Hello, Six,” said Maggie. “This is One One. Do you have the boat in sight? Over.”

  “Hello, One One. Affirmative. At least we saw him a minute ago. We’ll keep you posted,” Jake said. “Negative further. Out.”

  “He’s pissed,” laughed Gus.

  “He’ll get over it,” Maggie said. “Do you really think we can catch up to him?”

  “Look back there, Maggie,” he said. As if smoothed by the swipe of a hand, the swath of sea where the charges had erupted lay flat on the choppy surface, reflecting the moon like burnished pewter as it diminished. “Goddamn, but that was terrific,” he said reverently.

  Maggie thought of the terror in terrific and nodded in agreement. Let Jake be angry, she thought; she was too relieved to care. Her part was done, and it was all in his hands now; she need only follow along. No longer top heavy, the Amos Coombs rode effortlessly at full throttle; her high, sharp bow cut through the chop and occasional swell like a knife through frosting. This is why Amos wanted the Novi boat, she thought. The Tuna would be pitching and rolling, barely making way. How he had hated it when Cecil and Richard had made jokes in the store about the Tuna’s name: The Chicken of the Sea, they called it. If he was here now, she’d see that thin, satisfied smile he wore for quiet victories.

  “She’s not doing what she could,” Gus said, leaning over to watch the boat’s bow wake. “She’s still too heavy. I’m going to cut that thing loose. I’ll make another one, a better one this time, so the weight is farther forward, so as not to bring the stern down.”

  “Very well,” she said. She would be glad to see it go.

  When he had removed the lag screws that held the scaffold in place, she cut back on the throttle; Gus braced himself to push, shouted “Go!” and she gunned the engine. The structure groaned, and tried to hold on, but Gus forced it overboard. It sank momentarily, then rose to the surface to bob and dip in a sad, awkward dance before it turned over and floated face down.

  Richard understood “zwei Boote” and “raus” and “schnell” when the captain shouted down at them, and in the man’s voice he heard what he would call fear if he wasn’t a U-boat captain. So, when the little bastard—the spy or whatever he was—made a jump for it, Richard turned his back on the whole deal and steamed for shore. He didn’t wait around to see if the guy made it into the U-boat; he hoped he did, or if he didn’t, he hoped he and his goddamned box got dragged down with it and he was drowned on the bottom where nobody would find him. Richard’s undershirt was drenched with sweat; he held it open at the collar to cool himself down.

  If the approaching boats were Coast Guard cutters they would overtake him in open water, sure as hell. He ran the broom handle through his wheel to hold the Lucille on a heading for the nearest land and dismantled the walls and roof of the fake wheelhouse, throwing the pieces overboard. He tore off the canvas that had hidden the Lucille’s name and numbers, and jettisoned every bit of ballast and weight he could find. All but the case of rum, which would be his alibi if he could get far enough away—among the islands and on a different course— before they caught him.

  When he heard the explosions, he thought of the big, dark mouth of the barrel of the sub’s deck gun and what it would do to a little cutter or launch. Only two shots, one for each of them. The U-boat wasn’t running from them, of course he wasn’t; he submerged to get around them for better shooting. If one of those boats was from the lighthouse, he was sorry about that, but they got what they deserved. He struck a match on the bulkhead and cupped it to light a cigarette.

  He didn’t actually see the boat following him; he felt it,
as he used to feel his father standing next to his bed while he slept. All he could tell through the binoculars was that it wasn’t a fisherman and that it was gaining on him slowly but surely. The U-boat missed one of them, Richard thought, or there had been a third. He would have to lose his pursuer among the familiar islands and ledges between Marshall and Swan’s if he could get there first, get into the shadows first. If not, he’d give the son of a bitch a fight.

  Running against the tide, which grew stronger as he approached the larger islands, he kept the flashing ripple caused by the Sally Prude Ledges off his starboard side and headed into Toothacher Bay to make it look as if he was going to put in at Swan’s Island. When he saw flashes of rifle fire on the boat behind, he swung hard to port between Little Heron Island and the Brimstone Ledge. Now Richard headed southwest at full speed on a course that a daredevil wouldn’t take in daylight at half throttle. He stood on tiptoe to watch for signs of ledges ahead in the tidal rip; looking over his shoulder, he saw that he had lost his pursuer, so he was smiling when the Lucille slammed into Job’s Ledge, cracking Richard’s shoulder against the wheel with a sound like a dog crunching a chicken bone. The Lucille ground her stem and skeg on the barnacles, then heeled sharply and spilled Richard’s limp and senseless skeleton under her washboard.

  Guided by Maggie, who read the chart with a flashlight, and by Morales’s voice on the radio, Gus brought the Amos Coombs around the dark shoulder of Heron Island to find the launch riding at anchor among the ledges in the shadow of the forested end of Marshall Island. Maggie blinked her light at the boat, whose red-and-green running lights were a welcome sight. But the return signal came from a spot fifty feet to the right. As Gus and Maggie approached, Jake played his light over the scene around him so they could see. He and Morales appeared to be standing on the water next to a fishing boat that lay careened on its side. Maggie wondered what she would see next.

  “They’re on a ledge; it’s just underwater,” said Gus as they drew nearer. “He sure struck it hard; he’s run right up onto it. Good God, Maggie, it’s the Lucille.”

  “It is not,” she murmured, then shined her light on the name.

  “Is it Richard?” she asked. “Where is he?” Jake stretched his arm up over the slanted deck next to him and pointed down under the washboard.

  “He’s all stove up,” Jake said. “We’re going to need your help getting him aboard the launch. I’m glad you came.”

  “Is he alive?” she asked. Gus tried to nose his bow in closer between the launch and the wreck for a better look.

  “Yes, but he’s got a broken shoulder and maybe a busted collarbone, too. If you could make up a litter with oars and a piece of canvas, the four of us could get him aboard.”

  “And the quicker the better,” said Morales. “I’m freezing my ass off here.” He wore the Springfield rifle over his shoulder, the sling crossing his chest, which Gus thought looked just right. “You should’ve seen him when we found him: he looked like the guy in the cartoon with the birds circling his head and his eyes xed out.”

  “We couldn’t even touch him before,” Jake said. “Christ, how he howled when Morales shook him, didn’t you Richard?”

  An angry moan came from beneath the washboard when Jake pounded on it.

  He waded cautiously down the ledge toward the Amos Coombs until he was dark to the waist. “Why don’t you hand me those oars, Gus, and come ashore here with us. Maggie, if you can keep her in close here without too much pounding, we should be able to lift him aboard. Morales stuck him with morphine, so there won’t be so much howling.”

  “What was he doing?” Maggie asked. Gus lowered himself over the side, let go, and sank to his neck before he found footing. Gasping, he took Jake’s hand.

  “You’ll have to ask him,” said Jake. “He won’t tell us a damn thing.”

  “The asshole says he’s a prisoner of war.” Morales had climbed aboard the Lucille and stood on the deck above Richard like a man on a steep roof. “He’s wedged in under here, aren’t you Herr Snell?” Morales looked down at him. “If you wasn’t so fat, we wouldn’t have to put a line on you, like a pig in a tub.”

  “Fuck you, spick,” said Richard.

  Morales stomped on Richard’s crumbled shoulder twice, hard, as if he was trying to start a motorcycle or kill a snake. A sharp cry cut Richard’s tongue before he passed out.

  “Morales, please,” Maggie shouted. “Please don’t.”

  “Sorry, I slipped.”

  They did have to pull him out from beneath the washboard with a line. They laid him perpendicular on the deck, his insensate legs barely supporting his bulk on the slant, and lashed him to the canvas and oars. They lifted and shouldered him across Maggie’s deck and into the launch, where he came to with Morales standing over him. Richard moaned and cursed in his teeth. Maggie pushed Morales gently aside and folded a shirt to put under Richard’s head, then covered him with a blanket. She said his name, but he didn’t reply.

  “The Coast Guard wants us all to go into Stonington and meet them there,” said Jake. “They want all three boats, but they’re going to have to settle for two.”

  “We could haul it off and tow it,” Gus said.

  “To hell with that; she’s sprung her garboards and probably worse,” said Jake. “All the rum is smashed, splattered all over his deck.”

  “I’ll ride with you, Mr. Gardiner, if you don’t mind,” said Maggie. “I’m afraid he’s going into shock. Morales can go with Gus.”

  “I don’t mind one bit,” Jake said. “I’d like that.”

  “Hot damn!” Morales scampered across to the Amos Coombs; Gus ran the throttle up, and they pranced out toward open water.

  “Don’t give him any of my ginger snaps,” said Morales.

  “You stay with us,” Jake yelled.

  “I’m going to warm a blanket down below,” Maggie said. “Will you watch him?”

  “He doesn’t deserve it,” Jake said. “You should have heard him. He cried like a baby. He cried for his mother, I swear to God he did. He says that he was just picking up some rum, that he only tried to run from us because we fired a couple of rounds over his bow. Right, Richard?”

  Richard didn’t reply.

  With the Amos Coombs following in the last of the moonlight, Jake set his course for Merchant’s Row. When Maggie came up from the engine compartment hugging a warmed blanket to her chest, Jake said he was sorry.

  “I was obnoxious back there, about the depth charges,” he said.

  “You were.” She looked at him. She could hurt him now by saying she’d been disappointed, but she wouldn’t. “Thank you for saying something. But never mind. We’re all touchy, and you were provoked. I’m just glad that it’s over, and I hope it turned out no worse than just this. How happy I will be to get off the water and away from the smell of rum.”

  She knelt to tuck the blanket around Richard, taking care not to touch his shoulder, and she wiped his cold, wet brow with her kerchief. While Jake talked on the radio in Coast Guard jargon, she sat next to Richard, her knees tucked up under her chin.

  “I know you’re conscious, Richard,” she said. “Are you warm enough. You’re shivering.”

  “I’m all right,” he said. He didn’t look at her but spoke to the dark sky. “Thank you.”

  “What were you doing?” she asked.

  “I already told them,” he said. The defiance was leaking out of him.

  “We saw you, Richard. Gus recognized the Lucille by her silhouette, even with the false house you built on her.” She was the tired teacher behind her desk after school, and he the truant boy; she lied for his sake.

  “We saw you meet a submarine. I’m not going to ask you what your business was with him; I’m not sure I want to find out. But I want to know who came ashore last spring, who it was that Amos was watching for; tell me that at least. Were you involved?”

  “I don’t know anything about that, nothing at all,” he said. “When we get to where
ver it is they’re taking me, will you call my mother?”

  “I will if you will swear to God—no, swear on Lucille’s eternal soul—that you don’t know anything about people coming ashore at the cabin in the spring.”

  “I swear it.”

  “I believe you,” she said. “What should I tell her?”

  “Tell her the truth. Tell her I’ve been hurt in an accident, my boat’s stove up, and I’m going to the hospital.”

  “Nothing more?”

  Richard didn’t answer. She wanted to get up and stand with Jake in the warmth of the exhaust pipe, but she couldn’t summon the strength; instead she rested her forehead on her knees.

  “What were those explosions,” Richard asked. “Morales said they were thunder, but that’s crap.”

  “Gus and I were dropping depth charges on your friend,” she said. “We hit him, too.” She closed her eyes.

  The Stonington fishermen who had set out between false dawn and first light had disturbed the smoky haze on the water in the harbor, but a cold wisp—a ghostly mare’s tail—hung over the town wharf as they loaded Richard into an ambulance. A half-dozen men, all of whom knew Richard, watched in silence. They had been told by the two Coast Guardsmen, who’d arrived in a government car, that there had been an accident and that nothing more was going to be said about it until after an investigation. Maggie sat by herself on a lobster crate, a blanket over her shoulders and her hands wrapped around a hot cup of coffee. Her jaw was clamped to keep her from shivering as she watched Jake, who stood smoking and nodding in agreement as he listened to one of the men in uniform at the car door. The county sheriff, his headlights dimmed by the emerging sun, drove onto the wharf and joined the solemn conference. While they talked, they looked over at Maggie and at Gus and Morales aboard the boat. She wondered why she was so cold—deep-down cold—while the others, who had been soaked to the skin, were not.

  “I can’t go to Rockland,” she told Jake and the young man with the pistol belt. “It’s Wednesday. I have school.”