The Sea Before Us Read online

  “Yes, ma’am. He told me.”

  “Did he? Did he also tell you I don’t appreciate it when people take advantage of me?”

  Dorothy squeezed her fingers hard and kept the alarm off her face. “Advantage? I don’t know what you mean.”

  The first officer pressed her fingertips to the desktop. “I can’t help but wonder if he will suddenly have meetings in London. I can’t help but wonder if he is feigning interest in me to keep his true lover close at hand.”

  Dorothy gasped. Such a tawdry word. Why, she’d had only two dates with the man, and one was a disaster. “I assure you, I’m not his—his lover.”

  “Good.” She tugged the hem of her double-breasted navy jacket. “If I were to find out you two were making a fool of me . . .”

  Behind the woman’s imperious pride, Dorothy glimpsed pain that pricked at her heart. Julia Bliss-Baldwin was a live, feeling woman, and she didn’t deserve to be deceived or hurt.

  Dorothy’s posture softened. “I would never do that to you, ma’am. To anyone.”

  “Very good. You’re dismissed.” She waved to the door.

  Dorothy stepped outside, closed the door behind her, and sighed. Lawrence thought he was helping, but he’d made things more complicated. And far more difficult.

  25

  Lyme Bay, South Devon

  Friday, April 28, 1944

  Only Wyatt’s sense of duty allowed him to focus on the briefing. On the darkened bridge of the HMS Seavington, lit by red bulbs to maintain night vision, Lieutenant Foster described the night’s activity as Wyatt prepared to take the morning watch at 0400.

  Daytime busyness kept his mind occupied, but at night his failures swamped him and disturbed his sleep. Thank goodness he’d been alert enough for Exercise Tiger the day before.

  Foster pointed to the nautical chart, indicating the Seavington’s coordinates in Lyme Bay and her designated course back to Slapton Sands.

  The previous day, the bulk of the US 4th Infantry Division had landed at Slapton, practicing for the upcoming landings on Utah Beach, with a follow-up convoy due this morning. Over two hundred American landing craft, from the enormous LST “Landing Ship, Tanks” to the small LCVP “Landing Craft, Vehicle or Personnel,” were transporting twenty-five thousand troops.

  Along with six other British destroyers and two British cruisers, the Seavington had bombarded the landing beaches. All had gone fairly well. Confusion had arisen when Adm. Don Moon, commander of the US Navy’s Force U, had decided at the last minute to postpone H-hour by an hour when a flotilla of landing craft was delayed.

  Wyatt trained his mind and his gaze on the chart. He shared Admiral Moon’s traits of cautiousness and attention to detail, and now he saw the danger of those traits, not only in his own life but in command.

  “At 0106, we heard from Commander in Chief Plymouth.” Foster turned to the ship’s log. “The Onslow sighted a German E-boat off Portland.”

  “An E-boat? Just one?” That jolted Wyatt awake. The small German torpedo boats were capable of forty knots and usually travelled in packs to devastate Allied shipping. Admiral Kirk had warned of the dangers of German air, surface, or submarine attacks during the exercises, but none had materialized so far.

  “Only one, but at 0224, C in C Plymouth notified us of three E-boat groups in the area. However, all has been quiet since.”

  “Good.” The warning from the Plymouth Home Command would alert the slow-moving convoy of LSTs and its escort ships.

  Wyatt settled in at his station and made the change-of-watch notations in the log, careful to use British terminology. Weariness dragged at his eyelids, but this watch shouldn’t demand much of him. Today’s portion of Exercise Tiger involved landing the follow-up troops and unloading supplies. With yesterday’s assault troops well on their way inland, the destroyers would only serve to screen the naval force.

  On Saturday the destroyers would return to Plymouth, and Wyatt would report to US Destroyer Squadron 18, due to arrive from Boston today.

  “Captain, we have new orders.” An officer strode onto the bridge and handed a paper to Captain Willoughby. “We are to proceed to these coordinates posthaste for a rescue operation.”

  Rescue operation? Wyatt inched closer. What had happened? An E-boat attack on merchant shipping? A grounded fishing trawler? An LST torpedoed by a U-boat?

  After the captain read the dispatch, he bent over the plotting table with the navigator, Lieutenant Langley. “Fifty degrees, twenty-eight minutes north. Two degrees, fifty-one minutes west. Plot our course.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.” The navigator worked with ruler and pencil.

  Wyatt peered over Langley’s shoulder. The new coordinates were about twenty miles northeast of their current position—which was already a good fifteen miles east of Slapton Sands. The Seavington was due to arrive at Slapton by sunrise at 0441. “Captain, I assume Force U has been informed we have new orders?”

  The captain didn’t even look Wyatt’s direction. “We are not under Admiral Moon’s command, but under Adm. Sir Ralph Leatham. We take orders from Plymouth, not Washington, DC.”

  “Yes, sir.” As a junior officer and the only American on board, Wyatt knew to hold his tongue.

  Langley sent Wyatt an understanding glance over his shoulder. “I’m certain C in C Plymouth will inform the Yanks.”

  “Thanks. Reckon he will.” Wyatt recorded the orders in the log—but did not record his thoughts. Poor communication between the commands had caused several problems and headaches throughout the exercises.

  “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” He could hear Daddy lecturing on the importance of simplicity of organization, clear lines of communication, and straight talk.

  Applied to the military as well.

  Daddy would pace the cluttered office, his blue eyes sparking with frustration. “You get bogged down in details, Wy. Yeah, you’ve got to know the figures, but you’ve got to know the men even more. The men—they’re the heart of this operation. Talk, Wy. Talk.”

  Wyatt rolled the pen in clenched fingers. Even before that June night in 1941, he’d failed his father. Since that night, his failures had accumulated more steadily than compound interest.

  Adler should have been in Texas, helping with the business. Instead, he was getting shot at by the Luftwaffe.

  Clay should have been in college, training to be a doctor, to save lives. Instead, he was training to take lives.

  And Dorothy. As the ship headed into the morning twilight, the ship’s log turned the same grayish-purple as a bruise. Not only had he failed to find out who was bankrupting Fairfax & Sons, but he’d shattered her trust. He had a hunch, only a hunch without a lick of evidence, and he’d accused her father of embezzling. How arrogant. In his quest to protect her, he’d wounded her.

  Outside the portholes, the sea was calm and the sky was clear and brightening. But not for Dorothy. She had so little to lean on. Her father couldn’t support his own weight, much less his daughter’s. Her faith was tentative, just beginning to grow. Had he brought her lower? Pushed her farther from God?

  Forgive me, Lord. How many times would he have to pray that this week?

  Cries rang out from the main deck, relayed up to the bridge. The lookouts had sighted something, and the captain ordered the destroyer to reduce speed.

  Wyatt peered between heads to the portholes. When the Seavington rose on the waves, a jagged black shape was silhouetted on the band of pink light on the horizon. His breath caught and turned to ice. A sinking ship and a big one.

  More cries, and sailors on the main deck leaned on the rails and pointed down to the water.

  The waves were no longer smooth. Lumps speckled the ocean, a few nearby, multiplying in quantity closer to the wreck. Dozens upon dozens. Dark lumps on the gray sea.

  “Oh, good Lord, no.” Bodies.

  “Full stop!” the captain shouted. “Full stop! Away rescue parties!”

  Wyatt clutched the log table, his mind tu
mbling. He’d helped rescue men from sunken ships in the Aleutians. Few survived the icy waters. The English Channel was warmer, but not by much. And he’d never seen so many. So very many.

  “Ahoy! A lifeboat!” a lookout called.

  “Thank you, Lord. Survivors.” In the distance, a tiny boat bobbed, crammed with men, bristling with waving hands.

  “Hail them. Tell them to come to us,” the captain said. “I will not endanger the men in the water.”

  Wyatt cringed at the thought of what the destroyer’s screws could do.

  On the main deck, sailors clambered down the rope net and hauled one of the dark shapes up over the rails.

  In a moment, the talker turned from the voice tube to the captain. “Sir, it’s an American soldier. He’s dead.”

  An American soldier? Wyatt examined the ship’s hulk on the horizon. Was that the bow of an LST? The giant tank landing ships carried almost five hundred soldiers plus a naval crew of over a hundred. “Captain, may I have permission to—”

  “Granted, Lieutenant.” The captain shot him a look filled with worry and compassion. “Go down to the main deck. Interrogate the survivors.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.” He scrambled down ladders and jogged across the deck in the cool air. A knot of sailors clustered around the American soldier.

  Wyatt knelt on the deck, and the puddle of cold seawater soaked through the knees of his khaki trousers.

  The soldier’s face was pale but striking, so real with his dark-stubbled chin and crooked nose, but so lifeless. He wore a helmet, Parson’s field jacket, olive drab trousers, and a full pack. Instead of a life vest, he wore what looked like a bicycle tube around his waist.

  “Oh no,” Wyatt murmured. With a full pack and the inflatable tube so low, he would have tipped headfirst in the water and drowned.

  He stood and looked down into the water turning gold in the sunrise. Half a dozen bodies floated within view. All with life belts around their waists. Why hadn’t they worn them higher? Why had they been allowed to go into the water with their packs?

  The lifeboat neared, low in the water with men hanging off the sides. A few broke free and swam toward the Seavington.

  British sailors climbed down the net to help them on board.

  Wyatt reached over the side and grabbed the first hand he could reach, clammy but strong, and he helped the man up onto the deck.

  “Where were you?” Dark eyes pierced Wyatt’s.

  “Pardon? What happened?”

  “You’re an American? Isn’t this a British destroyer?” The man—a naval ensign—hunkered shivering on the deck.

  “I’m a liaison officer.” Wyatt grabbed a blanket offered by a sailor and draped it over the ensign’s shoulders. “What happened?”

  “I repeat—where were you?” His jaw chattered, but that didn’t decrease the ferocity of his glare. “C in C Plymouth sent out our convoy of eight LSTs with only a lousy little corvette to escort us. The destroyer never showed.”

  Wyatt sucked in a breath. Only one escort ship? Even two wasn’t enough. “Was it an E-boat? We were told they were in the area.”

  The man barked out a laugh and downed the rum a sailor thrust into his hand. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Glad someone was warned. We weren’t.”

  So Plymouth failed to tell the ships most vulnerable to attack. “E-boats? How many?”

  “Five, ten, who knows? It was dark.” He clutched the blanket under his chin. “Their green tracers flying every which way. Our red tracers. Torpedoes, bullets, men jumping in the water. It was bedlam.”

  Wyatt clamped his hand on his jaw, cutting off a cuss word he’d never uttered in his life. “Your ship?”

  “The LST-507. We were hit first, then the 531 went up in a fireball. They sank before we did.”

  “Two LSTs?” Over a thousand men in the water, and his mouth went dry. And Jerry Hobson—which LST was he commanding again?

  “Another LST was damaged. Think they got away. Our escort? Fine good she did. Never even turned back.”

  Wyatt’s fingers dug into his cheek. The ensign would know the corvette’s duty was to escort the remaining ships to safety, not to rescue survivors, but Wyatt knew better than to remind him.

  “So where were you?” That dark gaze bore down on him. “No one protected us. No one helped us. And hundreds of men died. Hundreds.”

  Where was the Seavington? Following her orders to screen Force U off Slapton Sands, totally unaware of the tragedy unfolding nearby.

  However, the ensign would bite off his head if Wyatt said that. Instead, he set his hand on the man’s shaking shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Come along, sir.” A sailor tugged on the ensign’s elbow. “Let’s get you below decks to warm up.”

  The man struggled to his feet and stumbled along beside the sailor.

  Wyatt remained squatting on the deck, his jaw aching in his grip. Two dozen dripping, shivering men huddled in blankets.

  The logical part of his brain said it wasn’t his fault. How could he have helped when he hadn’t known, when he hadn’t been near, when it wasn’t his responsibility?

  Yet that knowledge only intensified the feeling of helplessness.

  Hundreds of men had died. And he hadn’t been able to protect them.

  26

  London

  Sunday, April 30, 1944

  Dorothy climbed the narrow staircase to Johanna Katin’s apartment. Papa had insisted that Dorothy visit her friend after church, since she’d spent all Saturday at home.

  Even Saturday evening, to Lawrence’s consternation.

  She huffed. He’d offered to meet her in London for a posh night on the town, just as Blissy had suspected he would. Dorothy had insisted he stay in Portsmouth. Stepping out with him didn’t break regulations, but it didn’t seem quite right. And it put Dorothy’s position at headquarters at risk.

  The risk only seemed to heighten Lawrence’s interest.

  Why did the risk always have to be to her concerns, not his?

  She knocked on Johanna’s door, hoping the sharp rap would drive the man out of her head.

  “Dorothy!” Johanna kissed her cheek. “I’m happy to see you.”

  She kissed her friend back and stepped inside, savoring the smells, foreign and rich. She held up a paper sack. “I brought you a lovely piece of cheddar, a few ounces of sugar, and a tin of tea. It’ll be good for your grandmother.”

  “Thank you. You are very kind.” Her pretty brown eyes clouded. “But Oma is in hospital again.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll pray for her.” Dorothy gripped Johanna’s hand. Oma was the only family Johanna had in England, possibly in the whole world. She couldn’t imagine how devastated Johanna would be when her grandmother passed away.

  “I’ll make a spot of tea.” Johanna set the sack on the table and pulled out the tin. “I have not heard you talk about praying before.”

  Dorothy lowered herself into a chair at the table. “I started attending church again.”

  “Good. Faith is important, yes?” Johanna took a teapot from a cupboard. “When I’m afraid, the Lord is a strong tower.”

  Dorothy studied Johanna’s face as she measured tea leaves into the pot, the slight upward curve of the lips, the relaxed forehead. Despite the horrendous losses Johanna had endured, she had the same peace Wyatt did.

  Johanna filled the teapot with hot water from the kettle on the stove. “What sent you back to church?”

  “A . . . friend.” Or so she’d thought.

  “Lawrence?”

  “No.” They’d never discussed faith. Come to think of it, they’d never discussed anything personal or serious.

  “Then who?” Johanna set the teapot on the table to steep.

  “Wyatt Paxton. He’s an American naval officer.”

  “You’ve mentioned him.” Johanna took the cheese and sugar from the sack. “But never with a frown.”

  Dorothy smoothed the box pleat
s in her skirt. “I’m not happy with him.”

  “Why not?”

  Oh, why did she have to speak so impulsively? She couldn’t talk about the investigation. She fiddled with one of the light blue stripes on the cuff of her sleeve. “He’s an accountant. I told him what you’d relayed about the situation at Fairfax & Sons. I—I’ve heard more rumors, and I wanted his opinion.”

  Johanna nodded and tucked the food in the pantry.

  Dorothy’s mouth set. “Wyatt had the audacity to suggest my father might be embezzling.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Her jaw lowered. “Why don’t you sound shocked?”

  Johanna slid her gaze to Dorothy. “As I said, there are rumors. I don’t believe them though.”

  “You said there are rumors the company’s losing money, but Papa . . . ?”

  Johanna’s face stretched long, but she nodded again.

  Dorothy hugged herself. “How could they say such things?”

  “They are only rumors. You know how people talk. And your father was absent so long. Now he is in the office more often, but he—he is not as warm and friendly as he used to be. Money is disappearing, and no one knows why. So they blame him.”

  “But he’s never . . . he’s always . . .” Her stomach flipped end over end.

  “I do not believe the gossip. Your father is a good man. But it looks bad from the outside.”

  Dorothy gasped. The same words Wyatt had used. “It can’t be. There must be another explanation.”

  “I’m sure there is.”

  Edinburgh! Wyatt said he’d had two hunches, and he’d named Edinburgh first. That had to be the answer. If she could convince Papa to visit Edinburgh . . .

  “Oh no.” All hope drained away. Hadn’t Papa dismissed her suggestion to visit the Scottish capital? “I have no desire to go there again. I daresay you’d not find it as charming as you remember.”

  What if Papa were using the Edinburgh office for the embezzlement? What if he had a partner there embezzling on his behalf?

  “Don’t worry.” Johanna set a teacup and saucer before her. “Your father is a good man, yes? He’d never steal.”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if he’s guilty? Papa—he’d go to prison.” Her voice cracked.