Through Waters Deep Page 6

  “How’d it happen? Haven’t heard this story before.”

  Jim could still hear Lillian’s screams, see the torn flesh of her leg, smell the blood, feel the bite into his hands. All because he’d tried to make waves for once. And his little sister paid a lifelong price. “Ah, you know. Kids messing around.” He pointed at the workers. “There it goes.”

  The crane settled the gun compartment onto the platform that elevated number two above the level of number one. The weight tipped the destroyer slightly down at the bow.

  “Excuse me, Arch. I should see if Reinhardt needs me.” He passed the men at work and climbed up to the wing of the bridge. Lieutenant Reinhardt leaned against the rail, chatting with Mitch Hadley.

  “Hi, Floats,” Hadley said with a flat smile.

  Stupid nickname, but it hadn’t stuck. Only Hadley used it. “Mr. Reinhardt, Mr. Hadley. Some sight, eh?” He nodded to the crane.

  “Second gun we’ve had installed.” Reinhardt narrowed his grayish eyes at Jim.

  So the man didn’t care for enthusiasm. He’d have to find another way to win him over. “Here’s hoping we never fire them.”

  “That’d make for a dull job.” Reinhardt adjusted his khaki cover over his red hair and gazed across Boston Harbor toward the open Atlantic.

  Hadley snickered. “If you like to float, dull is best.”

  Jim dug his fisting hands into the pockets of his khaki trousers. “Actually, I prefer a little excitement in life, but either way I’ll do my job and do it well.”

  Reinhardt nodded once, his gaze unmoving.

  A sigh filled Jim’s cheeks, but he swallowed it. Once they set sail, Reinhardt would see Jim as an asset. He’d already befriended most of the enlisted gun crews, black men and white. He’d figured out most of the men’s strengths and weaknesses. He’d be able to motivate and encourage them better than cool-as-an-icicle Reinhardt.

  Nothing wrong with floating anyway. Not everyone wanted to be an admiral. Jim just wanted to do good work with good people. And he didn’t want to hurt anyone along the way.

  Down by the number two mount, the workmen swarmed around, welding and tightening bolts.

  “Kaplan! Kaplan!” One of the workers beckoned another. “I need that wrench and now.”

  “Coming, Mr. Fiske.” A lean, dark-haired man strode over.

  Jim squinted at the men. Kaplan? Fiske? Weren’t those two of the men Mary had mentioned? “Say, Mr. Reinhardt. Anything you need from me?”

  A slight shake of the head. No one would accuse the man of wasting words.

  “See you later.” Jim worked his way down to the gun platform and over to the laborers.

  The older man who seemed to be in charge—that was Fiske. He took the wrench from Kaplan. “How’s it coming?”

  “It’d be coming along a lot faster if Bauer weren’t on the job.” He gestured with his thumb toward a man squatting nearby with a welding torch.

  Bauer? Another suspect. Jim restrained a smile and stepped closer. Maybe he could play detective and pick up some tidbits for Mary.

  The welder got to his feet, took off his mask, and ran his hand through blond hair.

  “Thanks for the job you’re doing.” Jim stuck out his hand. “Ensign Jim Avery, assistant gunnery officer. Those are my guns you’re working on.”

  “Heinrich Bauer.” He shook Jim’s hand and glanced away.

  “How long have you been a welder here?”

  “Four years. Why do you ask?”

  “Just being friendly.”

  “You need not watch me. I am not a Nazi.” His tone cut like a razor, and his blue eyes blazed. But something around the edges of his eyes—a flutter—spoke of fear. A purplish bruise covered his cheekbone.

  “Say, what happened?”

  Bauer’s mouth tightened. “May I work, sir?”

  “I’ll tell you what happened.” The dark-haired fellow, Kaplan, came over. “He got too close to his buddy’s ‘Sieg Heil!’” He thrust up one hand in a Nazi salute, then mimed grabbing his own cheek in pain.

  Jim stepped between them. “I’d suggest you both get back to work.”

  Bauer marched away. “How can I work with this—this nonsense?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Slink back to Herr Hitler, report your spying, your sabotage.” Kaplan leaned forward.

  Jim planted a hand on his chest. “I wouldn’t do—”

  “Kaplan!” Mr. Fiske grabbed the younger man’s shoulder. “Get back to work.”

  He backed off, but sparks arced through his dark eyes. “Yes, sir.”

  Emotions certainly ran high on that crew. Jim had findings for his detective friend. Too bad he didn’t know shorthand.

  “Hey, Avery!” Mitch Hadley called down from the bridge. “You floated into a mess there. You’ve got to be careful where you let the wind blow you.”

  Jim fixed a hard stare on his fellow ensign but bit his tongue and headed to his cabin to change out of his casual khaki uniform into dress blues for dinner. Hadley’s words held the sting of truth.

  He climbed down a ladder below deck and crossed through the empty wardroom to officers’ quarters.

  In the cabin he shared with Arch, his friend buttoned up his white shirt. “Time to get ready.”

  “Need to take some notes for Mary first.” He opened a desk drawer, pulled out a notepad, and wrote down what he’d heard.

  “For Mary, eh?”

  “Yeah. Some of her saboteur suspects got into an altercation up there.”

  Arch glanced up. The ammunition handling room for the number two mount lay directly overhead. “Should we worry?”

  “With all those people watching? Nah.” He finished his notes. “Mary will love this.”

  “Is that so?” Arch bent over to knot his tie in the mirror on their locker. “Gloria thinks you should ask her out.”

  Jim winced, tossed his cover onto his bunk, and ripped off his khaki tie. “We go out almost every weekend.”

  “As friends.”

  “Yes, as friends.” He unbuttoned his shirt. “That’s what we are.”

  “I think you’re crazy.”

  “And I think you’re a nag.” Jim flashed a grin and shrugged off his shirt. “She’s like another kid sister to me. There’s nothing romantic between us.”

  Nothing at all. Sure, she was pretty. Sure, she intrigued him. But she wasn’t anything like Quintessa.

  Besides, Mary acted like a kid sister around him, no flirting or self-consciousness—just normal. That was best. Things might get awkward if she developed a crush on him.

  Jim made a funny face in the mirror over Arch’s shoulder. “She’d have to be stupid to fall for a fool like me.”

  “Thank goodness the woman’s smart.”

  He punched his friend lightly in the shoulder. “Thank goodness for that.”

  9

  Saturday, May 24, 1941

  Mary eased her way down the ladder to the USS Constitution’s gun deck, inhaling the scent of ancient oak, brine, and history. “Old Ironsides,” the US Navy’s legendary oldest ship, had asserted America’s budding strength in the War of 1812. Now she rested in well-earned retirement at the Boston Navy Yard, restored in the 1920s in a campaign partly funded by schoolchildren. Mary had contributed her own pennies for the project.

  “Look at all these guns.” Jim bounded ahead with Arch behind him. “Can you imagine reloading shot after every firing? Now our 5-inchers can pump out fifteen rounds a minute, and with a range up to ten miles.”

  “Someone’s been studying his Naval Ordnance and Gunnery Manual.” Arch ran his hand along a gun’s iron barrel.

  “I’d better.” Jim knelt to study the contraption the gun rested on.

  “They’re like two little boys,” Mary said to Gloria. “They’re having more fun than if we’d taken them to Revere Beach.”

  Gloria wore a slim leaf-green dress, and she set one gloved hand on the peplum on her hip. “I hope it warms up before Arch ships out. I have a simpl
y darling new two-piece swimsuit, and I want to show it off at the beach.”

  Mary forced a smile. Gloria was one of the golden ones who could show off and not be punished. It didn’t seem fair.

  Gloria eyed Mary head to toe. “You have a cute figure. Maybe if we get the boys to the beach, Jim will finally notice you.”

  Thank goodness Jim was too far away to hear and too immersed in discussing the gun’s mechanics. “I’m not trying to be noticed. We’re just friends.”

  “But I so enjoy watching people fall in love.”

  “Then watch yourself with Arch.”

  She patted her upswept hair under a matching green hat. “We’re a boring old couple now. He’d better ask me to marry him soon. All these tests are so tiring.”

  “Tests?”

  Gloria leaned closer, bringing a whiff of perfume with her. “He’s so skittish, thinks girls only love him for his money. He wants a girl to be unimpressed by his wealth, even to disdain it.”

  Mary studied the handsome blond officer, who peered down the barrel of a gun. “That makes sense. I’m sure he wants someone to love him for who he is.”

  “Except wealth is part of who he is, part of what makes him attractive. And it’s so hard to pretend.”

  “Pretend?” The word tasted like dust.

  “Just between us girls, okay?” Gloria winked. “The Vandenberg estate is spectacular. Who wouldn’t want that? And the money? Heavens, you could buy anything you wanted, never have to count pennies. I’d be a fool not to want that. But with Arch, I have to wrinkle my nose and pretend the whole thing is quite distasteful. The sooner we get married, the better.”

  Mary swallowed the dusty mouthful. Gloria might not be a gold digger, but she was standing in the stream with a pan, ready to sift out a nugget.

  “Come on, ladies. Come see.” Jim beckoned them over.

  For the next ten minutes, the men showed them how the gun worked, how the sailors hauled it back and forth on its wheels, loaded the shot, rammed it in place, lit it, and protected their hearing with the tips of their neckerchiefs jammed inside their ears.

  Gloria made appreciative noises—another act? How could she pretend to like and dislike in opposition to her own tastes, in order to trick Arch into marriage?

  “Look at that, Mary. Twenty-four-pound shot.” Jim patted a cannonball.

  “That’s incredible.” She didn’t have to pretend, nor would she ever do such a thing.

  Mary could watch him all day, the way his smile tilted slightly higher on the right, the boyish glint in his hazel eyes, the smooth cut of his hair, the perfect fit of his double-breasted jacket, his long fingers and the way he moved them.

  She ripped her gaze away. Who was she kidding? She was as guilty of pretending as Gloria. Every day she pretended not to be attracted to Jim, pretended the sound of his voice didn’t scramble up her insides, pretended the thought of him shipping out and not returning to Boston didn’t leave her aching.

  The men led the ladies down another hatch to the berth deck, filled with dozens of hammocks.

  Arch fingered the canvas. “Our enlisted men should be required to come aboard the Constitution, see how sailors lived in the nineteenth century. They’d be more appreciative.”

  “That works for us too.” Jim leaned through a door. “Officers’ quarters. They have hammocks too. Although I sure wouldn’t mind that desk.”

  Mary poked her head inside. A gorgeous oak desk topped with green felt, adorned with antique telescopes and sextants and things. “I assume your accommodations are less colorful.”

  “Plain old steel.” His grin flashed, far too close to her face, then he strode away, back to the hatch.

  Mary followed the group up the ladders, not easy in a skirt and heels. Perhaps it would be best if the Atwood didn’t return to Boston. Sure, she’d miss Jim and his friendship, but then she could recover from her crush.

  On the main deck, Mary drew in a breath of cool air. A mild overcast hinted at coming rain. Wind played with the skirt of her dress, and she anchored the blue fabric sprigged with sweet little white and yellow flowers.

  Arch and Gloria headed for the bow, but Jim circled the main mast, face tipped up and glowing. “Two hundred twenty feet tall. Can you imagine her with sails unfurled, flying with the wind?”

  “She’d be marvelous.” Mary imagined yards of snowy canvas snapping above her, sailors climbing the rigging and calling to each other. “It’s sad to see her sails trussed up to her masts, isn’t it? She can’t fly.”

  “All she can do is float with the current.” Jim’s eyebrows bunched together. “She can’t let the wind move her. She can’t set her own course.”

  Mary laid her hand on the polished oak railing surrounding the mast. What a contrast to the painting in her apartment. In her painting, the tiny sailboat charged ahead, sails full, charting new territory. Yet here this grand old ship sat stagnant.

  She let a sigh join the sea breeze. Her sails were bound up tight. She might not capsize, but she didn’t go anywhere either.

  Jim frowned up at the swooping lines. “My sails are trussed too.”

  “You?”

  His gaze turned to her, a bit bleary and unfocused, and he made a wavy motion with one hand. “I float wherever the current takes me. I don’t make waves, don’t push, and no one gets hurt. So far the current’s taken me exactly where I wanted to go.”

  That did fit his easygoing personality.

  He jutted his hand out. “But I don’t control the direction. The current chooses. Not me. Not the Lord.”

  She studied his intent face. “Your sails are trussed for a different reason than mine.”

  He grasped one of the lines hanging limp alongside the mast. “We have to hoist our sails. We have to let the Lord fill them. Then we have to resist the current if necessary to stay the course.”

  A sense of peace, of rightness, of exhilaration filled her lungs. “Then we can fly with the wind.”

  Jim looked deep into her eyes, his own awash with emotion.

  Mary caught her breath, capturing the peace and rightness and exhilaration and sealing it with the joy of shared experience. She’d never felt such an intense connection with another human being.

  In the cloud-filtered sunshine, his eyes gleamed green as spring, full of hope and promise. “Hoist your sails high, young lady. Let’s see how fast you can go.”

  Affection for him swelled inside, burst her restraints, and flowed into her smile. “And let’s see where your course lies.”

  10

  Sunday, June 1, 1941

  Jim stepped out the door from the bridge superstructure to the main deck, and a cool mist tickled his face. Boy, did it feel good to get out to sea.

  Well, out to harbor at least. Under an overcast sky, the Atwood chugged past the islands in Boston Harbor, with the neat white tower of the Long Island Head lighthouse rising to starboard.

  Finally the Atwood was out for her shakedown cruise, to see what she and her crew could do. For a month, the men would perform drills and drills and more drills, until they functioned as one. He couldn’t wait.

  And yet . . .

  Jim gazed past the destroyer’s two funnels, where he could barely make out the piers of the Boston Navy Yard. Right after the Atwood had shoved off, Mary had come, waving a handkerchief, looking small and pretty in her light brown coat.

  Made him feel good to know she’d be there when he returned.

  Jim stepped down through a hatch, his hands guiding his descent down the ladder as his feet glanced over the steps. Like an old sea salt.

  He ducked his head at the bottom, but not in time. The top of the doorway scraped his scalp. After a quick glance to make sure no one had seen, he snatched up his cover and shoved it back on his head. Old sea salt indeed.

  More like a giant puppy, bounding around with his tongue hanging out. No wonder Mary wasn’t interested in him. A quiet soul like her would prefer a man of suave sophistication.

  Did he
want her to be interested in him anyway? Sometimes when she smiled up at him, he wanted to draw her close. Her gentle ways soothed him, intrigued him, balanced him.

  He’d never imagined himself with anyone but a perky blonde, but now he longed for Mary’s company. Strange. He’d have to wait and see what happened.

  Jim entered the forward boiler room and shed his navy blue jacket. Heat pressed in, and the roar of the machinery assaulted his ears. At some point he’d have to do his turn down here with the “black gang” in the engine and boiler rooms, but he wouldn’t volunteer.

  Working his way through the maze of pipes and cables, he kept a respectful distance from the hot steam pipes.

  Up ahead, Arch studied a gauge and made a note on a clipboard. His blond hair curled around his forehead.

  “Hey, Curly!” Jim called.

  Arch shot him a withering glare and jammed his cover over the disobedient locks. “What’s the matter? Assistant gunnery officer has nothing to do in peacetime?”

  “Nothing to shoot but the breeze.” Jim gave him a jaunty smile and a sheet of paper. “But I do have an important memo from Durant. Jim Avery, assistant messenger boy, second class.”

  Arch smiled, skimmed the message, and slipped it onto his clipboard. “Ah, soon they’ll give us both plenty to do.”

  “I know. Got a practice loading drill at 1500 hours.”

  “It’ll be a busy month. Glad we’re coming back to Boston, though. Good home port.”

  “Does Gloria like it here?” A drop of sweat broke free from Jim’s hatband.

  “Sure. She likes her job well enough.” He marched down to the next gauge. “But she’d follow me anywhere. I’m quite a catch, you know.”

  Jim winced at the cynicism in Arch’s voice. How many times had they been through this? “You don’t think she loves you only for your money, do you?”

  “I don’t know.” Arch peered at the gauge and adjusted a valve. “Thought she was different, but all she talks about lately is money, shopping, how wonderful it is to buy nice things.”

  “Because of her job or because of you?”

  He shrugged. “Does it matter?”