Winifred and Flash were delighted to see the fog lifting. After a late breakfast and a leisurely stroll astern, they lingered on the covered promenade to watch the morning vapors scatter.
“The others should be up by now,” Winnie said. “I wonder what they’re doing?”
“What’s the hurry?” Flash placed a sheltering arm around her shoulders. “Let’s stay and enjoy our time together.”
Before the two lovers’ gaze, the Atlantic played a tantalizing game of hide-and-seek. Here through the parting mists shone towering bastions and floating galleons of dazzling white cloud. Meanwhile over there opened out a patch of sunlit sea, a beckoning corridor between islands of fogbound mystery. As the couple stood at the portside rail with arms enwrapped, they saw in that changing seascape a reflection of their own formless hopes and of their mingled tender, indefinable feelings. Even the last remnant of nighttime chill was welcome, providing them an excuse to huddle tightly together.
“Oh, look, I can see the land,” Winnie cried. “Right there, it’s so green!”
She pointed to a brief ribbon of verdant horizon that unrolled before them, soon again to be swallowed up by drifting mist.
“It’s the Emerald Isle, good ol’ Ireland,” Flash proclaimed with spirit. “That green is solid shamrocks, you can bet. I’ve heard the four-leaf clovers grow like crazy in the spring.”
“And here comes the blarney too, already,” Winnie chided him. “Don’t try to beguile me with gab, you red-headed leprechaun.” She planted a kiss on her companion’s lips.
“Mm, begorrah,” Flash said, dipping his head back in for another peck.
“Oh, and listen, do you hear it?” Winnie burst out suddenly, making her lover look up and attend to the silence. “The foghorn, I mean. It’s stopped.”
“Why yes, it has,” he realized. “It must be clearing up ahead.”
The two leaned out over the rail to gaze forward, shading their eyes. Their magical ship seemed to be racing on through the patchy gray into dazzling whiteness.
“The future looks bright,” Flash remarked, holding Winnie tight to keep from losing her.
“I love it bright,” she said, turning down the floppy brim of her hat to shade her eyes. “I love it dark, too, late at night in our room! I love you,” she added, ending with another kiss.
They stayed there in perfect union, hugging the rail and each other. With the ship’s steady progress, the rags and fringes of fog seemed to rise up before them like a tattered playhouse curtain, to vanish astern, forgotten. What remained was a broad expanse of twinkling blue, bordered by a low, flat, green coastline.
“How lovely,” Winnie said, cuddling close. “A cheerful day.”
Other passengers who’d emerged on deck to see the fog burn off were revealed now in the morning light. They warmed themselves in the sudden brightness, but most didn’t seem elated. Instead of sighs and laughter, many spoke in hurried murmurs, with an occasional shrill note of anxiety ringing out. One family with bags and blankets appeared to have slept all night in the deck chairs. A bald man wandered past, his shape distorted by the impossible bulk of a life jacket strapped on beneath his loose overcoat.
“Why do they seem so unhappy?” Winnie asked, glancing lazily around. “It’s such a beautiful morning.”
Flash stayed in their embrace, barely shrugging. “I guess they’re afraid it’ll be a beautiful day for submarines, too.”
“Well then, I hope the submarines are very, very happy,” Winnie proclaimed. “Everyone should be happy, I don’t care.” She hugged him tighter. “Really, Flash, I wouldn’t mind if a torpedo hit us right now! It’s worth it just to be here, the two of us together. It’s like heaven.”
“We have this moment, this snapshot in time,” Flash affirmed, holding her tight. “What else can matter?”
One cheerful voice did chime out on deck behind them. “Oh look, here they are, the lovebirds!” It was Hazel addressing her sister. “They’re not worried about U-boats, mines, or anything. Isn’t it adorable?” Coming up behind the couple, the young nurse stood on tiptoe to give them each a peck on the cheek.
“So tell me,” Florence appealed, following after. “What do we do if we see a periscope, anyway? Shoot it?”
“Just smile and pose for the picture,” Flash answered mildly. “Not much else to do, except pour on a full head of steam and run for port.”
“Well, if one comes, I want to be the first to spot it,” Florence declared, taking the rail beside Winnie. “I’ll go and tell the Captain myself!”
“Where’s Alma?” Flash asked, looking around. “Is she with Hildegard?”
“No,” Hazel said. “Miss Hildegard should be along any minute now, but we didn’t run into Alma.”
“Oh, is that so?” Flash said, disengaging from Winnie. “She never came back from breakfast. I thought she’d be with you.” He turned to Winnie. “Did you see her at all this morning, my darling?”
“No,” Winnie said, undoing her shawl and unbuttoning her coat to let in the day’s warmth. “She was already gone out with Matt when I got up. Aren’t they together?”
“Well, Matt had an assignment to go to. I’m supposed to look out for Alma while he’s gone. I imagined she’d be with the group.”
“She probably just went along with Matt to his meeting or…what was the assignment?” Winnie asked.
“No, Win, I doubt it.” Ignoring her question in the mixed group, Flash gazed fore and aft along the promenade. “I’ll have to check the cabin.”
“It’s not as if anything could have happened,” Hazel reassured them all. “We’re far away from New York and all that mess. And Alma is so happy these days, she wouldn’t let anything interfere with it.” The young nurse sighed in envy. “She’s probably walking around on a cloud, just like the two of you.”
“As long as she doesn’t try walking on water,” Flash said. He turned back to see their chaperone approaching. “Miss Hildegard, good morning! Have you seen Alma?”
“Why no, not since yesterday,” the chief nurse said. “You men are supposed to be looking after her,” she added sternly.
“Well, if you see her, hang onto her,” Flash said. “We should all stick together on this last day of the voyage. Winnie, you wait here with the group, and I’ll go to the stateroom. She’s probably there.”
“Shouldn’t I come too?” Winnie appealed in a whisper. “It’s not more cloak-and-dagger, is it?”
She looked positively distraught at the idea of being separated from Flash, and he turned to embrace her for a long moment.
“Don’t worry, darling,” he murmured in her ear. “She’s right, though, we do have to look after Alma. It’s hard to tear myself away, but I’ve got to go, my love. I’ll hurry right back.”
As he left, Florence called brightly after him, “Be sure and knock first! You wouldn’t want to walk in on anything.”
But he was already gone down the companionway.
“It’s always a mistake to depend too much on men,” Hildegard grimly declared as he left.
To this there was no reply, but when Winnie came wordlessly to her side, the elder nurse wrapped her in a motherly embrace that she found comforting.
Before they’d been alone long, the women were deep in a conversation on what was uppermost in everyone’s mind, the threat of U-boats. On the subject of the bloodthirsty Huns, Winnie found she’d had a softening of the heart.
“I don’t see why everyone is so upset,” she observed. “This morning I heard a gentleman saying in the lounge, very firmly, ‘What creature that calls himself a man would send a torpedo into a ship full of women and children?’ And I agree with him. I don’t think any sea officer, British or German, would do that.”
“The Germans wouldn’t do it?” Hazel demanded. “Look what they did to little Belgium!”
Nurse Hildegard added, “My dear, one thing you’ll learn as a nurse in our modern time is that personal cruelty is slight, almost meaningless, against the impersonal cruelty of shells, bombs, jagged wire, and now poison gas and who knows what! It doesn’t take individual cruelty any longer to do terrible things to people.”
But Winnie was stubborn. “The Kaiser might give the order to torpedo us,” she defended stoutly. “The British Lords of the Admiralty might dare him to go ahead and do it. But the sailors wouldn’t take the command, the sub-mariners would disobey. There would be a mutiny and a trial. If it became enough of a scandal, it could bring this whole silly war to an end.”
“A ship’s mutiny on a submarine under the ocean?” Hazel asked. “It would take quite a reporter to sniff that one out. I doubt if even your boyfriend could cover it.”
“Well, if Flash was there with his camera, we’d all see it on the front pages soon enough.”
Sometime after being mentioned, Flash returned to the group. “Did you find her?” Winnie asked, running to his side.
“No,” he said gravely, shaking his head. “No note there for us, either. It doesn’t look as if anything has been disturbed since we left. I don’t think she’s been back to the rooms.”
“So, then,” Winnie reasoned, “she’ll certainly be with Matt. Let’s just go and find them both to make sure. Do you know where to look?”
“Well,” Flash admitted. “I know his meeting was going to be on the Boat Deck forward, port side. We can go up and see. Do the rest of you mind staying here?”
“No, not at all.” Miss Hildegard, who’d taken possession of some deck chairs, spoke up decisively. “The view of the land is so comforting, after all this time at sea, I think we’d love to sit and watch it unfold.”
“Yes,” Hazel said. “It seems so close you could almost swim to it.”
“And look, there’s a lighthouse,” Florence added, pointing ahead to a black-and-white banded tower on a broad headland. “How pretty, welcoming us across the ocean.”
“All right, then, we’ll go,” Flash answered, steering Winnie away. “You ladies stay here, but be on the lookout.”