· 6 June 1939 ·
OFF THE SOUTHWEST COAST
Nick sat on Petrel’s bow beside Gunner, dangling his feet in the glassy water. There wasn’t even the smallest breath of breeze to move his boat. “We’re going to sit here twiddling our toes while that big U-boat slips away and we miss that rotten Billy Blood’s deadline, too,” Nick said glumly, looking at the sun’s diminishing distance from the horizon. “I’ll likely never see old Jip again, Gunner. The best dog a boy ever had.”
“We’ve still got some hours left, Master Nick, we’ll make it. Besides, we couldn’t give that submarine much of a chase even in a tooth-rattlin’ blow, d’ye think? And what’s the point of that old pirate harmin’ yer doggie? Besides, you know well as I do there’s that westerly breeze that kicks up every afternoon.”
Nick was a staunch boy, Gunner allowed, but like all boys, he needed a little bucking up every so often.
“That westerly never fills in until just before sunset, Gunner, you know that,” Nick said, kicking at the mirrorlike water in frustration.
“So I’ll whistle her up early,” Gunner said, and began whistling his favorite sailor’s ditty. The two friends just sat side by side on either side of the bow, wiggling their toes in the water, as the hot sun dipped ever lower in the western sky. And nary a breeze to ripple the surface despite Gunner’s attempt to whistle up a wind.
Suddenly, Gunner grabbed Nick’s arm with his massive paw and squeezed, hard. “Don’t look now, Master Nick, but yer new Nazi pals have popped up from the briny to eyeball us personally.” Gunner nodded silently to his right and then Nick saw it.
The U-boat periscope, water still streaming from its jet black–hooded top!
Glistening in the sun, it had emerged from the water not ten feet from where Nick and Gunner were sitting on the sailboat’s bow. Gunner stared in open-mouthed wonder at the nearness of it. Why, he could spit and hit this one!
“An evil eye, all right. German,” was all Gunner said. And then he did spit into the water, narrowly missing the scope itself.
“Can he see us now, do you think?” Nick asked, still in a whisper. The periscope was facing almost completely away from them, but Nick could still see a little bit of the lens.
Gunner adjusted his little gold spectacles and peered closely at the top of the motionless periscope. “Not likely. I think we’re just outside his field of peripheral vision. Five degrees to port, though, and he’s sighted us all right. That might give the young Herr Kapitän down there a start, right?” Gunner laughed softly. “An old navy man with a half-drowned cat and a young lad sittin’ right on top of his bleedin’ head!”
“What’s he up to, d’you suppose?”
“Spying, what else?” Gunner said.
“He’s looking at our shoreline all right,” Nick whispered. “And he’s in awfully close. As close as he’s going to chance going in, if he’s seen the Seven Devils on his chart, I mean.”
“Aye. He gets any closer he’s going to end up as the island’s number-one tourist attraction,” Gunner said, getting a laugh from Nick.
“Right, and now he’s got himself in here, how’s he going to get himself out?” Nick asked, as a crazy notion popped into his head.
“Well, assuming he can get his bow around in here, he’ll have to take her out dead slow to the southeast, inside of them shoals over there, lyin’ in the general direction of Hawke Point. And then a hard turn southeasterly to open sea.”
“Just what I was thinkin’, Gunner, just what I was thinkin’.”
And at that moment, the periscope began to move through the water.
It was moving slowly, barely causing a ripple, distancing itself from the Petrel, and it was moving southeast, precisely the direction Nick and Gunner had anticipated. For Nick’s purposes, he calculated, it was precisely the right direction.
“Hand me that bowline, Mr. Gunner, if you please,” Nick said under his breath. “Easy does it, sir, but very quickly, thank you very much. Thank you.”
Nick took the line Gunner handed him and, with eyeblinding speed, tied an expert slip-knot into one end, made the other end fast to the bronze cleat on the bow. He then coiled the line, stood in the bow, swung the loop twice round his head to get the feel of the line, and let the loop fly.
“Slip-knot, Gunner, just in case.”
“Case o’ what?” Gunner asked, but he knew soon enough. The boy had had another one of his patented ideas.
Nick’s artfully thrown loop flew out straight and high and it caught the periscope perfectly. The line to the periscope went quickly taut, snapping loudly where it was cleated on the bow and suddenly the Stormy Petrel leapt forward in the water. She was soon steaming along at a good five knots, right in the wake of the German periscope! And they were headed south-southeast and right for Hawke Point, their original destination!
“Hooray!” cried Gunner, a huge smile on his jolly face. “A free ride, courtesy of Herr Hitler himself!”
He was glowing with pride over his young friend’s ingenuity and indeed it was suddenly glorious to be surging along over the glassy water under a bright blue sky, all owing to the unwitting German submarine up ahead, moving through the water at periscope depth!
Some twenty years earlier, Gunner had been in the business of sinking these things and he now took special joy in Nick’s ruse.
“I’d give three cheers for old Adolf himself right now, if he weren’t such a black-hearted dog!” Nick cried, hanging out over the bow from the forestay. “So I’ll cheer my old dog Jip instead! Hip, hip, huzzah, Jipper, wherever you are, we’re on our way!”
“And here’s to us our noble selves!” Gunner cried, joining Nick and leaning out over the pulpit. “None finer …and many a damn sight worse!”
“Hooray!” cried Nick, when suddenly the deck was yanked from beneath his feet and he felt himself hurtling backward through the air at an amazing speed. He had about one second to wonder about it and then he struck something hard and solid with the back of his head and all the lights went out at once, even the nightlight.
He was down a deep dark tunnel, lying on the bottom, and up at the top he could hear Gunner calling his name and he must have been in a very deep tunnel indeed, because the sound seemed to be coming from very far away.
“Nick … Nick, are you all right? Wake up, Master Nick! Can you hear me?”
Gunner swam into focus inches above his face. It occurred to him that he was lying flat on his back on the foredeck of his sailboat and his head hurt like the dickens. Gunner was asking him a lot of questions about something. It was all very confusing. His sister! Where was his sister? Did Blood have her?
“Katie!” Nick cried. “Is she all right?”
“She’s fine, Master Nick. She and her dolly are back in the cockpit, snugged up with a good lifeline round her middle. Enjoyin’ the sleigh ride, I’m sure. It’s you I’m wonderin’ about, lad. That mast you took a shine to is solid spruce, a hard, unforgivin’ wood. Let me feel your head, laddie.”
Gunner lifted Nick’s head gently and felt the emerging bump, already about as big as a hen’s egg, but no blood. The boy would be all right in a few minutes’ time.
“What happened?” Nick asked, rubbing his head and sitting up on the deck. “Christmas!” he exclaimed, getting a drenching faceful of salty spray over the Petrel’s bow. “What’s going on, Gunner? A sudden squall?”
His boat seemed to be moving incredibly fast, pounding through the swells, more like a tiny hand-built sailboat, and he wondered if he were still dreaming at the bottom of a tunnel. The flying wind and water were like you’d expect in a gale, yet it was still a fine sunny afternoon.
“Herr Kapitän decided to lean on his throttle a bit, now that we’ve safely cleared the Devils!” Gunner shouted above the spray and the roaring water.
“A bit! I’ll say a bit,” Nick cried, climbing to his feet. “There’s not a sub on earth can go this fast, much less one as big as this! And I never even saw him surface! Let’s take a look at him!”
He lunged forward to the pulpit, where he was immediately engulfed in a wall of water as the boat was pulled through a breaking wave by the racing submarine. Nick clung to the forestay and peered through the driven spray, the Petrel’s bow bucking beneath his bare feet like one of those broncos the cowboys in his books were always riding.
“Where’s the sub, Gunner, I can’t even see it!” The waves and the spray were such that he could barely see ten feet in front of his own boat.
“You can’t see him, but he be right out there at the end o’ that bowline, Nick, just where you left him,” Gunner said, pulling himself carefully forward along the lifeline. “Runnin’ along at periscope depth, givin’ us a Nantucket sleigh ride, just like those whaling sods you’re always talkin’ about. Ain’t it grand? Now, hand me that sharp knife of yours and I’ll slice that line. Few more minutes of this, and that U-boat will tear this boat to timbers!”
“Periscope depth! You don’t mean he’s still submerged!” Nick shouted. “But that’s impossible! No sub can travel at this speed on top of the water, much less underneath it!”
Unless she really was an Alpha Class, he thought. She had to be an Alpha!
“Which yer soon going to be under water yourself if I don’t cut that line! Here, I’ll just use me own blade and just—”
“Wait! Please! Don’t cut it just yet!” Nick screamed above the roaring water. The Petrel lurched violently and Nick lost his footing on the spray-slick deck. He was sliding quickly aft on his back and only at the last moment could he grab a stanchion and save himself from going over the stern.
“What are you doing?” Gunner screamed, cupping one hand around his mouth. “I’m afraid he’ll dive! And even if he don’t, he’s going to pull the bow right off of this little brig! I’m cuttin’ her loose!”
“Hold on, Gunner, please!” Nick yelled, struggling forward, slipping and sliding along the careening deck, his arms pinwheeling, wildly grabbing at anything he could find to hold on to. “I’ve got to clock his boat speed first!”
“Boat speed! Who cares about boat—”
Then the deck went out from under both their feet. Nick was airborne for a moment and then the sloop’s cockpit came up and caught him and he slammed his shoulder on the teak deck, safe for the moment, down in the cockpit. He raised his head, spitting saltwater from his mouth, his shoulder on fire. Seeing Gunner still on the bow, safely clinging to the forestay, he feverishly clawed through the sundry items stowed in the lazerette. No log there.
Petrel didn’t have any modern instruments, just the oldfashioned log to tell the speed. You had to heave it out over the stern and gauge the boat’s velocity by how much and how rapidly the line played out. He finally located the instrument in the sail-locker and staggered aft, leaping to avoid the tiller which was now whipping wildly from side to side. He thought of tying it off amidships to keep from losing his rudder but there wasn’t time. Gunner was afraid the Petrel could be ripped apart or dragged under at any moment, but Nick wasn’t afraid. Heroes didn’t have to be braver than normal boys, Nick thought. Sometimes they just had to be brave for a few minutes longer.
“Nick, I’m cuttin’ the line now!” Gunner shouted aft angrily. “Screws on the bow cleat is startin’ to work, and yer pulpit’s ready to give way any second and—”
“No!” Nick cried. “I beg you!” The boat heaved violently again and Nick grabbed for a stanchion to keep from being pitched into the boiling sea. He could hear and feel Petrel’s seams strained to the breaking point and he willed her to stay together long enough for him to do what he had to do. He owed it to his father. He owed it to himself. And maybe even his country.
Nelson the Strong, Nelson the Brave, Nelson the Lord of the Sea.
It was then that he saw his little sister out of the corner of his eye. Kate had curled herself up into a tiny ball, huddled against the cabin house bulkhead, with her doll and the cat Horatio both held tightly in her arms. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight, tight as could be, and she was shivering with the cold spray or something worse.
“What’s wrong, Katie?” Nick called, but he knew.
“I’m afraid, Nicky,” she cried in a tiny voice. “I’ve never been so afraid.”
Nick looked in desperation from the racing submarine up ahead down to his little sister for a long moment and then at the log in his hand. He was deeply disappointed but angry with himself for forgetting how frightening the violent ride must be for his little sister. Hadn’t he learned anything? What had his mother said? I hope you’re always clever enough to be afraid sometimes. You didn’t have to be too clever to know this was real danger, did you? He threw the unused speed log to the cockpit floor and bent to kiss his sister’s tear-streaked cheek.
“Nothing wrong with being afraid, Kate. I’m afraid, too! I’m going to cut the line!” he said, and then he was leaping up to the cabin top and racing forward.
“Cut us loose, please, Mr. Gunner! Cut her loose, now!”
But Gunner’s blade had already sawed through the taut line and it suddenly parted with a loud pop and the Petrel almost instantly lost her way, meaning her forward motion, quickly settling down into the sudden serenity of the deep blue sea. She seemed intact and still seaworthy for the moment. Nick joined Gunner on the bow and began pulling their severed line back aboard. He smiled weakly up at his friend.
“Sorry about that,” Nick said, breathing heavily and unable to look Gunner in the eye. “Quite a ride, eh?”
“Not that it’s any of my business, understand,” Gunner said, coiling what was left of the bowline, “but would you mind tellin’ me why you suddenly came to your bleedin’ senses back there? Another minute and the whole boat was coming apart!”
Nick looked at Gunner. He’d never seen his friend truly angry before and it was not a sight to be recommended to the faint of heart. Nick found he still couldn’t even look him in the eye.
“I—I really needed to clock that fish, Gunner. Still, I was stupid not to let you cut the line, when you wanted, wasn’t I? I’m sorry.”
“I cut that rope regardless of you, boy. Your boat or no, I wasn’t waiting for you to sink her.” Gunner looked at him, hard, and Nick turned away.
“Sorry,” Nick said, and he really was. He’d been terribly stupid, but he was learning, he guessed. Sometimes you really did have to run away in order to fight another day.
“Useless word, sorry,” Gunner added. “Ain’t it, Nick?”
“It is,” the boy agreed. “But still, I am.”
“And what’s so bleedin’ important about Sergeant Sauerkraut’s speed, anyway?”
“War, I guess.”
“War, Nick?”
“Any day now. My father says it’s going to be just like your war, Gunner. U-boats’ll cut us off, starve us! That U-boat down there is just what Mr. Churchill is trying to warn everyone about! They’re building them again, don’t you see? We’ve got to tell everybody, warn them, Gunner. About these new German war machines! That’s why I needed so to log her speed, Gunner! I’d never put anyone in danger and you know it! But the Nazis, they’re putting us all in danger and—”
“Oh, look!” Kate said, as a huge black shadow fell across the drifting sloop. She was standing on the cabin top, the lifeline still securing her to the mast. Arm outstretched, her finger was pointing up at an ancient stone edifice towering on the rocky cliff high above them. “A giant’s house!” Kate said.
Gunner and Nick looked up, dumbfounded. But Kate was right. The U-boat had unknowingly deposited the little vessel in the very shadow of her destination.
Hawke Castle.