Camp X (4 page)

“I could just stay here all day,” Jack said, spinning a bit in his tube under the hot sun.

“We could do that. Mom isn't going to be home for hours and hours and hours.”

Jack just smiled. “Let's get out of the current or we'll drift all the way down to the lake. Follow me.”

We both started using our arms to paddle. Jack aimed toward a little island in the middle of the creek. He and his inner tube partially disappeared underneath the branches of a large weeping willow that dominated the little chunk of land. Its branches reached right down to the surface of the water. I floated in after him, and I was immediately struck by how
much cooler it felt in the shade of the tree.

“This is perfect,” Jack said. He was hanging on to some of the branches.

I reached up and grabbed a branch, looping it around my wrist. The current wasn't very strong and I was held in place. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the quiet of the day. It was hard to find quiet where we lived now. There was always something close by—a person or a car or even an airplane flying overhead.

“How far are we from Lake Ontario?” I asked.

“Not too far I don't think. You see the bridge there?”

I looked over my shoulder and between the branches dangling down into the water. I could make out a wooden bridge in the distance, crossing over the creek.

“That's the railroad bridge,” Jack told me. “Those are the tracks we were climbing up to last night.”

A shiver ran up my spine. Lying there, massaged by the gentle water, I'd momentarily forgotten about yesterday. And that was strange because I'd spent a good part of the day thinking about it.

“Do you see that?” Jack asked.

“See what?”

“There's somebody on the bridge.”

I spun around so I was facing the bridge. There was somebody—it looked like a man—standing at the very centre.

“What do you think he's doing?” I asked.

“Probably just doing what we were trying to do yesterday, taking a shortcut,” Jack suggested.

“But he's just standing there looking over the edge and— there's another man!”

A second person had appeared on the bridge—they looked the same, dressed all in black. And then a third man joined them.

“They must be some sort of railroad crew,” Jack said.

“That makes sense,” I agreed. “They must be inspecting the tracks.”

Suddenly a fourth man appeared, dressed in the same manner. But instead of being on the top like the others he was climbing on the trestles. As he started to climb up, two of the men on the bridge climbed down to meet him.

“What are they doing now?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I can't really tell . . . are they putting something on the bridge?”

“I can't really see . . . it looks like some sort of . . . I don't know, almost like pieces of wood or something.” There were dark patches on the wood now where something had been put in place.

“No, not wood . . .” Jack said.

“Whatever it is, they must be guys who do bridge repairs.”

“I guess,” he agreed, though he didn't sound too sure.

“What else could it be?”

Jack didn't say anything, but he had a look on his face, the one that always made me think he knew things I didn't.

“Maybe,” I suggested, “if we got closer we could—”

“No,” he snapped, cutting me off. “I want to stay right here where they can't see us.”

“Why don't you want them to see us?”

“I don't know,” he said, shaking his head. “I just want to stay out of sight.”

Jack's being nervous made me feel nervous.

“Are you sure we can't be seen here?” I asked.

“As long as we stay here we're invisible.”

That was reassuring.

“Look what they're doing now,” Jack said.

I tried to look around the branches. The four men were moving back and forth across the supports of the bridge.

“They're putting up wires, I think,” he said. “You see what that one at the top is holding?”

I stared at him hard. It was a large, round object . . . sort of like a gigantic spool of thread.

“That's a spool that holds wire. They're definitely attaching wire to the bridge.”

“Could wire help hold up a bridge?” I asked.

“They're not putting that wire there to hold up the bridge.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those men aren't here to repair the bridge . . . I thinkthey're here to blow it up.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“
QUIT JOKING AROUND, JACK
,” I said nervously.

“I'm not joking.” His tone was quiet and serious.

“Why would anybody blow up a bridge?”

“Not
anybody
. Enemy agents. Don't you remember that newsreel we saw last month about saboteurs?”

We'd gone to the movies, and before the feature film they'd shown a newsreel about the war and then a cartoon about watching for “enemy activity” here at home.

“Jack, this isn't a movie, this is real life,” I pointed out.

“Look what they're doing,” Jack said.

The four men were leaving the bridge. The last one was walking backwards, holding onto that spool—it looked almost like a big reel from a fishing rod.

“He's laying the wire to lead to the detonator.”

“Come on, Jack, you can't know that,” I said.

“I know things. I'm fourteen years old. I've seen stuff. I've read stuff.”
As we watched, the last man scrambled over the near side of the embankment, leaving the tracks behind. He slipped and slid down, rocks sliding under his feet. Then he joined the other three men, taking shelter behind a large boulder.

“That's why they're hiding behind the rock, because they're going to blow it up,” Jack said.

“Why would anybody want to blow up
this
bridge?”

“Think, George!” he hissed. “This is the main railroad line to Toronto. And it goes right through the yard of the munitions factory.”

“The factory where Mom works?”

He nodded his head.

“If you're right, shouldn't we do something?” I pleaded.

“Like what?”

“I don't know, maybe go for help.”

“Can you still see those men?” Jack asked.

“Of course I can.”

“Then if you tried to leave they'd see you. We're only safe as long as we stay right here under the tree.”

“Even if they did see us we could still get away. We'd just outrun them.”

“You can't outrun a bullet,” he said grimly.

“They have guns?” Suddenly I felt very afraid. “I didn't see any guns.”

“Neither did I, but if they're Nazi agents, don't you think they'd have guns? We have to stay here.”

“For how long?”

“I don't know . . . until they're gone.”

“Yeah, and the bridge is blown up. What if we went that way and then through the woods?” I asked.

“That wouldn't work. As soon as we hit open water they'd see us . . . we'd be dead before we hit the trees.”

“Come on, Jack, please stop saying things like that.”

“I'm not saying anything that isn't true. We have to stay here. Maybe they'll go away before the bridge blows . . . maybe they're going to use a timer.”

“What's a timer?” I asked.

“It's a thing like a clock. They set it so the bomb explodes later.”

“And they've got one of those?”

“How would I know?” Jack said, angrily. “I just know that there
are
things like that.”

“So if they're gone we can go and get help. Maybe we can find somebody who can disconnect the bomb, like the police, or they can call for the military to come.”

“Or maybe
we
could disconnect it,” Jack said.

“What?” I couldn't believe he was even thinking that.

“We could disconnect it. I think we just have to pull out the wires.”

“You're crazy! We can't do that!”

“But what if a train comes before we can get help and—”He stopped and cocked his head to the side.

“What? What's wrong?”

“Listen,” he said.

Immediately I heard what he was hearing. It was a low, rumbling sound that could mean only one thing.

“There's a train coming.” Jack's voice was barely a whisper.

“Can you tell which direction it's coming from?”

He shook his head.

“Do you think it could be from the factory?” I asked.

“I told you I don't know! I can't see it. I can only hear it. It's coming.”

The sound was growing louder, and I could feel the vibrations through the tree. Even the water was starting to tremble.

“Come here,” Jack said.

“What?”

“Come here and get out of the tube,” he said as he slipped over the side of his and into the waist-deep water.

“But—”

“Don't argue with me, just get into the water!” he ordered.

I slid into the water and waded over beside him, towing the inner tube with me and looking over my shoulder as I moved. The train still wasn't in sight, but the sound was nearly deafening now.

“Why did we get into the water?” I had to shout to be heard.

“It'll protect us.”

“Protect us from what?”

“The explosion, idiot.”

“We're far away. It can't be that big . . . they couldn't have put that much explosive stuff on the bridge.”

“Ammunition,” I heard him say. And he was right. What if the train was carrying ammunition? What would it be like if a train filled with ammunition exploded? I tried to picture it. It
would be tremendous . . . unbelievable . . . it would fill the sky and . . .

“We have to get farther away,” I blurted out.

“There isn't time,” Jack said, and he pointed.

I looked up. It was a freight train, and it was coming from the direction of the plant!

“Just do what I do!” Jack yelled over the noise.

I followed him to shore and tossed my tube onto a little lip of land right beside where he tossed his. Although it felt stupid I reached out and took his hand.

The train came close, the big engine growling and rumbling, the noise echoing down the creek, closed in by the trees and banks. It reached the edge of the bridge and I held my breath and . . . it kept coming, the second car, and then the next and the next. With each car there was a loud
thump, thump
as the axles hit the bridge. When were they going to set off the explosion? Were they waiting for the very middle of the train? Maybe that was where they kept the ammunition cars. I looked at Jack wide-eyed.

“I don't know!” he screamed over the noise.

I turned back to look. Car after car it came, each one thumping across the bridge. The caboose was already in sight. Maybe they were trying to kill the crew! It came closer and closer and then hit the bridge, and in a second it was gone. It was over the bridge, moving farther down the track, getting smaller and smaller, taking the noise with it until it was just a soft hum and then a slight vibration in the water and then . . . nothing.

“What happened?” I whispered to Jack.

“Maybe they didn't hook it up right.” He paused. “Look, they're going back.”

The four men had started to climb back up the embankment and onto the tracks. As they walked, two of them were rolling up the wire that they'd laid out. Why were they doing that? If it hadn't been hooked up right, wouldn't they just check things and get the next train?

From our hiding spot we could see the men, and now we could hear them, too. Before they had been completely silent, but now they were laughing and talking in loud voices. The train had gotten by, so why were they so happy? It seemed like the more we watched the less sense everything made.

As two of the men stood in the middle of the bridge, two started down the sides, climbing along the trestle beams. These two were unwinding the wires, threading them back through the beams while the two at the top pulled them back up. Jack and I watched wordlessly for close to five minutes until finally all the wires were removed, and all four men reassembled on the top.

“They haven't removed the explosives yet,” Jack said.

I could clearly see that the dark blobs still remained attached to the support beams of the bridge.

“Maybe they take the wires first and then go back for them,” I said.

“Maybe, but I'm not so—oh my goodness,” Jack hissed.

At that same instant I saw what he saw—a black inner tube was floating down the creek toward the bridge. I turned
around; only one of ours was still pushed partially up on the shore.

“You idiot, you should have put your tube higher up.”

“
My
tube? How do you know it's not yours!” I protested.

“Sssssshhhhh . . . keep it down. It doesn't matter whose it is. I just hope they don't see it.”

“What could happen if they do?”

He shook his head. “I don't know, but maybe they might come looking for where it came from.”

A shiver, unrelated to the cold of the creek, ran through my entire body.

While I watched the men perched atop the bridge, I kept one eye on the inner tube. It was bobbing down the creek . . . slowly twirling and bouncing along with the current. It was almost like it was dancing, getting closer and closer to the bridge, and still they hadn't seen it. In just a few seconds it would be right underneath their feet and then it would pop out the other side and—it hit one of the supports! The tube spun around to the side, pushed by the current, and then stopped moving. It seemed to be stuck, wedged in against the wooden beam.

I looked up at the men and was shocked to see that they were no longer there. I quickly turned my head and spotted them walking along the tracks, away from the bridge. Then they dropped off the far side of the embankment, disappearing from my view.