Maggie Bright (34 page)

“Don’t know, sir. We were separated when the line broke through.
These
are my men, sir.” Balantine glanced back, taking them all in.

“Move it along!” a naval man called.

“She’s about to cast off,” said Wellard. “We must hurry.”

They passed six smaller craft docked and loading on the left, two rows of three abreast. Men clambered over the first two as a bridge to get to the last. How did they manage to navigate past those harbor wrecks? Some wrecks were partially submerged with bow or stern stuck in the air, some visible just feet below the surface. Jamie stared at the six boats as he passed. They must have very shallow drafts and skippers of incredible skill and luck.
Lizzie Rose
was not among them.

“Come on, men, move it!”

“Incoming!” someone cried.

“I hate that word,” Griggs said, refitting himself under Baylor’s arm. He said to Milton, “Look, you’re slowing us down! I’ve got him. Elliott, see to him.”

They hurried along the mole for the end destroyer, but the beckoning men on the ship’s deck suddenly disappeared as they dove for cover.

“Incoming!”

“Come on, men!” Balantine bellowed.

A high, whistling whine, a deadened second, and then a blinding flash, a concussive implosion . . .

Jamie fumbled for clarity, tried to get up, tried to get up . . .

. . . and a concert of destruction fell upon the breakwater.

A blinding deluge of shrapnel and water and foaming debris. You clear yourself, coughing, only to see lancing streaks and wheeling planes, only to see falling rectangles meet pier, ships, men, and sea, and the concert of destruction starts over again.

You clear yourself, coughing, get yourself up.

Jamie, back on his feet, reaching for Milton next to him. Griggs stumbling forward with Baylor, Balantine shoving Curtis forward, shouting them all on.

A rectangle fell, met the destroyer at the end of the mole. A great explosion, and then a groaning shriek of steel
 
—the pier shuddered and buckled where the ship ground against it, crushing men caught on the rope ladder between.

The rush for the ship ceased. Jamie stood horrified, but not Griggs.

Griggs swung Baylor to the left, pushed him down into the first boat in a line of three tied to the pier. He reached for Milton next, pushed him down next to Baylor and turned for Balantine and Curtis, shouting them over. Balantine pulled a staring Curtis from the sight of the destroyer, which now listed heavily starboard and, engines roaring, metal shrieking, stern deck flaming, began to pull away from the mole.

Balantine shoved Curtis toward Griggs, then reached into a pile of men for Captain Wellard. Jamie came to help, and between them they dragged the dazed and bleeding man toward the boat where Griggs shoved off other men trying to board, some into the water, some into the next boat over.

A plane came strafing low, buzzing the curve of the breakwater.

Balantine collapsed with his captain, buckling Jamie’s knees, taking Jamie down.

A cry from Milton, and he climbed over men in the boat, past Griggs, who tried and failed to catch him back, past frantic men surging forward to come aboard. Griggs vanished, shouting, beneath them.

The Junkers 88 peeled off from the breakwater, soared in a roaring climb and came about in a smooth banking turn.

Balantine, get up, get up. Jamie shook him.

The Junkers 88 angled in and lined up low for another breakwater pass.

“Balantine!”

But Balantine was dead, beside his dead captain.

Milton came for Jamie, pulled him away from Balantine. He shouted something, but Jamie couldn’t hear over the roar of the oncoming Junkers. Milton righted Jamie’s helmet, seized his arm, and turned for the boat.

The plane roared strafing past, bullets rattling through the man-clad pier.

Milton went down, Jamie beside his captain.

Griggs fought through the frenzied press, shouting back for Curtis to mind Baylor. He used oncoming men to pull himself onto the pier, pulling some into the water, shoving others aside to get to where Elliott and Milton had gone down.

Balantine was gone; he’d seen that from the boat, gave him no more than a swift glance.

For a heartbeat Griggs stood over Milton and Elliott, then quickly knelt to check. Milton was gone. He checked Elliott, whose helmet bore a new bullet crease
 
—Elliott’s eyes fluttered, and Griggs hauled him up.

“WHAT SHIP IS THIS?
” said a man close by. “I want to know the name of the ship that will carry me home.”

“You’re on the HMS
Wolsey
, mate,” said a cheerful seaman. “She’s an old girl and she’s taken a beatin’. Might have to sit the next dance out, but she’s done us proud.”

Hundreds of soldiers covered every inch of the
Wolsey
’s deck. They sat on railings and ammunition lockers, they packed in tight, right up to the swivel line of the gun turrets. Many slept on each other, while others watched the skies for enemy action. Some kept to themselves, some swapped stories of perilous escapes.

They were two hours out from Dunkirk, no one in pursuit. Nothing exploding. All quiet.

Baylor was wedged between Griggs and Jamie. Curtis sat nearby.

They were no longer six. They were four.

None had spoken since coming aboard, since the little ship that
Griggs had commandeered had ferried them out to a river barge, which then took them to the
Wolsey
, standing off a mile out. Griggs kept them together when a medic wanted to take Baylor below. Griggs made sure they all got a share of the tea that came around in helmets. Griggs repacked Baylor’s dressing.

“It’s all wrong,” Baylor said, voice soft, face stricken.

“I just wanted to get him home,” Jamie whispered.

He nearly did. Duty so nearly accomplished. He failed, and he’d never know anything more about this man. Never know the unit he came from, never have a sound conversation, never raise mugs in the pub. Captain Jacobs died in the Milton box.

“He wanted you to get home, and he did it,” said Griggs. “You were his mission, Elliott. Don’t take it from him.”

Jamie pulled his helmet low.

God towards thee hath done his part
 
—do thine.

Jamie’s part was to get home. Why wasn’t it Milton’s part to live?

Why Milton, and why Balantine? Why not men who meant nothing to him? Why not Curtis, who seemed to fill a blank spot, as if he were just along for the ride? He glared at Curtis, but Curtis was silently crying, tears running down his face as he gazed south to Dunkirk.

“Balantine led from the front.” Baylor’s face was white and empty. “Somehow, Milton led from the back. The two who kept us together are gone.”

“I have something for you,” Jamie heard himself say.

He dug into the captain’s rucksack and came up with
Paradise Lost
.

It was the one thing in the world he wanted for his own, and he knew with all his heart Milton would’ve wanted it for him, and for a moment he gripped it hard. Then he handed it to Baylor, who took the book, turned it over in his hands, and looked off to sea, bleak as Curtis. At the moment it didn’t mean anything more than anything else.

It wasn’t any different from what Jamie felt. But he knew what the captain would do if he were here. He’d speak Milton.

What in us is dark, illumine. There’s a lot of dark.

“Baylor. I’m going to open a pub when this war is over.” He bit his lip, waited it out. “A man can come in who’s down on his luck, get a meal for free.”

And the vision came before him, illumined, illumined . . . illumined by the soft yellow glow of the great fireplace, details like Jamie had never seen.

“There’s a great fireplace, with a mantel made of an old barn beam. A beautiful wireless, top of the line, is at the end of the counter. On the wireless is King George, and I can hear him. He’s telling how a mighty force came back with Lord Gort, whipped Hitler and all his men. I see you across the room, Baylor, whole and strong. I see Griggs and Curtis, and we’re lifting our mugs. For Milton, for Balantine, and for Grayling. For two little girls I saw in a ditch. For all the men Milton lost. And for his wife, who lost him.”

He could see it in the golden glow of the fireplace and knew it was a true vision because the glow touched his heart and the pain lessened.

Baylor looked at the book. Turned it over in his hands.

“You should call it Milton’s Men,” Griggs said.

Jamie liked the sound of it. Then he looked at each one of them earnestly. “You have to be there. It’s not some dream. It’s real. You have to be there, every one, or I’ll find you and kick your arses.”

“I’ll be there,” said Curtis, wiping beneath his nose.

“Me, too,” said Baylor, gazing at the book.

“Then we have to promise to stay alive,” said Jamie. “We’ll be in Dover soon. We’ll get split up. We may not see each other for the whole of the war. I live in Bexley-on-the-Thames, up from Teddington Locks. That’s where Milton’s Men will be. Find me at Elliott’s Boatyard, if the pub’s not built yet. Now look me in the eye and give me a promise to come.”

“I promise,” Baylor said.

“Promise,” Curtis whispered.

Griggs was silent.

“Griggs,” Jamie prompted.

“I’ll not make a promise I can’t keep,” said Griggs. He looked Jamie straight on. “But if I’m alive . . . I’ll be there.”

Jamie put his head back and closed his eyes, and when he awoke, he was in Dover.

NINETEEN.

Nineteen little worlds saved.

Then ninety, and did William ever imagine to see the ketch take on so many? There on out he stopped trying for a precise count. It was impossible.

Then twenty
 
—bombs came heavy on that one, they had to leave fast.

Eighty.

Ninety.

Twenty
 
—another survivor pickup not five minutes back from the destroyer, when one of the Dutch scoots sank.

A day passed. Two days. On went
Maggie Bright
and her crew without pause.

Bombs fell, planes came strafing, magnetic mines blew holes in steel hulls, and all throughout this hell called war, the English Channel
remained uncommonly calm. Little ships motored about less hampered by its usual chop, saving time, using less fuel. Maybe William did believe in God. He certainly believed in Mrs. Shrewsbury.

Ninety.

Seventy.

Seventy.

William carved the number of each ferried load on a piece of console trim. Clare wouldn’t mind, not this record of Maggie’s exploits.

They took on fuel and rations and water. At each load delivered, William wanted to crawl up the nets with the soldiers, he wanted to be done, he wanted out. He could summon neither hatred nor hope to keep going. He felt nothing at all. He simply wanted it to end and would not mind if a bomb answered all.

Did he ever imagine that one day, he would grow adept at timing the fall of an object the size of a suitcase, at knowing exactly when to lay her over hard to port or starboard, depending on the waves and the feel of the wind?

Forty.

Fifty.

He had nothing left, and he knew it, yet he sat in the chair and motored round wrecks, said “Oops” if he glanced off another boat, or if another glanced off them. The crew of three could no longer speak, not to one another, not to oncoming or off-going men. Their eyes were red and grainy, their feet swollen; their bruises and small abrasions, numerous. Sea salt crusted their skin and stiffened their hair.

Smudge and Murray had the worst of it, hauling men in, pushing men up, jumping in the water if one fell. They loaded only from the lorry jetties now, to conserve strength in order to keep going at all. When they left a destroyer after delivering a load of men, Smudge and Murray lay down wherever they stood, in whatever the soldiers had left behind
 
—oil, blood, vomit. They were asleep in seconds.

William helped when he dared leave the helm, usually when tied to a destroyer. But back and forth along the routes or at the lorry jetties or the pier in the harbor, he had all he could do to make sure Maggie didn’t run aground or hit other craft. He had a fending pole at his side, had to use it ceaselessly.

Clare, how are you healing? Hmm? All the infection go bye-bye?

Mrs. Shrewsbury, pray.

I cannot lose her, you see, she who will circumnavigate the world. She who holds high a picture.

By the by, I have nothing left. Pray.

You have your job, I have mine. Did I say that, or did you?

Eighty.

Ninety.

One hundred twenty. A bit tender on that one.

Ninety.

He watched his hands make the knife carve this last number onto the console. He watched his hands withdraw the knife, fold the knife, slip the knife into his pocket, because doing things like watching one’s hands kept one’s mind in step with one’s body, and this was important when one was losing one’s mind. Yet he’d barely had time to be satisfied with the accomplishment of pocketing one’s knife when shouts came from above, shouts from the men on the destroyer they had tied to, they were shouting down something dire, dear me, something important, he was to
do
something, they were frantic, they were waving him forward
 
—he watched his hand move to power her up, but Maggie crashed into the destroyer.

He picked himself up, and there was no getting out of this, no shrewd maneuver, no time to be indignant at the poor seamanship of whoever bashed into her. Her crushed stern took on water in seconds, and there it loomed, a great powerful barge bearing down on the little ketch, crushing it like dry crackers, soldiers tumbling from the barge, some into the drink, some onto Maggie, some thrown
straight to the climbing net on the side of the destroyer
 
—at that he could only think, How clever, how very efficient.

Get Murray, get Smudge, get out.

But curse the inconvenient sense of duty, he first helped those thrown onto Maggie because she wasn’t going down yet, as the barge pinned her against the destroyer, and he prayed the pilot wouldn’t do something as foolish as back away
now
. Let’s work together, man; this is going to be tricky.

He looked for Smudge and Murray as he helped men gain the net, but didn’t see them. Where could they be? I could use some help.

“Orderly, now,” he called hoarsely to men scrambling down to Maggie from the barge. He grabbed one, he steadied another, he dragged one up from the water and pushed him to the net. The barge ground against Maggie, kept her neatly propped as a bridge, and he looked to catch eyes with the pilot, but saw no pilot in the cockpit for there
was
no cockpit, and that’s when he realized the barge had been bombed.

The barge listed to port, and her grip on Maggie slipped. Maggie’s crushed stern slid several feet, and water began to pour in.

Then Maggie fell away beneath him, and William scrambled and leapt and caught the bottom of the net, climbed a few footholds, and frantically searched the area for Murray and Smudge.

“Murray!”

“Bobby! Bobby, up here!”

In the crowd of soldiers leaning over the rail, William finally picked out the anxious faces of Murray and Smudge. He’d sort out later how they’d managed that feat. He sagged against the net in relief.

“Come on, bobby, climb!”

“You can do it!”

“Oh, shut up,” William muttered. Why couldn’t they sail back to England this way? He was secure enough. He looked up. It was a long way up.

He saw a few soldiers swing legs over the rail, ready to sprint down for him like a couple of agile little monkeys just brimming with vigor.

“I’m coming!” he growled, waving them off.

Cursing the world and all that was in it, he began his ascent of the destroyer but, oh, oh, how tired he was.

One handhold, one foothold, up we go. One handhold, one foothold, up we go . . .

Murray and William sat on a . . . Actually, William didn’t know what they sat on, something uncomfortable and covered with a tarp. Smudge lay asleep at their feet, a neat bandage about his head.

It was a time for philosophical reflection, a moment Butterfield would have adored.

“Well,
that
woke me up,” said William hoarsely.

“Me too,” Murray whispered. His voice was gone.

“I hate to discover that I have reserves.”

“Me too.”

“I mean very
deep
reserves. I can be pushed far more than I ever imagined. It’s disturbing.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s not tell anyone. A thing like that can’t get out.”

“I’m just tryin’ to care that we lost
Mags
. I don’t.”

“Neither do I.”

“Is that bad, bobby?”

A deckhand came by and put cups of hot cocoa in their hands. He knuckled his forehead, grinning a gap-toothed grin, and backed away.

“Thank you. There’s a good chap. It’s
likely
bad. Right now I suspect that I have poor judgment. I care only that I lost a piece of trim. I’d carved the number of each rescue on it. I wanted to show Clare.”

“How many did we save?”

“Oh, lots. Lots of little worlds.”

“That’s great. But right now . . . I don’t care. Is that bad?”

“Oh, that
is
bad. That’s definitely bad. But you
can
care later.”

“I can?”

“I give you permission to care later,” William said grandly.

“Gee. Thanks, bobs.”

“A nice little sleep for a night or two, you can wake up and care, care, care.”

After a moment, Murray said, “Care about what?”

“I haven’t the faintest.”

A few soldiers came by and said some nonspecific things, whacked William on the back and spilled his cocoa, moved on. He glared at the spot on his trousers, but then saw, amazed, many spots.

“I’m still trying to work out how you got to the deck so fast,” said William.

“They came down and got us. Wasn’t fast.”

“Yes it
was
fast,” William said peevishly. “The barge hit, I looked, you were gone.”

Murray stared at him. His eyes were inflamed, caked at the corners and rimmed with salt. His face was swollen and streaked with blood, grease, and grime.

“Good heavens,” said William, dismayed. “I hope I don’t look like you.”

“Wasn’t fast, bobby. Smudge got conked again. Had all I could do to keep him from goin’ in. Took ’em half an hour to get us up here.”

“Nonsense.”

A middle-aged uniformed officer came up, a younger uniformed man at his side. Though William was past bleary, he saw brass and bars and tried to sit up straight and make himself a bit respectable. He discreetly crossed his legs to hide the cocoa stain.

“I’ve seen many things this past week.” The older officer took off his hat. “Nothing like that.” He put out his hand.

William shook it. Poor man. He looked very tired.

“I’m putting you in for an order of chivalry,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” William snapped. “Help a man off a barge, they want to award you for it. It’s spectacle gone to seed. Next they’ll award you for getting up in the morning.”

“Bobby,” Murray whispered. “You was at it for an hour.”

William stared.

Murray jerked a thumb at the officer. “
This
guy knows his stuff
 
—kept nosin’ this mammoth into Maggie and the barge so you could get ’em off. You was some team. Attaboy, Sailor Bob.” He nodded at the officer, then looked at the younger man. “Junior Bob
 
—put him up for the same award.”

Junior Bob smiled brilliantly and gave a nod. “It will be a pleasure.”

Bits came prickling back, just bits . . .

William stared at the middle-aged officer. Wonderingly, he said, “You kept us together.” He shook his head. “That is seamanship. What is your name?”

“Phil.”

“Well done, Phil.” He would stand and salute, in the flush of admiration for this skilled and very tired man, but he couldn’t move.

“Mr. Vance . . . would you sign this, please?” The younger officer unfolded a piece of paper.

“Sure, Junior Bob.”

Junior Bob handed Murray a pen. He made an X on the paper.

“It’s all I can do,” he whispered.

“I quite understand.”

“What is that?” William asked. Junior Bob held it up for him to see.

“It’s you, bobby. And the guys you saved. And the last of Maggie. All they had was a grease pen and the back of a chart.”

William studied the drawing. “Why did you do it?”

“It hollered to be drawn.”

Junior Bob folded the drawing and said some nonspecific
things
 
—many men did, they kept coming by, kept coming by, kept shaking hands with the officer and William, and William tried hard to control the trembling in his body and wished they’d all go away. Their congratulations taxed and vexed; he found it more exhausting than sailing.

They finally left, and it was time for philosophical reflection once more. He thought of Mrs. Shrewsbury. He saw her on her knees, hands clasped, a Dundee cake nearby.

“Thank you, Mrs. Shrew,” he whispered. To Murray he said, “Is your face numb?”

But Murray was sleeping, and William took his cocoa before it spilled. He patted Smudge, sleeping at their feet, and took a sip from his cup.