Anyhow, I got off my topic again. Mrs. Cady is always after me about that. She says, “You write real well, but you jump around too much.” Glad she’s not reading this!
Back to the burning ship. So those Germans are killing us right outside our back door now. Their sneaky U-boats come up from under the water and attack, just like a shark. When I watched that black smudge growing out to sea, I wondered if someone’s loose lips might have gotten word to the U-boats out there somehow.
I have not seen a U-boat myself, although I keep looking for one. When I’m cleaning up in the lantern room, or after school when I come home, I go up there and stare at the water with the binoculars, looking for one of the German subs. I’m not sure what to look for, exactly. Would a periscope be too small for me to see? That sounds like it would be fun to have. A periscope. To see what was happening someplace you weren’t. You could see people, but they couldn’t see you. Without a doubt, that’s what happened out there this morning. Some American ship filled with hardworking men got spied with a U-boat’s periscope, and then bam! The Germans torpedoed them. This is the first I’ve seen this close up, and I don’t want to see another. It was as if, when I saw that smoke, all the fun went out of me. I was suddenly as sour and dead inside as some of the grown-ups I know, and I didn’t like the feeling.
There is one good thing and one thing only that I like about this war: it’s brung the Coast Guard boys to the Outer Banks. They’ve taken over the lifesaving stations, and each one of them is more handsome than the next. They are from all parts of the country, and hearing all their different accents makes me want to get out of North Carolina and see the world. I’ve been to Elizabeth City and Manteo and even once to Norfolk, but that’s it. Mama keeps an eye on me when they’re around. I can feel her watching every move I make, and so I pretend not to even notice those boys. But I do. And some of them notice me right back.
Tonight, Mr. Bud Hewitt (he’s the chief warrant officer for the Coast Guard up here) came to dinner like he does sometimes. He and Mama and Daddy have become friends. He told us they fished a bunch of the sailors from the torpedoed ship out of the sea, but fifty-some were lost, and already a few bodies had washed up on shore. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Daddy asked Mr. Hewitt, and Mr. Hewitt looked serious and sad, and said, “Yes, we just aren’t prepared for this. We’re so used to being spared fighting right here in the United States that no one expected this bombardment. And nobody thinks much about North Carolina. All eyes are on the West Coast. But they better start thinking, or it’ll be too late.”
Mr. Hewitt said we need a blackout, but one hasn’t been ordered, and I can tell he’s mad about that. He explained how the U-boats can see our ships clear as day out there, silhouetted against the lights from shore. Mr. Hewitt actually got tears in his eyes as he talked about it. I could see how frustrated he is about the whole thing.
I told Mr. Hewitt how I was looking for periscopes out on the water, and my parents laughed at me, making me feel foolish. Mr. Hewitt saved me though. He said he was glad I was doing that, he wished more people would take their duty seriously, but it was more likely I’d see the conning tower—that’s the raised-up part of the deck—rise up out of the water. The periscope would be too hard to see, he said. And if I ever did see something, I should go to him immediately. I promised him I would. The station is only a half mile from my house, but I wish I could just call him on a telephone. Down where Toria lives, they have them crank phones. There aren’t any phones yet in Kiss River, even though people are getting them on the other side of the island. I’ve heard that Mr. Sato’s daughter-in-law was one of the first to get one. It won’t be long till we have them here, too, Daddy keeps telling me.
I asked Mr. Hewitt if it had been an oil tanker and he smiled at me and said I was right, how did I know? I explained about the orange flames I saw, that I knew it must be oil burning on the water. He said I was smart. I like him. He always treats me like I’m an adult, even in front of Daddy and Mama. He said something about the boys at the Coast Guard station thinking I’m a good-looking girl, and I thought Daddy was going to clobber him. But both Mama and Daddy like Mr. Hewitt. “He’s on God’s side,” Daddy says, which is something he says about all the Allies. Even Mrs. Cady says that, and when I asked her if the Japanese and the Germans and the Italians tell their children that God is on their side, she accused me of being unpatriotic. That is not true. I love my country and I know we’re right. But I bet the Germans think they’re right, too. I don’t think God picks sides. And when I see what God lets happen to them merchant ships, I’m sure of it.
I’ve learned a lot about the war from Dennis Kittering. He’s a teacher in High Point who comes here almost every single weekend, winter and summer, to camp on the beach near Kiss River. Since January when the U-boats started sinking ships, he’s had to have a special pass to be able to camp out there, but they gave him one without any trouble. I like him, even though he can aggravate me to no end with his know-it-all attitude. He is very young for a teacher, only out of college one year, with dark hair combed straight back and glasses with wire frames, like Mrs. Cady’s, and he walks with a limp because he was born with one leg a little shorter than the other. He treats me like Mr. Hewitt does, like my thoughts are worth something. I’ve learned more from him about what’s going on in the world than I have from anybody. It’s Dennis who explained to me why this war is happening, and about the internment camps that are starting up for the Japanese people. He said they are innocent people who are suffering and struggling just to survive. The way he explained it put tears in my eyes. I asked him how come Mr. Sato isn’t going to one of them internment camps, too, and he said because it’s only on the West Coast, so I guess Mr. Sato is lucky to be living here even if people pick on him.
Dennis is the one who told me I should read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. I am the library’s best customer. I read more than anyone I know. I am the top reader in my school, although I guess since there are only twenty-three students in my whole school, and most of them are younger than me, that’s not saying much. But I read even better than the older ones. I’d finished all the Nancy Drews, and then Mrs. Cady told my parents I should be allowed to read whatever I want. They said it was all right with them. So I am now reading The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and a book of stories by Eudora Welty, and I discuss them with Dennis on the weekends. I was reading at the kitchen table yesterday, taking notes with my pencil right on the tabletop, because I didn’t have any paper right there and the table is porcelain and the notes will wash right off, but Mama yelled at me anyhow.
Mama says I’m not allowed to call Dennis by his first name. I’m supposed to call him Mr. Kittering, like I do with other adults. But Dennis laughs at me when I call him that. So around him, I call him Dennis. When I talk to Mama, though, I call him Mr. Kittering.
The lantern’s getting low on oil, so I am going to turn it off now and go to bed. I’m afraid of having nightmares tonight after seeing that ship burn, but at least if I wake up afraid, I’ll be able to see the light fill up my room and know I’m safe.
Chapter Five
GINA WAS TOUCHING HIM. CLAY FELT THE HEAT of her body next to him in his bed, and he held his breath as she slipped her hand beneath the sheet, over his chest, lower. Lower. Touching him, teasing him. This is a dream, he told himself. He wasn’t responsible if it was only a dream. She smiled at him with those lovely white teeth before tossing the sheet aside and lowering her head, her mouth, to where he wanted it to be. He waited to feel her lips and her tongue on him, but instead, he was jolted awake by the touch of something cold and damp against his arm. Opening his eyes, he turned to find the bed empty next to him and Sasha nudging his arm with his nose. Clay groaned and rolled onto his back.
He hated the weekend because he had no real need to go into his office, no way to lose himself in his work. During the week, he’d go in early and stay late, and that seemed to keep his mind occupied well enough to save him
