Louise's Crossing Read online

  We were so inclined.

  After the tables were cleared and the first bottles were opened, someone brought out the record player and records from the storage cabinet in the wardroom. After just a few minutes of toe-tapping, and definitely after second beers were breached, dancing began. All those salty rough seamen didn’t hesitate to take to the floor and dance with each other! The six women passengers, though two were underage and one was married, didn’t lack for partners.

  We lindy-hopped and jitterbugged to Glen Miller, the Andrews Sisters and Duke Ellington. Mrs Smit retired early, but the rest of us carried on. Bruce and Corrie stayed together, learning the steps from Alida and Blanche. When the watch changed, new seamen arrived to drink their beer allotment and ask us to dance. We were hot for the first time in weeks, removing our outer clothing and heavy socks. I found myself dancing with Popeye in my stocking feet, ruining one of my pairs of hose.

  I took a break, waving off yet another dance. I was exhausted, but in a good way. I heaved myself on to a table next to Tom, who was breathing heavily from tossing Blanche around the dance floor. Blanche was still out there, jitterbugging with two seamen and showing no sign of slowing down.

  I glanced around. ‘Where are Gil and Ronan?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think they fancied dancing with each other,’ Tom answered. ‘They went out on deck to smoke, I believe.’

  ‘Those two have gone through a lot of tobacco,’ I said.

  ‘There’s not much else to do if you’re not working,’ he said.

  ‘I think Olive and I have read every book on board. Even the Westerns.’

  ‘Despite the gale and a submarine attack, this has been a fairly uneventful crossing,’ Tom said. ‘Except for Grace’s death, of course.’

  Grace’s death. It looked more and more to me as though we’d never know whether her death was an accident or a murder. I supposed I’d just have to walk away from my certainty that there’d been foul play. There wasn’t enough evidence to push for an inquiry. There was no consensus about how she fell. No clues at the scene. No sign of a murder weapon. No motive, either, except for my own niggling thought that her death might have been related to Eddie’s. And everyone who knew Grace on that previous voyage had an alibi.

  I wasn’t used to failing to solve a problem. I didn’t like it, but I might have to let this one go.

  I noticed Nigel slumped in a corner nursing his beer, watching the dancing. From his expression, I figured that his friends had given him some of their beer ration. Poor fellow.

  I got to my feet and waved off a couple of seamen who wanted a dance. ‘I’m going to go outside and cool off,’ I said to Tom.

  With my coat, socks and shoes back on, I went on deck, where the frigid air assailed me, sending chills down my sweaty body. I welcomed the cold; it woke me up and countered the effects of my two bottles of beer.

  I saw Ronan and Gil inspecting two tangled airplanes on deck. One had broken free from its mooring during the evasion from the torpedo and slid into the other. They were a mess of bent steel. The undercarriages of both had collapsed.

  I went down to the deck and joined the two men.

  Ronan stood puffing on his pipe, watching Gil crawl around under the planes.

  ‘Do you think they’ll push them overboard?’ I asked. The planes looked totaled to my inexperienced eye.

  ‘No,’ Ronan said. ‘The master decided not to. They might be repairable once we reach England, maybe. The Allies need every piece of military equipment they can get.’

  Gil was on his hands and knees examining the ruptured tires of one of the planes.

  ‘Goodyear,’ he said, dusting off his trousers and hands. ‘At least it’s not mine. Nobody can sue me for this.’

  On my way back to my berth I was waylaid by a couple of seamen who wanted me to lead a conga line. No one else would do, it seemed, so I did my patriotic duty and went back to the mess. Only Alida and I were left of the women to take charge of the dance. The two of us bopped around the mess hall followed by a long line of men intently watching our hips move. But they behaved like gentlemen, and Alida and I had a lot of fun snaking along to Xavier Cugat’s Cuban beat.

  Alida didn’t want to leave the dance, but I insisted. I was exhausted and I knew the Smits wouldn’t want Alida to stay alone at the dance.

  ‘I’m eighteen! Almost, anyway!’ she protested.

  ‘And I’m thirty,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to wake up your father so he can come up here and get you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. Reluctantly, she followed me down the next ladder and then to the head of the stairway to our hall. We both paused, struck by the steepness of it, both thinking of Grace.

  ‘One hand on the rail and the other on the bulwark,’ I said.

  ‘I remember,’ Alida said, ‘I’m not a child.’

  Grace wasn’t a child either; she was the one who warned us about the stairs, and yet she had fallen. Or at least that’s what her family would be told.

  Silently, the two of us moved downstairs. There were no sounds from below, so I supposed that everyone else was asleep. At the door to her berth, Alida turned to me, hesitating.

  ‘What is it?’ I whispered.

  ‘Are you really thirty?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t look that old,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks heaps,’ I answered.

  ‘You have time to get married again,’ she said. ‘Don’t you want to?’

  ‘If I meet the right man,’ I said. ‘Otherwise, I’m happy to stay single.’ Alida looked at me incredulously, as if I might be certifiable, then went on into her berth.

  In my own berth, after I undressed to my long underwear, put on clean socks and drew on flannel pajamas, I pulled Joe’s picture out of my bedside drawer and wondered if I’d ever see him again. Although he had a British passport, Joe was Czech. If he survived the war, he’d most likely head home immediately to find his family. Then what would he do? And how quickly would I be discharged by OSS and sent back to the States? I had no idea.

  In the middle of the night I awoke with a start. I sat up, sure that something had woken me. I had been sleeping deeply, worn out from dancing, and I heard something. Didn’t I? But the night was quiet except for the steady thrum of the Amelia Earhart’s three vast engines. Sure that I’d heard something, I got up, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, went to the door and opened it. Looking out, I saw nothing but an empty passageway. The air was silent. Everyone must be asleep, as tired as I was from the evening’s festivities.

  I climbed back into my bunk and checked my watch. It was almost four o’clock. The watch bells would be sounding soon. I’d gotten so accustomed to them that I rarely noticed them.

  When the bells sounded, I was still wide awake. This was unusual. Once I was asleep, I almost never woke in the night. I was tired. My body ached. I wanted to go back to sleep in the worst way, but my mind was busy. I turned on my light and helped myself to one of Dellaphine’s pralines. I tried to trick my brain by pretending I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I was fine lying here awake. If I didn’t sleep again until morning, what did it matter? I had nothing to do. I could stay in my berth all day and nap if I wanted.

  I started awake again. My light was still on. I had the same feeling that something had woken me up, but this time I remembered a snippet of a dream. I was watching an airplane crash, spiraling downward like ones I’d seen in newsreels, wondering if the pilot would escape by parachute. In my dream he didn’t. The plane hit the ground with a terrible noise and burst into flames. Then the scene changed, and I saw the plane’s wreckage, piles of metal still smoking. That scene shifted to Gil poking about the wreckage. He kicked both of the airplane’s tires. That was when I woke up. And I knew that this was the same dream that I’d had earlier in the night, even though I didn’t remember it then. Something about it niggled at me. Even though it was early, I got up. I went down the hall with an armful of dirty clothes and drew my
bath. I soaked in the hot water for a few minutes, then washed my hair for the first time in several days. When I got out of the tub, I wrapped myself in a towel and set about doing my laundry. I washed my smalls, a couple of pairs of socks, a set of long underwear, the two shirts I’d worn for at least a week and my grubbiest pair of trousers.

  Back in my berth, I dressed quickly in clean, or sort-of-clean, clothes. I dried my hair as well as I could with a hand towel. I hung my laundered garments out to dry on a cord I’d strung from the handgrip next to my bunk to a hook on the opposite wall. It would take at least a full day for everything to dry, longer for the trousers.

  It was an egg day. I took my plate of egg, toast and bacon into the wardroom and joined the Smits family. That egg tasted excellent. I looked forward to the day when I could have two. Probably not until I returned to the States – although the Brits ate eggs, fried potatoes and sausage for meals other than breakfast, didn’t they? I could hope.

  After the others had left, I stayed behind with Mrs Smit. I had a second cup of coffee while she sipped on another cup of tea.

  ‘That nice young ensign says the ship will dock in three, maybe four days,’ Mrs Smit said. ‘Although there is still much danger.’

  ‘I feel like I’ve been at sea for a year,’ I said. ‘Imagine sleeping in a real bed!’

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Where will you and your family live?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘The Dutch government will find us a place. As long as it has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a cooker, we will be fine. It will be hard on the girls. We rented a big house in California. But my husband is so happy to be called to work for our government in exile! He felt helpless after we fled to the States.’

  ‘Like Bruce,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We all want to serve in some way. Perhaps this terrible war will end soon? Bram thinks an invasion is planned.’

  I knew that invasion was coming, but my OSS training kicked in and I said nothing about it.

  ‘I hope so,’ I said.

  ‘Where will you live?’ she asked.

  ‘In London,’ I said. ‘But I’ll be lucky to get a bedsit.’ Another boarding house would be more likely.

  I covered a yawn with my hand.

  ‘You didn’t sleep well?’ Mrs Smit asked.

  ‘No, I had a recurring dream that woke me up twice. This is silly, but I think it meant something. I just can’t figure out what.’

  ‘My moeder used to say that our minds solve problems while we sleep, in our dreams. Sometimes we have to wait for the meaning to become clear.’

  I had the same three options I’d had every day since I left DC on the Amelia Earhart. I could go back to my berth, climb into my bunk and wrap myself up in blankets to stay warm. I could stay in the wardroom and try to recruit someone for a game of checkers or cards. Or I could go out on deck, where the temperature was near zero, wander around and watch the seamen at work.

  I found a deck of cards in the storage cabinet and counted them to make sure there were fifty-two. Then I dealt myself a solitaire hand. I’d always had an affinity for clubs when I played cards. Too bad they were the least valuable suit.

  Suit. That word struck me. Suit. Lawsuit. Lawsuit! I remembered that Grace had told me that Eddie Bryant complained constantly about the crash that crippled him. He’d said the crash wasn’t his fault, that something was wrong with the plane itself, that he was going to sue the responsible party as soon as he got to the States. What was it Grace had said? ‘Who was he going to sue? Hitler?’

  Yesterday when Gil and Ronan were looking at the two wrecked planes on the deck, Gil had gotten down on his hands and knees to inspect the ruptured tires. Then he’d expressed relief that the tires weren’t made by his company because then he couldn’t be sued. Was it possible that Eddie had planned to sue Gil’s company?

  It was a long shot. Most likely a coincidence, and certainly circumstantial. Who might know more about Eddie’s crash? I couldn’t talk to Gil; he’d be warned off. And he had a hard and fast alibi for Grace’s death. But my OSS training couldn’t be silenced. This was a loose thread I had to tie off before I could put my mind at ease. Who else might know more about Eddie’s crash and tires and such? Nigel, since he had spent so much time with Eddie. And Blanche. She’d know the most about Eddie’s plane crash. Both Nigel and Blanche had alibis for the time of Grace’s death, too.

  I gave up my game of solitaire and went out on deck. I couldn’t say I was accustomed to the frigid temperature, but I was no longer shocked by it when I stepped outside. I simply wore two layers of clothes, my peacoat, watch cap, wool mittens and a scarf layered about my neck and face. As I stepped out on to the deck, I bent into the wind.

  I found Ronan and Blanche sheltered from the wind behind a truck. The two of them were watching Bruce and Corrie play an intense game of jacks. I sat down next to them on a metal chest fixed to the deck. Blanche was smoking, as usual, while Ronan leaned back against the truck with his arms crossed. I was surprised to see him without his pipe.

  ‘Have you given up smoking, Ronan?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I’m running low on my pipe tobacco. Didn’t buy enough for the trip. Got to make it last,’ he said.

  ‘I offered to teach him to smoke cigarettes, but he seems to think fags are a lesser form of tobacco,’ Blanche said.

  ‘I’m not used to inhaling so deeply,’ Ronan said. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘I’m surprised any of you smokers have a voice left, the amount of tobacco you’ve breathed in on this voyage,’ I said.

  ‘There’s not much else to do,’ Blanche said. ‘It’s not like we can garden or sew. I wish I’d brought something to knit.’

  ‘Or could go down to the pub for a pint of the black stuff,’ Ronan said. ‘Or listen to music on the radio of an evening.’

  I was a failure at knitting but I sure wished I’d crammed more books into my luggage.

  Bruce let out a triumphant yelp as he scooped up every last one of the jacks with one hand and caught the ball in mid-bounce with the other.

  ‘Not fair,’ Corrie said. ‘Your hands are bigger than mine.’

  ‘It’s almost time for the galley to dump the garbage,’ Bruce said. ‘Let’s go watch the birds and the dolphins fight over it. Maybe we’ll see a shark!’

  ‘Sure!’ Corrie said. The two of them jumped to their feet and headed aft. Ronan stood and stretched.

  ‘I’ll tag along with the chiselers to make sure they don’t tumble into the drink,’ Ronan said. He followed the two kids toward the ship’s garbage chute.

  ‘Chiselers?’ I asked Blanche.

  ‘It’s Irish slang for kids,’ Blanche said.

  After a few minutes of silence, Blanche turned to me. ‘Out with it,’ she said.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, go ahead and ask your questions,’ she said. ‘I have nothing to hide. I take it this is about Grace’s death?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. But it’s Eddie I want to ask you about.’

  ‘Whatever you do for a living, you’re wasted. Unless you’re a detective or something.’

  I took that as a compliment.

  ‘Grace told me that she sat with Eddie sometimes to give Nigel a break,’ I said. ‘Eddie told her that he hadn’t crashed his plane, that something mechanical on the plane failed that caused the crash. And that he was going to sue the people responsible.’

  Blanche shook her head. ‘Poor Eddie. He couldn’t accept that he was at fault for his accident.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘His commander told me that his approach to the airfield was off, and he landed at an angle, with just one wheel on the ground. The undercarriage disintegrated and the plane slid along the runway on its belly, causing a terrible fire. Eddie was pulled out of the wreckage just in time, but in the end he lost the use of his legs. His co-pilot died.’

  ‘It must have been a terrible crash,’ I said. />
  ‘It was.’

  ‘What did Eddie think was wrong with the plane?’

  ‘He wouldn’t talk to me about it. He said I wouldn’t understand.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He’d never confided in me, and our marriage was breaking down even before the crash. After the crash it was over, except in law.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. I still had nothing to go on, except for a confusing dream.

  ‘If you still want better answers, you should talk to Nigel,’ Blanche said. ‘He was with Eddie more than me, more than anyone. Perhaps he talked more to Nigel. Or speak to Gil. He tried to be a friend to Eddie, visiting him, offering to play cards, but Eddie would have none of it.’

  The air-raid siren sounded, bringing both of us to our feet. We gripped hands, becoming close friends in fear. Then ‘All Hands to Stations’ blared. I could see the bridge deck from where we were. The master, Popeye and Tom crowded it, binoculars raised. The sun glinted off their lenses. Then we heard the sound of airplane engines approaching us. Some of Tom’s gunners rushed past us, on their way aft to man the biggest gun on the ship, the five-inch cannon. The air-raid siren kept sounding, drowning out every other noise. Blanche had to lean over and speak directly into my ear.

  ‘Corrie and Bruce!’ she shouted.

  ‘Ronan’s with them!’ I shouted back. ‘We have to get below! Now!’

  We struggled against a tide of seamen rushing to their stations. They ignored us to the point that one knocked Blanche down but kept running. I pulled her to her feet. When we reached the superstructure, we put our backs to the bulwark and edged along it until we reached the door.