Louise's Dilemma (19 page)

Time to reconnoiter and verify.

I kept my unlit flashlight in my hand, for use as a weapon as much as any other function, and crept down to the dock. I wished I hadn’t worn shoes with heels and a suit! I’d wanted to look professional for my visit to Prince Frederick. Why hadn’t I changed into trousers and saddle shoes!

The submarine was draped in camouflage netting, but up close the netting didn’t hide any of its features. I didn’t know a lot about submarines, but I could tell this was a small one, not one of the newest denizens of the Nazi Wolf Pack. I paced off its length – one hundred and thirty feet. Its draught would be about twelve feet, easily fitting up against the tire-cushioned dock in the deep inlet. The conning tower, which contained the periscope, rose over my head. A snorkel, which allowed the diesel engine to power the sub and recharge its batteries while cruising just under the surface of the water, nestled next to it. An antiaircraft gun was mounted next to the conning tower.

I figured that because of its size the sub’s crew couldn’t number more than twenty-five, squeezed into every nook and cranny of the vessel. How many torpedoes could it carry? Five at the most? And I doubted this ship contained enough fuel to do more than get it here and back across the Atlantic to France.

This was a vessel designed to patrol the European Coast before the United States entered the war, commandeered for this operation because of its small size.

The submarine drifted up against the dock, so close to me that I could reach out and touch it. It was coated in rubber! We’d heard rumors at OSS that the Nazis were testing rubber shields to absorb sonar waves, and here was proof. Camouflage nets weren’t standard equipment for subs either.

A gust of wind blew aside the curtain of fog so I could scout the length of the inlet for Leroy’s skipjack. It wasn’t there. What a perfect transport for a team of spies! What could be more ordinary than a crew of oystermen sailing on the Chesapeake Bay? How many men would fit on a skipjack? Four? Six?

That left fewer than twenty men to sail the submarine back to France. Twenty Nazi seamen now packed into Anne’s cottage.

I didn’t bother to search for Nazi markings on the sub. The rubber probably concealed them, and I’d been on the dock too long already, at least five minutes. The submarine captain had to be very complacent not to post a guard on the dock. But then no one could possibly see the sub from the Bay, and the only way to get to the house was two miles down the Martins’ driveway.

I scuttled back to my hiding place under the tree at the head of the inlet to think. Briefly, because I had to take some kind of action soon.

The tide had begun to ebb. I reasoned that the sub had arrived with the last high tide and the captain had immediately dispatched the saboteurs on Leroy’s skipjack. The crew would rest at Anne’s cottage until high tide early tomorrow morning, when they would leave. It would still be dark, and they couldn’t stay docked at the Martin inlet during daylight. Despite the isolation of Anne’s cottage, tomorrow anyone could come by Anne’s to visit, like Lenore and her friend had after Leroy’s funeral.

I checked my watch. Another five minutes had passed.

Now it was time to call the cavalry, but that wasn’t as simple as it seemed. I could drive to Lenore’s house and use her telephone. But whom would I call? At night in the entire county there was only one policeman on duty. If he was out of his office answering a summons I couldn’t reach him. Even if I did, would he believe me?

I couldn’t call the Solomons Island naval training station or the Patuxent River Air Station because all military phone numbers were unlisted! I could try phoning Washington, either my office at OSS or the FBI, but I didn’t expect whoever was manning the switchboard to believe me, and it could take hours for my news to travel up the chain of command to someone who could call out the troops.

And somewhere on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay was a team of Nazi saboteurs on a deadly mission, with dozens of targets to choose from! They could sail that skipjack up to Annapolis or Baltimore or down to Norfolk and catch a bus or a train to anywhere in the country. They would possess perfect IDs, authentic accents and plenty of money.

I heard the door of the cottage slam again. I glanced around the tree trunk and saw two German seamen, wearing grey leather jackets, trousers, and brimless black caps, leave Anne’s cottage, rifles slung over their shoulders, and move down the driveway toward the main road.

No, no! I’d waited too late to drive away! What if the guards were posted between Phoebe’s car and the highway?

I had no choice but to find out.

I would give anything to be wearing practical shoes. And trousers! Instead I was navigating the woods, oyster-shell paths, and pockets of sand in pumps, stockings, and my good wool coat. At least it wasn’t as cold as it had been last week.

I paused at the edge of the woods, peering out into the night. My eyes ached from the strain, but I saw nothing moving. How close would the seamen dare venture to the main road? I crept down the road, almost a mile, to the bridge over the creek, and then I saw them. They were standing on my side of the bridge smoking cigarettes, the idiots. I could see the glow in the deep darkness. If they weren’t smoking I might have walked right into them.

I trekked back to my hiding place under the tree facing Anne’s cottage, feeling desperate. And tired. I’d hiked two miles to discover that I was trapped between the guards on the road and the Chesapeake Bay, with no way to communicate with the Coast Guard or the Navy.

The moon peered through the clouds again, and below it blazed the light at the Cove Point lighthouse, its beam stabbing into the dark sky out to sea.

That was it!

The lighthouse at Cove Point stood on a bluff above the beach less than two miles south from here. In fact, the Nazi captain had probably used its beacon to find the Martins’ inlet. The Coast Guardsmen on duty would be able to radio their headquarters! This had to be the fastest way to call for help.

I’d need to slip down to the beach and make my way south along the coast, in the dark and cold, for two miles or so, but how else could I sound the alarm?

I needed to move now, before some Nazi wandered out onto the cottage porch or down to the dock to check on the sub! As before, I used the cover of the woods to shelter me until I reached the head of the dock. Then I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled down its length, passing the submarine on my way and collecting splinters in my knees. When I got to the middle of the dock, where it left the land and began to stretch out into the Bay, I jumped onto the cold sand of the beach. It was a rough landing; the dock was higher off the beach than I realized, and my glasses flew off. I spent a few nerve-racking minutes rooting around in the sand looking for them, then found them, thank goodness, or I would have been helpless, and took off running south.

These goddamned shoes! Frustrated by my progress, I kicked off my pumps and ran barefoot along the beach, truly barefoot, as within seconds my stockings were shredded away from my feet. It was a brand new pair, too. Soon my coat, my new coat with the fur collar I so loved, was soaked with sea spray until it was unbearably heavy, and I flung it off, powered by the image of a half dozen Nazi agents dispersing around the country.

It was slow going. Despite running barefoot along the edge of the Bay, my feet sank into the sand. Once I stepped on a pile of oyster shells, slicing into my feet. I ran wildly, since no one could see me, desperate to make progress. Occasionally, the fog horn sounded, or I caught sight of the lighthouse beam, and I could see wooden steps leading up from the beach to shuttered summer cottages, dinghies overturned at the edge of the dunes, or a crab pot that had ripped loose from its buoy.

I figured I was halfway there, my eyes fixed ahead on the lighthouse lantern, when my feet tripped over rock, and I fell forward onto a wide stone ledge, twisting an ankle and landing on my left arm. God, please don’t let anything be broken! I sat up and allowed myself to flick on my flashlight. I’d fallen right onto a rough rock jetty that protruded eighteen inches above the sand. I was lucky I hadn’t cracked my head open. My ankle and arm hurt like crazy, but after massaging them both it seemed nothing was broken. My feet dripped blood from the oyster shells. The cold sand must have numbed them because I felt no pain.

With my flashlight trained at my feet I picked my way across the jetty and hit the beach again. I ran with a limp, but run I did, my eyes fixed on the light from the lighthouse lantern, until I could see the lighthouse and the Coast Guard station next to it above me on a bluff.

I quailed at the sight of the three flights of wooden staircase that led from the beach to the lighthouse. But I grabbed both rails and pulled myself up as much as climbed the stairs. When I reached the flat top of the bluff I flung myself onto the grass. The lighthouse and its outbuildings were just steps away from me, but I couldn’t get there until I’d caught my breath.

The lighthouse was squat and conical, stone painted white, with a black round lantern perched on top that housed the light. A small white hut nearby, with a latticed cubical on top of it, was labeled ‘fog horn’. The outline of a shed or barn was visible behind it.

I staggered toward the keeper’s house, a two-story clapboard building with a front porch stretching across the front of the building. A flagpole without a flag stood tall nearby. One downstairs room was lit.

I threw myself on the door of the house, pounding frantically. The door was opened by a Coast Guardsman holding a rifle in the low ready position.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked.

‘My name is Louise Pearlie,’ I said. Should I tell him I worked for OSS? Better not. He wouldn’t believe me. ‘I’ve seen Germans,’ I said. ‘In an inlet up the coast!’

‘Lady, everyone thinks they’ve seen Germans.’

‘There’s a submarine!’

‘Sure there is. Come inside, and keep your hands where I can see them,’ he said, motioning me into the house with his rifle.

‘You must believe me! There’s a German sub in the Martins’ inlet north of here! Covered with camouflage netting. The crew is inside the cottage!’

I guessed from the man’s uniform that he was a Chief Petty Officer. He was not a young man. His short brown hair was flecked with grey, and deep creases divided his face. This man was a veteran who’d spent years on the water under the sun.

Those eyes narrowed, and he backed away from me, lifting his rifle slightly.

‘I’m not crazy, I swear.’ I didn’t bother with the details of the OSS investigation or Leroy’s murder; it would only make me less believable.

‘I was in town and went to visit Anne Martin,’ I said. ‘Her husband just died. I saw the submarine in their inlet! And the captain outside on her porch lighting a cigarette!’

‘You’re a mess. You aren’t wearing a coat. You’re barefoot, and your legs and feet are bloody.’

‘I took off my shoes so I could run on the beach, and I fell on the stone jetty. My coat got soaked with water so I threw it away. You’ve got to call the Solomons Island base! Who knows what the Germans are planning! Please!’

‘Lady, my career would be over if I reported a Nazi submarine in the Bay and it wasn’t true. Which I don’t expect it is.’

I heard a clatter on the stairs. Another Coast Guardsman, pulling suspenders over his shirt, ran down the stairs, pulling up short when he saw me.

‘Who is this?’ he asked.

‘Seaman, this woman claims to have seen a German submarine in the Bay. What do you think?’

‘Not possible, sir. God himself couldn’t get past the firepower at the mouth of the Bay.’

‘I swear,’ I said. Damn it, I’d left my purse in Phoebe’s car, and I had no way at all to identify myself. ‘You simply must believe me!’

The seaman looked down and saw my legs and feet, and his mouth dropped open. A small pool of blood had collected around my toes.

‘What would happen to your career, Chief Petty Officer …’ I began.

‘Jarvis.’

‘Jarvis, if there was a German submarine in the Bay and you knew about it and didn’t report it?’

‘I’d find myself patrolling Cold Bay in the Aleutians,’ he said.

‘So you’ll call the base?’

‘No, ma’am. I’m not that gullible. But it’s just possible you’re telling the truth, and I can’t ignore it. I’m going to see your sub for myself.’

‘That will take too long! And there are Nazi seamen guarding the Martins’ driveway!’

‘We’ll go the way you came. And you’re going with me. Seaman, find this woman some foul-weather gear while I saddle up Missy.’

I turned down the seaman’s offer to bandage my feet. I wanted nothing to slow down our departure.

‘I’m fine,’ I said to him. ‘These are just scratches.’

The seaman handed me an armful of gear and showed me to the bathroom. I tore my suit skirt from the hem to the waist, front and back, and stuffed the flaps into the rubber bib overalls I pulled on. The skirt was damp, but I needed some insulation between my legs and the overalls. Then I stretched heavy wool socks over my battered feet and shoved them deep into sea boots. An alpaca-lined parka hung down to my knees. I topped off this charming ensemble with a sou’wester, a waterproof hat with ear guards and a brim that covered my neck. I’d be well protected from cold and sea spray on my journey back to the inlet.

‘Missy’ was not the name I would have bestowed on Jarvis’s horse. ‘Big Bertha’ would be more appropriate. The animal was huge. She had to be part draft horse. A pretty one, too: fuzzy, with a thick grey winter coat and white feathers of hair hanging over her hooves. Her tail arched and swished as she pranced. Was there such a program as Horses for Defense? Missy seemed more like a show horse than a military animal.

‘We use her to patrol the beach,’ Jarvis said. ‘She never wears out.’

Jarvis turned to his seaman. ‘Roust seaman Grady out of his bunk,’ he said. ‘Both of you need to be combat ready. If I’m not back in an hour call HQ and tell them what’s happened. Then I want Grady to stay with the light and sound the fog horn. Remember the emergency warning interval?’