Operation Wolfe Cub: A Chilling Historical Thriller (THE TIME TO TELL Book 1) (27 page)

He chuckled half-heartedly. “Can you make out the name, Major boy? Had seven letters I think.” He went on, “No signs of anybody from what I can tell,
eh
, old dog? You see or smell anything?”

Nothing seemed too pressing, so he took a little balance check with his feet then simply took in the scenery for a little while. A minute or two drifted by when he caught himself watching the huge waves gaining size, launching up, and then landing with seemingly pinpoint accuracy right on top of the boat’s already-dilapidated hull.

He took out a scrap piece of paper and pencil he was carrying and jotted down the letter
B
. With that single clue, he wrote down a few seven letter words, trying to guess the name of the boat. The three words he wrote, he muttered, “Believe—beloved—bequest.” He snickered, not believing any of them.

Deciding next to be slightly spiritual about it, he closed his eyes and got his pencil ready. He was trying to rely on telekinetic forces, by which his pencil alone would move.

Shockingly enough—
it happened
.

Either he pushed the pencil or the pencil pushed itself, plain and simple. The pencil took off nervously across the piece of paper, like a needle of an Ouija board, except it left some form of odd handwriting.

His pencil kept going until it poked through to the palm of his hand. “
Awh!
” His hand began bleeding, so he quickly put his paper and pencil away. As he tended to his minor wound, a strange look suddenly came over him. Quickly, he took his paper back out to discover something shocking. “What? It’s words? Where’d that come from?”

He read the words, “Begone—battle—beyond?”

He then quickly counted the letters. “
Hmmph
, that’s stupid. Six letters each. That’s not right.” He carried on, “Come on, Eddie…you’re slipping.” He then reread the first words he wrote, circling the first one before yelling up at his dog, “Maybe she’s called
Believe
. I believe, Major…you think?
Ha
…
Believe
?”

He turned to the wreckage when somberness struck him square between the eyes. “No…I don’t believe it…
hmmm
, whatever…too bad.” He quickly cast his guessing games aside and sank into a mood of indifference. He looked as though he had forgotten about the name altogether as the minutes dragged by. For the moment, he seemed caught up with watching the old, broken vessel continuing to crumble. Waves pummeled and gouged her flimsy boards, spitting out fragments too small to identify.

From Eddie’s angle, looking through the boards and into the
Bless_t
’s cabin, nothing appeared to be worth saving. The baby in his capsule and the man named US-2 were long gone.

He muttered, “Nothing could’ve lived through that.”

Slowly, he turned his somber stare in another direction, as if wanting to carry on with something else. He smelled
the air, pausing for a brief moment. The sounds of the broken hull cracking, mixed with the sounds of the sea kept intruding into his thoughts, however. In that brief moment, his tranquility was interrupted by his whisper, “
Hmmm
, something happened.”

He shook his head as if denying those thoughts repeatedly. “
Hmmm
…so violent.” He rubbed his arms, feeling Goosebumps beneath his clothing.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, he looked up into the spotty sky, which, again, giving him pause to think about his peculiar, ongoing feelings. Nothing was up there, except for shady clouds. They were circling high, but they looked as if they were watching him. Through this mild distraction, he fluttered his eyes, turning away. “Sky—feels so—evil. I gotta get outta here.”

By this time, something had come over Major, for he immediately stepped forward and began barreling down toward Eddie, without speaking a single bark.

“No, Major! Go back!” Eddie shouted, but Major kept coming.

Before Eddie knew what to do, his dog was already there by his side, crowding him on his tiny plateau. He quickly made up his mind to return to safety with his dog. Little by little, he began making his way up when he heard a tremendous cracking from down below.

Finally, it happened. The rough waters had broken the boat into several pieces, dislodging her remains and sending them out to sea. Eddie’s curiosity arose once again as he witnessed new contents of the boat he hadn’t seen before, drifting in all directions.

In the midst of the mess, there were no signs of a baby ever having been on board. Then unexpectedly, from out of the deep, the ocean churned up a limp, partially-clothed body to the foamy surface between the seaweed. As the body swirled about, face down, Eddie cried, “Oh God! Noooo!”

Immediately, he began the unthinkable. Bum leg and all, he scaled down the treacherous outcroppings of rocks. He slipped a time or two, but caught himself along the way. When he got close to the bottom, he slipped and fell the rest of the way, hitting a small patch of sand. As he staggered up to his feet, the sea threw him down to his knees again where it seemingly wanted to keep him. He fought back by leaping onto higher rocks, only to lose his bearings and whimper, “
Awh-ah-awh
. Where do I go? Where? Oh God.”

Major was the only one to hear. Loyal to his master, he bolted down and around the steep terrain, whimpering and barking. By the time he got out of the same predicament Eddie was in, he noticed that Eddie had managed to scale over the rocks and tide pools, looking for the missing man.

Eddie commanded, “Major…git ’em…git ’em…git ’em, Major!” In no time, the dog jumped over a few boulders and found what they were looking for. Together, they both pulled the floating man to the safety of a nearby stretch of beach.

Eddie turned the victim over onto his side.

“
Awwwh!
”

Staring right back at him was the putrid white face of US-2, wide-eyed and gashed almost beyond recognition. Eddie looked away, but looked back just as a black crab expelled itself from his gaping mouth of broken teeth. He fell backward, backpedaling as fast as he could across the sand until he hit a wall of rocks.

Nausea slithered up through his gut until, “
Bluuuuuaaaaah!
” The sudden spills of illness lasted for a good while, until Major yanked his attention away.

Off at a short distance, the dog barked relentlessly at something behind a pillar of rocks.

Eddie collected himself and jumped to his feet, speaking loudly, “Major’s got something. He’s barking…there’s more. Stop, Major!
Stop
!”

Just as he rounded the huge pillar of rocks, he saw only a portion of the dog, snapping in and out of a long, deep crevasse about twenty feet wide. The fur on his back stood up high, and his tail signaled that he was onto perhaps a challenge.

GRRrrrrRRrr. Snap-snap. Bark-bark! GrrrrrrrRrrrrr
.

As quick as Eddie could handle his cane, he hobbled into the mouth of the crevasse, only to be in for yet another rude awakening. Nothing was there, except for a rock-solid dead end with a bunch of great black-back seagulls standing on a mound of seaweed in the middle of it.

“What? You’re crazy, Major! Good gosh, they’re gulls.”

The gulls stood their ground against the rage of Major as Eddie quickly hobbled up from behind. “Hush, Major…it’s just a bunch of big black-backs.
Shhhhhh
, hush now.”

Major obeyed then quickly backed out, where he took a spectator’s seat on the soft sand. When he did, the birds blossomed into a bunch of raging, beaked brutes, raising their feathers, hissing, and lunging.

Eddie was caught up in amazement, and for good reason. The fiendish seabirds weren’t acting like they should. They were downright fearless. Eddie hesitated to go any further, but he dared to stick around as if wanting to see what they were up to. He hadn’t the slightest urge to turn his back on them and nobody would have.

The longer Eddie stayed there, the more agitated the birds became. Eventually, Eddie backed away to get some distance. At least for the moment, his patience paid off. He watched as they carried on with their business before they were abruptly interrupted. Two of the gulls systematically started pulling the heavy seaweed away from the huge mound they were all perched upon, while four others stood on guard.

Eddie drew his eyes to the pile, whispering, “What in—this is wild.”

The huge pile looked like nothing but a solid clump of impenetrable seaweed. Nothing else revealed itself, except tubes of green, several feet long.

Inquisitively, he muttered, “Waaaait…there’s something there, underneath that seaweed. Hey, Major, I wonder what it is.” He commanded his dog to stay, as he quickly decided to get up the courage to approach the birds once again. And so he did—ever so slowly.

Straightaway, the gulls had enough gall to fly into action, dashing toward Eddie, seeking a piece of his head. Eddie had no time to run, so he quickly ducked and swung his cane furiously until the ornery bunch of birds got wise. His weapon was effective, but they didn’t chicken out. They simply rerouted to the safety of higher ground directly above the clump of seaweed. Now they had higher ground for a vertical dive-bomb campaign, together or separately, whichever they chose.

Slowly the tables turned, however. Eddie took his time getting to the seaweed pile, as if he meant no harm while whispering, “It’s okay…easy now…I just want to see what you have under there…it’s okay now…easy, easy.” He kept up, “There now…I’m not so bad…easy, easy…I just want a peek…good, good…that’s it, you big ugly things…nasty things, aren’t you…hissing like that…come on.”

With one hand on his cane, ready to swing, and his other hand digging through the seaweed, he felt something down about a foot deep. “
Huh
?” To Eddie’s surprise, he revealed a clear capsule container with a bunch of dry-looking, white linen inside.

Still, he hadn’t fully trusted the great black-backs above, as they were more fidgety than ever. “Easy…easy, you tough guys…I just want to take a peek…see what this is…okay?”

As he twisted the latch, the bonnet discharged with a tiny hiss, startling him. “
Ho
, did you hear that, Major? It’s sealed. I like that…must be something good.”

Ever so gently he, fingered through the soft linens until he poked something. As he pushed the linens aside, the little cute face of a baby appeared, showing only his blue-eyes. The baby, of all things, looked right back at him with the most surprising grin.

Eddie gasped, “Oh, my, it’s a—it’s a baby.” He turned to Major. “Major, it’s okay. It’s a real live baby.” He then looked up to the band of battling birds watching over him. “Oh my God, it’s a baby.”

The great black-backs seemed to have a silent answer for him. Without further ado, they simply flapped their wings and took off, high into the sky.

Eddie hollered, “Wait! How’d you…? Where you…? Wait a minute! Where you going? Waaaait! Come back here!”

Major casually walked over to see what the inexplicable nonsense was all about. He stuck his nose inside the capsule to take a sniff then abruptly pulled back as if he just smelled a quandary of stench, trapped in quarantine.

Eddie flinched too. “I know, I know…he’s ripe. I’ll do something about that…later, though.”

He cautiously looked around. “Not here, though…not the right place.”

As they left the beach together, Eddie suddenly became overly cautious. He repeatedly glanced all around. He left no rock unspotted, as if anticipating someone’s approach at any time. When he felt the time was right, he dashed out into the open toward the same rocky cliff he came from. While doing so, something caught his attention and it poked him from the bottom of the baby’s bundle.

He opened the covers gasping, “Holy sh—gold? No, it can’t be…” He looked again, “Oh my—it is.”

Gleaming in his hand was a golden medallion chained around the baby’s ankle. With his thumb, he caressed the embossed design, polished to the highest degree. As quickly
as he could, he covered it up along with the baby before the light of day could take another glimpse.

Without delay, he placed the baby safely on the sand and made a hobbling dash back with the prospect of picking through the tragedy for more clues. He sloshed through the rising tide, shoving away boards and debris, but nothing came up even remotely as wonderful as what he’d just found.

The very next thing he did was glance feverishly over at US-2’s dead body, but, unfortunately, it was floating away. Eddie caught him with his cane just in time and pulled him back to land for a quick search. Nothing was in his pockets, nor were there any golden lockets on his ankles either.

He realized he didn’t have much time so he began to leave, then he stopped and gasped, “The crib!”

Off into the crevasse, he hobbled to look further. The inside of the crib revealed little else, though he noticed something besides a baby shoe that instilled fear into him. It was the pistol magazine, still filled with bullets. He dropped back muttering, “German…military.”

An even greater state of alert crashed his nerves as he dashed glances all around. Illusions of a combat scene were growing more realistic to him by the second. Paranoia quickly invaded his mind, slapping him across the face. “
Awh!
”

Alarming alacrity flooded his senses all too quickly. He dropped his posture and began to bury the crib in the sand, right where he found it. To hide things better, he took handfuls of seaweed and strung them all over, then backed his way out of the crevasse. Indeed, the scene of the hidden crib looked convincing. He looked around again, as if he was being watched by a whole platoon hiding around all corners of the cliffs and in the water too.

Painstakingly, he continued on. With every chance he could, he darted from rock to rock for cover until he picked up the baby again. On his way up the treacherous climb, he whispered to his newfound cache, “Let’s go home…little
tinker. What goes with those German bullets in your blankets? Wish you could talk…I was military once, little soldier, yes…don’t want no big, bad Germans coming to get you, do we? No, no, no…you’re safe with me, that’s right. Got shot once myself, but took five of them down, yeah….you should’ve seen me,
ha
…I was Big Daddy…took care of those bad guys…yes, I did.”