The Cay (2 page)

“Why can’t we go out and fight them?” I asked.

My father laughed sadly and tapped his long forefinger on my chest. “You’d like that, would you? But we have nothing to fight them with, son. We
can’t go out in motorboats and attack them with rifles.”

My mother came in from the kitchen to say, “Stop asking so many silly questions, Phillip. I told you not to do that.”

Father looked at her strangely. He had always answered my questions. “He has a right to know. He’s involved here, Grace.”

My mother looked back at him. “Yes, unfortunately,” she said.

My mother, I knew, had not wanted to come to Curaçao in late 1939, but my father had argued that he was needed for the war effort even though the United States was not at war then. Royal Dutch Shell had borrowed him from his American company because he was an expert in refineries and gasoline production. But the moment she saw it, my mother decided she didn’t like Curaçao and she often complained about the smell of gas and oil whenever the trade winds died down.

It was very different in Virginia where my father had been in charge of building a new refinery on the banks of the Elizabeth River. We’d lived in a small white house on an acre of land with many trees. My mother often talked about the house and the trees; about the change of seasons and the friends she had there. She said it was nice and safe in Virginia.

My father would answer quietly, “There’s no place nice and safe right now.”

I remembered the summers with lightning bugs and honeysuckle smells; the cold winters when the fields would all be brown and would crackle under my feet. I didn’t remember too much else. I was only seven when we’d moved to the Caribbean.

I guess my mother was homesick for Virginia, where no one talked Dutch, and there was no smell of gas or oil, and there weren’t as many black people around.

Now, there was a cold silence between my mother and my father. Lately, it had been happening more and more often. She went back into the kitchen.

I said to him, “Why can’t they use aircraft and bomb the submarines?”

He was staring toward the kitchen and didn’t hear me. I repeated it.

He sighed. “Oh yes. Same answer, Phillip. There are no fighting aircraft down here. To tell you the truth, we don’t have any weapons.”

W
E FINISHED DINNER
just as it was getting dark, and my father went outside to look at our house. He wanted to see if the blackout curtains were working. While my mother and I stood by each window, he called out if he saw the slightest crack of light. By the governor’s orders, not a light could shine anywhere on the whole island, he said. Then he went back to the refinery.

I crawled onto the couch downstairs about nine o’clock but I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the
U-boats off our coast and those lake tankers with barefooted Chinese sailors on board. I guess I was waiting for the U-boats to send a shell toward Willemstad.

Then I began to wonder if the Germans would send soldiers too. About nine-thirty I sneaked out of bed, went to the tool house, and took a hatchet out. I put it under the couch. It was the only thing I could think of to use for fighting the Germans.

It must have been eleven o’clock when my father returned from the refinery to get all the flashlights we had in the house. They talked in low voices, but I could hear them.

Mother said, “It’s too dangerous to stay here now.”

My father answered, “Grace, you know I can’t leave.”

She said, “Well, then Phillip and I must go back. We’ll go back to Norfolk and wait until the danger is over.”

I sat up in bed, unable to believe what I was hearing. My father said, “There’s more danger in the trip back, unless you go by air, than there is in staying here. If they do shell us, they won’t hit Scharloo.”

Mother said sharply, “You know I won’t fly. I’d be frightened to death to fly.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” My father sounded
miserable. Soon afterward he returned to the refinery again.

I thought about leaving the island, and it saddened me. I loved the old fort, and the schooners, the Ruyterkade market with the noisy chickens and squealing pigs, the black people shouting; I loved the koenoekoe with its giant cactus; the divi-divi trees, their odd branches all on the leeward side of the trunk; the beautiful sandy beach at Westpunt. And I’d miss Henrik van Boven.

I also knew that Henrik and his mother would think us cowardly if we left just because a few German submarines were off Curaçao. I was awake most of the night.

The next morning my father said that the Chinese crews on the lake tankers that shuttled crude oil across the sand bars at Maracaibo had refused to sail without naval escorts. He said the refinery would have to close down within a day, and that meant precious gas and oil could not go to England, or to General Montgomery in the African desert.

For seven days, not a ship moved by the Queen Emma bridge, and there was gloom over Willemstad. The people had been very proud that the little islands of Aruba and Curaçao were now among the most important islands in the world; that victory or defeat depended on them. They were angry with the Chinese crews, and on the third day, my
father said that mutiny charges had been placed against them.

“But,” he said, “you must understand they are very frightened, and some of the people who are angry with them would not sail the little ships either.”

He explained to me what it must feel like to ride the cargoes of crude oil, knowing that a torpedo or shell could turn the whole ship into flames any moment. Even though he wasn’t a sailor, he volunteered to help man the lake tankers.

Soon, of course, we might also run out of fresh water. It rains very little in the Dutch West Indies unless there is a hurricane, and water from the few wells has a heavy salt content. The big tankers from the United States or England always carried fresh water to us in ballast, and then it was distilled again so that we could drink it. But now, all the big tankers were being held up in their ports until the submarines could be chased away.

Toward the end of the week, we began to run out of fresh vegetables because the schooner-men were also afraid. Now, my mother talked constantly about the submarines, the lack of water, and the shortage of food. It almost seemed that she was using the war as an excuse to leave Curaçao.

“The ships will be moving again soon,” my father said confidently, and he was right.

I think it was February 21 that some of the Chinese sailors agreed to sail to Lake Maracaibo. But
on that same day a Norwegian tanker, headed for Willemstad, was torpedoed off Curaçao, and fear again swept over the old city. Without our ships, we were helpless.

Then a day or two later, my father took me into the Schottegat where they were completing the loading of the S.S.
Empire Tern
, a big British tanker. She had machine guns fore and aft, one of the few armed ships in the harbor.

Although the trade wind was blowing, the smell of gas and oil lay heavy over the Schottegat. Other empty tankers were there, high out of the water, awaiting orders to sail once they had cargoes. The men on them were leaning over the rail watching all the activity on the
Empire Tern
.

I looked on as the thick hoses that were attached to her quivered when the gasoline was pumped into her tanks. The fumes shimmered in the air, and one by one, they “topped” her tanks, loading them right to the brim and securing them for sea. No one said very much. With all that aviation gasoline around, it was dangerous.

Then in the afternoon, we went to Punda and stood near the pontoon bridge as she steamed slowly down St. Anna Bay. Many others had come to watch, too, even the governor, and we all cheered as she passed, setting out on her lonely voyage to England. There, she would help refuel the Royal Air Force.

The sailors on the
Empire Tern
, which was painted
a dull white but had rust streaks all over her, waved back at us and held up their fingers in a V-for-victory sign.

We watched until the pilot boat, having picked up the harbor pilot from the
Empire Tern
, began to race back to Willemstad. Just as we were ready to go, there was an explosion and we looked toward the sea. The
Empire Tern
had vanished in a wall of red flames, and black smoke was beginning to boil into the sky.

Someone screamed, “There it is.” We looked off to one side of the flames, about a mile away, and saw a black shape in the water, very low. It was a German submarine, surfaced now to watch the ship die.

A tug and several small motorboats headed out toward the
Tern
, but it was useless. Some of the women cried at the sight of her, and I saw men, my father included, with tears in their eyes. It didn’t seem possible that only a few hours before I had been standing on her deck. I was no longer excited about the war; I had begun to understand that it meant death and destruction.

That same night, my mother told my father, “I’m taking Phillip back to Norfolk.” I knew she’d made up her mind.

He was tired and disheartened over what had happened to the
Empire Tern
. He did not say much. But I do remember him saying, “Grace, I think you are making a mistake. You are both quite safe here
in Scharloo.” I wondered why he didn’t simply order her to stay. But he wasn’t that kind of a man.

The sunny days and dark, still nights passed slowly during March. The ships had begun to sail again, defying the submarines. Some were lost. Henrik and I often went down to Punda to watch them go out, hoping that they would be safe.

Neither my father nor my mother talked very much about us leaving. I thought that when two American destroyers arrived, along with the Dutch cruiser
Van Kingsbergen
, to protect the lake tankers, Mother would change her mind. But it only made her more nervous.

Then one day in early April, she said, “Your father has finally secured passage for us, so today will be your last day in school here, Phillip. We’ll start packing tomorrow, and on Friday, we leave aboard a ship for Miami. Then we’ll take the train to Norfolk.”

Suddenly, I felt hollow inside. Then I became angry and accused her of being a coward. She told me to go off to school. I said I hated her.

All that day in school, I tried to think of what I could do. I thought about going somewhere and hiding until the ship had sailed, but on an island the size of Curaçao, there is no place to hide. Also, I knew it would cause my father trouble.

That night when he got home, I told him I wanted to stay with him. He smiled and put his
long, thin arm around my shoulder. He said, “No, Phillip, I think it is best that you go with your mother. At a time like this, I can’t be at home very much.”

His voice seemed sad, although he was trying to be cheerful. He told me how wonderful it would be to return to the United States; how many things I had missed while we were on the island. I couldn’t think of one.

Then I talked to my mother about staying on in Willemstad, and she became very upset with both of us. She said that we didn’t love her and began to cry.

My father finally ended it by saying, “Phillip, the decision is made. You’ll leave Friday with your mother.”

So I packed, with her help, and said good-by to Henrik van Boven and the other boys. I told them we’d be gone just a short time; that we were going to visit my grandparents, my mother’s parents, in Norfolk. But I had the feeling that it might be a very long time before I saw Curaçao and my father again.

Early Friday morning, we boarded the S.S.
Hato
in St. Anna Channel. She was a small Dutch freighter with a high bow and stern, and a bridge house in the middle between two well decks. I had seen her often in St. Anna Bay. Usually, she ran between Willemstad, Aruba, and Panama. She
had a long stack and always puffed thick, black smoke.

In our cabin, which was on the starboard side and opened out to the boat deck, my father said, “Well, you can rest easy, Phillip. The Germans would never waste a torpedo on this old tub.” Yet I saw him looking over the lifeboats. Then he inspected the fire hoses on the boat deck. I knew he was worried.

There were eight other passengers aboard, and they were all saying good-by to their relatives just as we were saying good-by to my father. In the tradition, people brought flowers and wine. It was almost like sailing in the days before the war, they told me.

Father was smiling and very gay but when the
Hato
’s whistle blasted out three times, meaning it was time to go, he said good-by to us between clenched teeth. I clung to him for a long time. Finally, he said, “Take good care of your mother.”

I said I would.

We sailed down St. Anna Bay, and the Queen Emma bridge parted for us. Through watery eyes, I saw the fort and the old buildings of Punda and Otrabanda. Native schooners were beating in from the sea.

Then my mother pointed. I saw a tall man standing on the wall of Fort Amsterdam, waving at us. I knew it was my father. I’ll never forget that tall, lonely figure standing on the sea wall.