The ship is
Dah-dah-dah, dit-dit-dah, dit-dah-dit, dit-dit-dit.
Ours.
THE SHIP IS OURS.
12
There was a great deal of traffic at the pier.
Was some sort of naval maneuver in operation, was that it? Wasn’t that a Navy ship out on the horizon, less than a mile offshore?
Roger Cummings lay flat on the beach with his head raised above the dune, and tried to make out what was happening in the distance. He wished he had binoculars.
Something odd was going on, of that he was certain; and he was becoming more and more convinced that all of it was somehow linked to the man and woman who had come to the front door of the Westerfield house and tried the knob. He and Sondra had watched from the upstairs bedroom window as the man went around to the driver’s side of the car and the woman got in on the side closest to the house, and then the car started, and made its way around the turnabout and went up the driveway and out of sight.
“What do you suppose that was all about?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Sondra said.
“You don’t suppose that fellow was a hunter, do you?”
“Which fellow? Oh, you mean the one with the gun?”
“Yes.”
“He could have been.”
“Did it seem to you that he was threatening that woman in any way?”
“No. The gun wasn’t even pointed at her or anything.”
“That’s right,” Cummings said. “Did you notice that?”
“They seemed very friendly, in fact,” Sondra said.
“That’s what I thought. Perhaps they know Westerfield.”
“Who’s Westerfield?”
“He owns this house. Myron Westerfield. Maybe they know him and dropped by to say hello.”
“Maybe. Where did you leave our car, Rog?”
“In the garage.”
“Then how would they know anybody was here?”
“They wouldn’t,” Cummings said. He was frowning again. “The odd thing about it, of course, is that their car was parked in the driveway at... what time was it, Sondra? When did I go out to take a look?”
“Oh... nine-thirty, ten o’clock. Around then.”
“Yes. So what took them an hour to get to the front door? More than an hour.”
“I don’t know, Rog.” She kissed him on the cheek and said, “Maybe they found something to do on the way.”
She looked at him then and giggled at the serious expression on his face.
“It’s the rifle that bothers me,” he said.
He had left the house at two-forty, unable to sit still a moment longer, curiosity clamoring inside him. He had walked up to the main highway and then looked across to where the barricade was set across the top of the side road. The barricade was innocuous and commonplace; he associated it at once with the armed man who had come to the front door, and immediately looked upon it with dark suspicion.
Get back to the house, he warned himself.
You are Roger Cummings. Get back to the house before you find yourself in more trouble than you ever imagined.
Instead he had gone off to the right of the side road, swinging around past the barricade and into the thicket, passing behind the first house on the road and then cutting over to the beach.
Lying at the far end of the beach, he could see the maroon-and-black cabin cruiser coming from the ship directly to the pier. He could not tell how many men were aboard the cruiser, or how many men in blue — all carrying weapons — were waiting on the dock. There seemed to be at least a half-dozen. They climbed aboard the cruiser as soon as it reached the dock. The moment they were loaded, the boat pulled out again. Cummings watched it moving out to the ship. It stayed alongside for perhaps ten minutes, and then started back toward shore again.
The town seemed silent and deserted except for the activity at the pier, the boat coming in from the ship out there, more men in blue massing on the waterfront.
Weren’t there any people in this town?
Where are all the people? he wondered.
Cautiously he crawled up the beach and closer to the pier. Crouching behind an empty oil barrel, he watched the activity there unobserved. It was entirely possible, he supposed, that the Navy was conducting some sort of maneuvers in the area. He glanced out over the water to where the ship sat in pale silhouette and saw the marking W 017 on her bow and wondered what kind of Navy vessel she was, and why she was in these waters. The nature of the maneuvers puzzled him, too, because he could not imagine any naval games that would include a young man escorting a woman to the front door of a civilian’s home, unless the woman was a Navy nurse, was that possible? She had, after all, been wearing white. But no hat. Didn’t nurses always wear hats? Didn’t Navy nurses have a little white hat with the gold stripe or stripes of their rank showing on it?
He crouched behind his oil barrel, confused, and tried to figure out the pattern of the maneuvers. He could see the pier clearly now, could see the cabin cruiser tied there, could even read the name lettered across her transom, The Golden Fleece. There was a very fat man in khaki standing on the pier together with four other men in dungarees and chambray shirts, all of whom were armed. There were six men standing in the cockpit of the cruiser. One of them was holding a gun in his hand and the other five were standing with their hands clasped on the tops of their heads. All of them were dressed in the work clothes of Navy enlisted men, which made very little sense to Cummings unless the men in the boat were wearing little tags or buttons that distinguished the blue team from the red team, something like that. Otherwise, why would one enlisted man be pointing a gun at five other enlisted men who had their hands on their heads, while still more men waited on the dock?
The men in the boat were coming ashore now.
The one with the gun pointed it in Cummings’ direction. Cummings immediately ducked his head down below the rim of the oil barrel and then realized the man was only indicating a long building forward of the pier. The building was made of corrugated metal. It seemed to have only one door and no windows, some sort of storage locker, he imagined. The men with their hands on their heads began marching toward the building, and a man with a rifle came out of the adjacent building to lead them away.
“You want to bring your men aboard, Fatboy?” a voice on the boat said. Cummings could not see who had spoken; the voice had come from inside the wheelhouse. The one called Fatboy nodded quickly and led his men into the idling boat. As the boat pulled away, another group of men moved onto the pier, this time led by a man who had pale white skin and jet-black hair. Cummings looked toward the storage locker in time to see the single door being slammed shut, a padlock being bolted into place. The man with the rifle stationed himself outside the door.
Out on the water The Golden Fleece sped toward the ship on the horizon. Cummings, frowning, watched it.
They had gone through one of the bottles of bourbon and opened the next, and now they lay on the bed drinking from two white coffee mugs they had found on Bobby’s shelf next to the picture of Ava Gardner. There was no ice in the mugs, and no water, just straight bourbon, and the cups were filled almost to the brim. They were in a silly giggly mood, both naked, Ginny toying with the crisp blond hair on Willy’s chest, and Willy lying with the back of his head between her breasts, her arms around him, giggling and trying to sip at the bourbon without spilling it all over himself. He managed to get a dribble of whiskey down his throat and then choked on it, and sat up and began giggling again and Ginny said, “You’re the slobbiest man I know.”