Circle of Bones (49 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

Scott’s Head Bay, Dominica

March 30, 2008

1:00 p.m.

“You knew my father?” Cole asked as he shook the man’s small hand. The firm grip surprised him.

“Yes,” Michaut said. “He was a very persistent man. Typical English.”

Cole laughed. “I guess you did know him.”

“Please, sit down.” The old man dragged the chairs closer together. As he eased himself into the chair, he said, “We have much to talk about. I asked Julliette to bring us coffee.” 

Cole looked at Riley, then back at the old man. “Mr. Michaut, we don’t have much time. There’s a man looking for us. Not a nice guy. I don’t want him to find you or your family.”

The old man nodded. “Mademoiselle,” he said looking at Riley’s face and neck. “He did this to you?”

Riley nodded. 

“I understand. This will not take long. And please, call me Henri. It has been a long time since anyone called me by that name. Except your father. Like you, he wandered into my garden one day asking questions about the war. I did not know at the time that he would become a very dear friend.”

The back door to the house opened and the young woman came out carrying a tray with three glasses of ice water, mini cups of coffee, a bowl of sugar cubes and a small silver pitcher.

“That smells so good,” Riley said as she took a cup.

“My father didn’t make it easy to find you, Henri,” Cole said. He, too, took a cup and sat on the edge of a chair. 

“Yes, that was to protect me.” Henri shook his head. “But when a man is ninety-two years old, there is not so much to fear. It is only for my family that I am afraid. I spent most of my life hiding here on this island, afraid they would find out that I knew their secrets. It was only when I met your father that I realized there was something I needed to do before I die. Something I needed to share. Your father said he would help me.”

“And now I will if I can.”

Michaut nodded. “As he said you would. Your father suspected something might happen to him after he wrote about the
Surcouf
. And he told me if that happened, then I was to expect you.”

Cole glanced at Riley and smiled. “For someone I only met once in my life, he knew me pretty well, I guess.”

“Your father said you are a good man. That you would do the right thing with all this. He said you are a scuba diver, and I need someone to dive down and retrieve what went down with
Surcouf
more than sixty years ago.”

“Are you saying you saw the
Surcouf
sink?” Riley asked.

“Oh yes,” the old man said with a broad smile that revealed several gaps where teeth should have been. The colored patch of skin on his cheek darkened. “I nearly went down with her.”

At first Cole wasn’t sure he had heard the man right. He set his coffee cup down on the small table. “You mean you were supposed to be on board for her fatal trip?”

“No, I
was
on board. I was the signalman on
Surcouf’
s last voyage, and I saw her go down.” He chuckled, then added, “From very close range.” 

Cole started to speak but he didn’t know what to say. He felt Riley’s hand slip into his.

The old man continued to laugh. “You are very much like your father. He had the same reaction. He did not believe me at first.” Henri pointed to the coin hanging at Cole’s neck. “It was only when I produced that coin that he changed his mind.”

Cole reached for the coin and rubbed it with his thumb. “You gave him this?” 

The old man nodded.

Cole struggled to wrap his brain around the idea that the man sitting before him had served aboard
Surcouf
. There was so much he wanted to know. But he knew that Diggory Priest was using every asset available to him to locate them. They didn’t have time for pleasantries. “Henri, this man who is looking for us right now. He wants something that is on
Surcouf
. We’re running out of time.”

“It will be easier if I tell you the story of that last day at sea. Then you will understand. I will make it as brief as I can.”

Cole saw Riley glance at her watch. But, from his many years of diving on wrecks, he knew how valuable it could be to know the events of that last day when he entered the wreck on the sea floor. Henri might be able to tell him exactly where to find what he was looking for.

“It was in February of 1942 and we had been at sea for five days. The men mutinied when we left Bermuda.” The old man told them the story of the bomb on board.

“
Bomb
?” Cole said.

“Cole,” Riley said, “let him tell it.”

“Yes,” the old man continued, “you see, they didn’t trust us. The Allies, that is. France had surrendered to the Nazis, and there were always rumors that
Surcouf
was refueling German U-boats and crewed by Nazi sympathizers. But the crew were not traitors; we were simply a bunch of French boys who were rounded up in London to crew the big sub. We had little training. There were three English on
Surcouf
when we left Bermuda, but on that last day, only one remained.” 

“What happened?” Cole asked.

“That is a story for another day. Lieutenant Gerald Woolsey was the one who set the bomb. Woolsey told me the Allies no longer wanted to pay for the upkeep on this submarine with the Pacific war opening up. They wanted the world to think she was the victim of a Nazi U-Boat. He said he was only following orders. Woolsey was to set the bomb before we sailed and then leave with his secret documents. But the mutiny changed all that.” 

The old man coughed a chest-rattling phlegmy cough, then reached for a glass of water and took a long drink. He set the water glass back down on the little table. “It was my job to bring food and drink to our English prisoner. During that last day, Woolsey told me about going to university in America and becoming a part of a secret organization. He said these men like war — not to fight, but to make money. He told me there were very secret papers in a diplomatic pouch in the safe in the radio room, and the Allies would sink
Surcouf
before letting them go to the Vichy government. Woolsey said these men had so much money and power, we could not hide
Surcouf
from them. He said they would come for us, and he was right. I took Woolsey to the captain, then retrieved the pouch. On the papers, I read the words
Operation Magic
. They were top secret decoded messages. When he read them, it was clear even Woolsey was shocked.”

The old man was trying to speak fast but his voice was growing hoarse. Henri took another drink. “A sailor came in then and told us that planes were coming.”

“What happened?”

“Everyone ran topsides. The captain told me to secure the documents. I took the waterproof bag from the lieutenant. He had already resealed it. I put it in the steel strongbox and placed the box in the bottom drawer of the captain’s desk. 

“On the bridge, the Lieutenant explained the signals to me. We tried to signal the planes, but it was no good. They started shooting. I was resending my signals when I heard Woolsey call my name. I turned and saw I was alone on the bridge. Water was rising. Woolsey closed the hatch. I ran to it, screamed and pounded. In my pocket I had my knife, and I used it to beat on the metal hatch. I begged him to let me in.” The old man licked his lips before he continued. “The water came up around me, rushed up over me. Even under water I heard the planes roar overhead. I held on. The pressure of the water threatened to force my mouth open. I felt myself being dragged deeper.” 

Henri took a deep breath. “So I let go. The turbulence spun me around and I nearly drowned. Then I saw the sunlight shining down through the water, and I swam towards the light.”

“They left you to drown?” Riley asked.

“Yes.” 

“That’s awful, Henri.”

 “In reality, they saved my life. When I surfaced, I saw the planes tilting up in a wide turn. They came back over the path where
Surcouf
ran beneath the surface. I saw the small black shapes falling. They were one kilometer away when I heard the first explosion, saw the great upwelling of water and the fuel slick. Debris erupted at the surface along with many bodies, some men still moving, trying to swim. They waved their arms in the air, and I could hear their voices pleading for help.

“The American planes turned in another slow arc. They came back, their machine guns firing into the water, into the survivors. After that, nothing moved. I kept very still and they never spotted me. If I’d made it inside that hatch, I would have died with them.

“Once the planes were gone, I swam to the wreck site. The water was full of sharks tearing into the bodies. I expected to be eaten at any second. I found a piece of wood and began swimming toward the closest island which I now know is one of a group called Îles de la Petite Terre. I do not know why the sharks left me alone. Perhaps because there was so much food. 

“When I reached the island, it was night and I was exhausted and cold. I spent three days on that island. I was near death when a fisherman found me. He was from Dominica and he took me home. He knew I was a sailor, but he kept my identity secret. Later, I married his daughter, and we told everyone my name was Jules and I came from Guadeloupe.” Henri’s body shook again as he struggled to cough up the fluid in his chest.

The young woman came out the back door and brought a wood box to Henri. Then she turned to Cole. “If you please, my great-grandfather is tiring.”

Cole nodded and stood. “That’s quite a story. Thank you so much, Henri.”

Henri raised a hand like a traffic cop. “The papers are most important. It is possible they are still in the captain’s cabin. But there is something else.” He pointed to the coin Cole wore. A mischievous smile played around his wet lips. “I took five of those from the hold the last time I visited Woolsey. There is more, much more. Through the years, I melted down four of them and sold the gold. The gold from those four fed my family for many months.” Cole saw the old man’s body tense as he struggled to quell another threatening cough. His voice was barely a whisper when he said, “I wanted more, but I was always too frightened to search for it. Didn’t want anyone to come searching for me. I spent my whole life in hiding. Then I told your father my story, and you see what happened to him.” 

Henri’s pale eyes looked at him, and Cole felt him asking for forgiveness.

“You had a family to think about, Henri.”

The old man nodded, then opened the box and withdrew a sheet of paper. He handed it to Cole. “This is a sketch of what I could see on Îles de la Petite Terre and the other island Marie Galante. I went back on my father-in-law’s fishing boat after the war and came up with this best guess as to the position where
Surcouf
went down.” He pointed to an X on the sketched chart. “The water is thirty to fifty meters deep and then –” The old man lowered his hand to indicate the drop off. He started coughing again, and his granddaughter walked around behind him and patted him on the back. When he could speak, he reached out and grasped Cole’s forearm. “Do what I should have done years ago. Find her. Find
Surcouf
and Operation Magic
for me and for your father.”

Cole knelt down in front of the old man and looked into his pale blue eyes, now red-rimmed and shiny with tears.

“I will Henri. I promise. And when I do, I’ll come back to tell you all about it.” 

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

Aboard the Bonefish

Scott’s Head Bay, Dominica

March 30, 2008

3:05 p.m.

Riley screwed the cap on the diesel jerry jug she had just emptied into her tank, and she looked up at Cole. “We’ve got to get moving.”

Bonefish
was rafted up alongside the
Shadow Chaser
in the Scott’s Head Bay anchorage. Earlier, as they had hurried back to the dinghy from Michaut’s house, Riley mentioned she was concerned about how much fuel she had left on board after motor sailing nearly the whole way from the Saintes to Dominca. Cole insisted she bring her boat alongside the big trawler to top off her tanks.

He pumped his hand like a conductor signaling the violins to bring the volume down. “Almost there,” he said. 

Theo’s face appeared at the rail. “Hey cap, I’ve got the radar running and we’ve got a suspicious target out there.” He hoisted another yellow plastic jug over the cap rail and handed it down to Cole. “This is the last one, right?”

“Yeah,” Cole said.

Riley checked her watch. “Cole, it’s almost 3:30. Theo, what was that about the radar?”

“We’ve got an AIS receiver, you know the Automatic Identification System, so I can see the names on some of the radar targets. There’s a cruise ship and a smaller cargo ship up off Roseau. On my screen, when I go out to the twenty-four mile range, there are a couple of boats that aren’t broadcasting any AIS data. We don’t know who they are. And one is headed south along the coast, coming fast. Faster than that boat the Brewsters had in the Saintes – racing boat faster. It might be a pleasure boat, but it worries me.”

Riley poured the last of the diesel into her fuel tank deck fill. She didn’t like that news much either. They’d tarried too long here already. “Theo, have you thought about going outside Dominica — along the Atlantic coast?” she asked. “It would mean a bumpy ride, but it would put the island between us and anybody who might be heading south looking for us.”

Theo slapped his hand on the cap rail. “I like the way you think, Captain Riley. I’ll go check the milage on that route.”

She screwed the cap on the last jug and stood. Her legs were stiff from kneeling on the deck.

Cole slipped his arms around her. “I wish you’d come with us on S
hadow Chaser
. Leave
Bonefish
here. We could set a second anchor.”

“I can’t, Cole. She’s my home. God only knows what that maniac would do to her if he found her unattended. I know your boat is faster, but I’ll be right behind you.”