The Ebbing Tide (9 page)

But he mustn't bump into the mine. She said it quickly, and then she tried to call to him, because as the sound of the engine grew louder, the mine looked suddenly malignant, as if it had a life of its own, and there was something horrifying even about the shining, tranquil water around the mine. But when she tried to call, her throat closed up. It ached with her effort to be heard, but nothing happened. . . . Nothing but the flash. There was no sound, just a flash that frightened her more than a sound could have done.

When it cleared there was the shining water again. It stretched to the horizon on either side, reflecting the sun like one vast uneasy mirror. The mine was gone, there was no sound of a boat, no friendly mew of a seabird, nothing. . . . Nothing but Nils' head, and a wave breaking over it with lazy finality.

His head had been covered with blood. The one ghastly glimpse hadn't shown his face.
Maybe he hasn't any face
, someone kept whispering, and she awoke and knew it was herself, whispering.

In the morning she felt sick and slow, as if she were coming down with some sickness. Even in the light of day she couldn't escape the dream. It carried its own atmosphere, and she was surrounded by it. When she was getting breakfast she thought miserably,
It'll torment me till I tell someone about it
. And she decided to tell Owen when he came down. He would jeer at her, and that was what she knew she needed.

She heard feet on the stairs and her heart lightened wonderfully, and began to shape the way she would tell her dream. And then Dennis Garland came into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” he said pleasantly.

“Good morning.” She turned away, busy with measuring coffee, and neither of them spoke again until Owen came down. Then there was no chance to tell him about the dream. But her annoyance with Dennis Garland had tempered the horror somewhat.

“Well, we didn't blow up last night, by God!” Owen announced and plunged his face into a basin of cold water. Coming up, he groped for the towel, found it, and emerged from it pleasantly, his brown skin glowing. “Nope! But there's still plenty of time. Wait till the expert gets here.”

There was more talk of the mine at breakfast. She thought she would go crazy. It was Owen who did most of the talking; Garland asked more questions about the Island, but she answered them briefly. It was like having a toothache, when even to move the jaw hurts unbearably. She thought they would never get through the meal, and down to the shore. But when she was alone with Jamie, she was also alone with the dream again.

She was upstairs making the beds when the doors banged downstairs and Thea called. “Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?”

Joanna thought first of not answering, but Thea was quite capable of exploring the house if she thought it was empty. “I'm home,” she called from the head of the stairs. “What's the matter?”

“Nothin', except that the boat's here with the mine expert from Boston! Franny says they're gonna tow the thing ashore and take it apart on the beach!”

“Oh . . . Well, thanks for telling me, Thea.”

“Ain't you goin' down to
watch?”
Thea asked in shrill incredulity.

“I don't think so—”

“He's the cutest thing I ever see in a uniform, that expert. Well, so long!” There was a sound of Thea's high heels trotting through the house, the doors banged again. Joanna went into Dennis Garland's room because it was the nearest, and sat down on the bed. She felt suddenly weak; the back of her neck was wet with sweat under her hair.

She wasn't afraid because they were going to take the mine apart, but it was the dream. She got up again, feeling light-headed, and smoothed out the spread. From there she went into Owen's room. There was enough work here for a half-hour. But the windows looked down to the harbor, and she was drawn to them as irrevocably as a nail to a magnet.

The day was full of April's uncertain sunshine and when she opened the windows the cool air smelled even more strongly of spring. She leaned out, looking over the tops of the white lilac bushes and the spruce windbreak, over and beyond the fish houses, and saw the Coast Guard cutter riding at anchor at the harbor mouth, its gray paint washed in sunlight. The mine was gone from Stevie's mooring, and that meant they had taken it to the beach.

The village was deserted. There was nothing in sight that moved except the gulls, and the blowing grass, and the water that surged and withdrew endlessly on the shore. Everyone was at the beach.

She went downstairs, slipped on her coat, and collected Jamie from his mudpies on the back doorstep.

“Goin' to see a boat?” he asked eagerly, trotting along beside her.

“Yes, a boat,” she said. She walked fast, as if she couldn't wait to get there, now that she had made up her mind to go see what was going on. The men had towed the mine in to the foot of the beach, and everyone stood around on the wet, smooth stones that shone faintly in the morning sun. Lying in the wash of the retreating tide, the mine was about five feet long, and there was some sort of mechanism built on one side. A very young seaman and a youthful lieutenant, both in rubber boots, stood ankle-deep in the water and stared at the mechanism.

The officer looked up, grinned at the nearest knot of men, and pushed back his cap. “That's a new one on me,” he said candidly. “And I'm supposed to know ‘em all.”

“You think it's German?” Owen asked.

The lieutenant shrugged. “I can't tell. We'll go to work on it, anyway.” The sailor waded ashore to a tool kit lying on the stones and opened it up.

“Where's the best place to be,” Leonie demanded, “if that things liable to go off? Should I turn off my oil burner?”

“Lady,” said the lieutenant, “if that thing went off, it wouldn't matter where you were. And I wouldn't worry about the oil burner, if I were you.”

Joanna stood at one side, away from the others, watching the mine with fascination. She could see it as it had appeared in her dream and in a way, this was as horrible. It lay half in the water like some great, vicious sea monster that has been beached but is still deadly. Jamie, to whom beach stones and water presented one fixed idea, pulled to get free, and automatically she picked him up.

This is what faces Nils
, she thought.
Torpedoes, mines, bombs and then the Japs themselves
. His bloody head on the water, his bloody head without a face, and she couldn't put out a hand to save him.

Inside her, as she watched, the sickness grew swiftly and quietly, until she felt like a cold, bloodless shell enclosing not a woman, but a mass of terrors. Fantastically it seemed as if she stood completely alone, that no one else existed because no one else could understand. That group, standing around watching, asking questions, making macabre jokes—in this instant they had no relationship with her whatever. Her arms tightened around Jamie.

A beach stone moved, close to her; it moved under someone's foot. She became conscious that someone was standing quite near her. It was Dennis Garland. She hadn't seen him when she came to the beach, she had no idea how long he had been standing beside her, and for a moment she had the frightening thought that he had seen what had happened to her. Then she realized that no one could have seen, and she smoothed her face out carefully, loosening the lips that had drawn tight, dropping the veil of a smile over her eyes.

“Hello,” she said. “Exciting, isn't it? Nothing like this ever happened to the Island before.”

“I'm sure of that,” he said. “May I take Jamie? He must be heavy.”

She handed him over, and Jamie put his arm confidently around the man's neck. “What's that?” he pointed at the mine.

“An ashcan,” said Garland. “Do you want to look at an old ashcan? It's not much fun, is it?”

Jamie shook his head uncertainly, and pointed at the cutter. “Papa's boat.”

“I've got to go home and start dinner,” Joanna said abruptly. “I'd better take him . . . he thinks a visit to the beach isn't legal if he can't throw stones overboard.”

“He's probably right,” Garland said with his pleasant smile, and set Jamie down. He didn't offer to walk home too, and Joanna went quickly, before he could decide to go with her.

B
Y EVENING THE MINE EPISODE
was closed, as far as the Navy was concerned. The cutter had gone off into the windy April sunset, taking everything but the outer shell. Someone dragged the empty cylinder over to one side of the beach, out of the way of the skiffs and dories. The mine had been harmless, after all; but discovery of the mine could be added to the other things which the Islanders took with some nonchalance and a certain pride, in this the third year of the war. At first the radio towers and the gun crew at Matinicus Rock had brought the war a little too close; the stringent regulations about boat numbers—big, bold black figures along the side and an extra set atop the cabins—the identification each man must carry, the shudder of depth charges, the patrol planes before dawn—all these things had tightened the nerves at first, and some of the people had gone ashore to stay. But those who had remained on the Island were casual now.

Joanna felt anything but casual about the mine, and knew some of the others had been as uneasy. But they wouldn't show it, any more than she would. Owen talked about it at supper time until it was all she could do not to flare out at him, in front of Garland, and order him to be quiet. But of course he was interested, he couldn't know how it was forever before her mind's eye, the black thing bobbing peacefully in the bright water . . . and then Nils' head going down. And there was no diverting Owen, anyway. He had had a few drinks with Sigurd before he came home to supper, and if he wanted to talk, he would talk. She knew what his answer would be if she tried to change the subject.

So she tried to eat, and said nothing, but kept busy with Jamie. Garland had little to say. He looked tired; the grayish tinge had come back into his flat cheeks, and the lines had deepened from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. Already, in the few days he had been there, she had noticed that his eyes darkened toward night. In the daytime they were the clearest gray she had ever seen, but tonight they were almost slate-colored when he looked at her directly, and seemed more deep-set than usual. When he spoke to Jamie his smile started in his eyes and took away the fatigue for a moment; but the smile didn't come to full life across his spare, strong features.

Owen went out as soon as supper was over. Joanna stood in the doorway of the sun parlor, for a breath of fresh dusky air after the heat of the stove and the Aladdin; there were stars beyond the points of the spruces, they showed distant sparks of brightness and then were obscured by the blowing clouds, and then appeared again. The air was cold, but it kept its April smell, that spoke of green grass in the paths and sap stirring in the birches. On the far side of the Island the surf was piling up with a long roar. But it was not a wintry sound tonight.

Owen's voice roared out in a song, shattering the quiet of the dusk.

She shut the door abruptly and went back into the kitchen. Jamie was sitting on the floor by the stove, struggling with his shoes, and Dennis Garland was on one knee beside him, not touching him, just watching the chubby fingers battle with the stubborn shoe laces. Jamie's face was red, his lower lip prominent. He puffed angrily; and just as he was about to explode into a howl of protest, Garland reached down and untied the knot. Jamie looked up at him with an instant, sunny smile. At the same time Dennis saw Joanna in the doorway. He stood up quickly.

“A little complication,” he explained gravely.

“I see.” She felt displeased and antagonistic, as if the man were a usurper. As if he had come in unbidden and taken Nils' place. She wished he would not stand there so quietly, looking at her. He behaved as if he were on the verge of asking something, and she had a half­desperate fear that he might ask it now if she didn't do something quickly. . . . Jamie saved the moment. He lifted his other foot up toward Garland.

“Come along, Jamie,” she said swiftly, and bent to pick him up. Taking his sleeping suit from the oven door, she sat him on the dresser and began to undress him. She didn't look around at Garland again; and after a moment she felt that he had gone. She heard his quiet footsteps on the stairs, and then his door closed.

She felt guilty for a moment, as if she had been rude to a guest. But only for a moment. After all, she hadn't agreed to furnish conversation along with bed and board. . . . Still he was an odd man, she couldn't help wondering about him and his background.

The day had been a wearing one. Unexpectedly, she was ready for bed, so tired that she ached as she finished the dishes. She blew out the Aladdin and turned down the kitchen lamp, and went upstairs. There was no sound from Garland's room. Later, she lay in bed, ostensibly reading, but her mind wandered. More often she was staring at meaningless text while she thought of the tiny scrap of knowledge she had acquired about Dennis Garland. His name, the fact that he was born in Maine, that he had been in the service; he was neat, the few clothes he'd brought were well-worn but good, the sort of tweeds and pullovers she'd always liked. His toilet articles were plain but good, too. He liked to read. He smoked a pipe. . . . She went on enumerating even the little inconsequential things. Black coffee, not a very heavy eater, though he ate more now. And that was all she could list.