Voices at Whisper Bend

Voices at Whisper Bend

Katherine Ayres

for Elena, for Rachel my daughters, my friends

C
ONTENTS

Chapter 1    Boats

Chapter 2    Scrappers

Chapter 3    Confetti Letter

Chapter 4    Persons Unknown

Chapter 5    Suspicious Characters

Chapter 6    Stitches

Chapter 7    Runaways on the River

Chapter 8    Down by the Tracks

Chapter 9    A Rocky Cove

Chapter 10   Night Fishing

Chapter 11   Voices in the Fog

Chapter 12   At Whisper Bend

Chapter 13   All Wet

Chapter 14   Extreme Hardship

Going Back in Time

Geographical Note

About the Author

C
HAPTER
I

B
OATS

“How was school, honey? Did you do all right on that history quiz?” Ma stood at the kitchen sink, peeling vegetables for homemade soup.

“The quiz was postponed,” Charlotte began. “We had—”

“We had an air-raid drill,” Robbie interrupted. “A long, scary one. And I got stuck sitting between two girls. Phewie!” He waved his hand in front of his nose.

Charlotte pushed back from the kitchen table where she was mixing black, blue, and white paints in a can. “You stop that right now, Robbie Campbell, or I won't paint your dumb tugboat for you.”

“But, Charlie, you promised,” Robbie protested.

“Spit on your hand and swear then, buster,” Charlotte said. “Repeat after me. Girls do not stink.”

Robbie raised a grubby hand, palm facing toward her. “Some girls do not stink. Is that good enough?” He wrinkled his nose and Charlotte held back a laugh.

“Why don't you quit while you're ahead, Robbie?” Ma said with a grin. She turned to look at Charlotte. “Was the drill a bad one?”

Charlotte shrugged. She swirled the paint in the can with a wooden stick, making the white disappear into the darker colors. “Like Robbie said, it took a long time.”

“Did many kids get upset this time? Did Betsy?” Ma wore her serious look. Betsy Schmidt lived next door. She and Charlotte had been best friends forever. So had their mothers.

Charlotte didn't want to be disloyal to her friend, but she couldn't lie, either. “Betsy cried some. So did a few other kids. The Cussick twins always pray during the drills. I know that should make me feel better, but instead I feel worse. Like we're really in trouble and it's not just practice.”

“I wish we lived out in the country,” Robbie said. “Even those mean old Germans wouldn't bomb cows.”

“I'm sure they don't plan on bombing schoolchildren, either,” Ma said. She sat between Charlotte and Robbie at the table and took their hands in hers. “You both know it's a precaution, don't you? The school turns out the lights just in case—so it won't look like a war factory from above and become a target like the steel mills are. But you're not to worry. German warplanes haven't crossed the Atlantic Ocean yet, and we pray they never do.”

Charlotte nodded. But sometimes it was hard not to worry. In a factory town like Braddock, the air-raid drills came once a month, with blaring sirens, and quite a few kids got upset. Teachers postponed tests and homework afterward.

“I'm glad Pa works on the
Rose,
” Robbie said. “If he sees a German warplane, or even hears one, he'll rev up his engines and zoom away so fast his wake will smack the shore like ocean waves.
Vroom!
” Robbie lifted his homemade wooden tugboat and put her through maneuvers that would capsize the biggest tug on the river. “I guess we're luckier than Betsy, aren't we?”

Ma nodded. She didn't say the words, but Charlotte knew what she was thinking. Betsy's father worked at the Edgar Thomson, the steel mill upriver. Now
that
was a target. Huge brick chimneys soared into the sky, blowing out smoke and shooting flames all day and all night. They could never douse the lights of the steel mill, nor hide those tall chimneys from a bomber. All along the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh to West Virginia, mills were belching out smoke and flame, proud to be helping the war. Targets, every one of them.

Robbie nudged Charlotte's arm. He sailed his tug right under her nose. “Are you going to mix all day, or are you going to paint?”

Ma smiled again, and returned to her vegetables.

Charlotte shook her head. Were all nine-year-olds so impatient? “Hand it over. Is this color close enough to the
Rose
?” She daubed the stirring stick on the newspaper that covered the kitchen table.

“Not bad, for a girl.”

“I'll paint
you
if you don't watch out.” She took the boat from him and waved a dry brush at his right cheek.

The color she'd concocted pleased her. The main deck, hull, and engine room of Pa's tug were the same dark blue-gray she'd mixed. The engine house rose up high above it, a scrubbed, clean white. And Pa had chosen bright blue for the stacks. Robbie had done a pretty good job with the model. Of course, he'd had help. Their older brother Jim had taught him how to use the chisel and plane and how to get the size right.

“I want to make barges too, Charlie, but I can't figure out what wood to use. Everything we've got is too thick. And with Jim gone and Pa so busy, I don't have anyone to help me with the saw.”

“I know.” Charlotte dipped her brush and began to smooth paint on the wooden hull. She kept her eyes focused on the brush and the pine boat. She didn't want to look at Ma's back, which was sure to be stiff at the mention of Jim. “How about an orange crate? Bet you could find an empty one at the market. Those boards are real thin. You'd just have to watch out for splinters.”

“I got sandpaper. I'm a good sander. And I could paint rocks black and glue them on the barge, for coal.” He stood. “Can I go now, Ma? Can I try the market?”

“Isn't it still raining?” Ma asked. She lifted one of the kitchen curtains aside.

“Just April showers. I won't melt. Please, Ma?” He was hopping up and down on one foot.

Ma nodded. “Okay. But just to the market and right back. No sightseeing today, mister. And dry your feet when you get home.”

Robbie dashed out the back door. Charlotte continued to paint. She felt Ma's hand on her shoulder. “It's nice of you to help your brother with his boats.”

“This size boat I can handle,” Charlotte said.

Ma nodded, a faraway look in her eye. “He misses Jim a lot.”

“He's not the only one, Ma,” Charlotte said. She set down the paintbrush and boat, stood and leaned into Ma's shoulder. “Where do you suppose he is right now?”

“God only knows,” Ma said, scrubbing hard at a carrot. “God and the admirals.”

Later that evening, Charlotte sat close to the radio and listened hard to the President's voice as he told the country bad news. Robbie lay on his stomach on the carpet next to her and rested his chin in his hands. As usual, his dark hair stuck up in messy tufts. Across the room, Ma sat close to Pa on the sofa, still wearing her apron. She stared at the radio as if Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself were going to step out of that wooden case and sit down on the green rocking chair where Jim used to sit, to tell them how badly the war was going.

Charlotte traced the large tan roses in the carpet as the President's crackling voice reviewed all the battles lost to Germany and Japan. Then his voice softened, and she listened harder.

“As we here at home contemplate our own duties, our own responsibilities, let us think and think hard of the example which is being set for us by our fighting men.”

They're on my mind all the time, Charlotte answered him silently.

The President continued.
“Our soldiers and sailors are …”

They're our brothers, Charlotte thought, like Jim. Back in December when America joined the war, he'd gone in and talked to Mr. Butler at the draft board. Mr. Butler had suggested that Jim would make a swell sailor, what with helping on Pa's tug most of his life. So Jim had enlisted in the Navy and traded the Monongahela River for an ocean somewhere.

Charlotte blinked and turned toward Ma for comfort, but Ma's eyes looked swimmy. Next to Ma, Pa sat with his hands clenched into fists.

The President's words brought pictures to Charlotte's mind, pictures from the newsreels. She'd seen the map of France covered by a big black swastika. Seen the long lines of German soldiers marching in their heavy black boots. Seen a huge ship take a hit from a torpedo and roll over into the ocean, dumping all the sailors overboard to die.

Mr. Roosevelt's fighting men were boys—brothers and sons, cousins and neighbors.

“They are the United States of America. That is why they fight. We too are the United States of America. That is why we must work and sacrifice
.

“It is for them. It is for us. It is for victory.”

On the radio, a band began to play. Robbie stood up and saluted the President. Pa switched off the set.

Ma straightened. Charlotte watched her blink a couple of times, like she had a speck of dirt in her eye. Then she cleared her throat and turned to Charlotte and Robbie. “Your schoolwork done?”

“Yes, ma'am. But I got sanding and gluing to do.” Robbie saluted again and marched off to the kitchen and his model boats.

“What about you, Charlotte?”

“Yes, Ma. There wasn't much schoolwork because of that air-raid drill.” Charlotte could tell that Ma wasn't really worried about science or arithmetic—she just didn't want to think about the war anymore.

“Then how about a game of dominoes, Lottie?” Pa asked Charlotte. He rolled up the sleeves of his plaid shirt, like he was ready for serious business.

Charlotte got out the wooden box of dominoes and took a seat on the floor next to a flat-topped trunk. Pa gathered pencil and paper from the lamp table and sat across from her.