“Hey,” Rich said behind Cole. “That guy’s moving.”
The pilot straightened slightly and glanced over his shoulder as if the rescue were some sort of secret. The explosions rocking the freighter dispelled that notion.
“Grab the boat hook,” Cole shouted.
The pilot threw his left arm over awkwardly and took hold. He nodded his readiness.
Cole quickly pulled the boat hook back through his hands, drawing the life raft and obviously injured pilot in. “Rich, drop the cargo net. He needs help.” The pilot grimaced with each jerking motion of the raft through the water. His right arm hung uselessly in the water.
Cole glanced over his shoulder to see Murray join Rich. The rolled net, secured to the toe rail, hit the water with a splash. Rich was over the side in an instant and climbed down the net. Cole reached out with his left leg and felt the slight raised forepeak hatch behind him. Using it as leverage, he twisted his entire body to swing the raft aft to the net. He felt his muscles strain in protest and his shoulders burn fiercely as he tried to guide the raft, feed the boat hook, and twist his body at the same time.
Rich, his legs below the knees in water and his left hand gripping one of the footholds of the net, stretched out and grabbed the tiny lifeline that ran the circumference of the raft.
Cole heard the pilot say something in relief; the language wasn’t familiar but the sentiment was.
Cole released the boat hook from the raft, stood clumsily, and joined Murray and Rich, who were just hauling the pilot aboard. He turned and whipped his index finger in tight circles at DeLong; it was the universal signal to take her out. “Eckstam,” Cole said, tossing the boat hook to the gunner. “Secure that.”
The other two seamen had propped the pilot against the Charthouse Deadlite. Rich unscrewed a canteen lid and gave the shaking pilot carefully measured sips.
“Buddy,” Murray said in his slow Southern drawl. “We all thought you was dead.”
“I pretend dead,” the pilot whispered in heavily accented English. “Pretend.” He turned to Cole, obviously the ranking member of the crew that had rescued him. “Flight Lieutenant Stanislav Bortnowski, Number two-oh-eight Squadron, City of Gdansk. Thank you.”
“Jordan Cole, U.S. Navy,” Cole said with a smile. “You’re welcome. Polish?”
The pilot nodded, turning his eyes to Rich hopefully. The seaman looked to Cole for permission, and Cole nodded. It was dangerous to give someone who’d been at sea for any length of time too much water. It was especially dangerous if you didn’t know the extent of the person’s injuries. The pilot took more water gratefully and answered.
“Yes. Formerly of the Third Cavalry Brigade. Now I fly airplanes.”
Cole heard the soft burp of the smoke generator aft followed by the hiss of the titanium tetrachloride as it emptied into the air, forming a thick white cloud. They were running at top speed now with DeLong’s competent hands on the wheel, and the white smoke billowing over the fantail would mask their escape.
“Your arm,” Cole said.
“Broken, I’m sure,” Bortnowski said. “But I’m alive. It’s a small price to pay for one’s life.”
Cole nodded and stood. “Bring the stretcher forward and lash our guest down,” he ordered Rich. “I’d hate to lose him over the side.”
“Okay, Skipper. I’ll look him over and get him squared away.”
Cole made his way back to the cockpit but stood away from DeLong. He knew that the ensign understood that he didn’t want to be approached, didn’t want to speak to anyone when he did this. Something that the pilot had said troubled Cole; some words had brought back memories of the Mediterranean. It sounded so much like what Harry Lowe would have said: “It’s a small price to pay for one’s life.” Harry Lowe, handsome, erudite, good-natured; only son of a wealthy man. A decent man. Cole’s friend. Dead because of Cole’s mistake.
Chapter 5
Captain George Hardy entered Schiffer’s Artist Supply Store reluctantly. He’d been the center of an ongoing debate as he walked down Gosport Street — a hotly pursued squabble between Captain George Hardy, RN, and George Hardy, bachelor. A bachelor, he had once confided to a friend, because he “would not be silly enough to have any woman who was silly enough to have me.” But that strongly held belief had been under siege for some time, and the whole subject had been distressing to Hardy.
He closed the door quietly behind him, irritated at the tinny sound of the charming little bell suspended above the door. The bloody thing tinkled merrily every time the door opened, Hardy recalled, announcing customers as they entered.
He quickly slipped down a narrow aisle, safely hidden among tall shelves stacked with tubes of oil paint, rolls of canvas, endless bottles sprouting clusters of drawing pencils, and a thousand other things that professional or budding artists might require. He stopped briefly, taking time to gather himself, and carefully studied a colony of small articulated wooden models, frozen in a variety of poses. He’d never got the hang of the human figure and was absolutely horrid at the human face. “Give me the inanimate,” he told Land one clear day as they shared a watch on Firedancer’s crowded bridge. “Nothing moves. I can take as bloody well long as I want. None of this nonsense of people twitching or growing tired.”
But Hardy was not being entirely truthful. He admired those artists who could capture the human spirit reflected in the geography of an individual face. Every element of the soul, under the skillful touch of a talented artist, was reflected in a portrait in any medium. Sometimes it was the shape of the features — eyes, nose, cheekbones. Sometimes in the arrangement of them all. Mostly in the eyes, though — brooding, haunted, bright, intelligent, longing. A person’s soul reflected in their eyes, Hardy had heard once but had dismissed it forthwith. Later, when he had seen what war did to men, he considered them the truest words that he had ever heard spoken. It gave him a newfound appreciation for the portraitist. None of that abstract nonsense, Hardy sniffed. Silly children’s drawings of eyes suspended on a person’s forehead and triangular heads; bloody insult to artists everywhere.
“Why, it’s Captain Hardy,” Topper Schiffer said, behind him. “Thought I heard the bell. Bea and I were just in the back.”
Hardy turned and smiled at the little proprietor. His thinning white hair was combed carefully across his round skull in an attempt to hide his baldness. He looked like a happy cherub.
“I must get a bigger bell,” he said to Hardy, his bright blue eyes reflecting genuine happiness at seeing the captain again. “Can’t half hear that one most of the time.”
“Yes,” Hardy said, slightly pleased that the little bell’s days were numbered.
“Come for a few things, then?” Schiffer said, smiling. “Let me pop back and tell Bea you’re here. She’ll be pleased to see you.”
Hardy started to protest, but the man was gone in a flash. He scratched his chin roughly out of frustration and followed Schiffer. He suddenly felt overwhelmed by the stacks of goods that had once protected him but now towered over him, leaving no room to maneuver, no room to come about if need be. He stationed himself at the relatively open area in front of the low wooden counter. Behind a flowered curtain that was still drifting from Schiffer’s passage he could hear Beatrice Schiffer’s soft voice. His heart started a little and he wondered what to do with his hands. He finally decided to lay them casually on the counter. A fleeting image of the stiff wooden artist models crossed his mind and he quickly withdrew his hands and let them fall to his side.