No, he was wrong. There was an Army boot and a ladder and, amazingly, a rifle. They were nearly to the mouth of the harbor. The Commander maneuvered past a drifting dinghy and a sail that had filled up with air, like a balloon, as the sailboat sank under it.
No, it wasn’t a boat. It was the canvas cover of a truck that had been driven off the pier. Which meant they were getting into shallow water, where hopefully they could see the sunken wrecks before they ran into them.
“What do you think, Kansas?” the Commander said, surveying the harbor. “What’s our best bet?”
Turning around and heading home, Mike thought. The inner harbor had been an obstacle course of half-sunk boats and equipment the Army had pushed in the water to keep them from falling into enemy hands. Even if they got in, they’d never be able to get back out-the opening to it was so narrow a rowboat could block it. And if they tried the beaches, the Lady Jane was likely to be swamped by the thousands of soldiers who’d gathered there, waiting for rescue. Or to get stuck in the shallow water and have to sit there waiting for the next high tide.
“What did you say, Kansas?” the Commander asked, cupping his hand behind his ear. “Which way do we head?”
There was a loud horn blast and a launch appeared out of the smoke, plowing straight toward them. A young man in a naval uniform was standing in the bow. “Ahoy!” he shouted, hands cupped around his mouth. “Are you empty or loaded?”
“Empty!” Mike shouted back.
“Head that way!” he ordered, lowering one hand to point off to the east. “They’re loading troops off the mole.”
Oh, Christ, the eastern mole. That was one of the harbor’s most dangerous spots. It had been attacked repeatedly, and any number of ships had sunk trying to load troops off the narrow breakwater.
“What did he say?” the Commander called to Mike.
“He said go that way!” Jonathan cut in, pointing. The Commander nodded, snapped a salute, and headed the direction Jonathan was pointing. The motorboat came around and roared past them, leading the way.
The breakwater stretched out beyond the inner harbor. Well, at least we won’t go aground, Mike thought, but as they came closer, he saw that the mole had been bombed. Chunks of cement were missing from the breakwater, and doors and planking had been laid across the gaps. The naval officer pointed at the mole and, as soon as the Commander began to turn the Lady Jane toward it, waved and roared off.
The Commander began maneuvering in toward the breakwater, steering cautiously around a half-sunk tugboat and two jagged spars. The water was full of oil drums, oars, and still-burning planks. One had a name painted on it, Rosabelle-the name of a boat that had tried coming in here to take on soldiers, no doubt, and been blown to bits. “Find a spot to tie her up,” the Commander ordered Mike, and he began looking for an open berth, but the whole length of the mole was blocked by dumped Army equipment and shattered boats. The rear end of a staff car driven off the side stuck up in the air.
Beyond it was a space of open water that looked like it might be wide enough for the Lady Jane. “There!” Mike shouted, pointing, and the Commander nodded and steered toward it.
“Slow down,” Mike ordered, leaning halfway over the side, looking for underwater obstacles and expecting the Commander to tell him to use the nautical term, whatever the hell it was, but he was apparently as worried about tearing out the Lady Jane’s bottom as Mike. He cut the engine to a quarter of its speed and eased slowly into the dock.
“Look, there’s another body!” Jonathan shouted, and this time it was a body, face-down, drifting lazily in the wash of the Lady Jane, and over by the mole was another one, this one floating upright, its head and shoulders out of the water and its helmet still on.
No, it wasn’t a body. It was a soldier wading out to the boat, and behind him were two more, one holding his rifle above his head. They obviously didn’t intend to wait for the Lady Jane to dock and put out a gangway. There was a splash and then another one, and when Mike looked over at the mole, he saw another soldier had jumped off it with a bedraggled dog. It paddled along beside him. Above them on the mole stood a dozen men, and farther along the breakwater, a dozen more, running this way. “Don’t jump,” Jonathan shouted to them. “We’re coming in to get you,” and the Commander eased the Lady Jane up to the mole.
Jonathan tossed a line to the men. “Tie her up!” the Commander called to them. “Kansas, toss another line to those men in the water.”
Mike fastened a line to the gunwales, threw it down to them, and began hauling them up, hoping by doing so he wasn’t rescuing someone who wasn’t supposed to have been rescued. But he needn’t have worried. Two of the men had climbed up over the side on their own while he was tying the rope, and the one he’d thrown the line to was busily tying it around the dog’s middle to hoist him up. Saving a dog wasn’t likely to alter events, and it couldn’t get aboard by itself. Mike hauled it up and over the side, whereupon it shook itself all over him, everyone in range, and its owner, who’d just climbed on board.
He was apparently an officer because he promptly took over the rope. “Kansas, help Jonathan get the gangway over to that dock,” the Commander ordered, and Mike complied, but the mole was too far above them, and, anyway, the soldiers had already taken matters in their own hands. They’d tied a ladder to the side and were climbing down it into the water and swimming over.
“Rig another line for them,” the Commander ordered Jonathan, and began untying gas cans from the gunwales.
“Here, let me do that,” Mike said, carrying the heavy cans aft. Refilling the Lady Jane’s gas tank was less likely to affect history than hauling up soldiers, some of whom wouldn’t have made it without help.
“Give me your hand!” Jonathan shouted, leaning over the side. He came up with a soldier in full battle equipment, pack and helmet and all. “I thought you were a goner!” Jonathan said, grabbing him by the straps on his pack and heaving him over the side.
“So did I!” the soldier said, dumping his pack on the deck and turning to help Jonathan heave the next soldier, and the next, on board. Mike emptied the gas cans into the tank and then tossed them overboard. They bobbed away among the planks and clothing and bodies. He went back for two more, stepping around the soldiers who littered the deck.
They were continuing to clamber aboard. “It’s about time, guv’nor,” one of them said, flinging his leg over. “Where the bloody hell have you been?” But most of them didn’t say anything. They collapsed on the deck or sat down where they were, looking beaten and bewildered, their slack faces streaked with oil, their eyes bloodshot. None of them moved into the stern or onto the other side, and the deck began to tilt to port under their weight.
“Shift ’em to starboard,” the Commander shouted at Mike, “or they’ll have us over. How many more are there, Jonathan?”
“Only one,” Jonathan said, helping a soldier with a bandaged arm onto the deck. “That’s the lot.”
For the moment, Mike thought, looking up the mole. He could see soldiers converging on the land end of it from all directions. If they got here, they’d swamp the boat, but the Commander was already starting the engine. “Cut the line,” he ordered Jonathan and pulled back on the throttle. The propeller began to turn and then stopped with a jerk.
“Propeller’s fouled,” the Commander shouted. “Probably a rope.”
“What do we need to do?” Jonathan asked.
“One of you’ll have to go down and untangle it.”