look mighty silly and get fined to boot.'
He gunned the engine once more, making the needle on the tachometer approach the red line. There was a grinding shudder as the propwash worked the boat loose. We shot backward and Jim cut the twin engines back.
'I'm not going back in there. It's a labyrinth of obstacles around that hulk.'
So I talked him into letting me use the life raft. We inflated it with the compressed air bottle and soon I was in it, bobbing and rowing along to the old Liberty Ship. I got there quickly; the little rubber boat flipped right along over the nasty stuff that projected up from the sandy bottom. It wasn't hard to figure out how the Penelope tore a gash in her steel skin. Up close, the topsides of the ship loomed over me like a three-story apartment building. I paddled along toward the series of big holes in her beam. I looked back at the Whimsea. Jim hadn't set the hook, but was purring along in a semi-stall two hundred yards off the Longstreet's port quarter. The boat's shape was faint, and growing fainter in the darkness and light fog. I could see her running lights clearly, that was about all.
I reached out and touched the Longstreet. I felt the rough concrete with my hand, and grabbed a projecting steel reinforcing rod and pulled the rubber raft along to the first big hole. The seawater poured through this, and I glided into the bowels of the ship. It was like being in an old wrecked cathedral. The superstructure of the bridge towered above me, black and ragged against the dark purple sky. All the portholes were devoid of glass, which had no doubt been blown out long ago by the concussion of. the bombs. It was like a giant corpse with all its eyes poked out. Generally, it wasn't inviting, and the cold and the dark, and the sound of sloshing water, did not improve it either.
I took the waterproof spotlight and swept it around. There were plenty of nooks and crannies to hide anything your heart desired inside the old hulk of the Longstreet. There were bent railings, blown-away doors, exposed corridors, old hatchways, smashed and twisted bulkheads, Ventilating ducts, stanchions, wells, supporting members-it was a maze of pulverized concrete and twisted, rusty steel. I shined a flashbeam all around me. I saw nothing out of place though. No crates, plastic-wrapped bundles, or anything else that caught my eye. I heard two quick beeps. Jim was telling me he wanted to split. I rowed out through the big hole and started back to the Whimsea, which was now almost totally invisible. The chop had picked up, and the tiny raft pitched around uncomfortably. I heard another boat and saw a set of running lights sweep past out behind the Whimsea.
'See anything?' asked Jim as he helped me back aboard. I told him, and he told me another boat had been snaking around in the prohibited zone.
'Maybe they thought Whimsea was in trouble.'
'They didn't say anything. Just cut around me in a wide circle and left. Blue hull, white topsides. About our size. Let's get on back while we can still see our hands in front of our faces.'
We slid and rolled a bit all the way back to Plymouth in the following sea. We used the compass and RDF a lot because of the poor visibility. We passed the outer light at the end of the breakwater and turned to port when we approached Bug Light in the harbor's middle, then made our way slowly back toward the marina. During my visit to the target ship, Jim had caught a tautog, which we cleaned and wrapped in foil. We got a slip at the yacht club's pier; at this time of year there were plenty available. We had a nightcap and turned in. It was one-thirty in the morning. After ten minutes DeGroot was sawing logs. I lay in the upper bunk, my head inches from the wooden cabin top. I heard the very faint patter of light drizzle begin on the roof. I tossed and turned. I rolled on my side and looked down at Jim. He was sleeping like a baby, that big Dutch head immobile on the foam rubber pillow covered with a canvas print of code flags and buoys.
Jim had a basic calmness and world view which allowed him to march through life with minimal distraction and regret. He had enough Nordic discipline and stubbornness to shrug aside doubt and reluctance. I admired this, perhaps because I was a bit the opposite. Though never lacking in self-confidence, I seemed to view the world as a series of booby traps, a labyrinthine obstacle course of surprises and gross injustices, complete with Minotaurs at strategic locations., Whimsea swayed and rocked ever so slightly; the faint patter of light rain increased. Hell, I should go to sleep in no time. Should…
I slid out of the rack, opened the rear doorway and climbed the three steps up to the cockpit deck. I stood there just outside the door under the overhang of the cabin roof. I felt, well, wistful.
I had been conked on the head and thrown in the drink, attacked twice, been gnawed on by a dog, had a pistol held to the nape of my neck, my hand broken, my wife mad at me, my dog killed, my kids perhaps in danger, two people killed, and all I had to show for it was standing out in a twenty-eight-foot motorboat in the rain. Somehow it lacked something.
'Somehow it lacks something,' I murmured to myself.
I wanted an answer.
I went back into the cabin and pulled on a pair of blue jeans, a long-sleeved jersey, and a navy blue turtleneck sweater over that. I put on thick wool socks of navy blue and my Topsiders. I pulled a dark wool watch cap down over my head. My beard, now almost luxuriant, was mostly black. I liked the way it broke up my face and covered the light outline of my jaw.
I put my wallet in my hip pocket. If the police saw the Midnight Skulker slinking around the docks, they'd want to know who in hell he was, especially clad like a cat-burglar.
The note I wrote said: 2 A.M. Went over to cordage pier in N. Plymouth.
Should be back by 4 A.M., if not, raise hell.
Doc.
I left this smack in the middle of my pillow, set the alarm for 4 A.M., and left. I was unarmed except for my folding hunter knife, which I had slipped into my jeans rather than wearing it on my belt in its leather pouch. My Bull-Barrel was at home. Anyway, I had the feeling it had brought me bad luck before. The only other thing I carried was a flashlight, a black steel one that was waterproof, and pretty hefty. The pier was lighted with overhead lamps in steel reflectors spaced about thirty feet apart. I strolled along nonchalantly. If anyone asked, I was out for a midnight walk, which of course was true. Off to my right at. the state pier I could see the Mayflower II, and at the pier's base the Doric stone mini-temple housing Plymouth Rock, a bathtub-sized boulder upon which John Winthrop, Miles Standish, and Company set foot when they landed in the New World-or so they say.
I ambled on and passed the shopping center with its clam joints, bait and tackle shops, the souvenir stands complete with carved wooden sea captains (hand-carved in the Philippines), ships in bottles (made in Macao), Yankee scrimshaw (plastic, made in Taiwan), miniature whaling harpoons (Hecho en Mexico), and little brass ship's lamps (from India). It was very American.
I broke into a slow, determined jog when I hit Water Street. While a lone walker might be arrested at two in the morning, a solitary jogger is admired. In about fifteen minutes I was in North Plymouth, at the gateway to Cordage Park. I was stumped right away; the big outer gate was closed and chained. Four strands of barbed wire guarded its top; and ran along the top of the entire tall Cyclone fence that enclosed the park. But I noticed a small stream that cut beneath the road and made its way, encased in concrete banks, into the park. It obviously emptied into the harbor. Where the creek, road, and tall fence met was a bridge railing of metal pipe. But the fence ran along both sides of the concrete bank.
Nevertheless I had a vague hunch that if I could work my way fifty yards or so down the creek the fence would be less formidable. I ducked under the bridge railing and saw the dark water sliding by. It gurgled around light-colored rocks, old logs, pieces of old wire fencing, and junk. No headlights approached on the road. I lowered myself gingerly down onto one of the rocks, and step-stoned my way the first twenty feet. Then a low, mucky ledge of slime formed at a slow bend, and I tested it, walked on it. It didn't smell so great but it held me up. I kept my eyes on the Cyclone fencing just above my head. I waded in shallow water that was cold and stinky the last forty feet until I saw the fence bow out. There was a four-foot gap in it at the top of the concrete river channel. I grabbed the top of this wall and drew myself up under the fence. The outer fence had been breached. But there remained the inner one, which had appeared to be pretty tight indeed when I saw it previously.
There were lights on here and there in the complex of buildings. The nearby buildings were newer than the others, small wooden things with sloping shingled roofs. They resembled houses. Behind them were several huge warehouse-type sheds, then the really big buildings on and near the wharf that comprised the old factory. The entire place was absolutely still and deserted. For all its size I would have been surprised if there were no night watchmen. I left the side of the fence and waited between two small spruce trees for a few minutes. My feet were turning to ice. Nothing happening. As Jim and I had seen, the wharf was hardly Grand Central Station during
