For Those in Peril

Flag down. “Pack, dismissed!” The small boys of the Fort St. Angelo cub scout pack scurried off to get their sweaters and bags; it was supper time. Charlie Harkness, Sixer, son of the naval base commander, ordered his small group – the gray six – to stay behind; they had unfinished business.

“We can’t have two Georges in our six,” said Charlie, a tall blonde boy with freckles, supremely self-assured.

George Clarke agreed; son of a lieutenant, he was the first George, so the new George, a weedy little boy newly arrived from England, needed a nickname. It was a matter of seniority. 

“How about we call him Gammy?” said George Clark, “On account of his leg”.

“Gammy Leg!” shrieked Justin Sloan, an excitable lad, prone to exaggeration, but a good cricketer, both batter and bowler, “long leg, short leg, square leg, gammy leg”. Laughter all around. 

George Stein, the new boy, had a stiff left leg on account of an injury he’d suffered in a car accident when he was an infant. He was a small spirited little fellow, who pegged along as best he could, but he was dragged behind the other kids at school, at play, at the cub scout meeting. The gray six boys resented him, how he slowed them down, lost them points in the relay race. His father did something in administration; someone said he was Jewish.

“Gammy!” said Charlie, “how do you feel about that name…. Gammy?” George Stein nodded his approval; he was fine with this nickname; he’d been called much worse. 

“Good, then, see you on Saturday for the boat outing to Comino”, said Charlie the Sixer, “Oh-nine hundred hour, at number two dock at the Naval base. We’re going out on Captain Hardy’s old pilot boat - Monty”

“Should I bring a swimming costume?” asked Gammy… but his question went unanswered; the other boys were already running toward the hallway, to their parents’ waiting automobiles, which were idling outside the Fort gates.   Gammy followed them.

+++

Dark clouds appeared in the blue sky, on the horizon, in the direction of Sicily.

“Miss Gardiner, get the children back on board the boat,” barked Captain Hardy. He was a man of war, a commander of able-bodied seamen, not women and children. Tactless, direct, often salty, he was uniquely suited to the task of war at sea, less well-suited to hosting the cub scouts on a weekend swim to the nearby islands of Gozo and Comino aboard the Valetta pilot boat.  It was twenty-odd years since he’d last seen action - convoy action in these very waters; civilian life in Malta bored him. 

Miss Gardiner was a plain and earnest middle-aged spinster, a do-gooder, the junior school Art teacher, and reluctant – hapless - press-ganged - den mother for the cub scouts; boys were a mystery. Captain Hardy’s stern command startled her from her pencil sketch of the barren slopes of Comino. Dressed in tennis whites, she scooted past the lonesome Jewish boy – George - who was sitting in the shade of the wheelhouse, sweltering in his cub scout uniform, and she threaded through a cluster of near-naked tow-headed boys who were drinking orange sodas and eating homemade sandwiches, basking in the midday sun on the open deck. Miss Gardiner steadied herself against the forward stay and shouted loudly for the swimmers to come back on board.  She marveled at how their slender brown bodies slipped through the crystal waters with such ease.

There were a half dozen or so children in the brilliant blue water, playing catch with a frayed old tennis ball or snorkeling over rockweed watching small fish dart over the sandy bottom. The children were all keen and proficient swimmers, Royal Life Saving Society bronze medal awardees, a prerequisite for the outing - except for the little Jewish boy, poor thing; his mother was insistent that he be included on the trip.

“Quickly, now children, it’s time to go”.

The children’s complaints were silenced by the sound of Monty's old motor firing up, black diesel smoke billowed out of the exhaust and hung over the ruffling waters of the blue lagoon, Captain Hardy blew the horn and Miss Gardiner watched the children swim to the boat, climb the metal ladder. When they were all accounted for, she waved cheerily to Captain Hardy, who was smoking a pipe, his expression hidden by his naval full-set beard and moustache.

The clouds were getting closer, cooler licks of air teased the skin.

“Any reason for the hurry, Captain?”

“None, Miss Gardiner, I just need to get the old tub back to Valetta before the squall arrives. Cast off, Cecil”.

Cecil, the teen deck hand, a scrawny kid in wire-rimmed spectacles, released the painter from the forward cleats and the boat fell back from its mooring.

Miss Gardiner counted heads. Eighteen boys.

Monty looped around the lagoon, the children sitting along the gunnels on either side, their arms draped over the wire safety line that ran along the stanchions.   Underway, with a hint of moisture in the cooler air, George Stein moved out of the shadows and squeezed into a small space on the port side of the bow, where other boys, including his Sixer, Charlie Harkness, made space for him, reluctantly. 

“Ain’t it spiffy!” said George, but Charlie was eating a tuna fish sandwich, to busy to reply.

+++

As the storm approached, the ocean roiled and the wind whipped and lashed at the waves, driving spray into the air which stung the skin. The bow of the pilot boat rose and fell as it met the oncoming waves, rose and fell, pitched and rolled, yawed and corkscrewed, and with every stomach-churning heave-ho, the children screamed with delight, hanging with grim determination onto the safety wires. As the wave height increased, as the heave-ho became more violent, their little bodies were thrown into the air then slumped back to the deck

Captain Hardy was wrestling with the wheel. He’d seen worse, much worse, they’d be back in the harbor within the hour, before they bore the brunt of the storm, probably.

“I think the boys should come in off the deck, don’t you?” said Miss Gardiner. A non-swimmer, she was gripping the door of the wheelhouse.

“The boys?” said Captain Hardy, absently. From the approaching storm he redirected his gaze to the port and starboard foredecks. The boys were having a rollicking good time, drenched in the surf, laughing, singing. Military children, one day men. It would put hairs on their chests, thought the Captain.

“Yes, the boys!” insisted Miss Gardiner. Like most military men, he lacked common sense. 

The ocean swelled up ahead of the boat, some 6 - 8 feet high. Captain Hardy hardly had time to remove the pipe from his mouth when the bow of the boat plunged into the swell, and water poured over the deck, over the children. The boat popped back up, came out of the swell, and the children were still there, some scared, some laughing, some grasping for something, anything, to hang on to, some secure against a stanchion, but they were all there.

“Yes, probably best that the boys come inside the wheelhouse for a while,” said the Captain, as the next swell came into view. He'd misjudged the storm.

+++

Charlie Harkness was flung upside down and the wall of water pushed him over the top of the rail with a force so great that he was unable to hold onto the safety rail. Cold, light, dark, bubbles, flailing feet, bubbles, gray, blue-gray and then he was in a twilight place. Above he could see the crumpling underside of the sugar crust surface, beneath, the inky stillness. Up, he must go up.

Charlie burst out of the water and was slapped in the face by a wave, then another. The storm was close, obscuring the sun, leaching color from the ocean. He was up, but where was the boat, the land? He twisted this way and that, kicking furiously to keep his head aloft and the salty water out of his mouth and nostrils.

A stifled cry, a freak noise, then “Help,” someone was nearby in the tumult.

Charlie rose up on the crest of a wave, glimpsed land, the receding boat, and the head of the Jewish boy - Gammy - a thin red line on his forehead bloomed then washed clean, and then down again, Charlie fell into a trough, sea water jetted up his nose and buzzed at the base of his brain. 

The scarlet bloom was blood from a gash, Gammy’s face was a mask, white on one side, red on the other, his mouth a rictus of terror. Gammy’ green and khaki cub scout uniform was pulling him under

“Help,” cried Gammy.

Charlie swiveled back in the direction of the boat. His cry was lost in the mad chattering ocean and the hissing rain that fell from the unbundling dark clouds. The boat was a hundred or more yards away

+++

“Sixteen children; we are two boys short,” cried Miss Gardiner.

“Man overboard! Cecil, throw a life ring in the water”, shouted Captain Hardy, who swung the wheel hard left, steering Monty into the teeth of the storm, he quickly executed a figure of eight maneuver. “Another ring now, a couple of life jackets too, and keep a lookout.”  Cecil threw two red life jackets into the spray.

“Oh Jesus, Oh Lord.” Miss Gardiner had her hands clasped in prayer.

“Sixteen… you’re sure?” said Captain Hardy.

“Yes… Charlie Harkness… and the Jewish boy, George Stein. They’re both missing. Oh God they’re missing!”

“Miss Gardiner, I need you to stay calm. We’ll find them.  They are Naval boys. Strong swimmers, right? Isn’t Charlie the son of Commander Harkness? “

“Yes.”

The Harkness boy was a born leader, like his father; he would triumph over adversity. It would be a formative experience.

“What about the Stein boy?

The Stein boy was a mistake.  Miss Gardiner, explained that his mother, a nervous woman, a civil service wife, was insistent that he should be included on the Saturday outing, even though he was a weak swimmer.

Captain Hardy kept his thoughts to himself. Civilian women were fools of the first order.

+++

The Stein boy was in trouble, barely able to keep his head above water, the sea was pulling at his clothing, sucking him under. Blood continued to seep from the wound on his head.

“Sharks, they can sense blood from three miles away,” shouted Charlie. It was like a page from the Boy’s Own Paper, or a challenge in The Boy Scouts Manual.

“Help! Help!” The Stein boy was wild-eyed.

“It’s important not to panic”, commanded Charlie, with what he felt was reassuring gravitas. He was a leader, like his father.  Cometh the moment, cometh the boy… soon to be man.

“Help Help” The Stein Boy could see the boat heading their way. He tried to wave his hands at the boat, but the sodden shirt weighed him down, his head slipped below the surface. He re-emerged, choking.  

Charlie told him to stop shouting, to stop panicking, they were going to swim to shore. “Take off your shirt!” he demanded.

+++

Miss Gardiner was whimpering.

“Shut up woman. Shut up” barked Captain Hardy. The boy scouts, crammed into the wheelhouse, cowered against the stern bulwark and the starboard door, shivering, crying, pleading for their parents, “and For God’s Sake, call the boys to order. I can hardly think straight”. Two boys missing. There’d be hell to pay.

The storm was overhead now, moving toward land.

+++

George grabbed at Charlie’s outstretched arm, and gripped on for dear life, dragging them both under. 

Charlie resurfaced, snatched a breath, “Stop it, Gammy.” He pushed hard against George’s grip, against the boy’s thumbs, breaking the hold, then, with all his might, he punched George in the face.

“No. Save me!” shouted George, desperately clutching at air.

Charlie punched him again, only this time harder, this time viciously, as a matter of life and death; Gammy would take them both down. Bone cracked as Charlie's fist collided with Gammy’s nose. More blood, for an instant, then stunned disbelief on the open-mouthed face of little George Stein as he slid beneath the waves.

The rain stopped. 

+++

Cecil, on look-out, spotted Charlie, swimming toward the shore. Captain Hardy eased the boat alongside the boy.

“Grab the line.” 

Charlie grabbed the rope that Cecil threw from the bow of the boat. The sea was calmer now, the sun reappeared, the squall was throwing its venom at the North side of the island, and soon it would be gone completely, skipping harmlessly across the Mediterranean in the direction of Tripoli. It was like a bad dream that came and went.

“Where’s George?” said Miss Gardiner, as she helped Charlie from the top rung of the ladder and onto the deck. The other boys were gathering around solemnly, silently.

“Gammy is gone,” said Charlie, “drowned. I tried to save him”. Charlie’s chest heaved in and out, he closed his eyes against the bright light, “there was nothing I could do”. He vaguely understood that his life was about to take a new course, one that would forever be haunted by guilt… but not by blame or punishment... he would tell nobody about what happened, and the truth would lie at the bottom of the ocean, in Davy Jones’ locker. The open mouth, the frightful stare, the last bubble of air, the crimson plume of blood. It was him or me.

“Gammy’s dead” shouted Justin Sloan, unable to contain his excitement at the thrilling turn of events. It was a story that would be told and retold a thousand times, the storm, Charlie’s heroism, the search, the rescue, Gammy… lost at sea, a beautiful death.  Eternal Father, Strong to Save… the boys knew the hymn better than any other.

Miss Gardiner fell to her knees, her head bowed, she wept. She had failed the boys, failed the parents. It was a small school, serving a small community, everybody knew everybody in the Naval Base and lived in close proximity in the service apartments. She would leave Malta under a cloud. It was difficult to find work back in England, housing too. She would have to work as a housekeeper. The poor boy. The poor mother. She would have to tell the mother. How, she wondered, do Jews grieve?

Captain Hardy busied himself in the wheelhouse. To port, to starboard, astern of the boat, he scanned the ocean. As long as he stayed busy, as long as he was active, doing, not thinking, there was hope. He’d seen tragedies in the war, but also miracles… survivors, against the odds, when all hope seemed pointless.

“There he is”, shouted Cecil, “I can see him… over there”. Cecil was pointing at the water, not far from the bow of the boat. Not far from where Charlie was discovered, but a bit further out from shore.  

A look of fear crossed Charlie’s face. He opened his eyes, sprung up from the deck, and ran to the bow, accompanied by the other boys, by Miss Gardiner and the Captain.

The body was floating in the water. A funereal quiet fell upon the small group of children; Miss Gardiner and the Captain, standing apart, stared in disbelief. Gammy was wearing his boy scout uniform when he drowned, and something about this made the death more real, more intimate for the boys. The adventure had turned sour and there would be hell to pay.  

Charlie bowed his head in gratitude; Gammy had drowned, he was safe.

And then the body waved at them.