S.O.S., page 1
Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION 4
DEDICATION 5
AUTHOR’S NOTE 6
CHAPTER ONE 7
CHAPTER TWO 12
CHAPTER THREE 18
CHAPTER FOUR 22
CHAPTER FIVE 30
CHAPTER SIX 41
CHAPTER SEVEN 48
CHAPTER EIGHT 55
CHAPTER NINE 62
CHAPTER TEN 70
CHAPTER ELEVEN 76
CHAPTER TWELVE 84
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 93
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 96
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 105
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 109
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 119
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 123
CHAPTER NINETEEN 129
CHAPTER TWENTY 133
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 140
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 145
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 159
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 166
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 179
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 189
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 200
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 205
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 208
CHAPTER THIRTY 215
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 222
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 228
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE 233
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR 236
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE 242
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX 247
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN 257
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT 265
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE 270
CHAPTER FORTY 285
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE 294
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO 300
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE 308
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE 317
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 322
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2018 by Allan Cole.
All rights reserved.
*
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
wildsidepress.com
DEDICATION
For the real Verne Sullivan
and
Kathryn, Drew, Vicky and Scott:
I never would have reached this journey’s
end without your help and support
and
My grandchildren: Ryan, Layne, Darby, Tristin, Asher, Colton, Wyatt and Marley.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
War Comes to Paradise
Between February and May of 1942, German U-boats operated with impunity off the Florida coast, sinking nearly two dozen freighters from Cape Canaveral to Key West and killing five thousand people. Residents were horrified witnesses of the attacks—the night skies were aflame and in the morning the beaches were covered with oil and tar, ship parts and charred corpses. The Germans even landed teams of saboteurs charged with disrupting war efforts in the factories of the North. This novel is based on those events. For my own purposes, I set the tale in the fictitious town of Jove Beach on the banks of the equally fictitious Seminole River—all in the very real Palm Beach County, a veritable wilderness in those long ago days. Among the witnesses were my grandfather and grandmother, who operated an orchard and ranch in the area.
CHAPTER ONE
Philadelphia
The 30th Street station was a sea of uniforms and tears.
There were soldiers and sailors and U.S. Marines and crying mothers and daughters and women of all kinds, children in tow or on their hips, crowding around the platforms where the big locomotives hissed and smoked and sparked and steamed.
And everywhere Ryan went Pearl Harbor was on everyone’s lips and in their minds.
Dec. 7, 1941. Only few months gone now since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on the same day that Ryan Karr entered his 12th year of existence.
Peering down from the overlook on that roiling sea of people and gigantic machines, Ryan thought back on that moment, reliving the shock as the radio announcer’s words sank in. Wondering, to his immediate shame, if Aunt Cassie would still bake the cake she’d promised for his birthday.
He was sinking back into that miserable moment when Uncle Tom caught him by the elbow, saying “Come on. There’s the Professor.”
Then they were pushing through the crowd, Uncle Tom waving his badge, shouting “Police Business! Police Business!”
The crowd parted and Tom used his big Irish shoulders to bull through, carrying Ryan and Aunt Cassie in his wake. The two were suddenly struck with a case of the giggles because it was such a big lie.
There was no police business. Just the three of them running to help Ryan catch the Florida Special where they would all say their goodbyes.
A wrench. Thinking: it could be forever.
Now they were following the line of cars, chains rattling, wheels shrieking, engines chuffing, dodging a woman lifting her little boy to a window to kiss his daddy goodbye, until they came to the car where Uncle Tom’s friend waited.
The Professor was a stocky, middle-aged black man in a conductor’s uniform, and he was lifting his cap and mopping his bald head with a kerchief when they reached him.
He looked down at Ryan—rimless glasses glinting—and Uncle Tom was saying, “Can’t tell you how much we appreciate this, Professor. Cass is worried sick about the boy traveling all that way by himself.”
But the Professor was waving the appreciations aside. He was in a hurry to get everyone aboard and he grabbed Ryan’s small suitcase, saying, “No thanks needed, Tom. I’ll take as good a care of your boy as you have mine.”
The professor was referring to his grandson, Josh, a rookie Ryan’s uncle had taken under his wing at the department.
A tearful Aunt Cassie fussed over Ryan, patting his hair into place, rearranging his collar, and pulling his jacket aside for the tenth time that morning to make sure the five- dollar bill was still pinned safely on the underside of the lapels. A fortune, especially when you added in the two quarters and five dimes in his pocket.
“I know you’ll be good, as good can be, hon,” she said in her Philadelphia Irish lilt. “So I don’t have to be telling you to mind your grandmother and Verne, because I know you will.”
Uncle Tom pulled Ryan aside, gave him a quick hug, whispering last minute uncle-like advice as he handed over the old Navy knapsack he’d been carrying for him.
“Don’t take any guff from those rednecks,” he said.
“Nossir.”
“But don’t you go looking for it, either.”
“I won’t, sir.”
Another hug then he swiped at his eyes as he handed the boy over. Ryan paused at the top of the stairs. Resisting the Professor for just a minute to face his aunt and uncle.
“What about—?” he stopped midsentence. Voice trembling, tears threatening.
The train jolted, wheels screeched, cars bumping all along down the line.
“This way, young man,” the Professor admonished him. “We have to get going.”
“Don’t you worry, hon,” Cassie called out, her own eyes brimming. “We’ll tell your mother you love her, God bless us all.”
And then the train lurched and the Professor caught Ryan’s elbow to steady him, then led him into the car—empty except for several black servicemen near the back, who were playing cards on a suitcase turned on its side.
The Professor put Ryan in one of the middle seats. Across the aisle there was a well-worn leather satchel, with a sweater on top.
“My regular base of operations,” the Professor said, rearranging the stack. “Run the entire train from this spot.”
Smiling, he said, “You’ll keep an eye on my things for me, won’t you?”
“Yessir,” Ryan said, sitting straighter.
Now the train was picking up speed, the ride smoothing out.
The Professor turned to go, but paused to say, “I’ll be back by and by, so you make yourself at home and if you need anything, just wait until I come around again.”
He started to leave, then laughed. “Almost forgot,” he said, motioning at Ryan, who gave him a quizzical look. “Your ticket, son. I have to punch it.”
“Oh,” Ryan said and got out his book of tickets.
The Professor fished through them, found what he wanted, pulled the punch machine from his belt and—ka-chunk! And then another: ke-chunk! And one more: ka-chunk! Paper bullets falling to the floor.
“There you go, Ryan,” the Professor said, holstering his little machine. “Good all the way through to Jove Beach, Florida.”
Ryan scooched back in his seat. He looked out the window at the slow moving industrial cityscape. There was an acrid factory stink to the air, infused with the train’s sweet diesel odor. And there was nothing to see but the backs of factory works and warehouses with broken windows. A few bums moved through the piles of rubble, looking for something worth a pony jug.
But he really wasn’t seeing any of it. Instead, his thoughts had turned inward. To his mother at the little picnic they had for her on the hospital grounds the previous Sunday. Beautiful as ever, with her long dark hair, blue eyes and milk white Irish complexion.
“Hi, Mom.” Eyes wet. Voice cracking. But her eyes were glazed and Ryan had to repeat himself… “Mom? Mom?”… before she acknowledged him.
Then all she did was pat his cheek and say, “I love you, too, hon.” And turn away with a vacant smile.
Finally, there was his father. Vanished in the storms of war somewhere in the North Atlantic. Ryan imagined him in a submarine many fathoms deep, icy seas raging overhead. Enemy destroyers on the hunt.
Suddenly, it became difficult to breathe. Heart trip hammering. He took several deep breaths, then pulled the knapsack onto his lap and unbuckled the straps.
Inside was the small practice Morse Code key set his father had given him. A handsome one with a black stippled metal base and a chromed key and springs. Tucked into a velvet-lined metal case—stippled black like the base.
He put his suitcase on his lap, and used it for a desktop. He started tapping away, trying to compose a message without looking up the letters in his Morse Code book.
Ryan practiced every chance he had, wanting to develop his own style. His own “hand.” His father said a skilled telegrapher could tell an operator by his “hand.” His style of tapping the key—tapping the short and the long. The dots and the dashes. The “Diddy, dah, diddy.” Except with no speaker the only sound was just a faint clacking.
He tried out his key now, wanting to send “I love you, Mom,” but he kept losing his way and forgetting the sequence. His heart started racing again. Hooked up to squawk box it would have made a hellacious racket.
In a panic he kept tapping out the same signal string over and over again: …---… And again: …---… And again: …---…
S.O.S. S.O.S. S.O.S.
The international plea for help.
Soon, the sound of the train’s wheels racing over steel rails took over from the clacking key. Like many voices chanting: S.O.S. S.O.S. S.O.S.
His heartbeat became less erratic. His breathing slowed.
S.O.S. S.O.S. S.O.S.
Then the tapping stopped. His eyes closed.
And he fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWO
The Professor
Something was wrong.
Ryan sensed a hovering presence. A reeking, boozy breath. Someone gripping his hand.
His eyes snapped open and he found a red-eyed soldier standing over him, pulling at his Morse key set. His pale jowls were unshaven, his uniform dirty and in disarray, his breath stinking of stale booze. He had the look of a mean drunk.
“Hey!” Ryan shouted, jerking away.
“Gimme that!” the soldier growled, pulling hard.
Ryan curled his body around the key. The soldier grabbed his arm and yanked harder.
“Let go, kid!” the soldier said. “Or I’ll give you such a shot.”
A deep voice right out of a gravel pit rasped: “What is going on here?”
And then the soldier was dragged away. Ryan looked up to see the Professor push the man against a seat.
“Mind yer own, ya dirty coon,” the soldier rasped, fist coming up.
“I am minding my own, sir,” the Professor said. “That young man is in my charge.”
The soldier tried to swing, but the Professor caught his wrist, twisting it. There was a yelp of pain.
“Okay, okay,” the soldier whined. “Just let me go.”
The Professor stepped back, releasing him. At the same time, he plucked the ticket puncher from his belt, wrapping his fist around it.
For a minute, Ryan thought the soldier was going to make something of it, but then he started to retch. He moaned, grabbed at his belly, then turned and raced for the exit. He barely cleared the door before spewing his guts.
Ryan looked up at his savior, heart starting to slow.
“Are you okay?” the Professor asked.
Ryan nodded. “Thanks,” he said. It seemed a weak response, but it was all he could manage at the moment.
“I am so very sorry about that,” the Professor said. “I was gone longer than I planned.”
Ryan just shrugged, but he did it with a smile.
“That Morse Code set is pretty fancy,” the Professor said. “Would I be wrong if I supposed your father or an uncle gave it to you?”
“Nossir. I mean, yessir—it was my father’s. He bought it when he finished sub school up in Connecticut.”
“Ah, your father is an undersea mariner, is he?”
“Yessir.”
“Which, I presume, is why you are studying Morse Code so assiduously?”
Ryan didn’t know how to reply, so he resorted to his all purpose shrug.
“Must be difficult practicing without sound,” the Professor said.
“I’m saving up for a squawk box and earphones for back up so I don’t bother people,” Ryan said. “Besides, I can hear it in my head.”
“Is that so?” the Professor said. “In your head?”
“Yessir.”
There was a long silence, and it was only then that Ryan realized the train had stopped and was pulled over to the side.
Puzzled, he asked “Sir? Where are we?”
“Just outside the city,” the Professor said.
Ryan frowned, “Why did we stop?”
Before the Professor answered, there was a rumble and a roar and he looked out the window in time to see another train thunder by. Soldiers were staring out. A couple of them caught Ryan’s eye. One smiled and managed a thumbs up before he whipped past.
“Troop train,” the Professor said. “Two more coming along after this, so we’ll be held up for at least an hour. On the Miami run last week we were delayed by trains hauling tanks and half tracks. When you see that you know full well that our country is truly at war.”
“I guess,” was all Ryan could manage.
Silence followed. Then, curiosity overcame shyness and he asked, “Why do they call you the Professor, sir?”
The Professor chuckled. “You mean, how is it that a man wearing a conductor’s uniform, and who is actually working as a conductor, has claim to such a lofty title?”
Ryan reddened. “Nossir,” he said. “I didn’t mean…” And he trailed off, realizing that’s pretty much what he had meant.
“I did not receive a formal education,” the Professor said. “I never progressed beyond the third grade at the colored school down Miami way. But, I was a bright lad. A curious lad. It seemed that the only way I could make friends was to feign ignorance. Otherwise they thought I was putting on airs.”
Ryan smiled. “Feigning ignorance,” he said. “I know what you mean.”
The Professor grinned. “I expect you do,” he said. Then: “So out of pure loneliness I started haunting the library. Then one day the library took possession of a brand new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I heard people say it contained all the knowledge in the world.”
Ryan nodded. He’d heard that as well. “It doesn’t really,” he said. Then, afraid he had been rude, he quickly added, “Does it?”
More chuckling. “Of course not,” the Professor said. “However that is what I believed at the time. But I also realized I was never going to be able to avail myself of a formal education. Certainly not a university education. And so I made it my young life’s work to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, from A to Z.”
“And did you?” Ryan asked. “Get all the way to Z, I mean?”
“I did,” the Professor said.
Ryan was dumbfounded. He’d never heard of such a feat. “Wow!” was all he could manage.
“Nothing to ‘wow’ about,” the Professor said. “All it did was prove to me just how ignorant I was. How ignorant all of us are. Even so, I went about spouting facts left and right, driving people crazy. Until they started calling me ‘The Professor.’
“It was a joke at first. Mockery. But then I started tutoring people’s children. Kids who had fallen behind. Or kids who were whip smart, but weren’t challenged by school. And that is when the name really stuck.”
Ryan could see how it would.
“Now, I have a question for you, young man,” the Professor said.
“Yessir.”
The Professor said, “I understand that you will be visiting with your grandmother and grandfather.”
Ryan’s heart skipped a beat. It’d be more than a visit. He’d be living there. For how long, he didn’t know.
But all he said, was, “Yessir.” A pause, then: “She’s my father’s mom. My grandmother, I mean.”
The Professor nodded.
“And he’s… he’s not really my grandfather. More like a step grandfather. She was, you know, like married before.”
