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Briar

1942

I kept my eye on Major Gilbert for the whole ten minutes of the soccer match I watched. Once Army won, Major Gilbert hightailed it to his office in the prefabricated Quonset hut, and I followed, pretending to look for the bathroom. I’d been up there a million times since that base had been built from nothing. The security wasn’t exactly top notch, and I just scaled the back chain-link fence, so I knew it pretty well.

I walked along the Quonset hut hallway, listening as the celebrations on the field died down and following the sound of the major’s voice. He was on the phone in his office, and I paused near the bathroom door and listened.

“No. I told you. It’s happening in three days, no matter what.”

I edged closer, my heart thumping. His rendezvous with the U-boat?

“That’s right. I have to leave my men, but I must do what I have to do, am I right?” His chair scraped back. “I need to get back to the game.”

The conversation went on like that for a while longer, and all of a sudden loud shouting came from the field—not celebratory, more panicked.

I ducked into the bathroom as the major hurried out of his office, his footsteps echoing down the hallway and outside. I waited a few seconds, followed him, and quickly saw what was happening at the field. A crowd had gathered where we’d been standing. Gil was running that way, and someone was shouting for an ambulance. I picked up speed and ran, already knowing what it was.

—

Bess stayed home with Peter, and by the time we got to the hospital in Oak Bluffs, Gram was stable but looking pretty shaken. Cadence and I sat in the back of the Army ambulance with her, an Army medic driving like we were escaping tank fire on the battlefield. Major Gil followed in his jeep. Taking a break from his spy activities long enough to accompany Gram to the hospital? Maybe he was covering himself, seeing as Gram had collapsed on Army property. Or maybe he was just after my sister. It didn’t add up completely, but I was getting there. For the moment I needed to focus on Gram.

We’d always known she was sick, but seeing her on the field, gasping for breath, scared the hell out of me. Thank God that Army medic was close by and came with oxygen.

It turned out Peter had been right: The problem was her lungs, after all, according to Dr. Nickerson, the intern on duty in the emergency room. He looked not that much older than me and like he’d been used for amphetamine research, his eyes red-rimmed, probably from working around the clock. The island couldn’t exactly lure the cream of the medical crop to come down from Boston to treat sunburns and self-inflicted kitchen-knife cuts, but at least he got the diagnosis right.

When Cadence told him we’d been giving Gram a cocktail of aspirin and vinegar, he said it had probably saved her life. I said a silent thanks to Peter and finally relaxed a little. She was going to make it. Gram was more concerned about not being able to go to church the next day than anything else.

They would keep her for observation for a few days and then propose treatment. Whatever Gram needed, it would be expensive. As it was, a few nights in the hospital would eat up our loan-payment money for the month. But Gram’s health was all that mattered.

They kicked us out once it started to get dark, and Gil gave us a ride home in his amazing jeep, me in the back seat, flying through the night, watching those two up front. They may have forgotten I was riding with them, since they talked like I wasn’t there—a pretty innocuous conversation on the face of it but loaded with innuendo.

“I’d like to come by tomorrow,” Gil said, “and check on how your grandmother’s doing. I have the day off.”

“That’s nice of you,” Cadence said. “A ride home tomorrow would be helpful. Maybe around six? I imagine we’ll be visiting in shifts.”

They were so formal with each other and not making much progress toward doing what they really wanted, which was to pull over and make out.

When we left Gil that night, Cadence was more than a little in love and I was more confused than ever. Was Major Gilbert the spy? What about that letter the postmaster gave him? He’d been captured by the Nazis and spent time with them. Maybe he’d been compromised. Maybe a double agent for Churchill? If that was true, perhaps he was just stringing Cadence along for a quick fling. But he did seem genuinely smitten with her, sneaking little glances now and then when she wasn’t looking.

It would all unfold very soon. When the crew of the Leopard came to call.