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Briar

1942

O nce Bess and Margaret had put out all traces of the fire, they came down to the boathouse, as shocked as we were about Tyson, and we discussed our options for disposing of the body. Bess suggested we bury him under one of the boulders on the hill, and Peter, Cadence, and I took turns digging the grave. Margaret secured a chain around a boulder in the field, and Bess drove the tractor to drag it into place over the spot. It wasn’t easy pulling the body on a tarp up from the boathouse. Only days before, I’d dragged Peter from the beach.

I was more energized than tired, though the task had taken us most of the night, but we were a determined lot. I slid the negatives into Tyson’s pocket before we wrapped him in a blanket and buried him. After I’d found the negatives, I didn’t replace them, just in case he was planning to take them back to Germany. If anyone ever found the body, those negatives would be proof that Tyson had been a traitor.

My emotions about Tyson were all over the place—sad about our friendship one minute, and mad as hell at him the next. If he hadn’t killed his own grandfather, Mr. Schmidt would still be here. And Sandra would still be enjoying life behind her glass counter. And none of this would have happened, probably.

Bess climbed down from the tractor and slapped the dirt from her hands. “Rest in peace.”

The weather had cleared, and Cadence and I stood looking along the coast as dawn broke over Vineyard Sound, Lambert’s Cove Beach in the distance. “I suppose the mock invasion is going to start anytime now,” I said. “Looks like lots of activity.”

“At least Tyson won’t be reporting back to Berlin about that, too,” Margaret said.

“But is the U-boat still out there?” Cadence asked.

I searched the water just off Pepper Cove with my binoculars, slowly checking the sea for any sign. “No, I don’t see—oh, wait.” I paused. “There it is.”

I handed Cadence the glasses. “Straight off Pepper Cove. See?”

She saw something among the whitecaps and I focused the glasses for her. “Yes. Yes, I see it. Like a metal fence?”

“That’s it,” I said. Warmth spread through me. How good it felt to have someone else finally see it.

Cadence reached out one hand to me. “Quick. Come with me.”

She hurried down the hill to the beach, pulling me behind her, and followed the phone line to the call box.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She lifted the receiver and turned the crank on the box until a male voice answered.

“Shore Patrol Main Station,” I heard the voice through the phone. “What is the nature of your call, Chilmark Eighteen?”

“This is Cadence Smith, and Major Gilbert has asked me to report that a U-boat has been spotted just off Pepper Cove.”

“Not the one Briar Smith is fantasizing about.”

“Yes, the very same,” Cadence said coolly. “Briar Smith is my sister, and yes, she’s been right about it all along. Please send immediate water assistance.”

“Best we can do is scare it off—”

“I urge you to do so immediately. With what is happening on our North Shore beaches this morning, I’d hate to have to tell the major it couldn’t be done.”

“Roger, Miss Smith. Right away.”

I smiled as my sister hung up the phone. Tom would have loved to see that.

We started back up the hill, and before we’d gone even halfway, the whir of a Coast Guard cutter’s engine caught our attention; we turned to watch as it made a wide sweep through Pepper Cove.

Cadence took my hand in hers. “That was something I should have done eons ago,” she said. “But better late than never.”

We continued up the hill to Peter, Bess, and Margaret, who were eager for the binoculars. Even with the naked eye we could see the mock invasion starting, and the breath caught in my throat as we watched the beaches along the North Shore. Sunlight had breached the dunes, and fleets of ships appeared in Vineyard Sound, approaching our island so silently, amphibious boats like none I’d ever seen, flat-hulled and open, plowing through the surf. One hit the beach and disgorged its men, full packs on their backs, and then another hit the beach, and another.

Waves of troops swarmed ashore, avoiding enemy machine-gun fire—blanks, of course. Explosions shook the earth as red bombs and smoke screens blasted into the sky, and what must have been flour-bag grenades gave the action a touch of realism. Flare rockets shot into the sky, and massive white balloons floated like dirigibles above the beach.

“What are those balloons?” Cadence asked.

“Barrage balloons. Tethered to the beach. They’re used to protect troops on the ground from hostile aircraft,” I said, not accustomed to Cadence asking me questions and actually listening to the answers. “They raise steel cables from the ground to deter enemy planes.”

I focused my binoculars on a group of top military brass, generals and admirals, as they stood on a bluff overlooking it all, watching troops dash across the sand and take cover in bushes along the shore. Was Major Gil there with them or down on the beach with his men?

Planes roared overhead, dropping paratroopers along the dunes behind the beach to support the ground forces and the medical units swarming in with supplies. Soon they would be doing it for real on another beach somewhere, perhaps in North Africa or along France’s vast coastline, having practiced on our beach. Our boys.

I was overcome by the enormity of it all. It might be too late for Tom, but Gil’s men would have a fighting chance when they had to storm the beaches of Le Havre or Calais or wherever they landed to battle Hitler.

“I guess Gil wasn’t the spy,” I said to Cadence. “Sorry I suspected him.”

Cadence turned to me. “Let’s not waste our time on regrets.” She took my hand as we watched America’s finest storm the beach and fan out across Martha’s Vineyard. “Life is short. Tom would have wanted us to enjoy every minute of it.”