When Kitty told Hazel about the shortage of girls at the USO on that stormy night her friend said, “Stop by for me next time you go to Canteen. My evenings are rather lonely. I’ll be glad to help entertain the boys.”
“I’ll have to get a card for you, but that won’t be any trouble,” said Kitty.
However, Hazel’s remark about her lonely evenings left Kitty somewhat at sea. Her father was away from home several evenings a week, and she had thought he was spending them with Hazel. Now she felt she had been mistaken.
Next time Kitty was on duty at the Snack Bar she went over to the hospital for Hazel, and together they walked the five blocks to the USO hall. As they walked along the main street in the twilight they caught glimpses of the docks, with their dimmed boat lights at each street intersection.
“I love living here, don’t you?” said Kitty.
“Under different circumstances it would be quite an interesting post.”
“Under different circumstances?” Kitty’s tone implied her puzzlement.
“I’m in rather an awkward spot, you know. My brother had a very unpleasant time here—was blamed for something of which he was innocent.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Naturally I still feel the cloud hanging over me. I’ll never be quite happy till my brother is cleared.”
“Is there anything I can do? I wish I could help.”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing anyone can do outside the service.”
Kitty wanted to ask for more details, but the tone of Hazel’s last remark suggested that the subject was closed. In fact she felt very much surprised that her friend had been as frank as she had about the matter.
At the USO hall they separated for a while, Hazel to help amuse the boys while Kitty went into the Canteen quarters. When she slipped off her coat and put on her apron, she went out to the bar to find Ned Miller waiting for her. He seemed as bright as a sunny day after a long rainy spell.
“Miss Kitty, you’ll never guess what’s happened!” he exclaimed.
“Your wife and baby aren’t flying to Palmetto Island already?”
“Oh, no, nothing so marvelous as that, but surprising enough.”
“Then spill the news, Ned, and don’t keep me in suspense,” she encouraged.
“The Harpers have asked me to be godfather for their son.”
“Oh, Ned, that’s super!”
“Imagine me a father and a godfather all in one week!”
Judy, Sally and Mrs. Evans drew nearer to add their congratulations to Kitty’s.
“You’ve all got to drink a hot chocolate with me to celebrate,” continued Ned proudly. “It’s on me this time!”
Mrs. Evans poured the chocolate, and topped it with an unusually generous spoonful of whipped cream.
“This is on the Canteen,” she said, and they all made merry over the great event.
“You must all come to the christening a week from Sunday at the little chapel a block from the hospital.”
Hazel came presently and took Ned off for some dancing. As Kitty watched them go there was a tender light in her eyes. How happy she felt to realize that she had made the sun break through the fog for at least one boy!
During a lull in business some time later she drew up a stool and watched the activities in the large hall. At the right in an open space around the piano a dozen or more couples danced while a marine kept the keys warm with his nimble fingers. In the space directly in front of the bar were tables where couples and foursomes played all manner of games. Some boys lolled on couches or in large armchairs with books or magazines, while others sat at desks against the wall, writing letters home, apparently unmindful of the confusion around them.
Presently Kitty’s survey was checked as her gaze came to rest once more on Lieutenant Cary playing chess again. This time the players were sitting so she could see the profiles of both men. Instantly she recognized the physician’s partner as the dark-faced boy, Punaro, whom she had seen on the bus that memorable night before the big fire at the cannery.
The last time she had noticed Cary here he was playing with Chief Commissary Steward Krome. She wondered why he was on such intimate terms with the galley staff. Presently she was aware that Hazel Dawson had returned to the bar and was sitting on a stool across the counter.
“Does Lieutenant Cary come here very often?” she asked.
“Only occasionally.”
“Does he always play chess with someone from the galley?”
Kitty sent Hazel a surprised glance. “Yes, both times I’ve seen him playing. The other night it was the Chief Commissary Steward, Krome.”
“I can understand that. Krome has his rank. But tonight he buddies with the boy who empties our wastebaskets.”
Kitty bent closer and lowered her voice. “Do you know anything about him—the Punaro fellow?”
Hazel showed surprise at the question as she countered, “Why do you ask? Do you know anything about him?”
“He was here the other night.” She thought of adding that they had come home on the same bus the night of the cannery fire, but caution silenced her. There were too many around who might have keen ears.
Brad came in later.
“You’re almost a stranger,” Kitty greeted him.
Hazel went off with one of the boys who claimed her for a dance, and Brad leaned closer.
“I was too busy to come sooner, but I wanted to get over here in time to see you home. Something to tell you.”
“I brought Hazel with me. We’ll have to take her back to the hospital before we can talk.”
“Sure.”
“Glad you came,” she added after a moment. “You can go with me to hunt up Chief Krome. He promised me that shrimp creole recipe.”
“Yeah! Sure, we want it for that picnic tomorrow.”
“They say the only way you ever get a recipe out of Krome is to go after it. He looks too easygoing to let the mild matter of a promise like that weigh on his mind.”
“Sure is nice of you Canteen girls to go down on the beach and fix that supper for us tomorrow. Ned Miller’s looking forward to it, too. You sure lifted his countenance, Kit.”
Kitty flushed. “Oh, I guess I got as big a kick out of it as he did.” There was an awkward pause and she looked about for something to change the subject. Finally she nudged Brad’s arm and whispered, “Take a look over in the south corner at those chess players.”
Brad glanced at them and whistled softly. “The trail grows warmer, Kitty.”
“Find out anything about Punaro?”
“Plenty. But we’ll save that till later. But when you see two suspected ones hobnobbing it begins to look as though something is brewing.”
An hour before closing time Kitty saw the chess players leave their board and go out. They hadn’t patronized the Snack Bar all evening.
That was one night Kitty was glad when it was time to go home. She had had no opportunity for a private talk with Brad for some time, and she had much on her mind. At the hospital they left Hazel at her door and took the elevator down to the basement.
“Surely am glad you came along, Brad,” said Kitty. “I wouldn’t like to be hunting up Chief Krome at this hour of the night by myself.”
There was no one in sight when they got off the elevator at the basement floor. “I’ve never been down here before,” Kitty remarked, as she followed Brad toward the Chief Cook’s quarters.
“Quite a nifty arrangement,” Brad explained. “Extending out front this wing of the hospital is a platform running right down to a dock over the water. Supply boats come almost right up to the building. Saves an awful lot in transportation of fuel and food.”
Kitty felt no particular interest in what Brad said. She was eager to get the recipe from Krome and return to the street where she and Brad could talk without fear of being overheard. Brad knocked on Krome’s door several times, but got no answer.
“Must be out,” Kitty said, disappointed.
They were about to turn away when Ned Miller came running down the stairs. “Looking for Krome?” he asked, seeing them outside the Chief Cook’s door.
“He promised me that shrimp creole recipe, and they say I’ll have to run him down to get it,” Kitty explained.
“I’ll go ask him for it for you,” offered Ned, eager to be of service to Kitty. “I saw him up in the recreation room as I came through, playing chess with Lieutenant Cary.”
“Oh, you did!” exclaimed Kitty.
But Ned was already hurrying back toward the stairs. They were about to follow when Brad said, “Come, while we’re down here I’ll show you the dock.”
Not wanting to be rude enough to tell him it didn’t interest her in the least, Kitty followed Brad toward the double doors that stood wide open at the end of the cement passage. There was only a shaded light outside. Her first impression was a confused one of several barges huddled against the dock piled high with boxes, crates, kegs and all manner of freight.
Then suddenly she saw a man at one of the barges. Her pulse quickened when she noted it was filled with refuse. The man had his back to them, pushing something onto the barge. It seemed to be a large box, but Kitty had only a glimpse for the man threw a strip of old sail over it and turned sharply at the sound of their footsteps. As he came toward them there was indignation in his very stride.
“What do you want here?” he growled.
As he spoke and came nearer the glow from the hallway, Kitty recognized Punaro, who less than an hour ago had been playing chess in the USO hall with Lieutenant Cary.
“We’re looking for Krome,” said Brad with aggravating nonchalance.
“He’s not down here,” stated Punaro. “You’ll find him up in the recreation room playing chess with Dr. Cary.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” Brad said, and Kitty wondered why his thanks was so profuse.
When they went down the hall they found Ned returning from above. “Chief said if I’d bring his recipe book he’d find the thing you want and let you copy it,” Ned explained. “He’s just about to checkmate Lieutenant Cary and can’t leave his game right now.”
When Ned went into Krome’s quarters Kitty whispered to Brad, “Did you notice anything queer out there?”
“Plenty.”
“Punaro throwing a strip of sail over a box on the barge?”
“You’d make a grand detective, Kitty!”
“And I noticed more, but we’d better wait till we get outside to talk.”
Lieutenant Cary sent them an unwelcome look when they went upstairs, but Krome was quite good-natured about the interruption. He handed Kitty his own pen and a bit of notepaper on which to write the recipe. He chuckled and advised her to spice it up sharply for the boys.
“What Do You Want Here?” Punaro Asked Them
When at last they were outside in the cool moonlight Kitty slipped her arm through Brad’s and whispered, “There’s something mighty queer going on.”
“You’re telling me!”
“I wouldn’t trust that Punaro one minute! I’ll bet you a hundred dollars he’s sneaking something out of the hospital on that barge.”
“What and where to, it now becomes our job to find out.”
“Did you notice anything queer about his knowing instantly where Krome was?”
“I’ll say. It looks to me as though Cary got Krome tied up in that chess game while Punaro does what he pleases in the galley.”
“That’s a wise deduction, Mr. Holmes, but Dr. Watson noticed something else.”
Brad laughed in spite of his uneasiness. “I’d call you the Sherlock Holmes and me Dr. Watson. You were the first to begin picking up clues.”
“Strange how so many things have come up to make me know something’s wrong. Even Ned Miller warned me the other day when I mentioned Punaro—that I mustn’t ever let him bring me home, that he’s not my kind.”
“Ned’s in a position to know, Kitty, right down there working with him. And say, this is what I wanted to tell you up at the Snack Bar.”
“Go ahead. I’ve been bustin’ to hear.”
“I noticed Punaro’s shoes the other day when he came in to empty our wastebasket. There’s a scorched streak across them, but he’s evidently tried to polish it away.”
“And you really think it could have been caused by a spark igniting spilled gasoline or kerosene?”
“It’s possible, yes. But doing work like his, it might have been spilled acid, too. I’m afraid the circumstantial evidence there is far too weak to blame him for the cannery fire.”
“Of course. But later developments seem to prove that my suspicions may not be entirely unfounded.”
“Say, you were going to tell me something else you noticed out there just now.”
“Do you realize he called Cary, doctor, not lieutenant?”
“You’re right—he did!”
“Everybody else round here calls him lieutenant—those who’ve only known him since he came into the service.”
“I’ll say your perception is very keen, Kitty. It seems proof that Cary and Punaro knew each other before they came into the service. I’ll try to find out where they both hail from.”
“Do, Brad, if you can. This thing is beginning to look very serious. We’ve got to find out what it’s all about.”
Kitty had so much on her mind that night she couldn’t sleep until after one o’clock. She didn’t even hear the alarm clock next morning, and was roused by the sunlight streaming across her bed. She pulled on her bathrobe and ran to the kitchen.
“What time is it?” she asked Jane.
“Eight o’clock. Yo’ Pah done et breakfus and went to de horsepital.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Wa’n’t no use to bother you. You wus sleepin’ jus’ like a sho nuff kitten.”
“But there was something special I wanted to talk to Dad about this morning.”
“You’ll see him tonight.”
“But I’m going with a bunch of Canteen workers to fix supper for the boys on the beach late this afternoon.”
Kitty had just started back to her room when the phone rang. She found it was Hazel Dawson.
“Listen, dear, I heard you say once you always go to town on Saturday morning,” came her friend’s voice over the wire.
“Yes, I do. Is there anything I can get you?”
“If it wouldn’t be too much bother, I’d like you to get me a set of chessmen.”
“A set of chessmen?” Kitty could not hide her surprise. Chess had become intimately associated in her mind with Cary and his partners.
Hazel laughed. “In my old age I’ve suddenly decided to become a chess fan.”
“It does seem to be quite a fad around here,” admitted Kitty.
“I haven’t any way to get the money to you before you go.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Kitty. “What price do you want to pay?” She recalled that her grandfather’s ivory chessmen had been very valuable.
“Oh, the cheapest ones you can find will do for me, plastic or wood will be all right. I only want them so I can learn the game.”
As Kitty put down the phone after this unusual request, she wondered what was behind it. She had no doubt that Hazel’s motive in learning the game had some connection with Lieutenant Cary’s chess playing. Yet the two made no pretense at friendship.
Though she had missed her father at breakfast Kitty was determined to see him before she went to town, so she decided to go to the hospital. By nine she had eaten breakfast and was ready for the weekly shopping expedition.
“Is you gwine to tek Billy to town wid you?” asked Jane seeing Kitty dressed so early.
“Yes. He has to have a new pair of shoes. Hope I can get some non-rationed ones. He’s already used my last coupon.”
“Dat boy can sho stomp out dem shoes.”
“You’d better wake him up and give him breakfast by the time I come back. I’m going to run up to the hospital to see Dad a few minutes.”
All the guards and attendants at the hospital knew Kitty as the daughter of the Chief Pharmacist’s Mate. She always gave them a smile, a jaunty salute and passed in without comment. A few minutes later she slipped noiselessly into her father’s office. He was busy going over some order sheets with a junior officer, so Kitty sat down near the door till he was at leisure.
“See you in a few minutes, Kitten,” her father said when the petty officer went out and his stenographer came up with some letters to be signed.
Kitty thought how wonderful it was to live where she could occasionally drop in on her father at his work. He had not finished the letters when the door was opened wide and to her amazement young Punaro stepped in and picked up her father’s half-filled wastebasket. He didn’t see her till he turned to go back to the hall, where he had left the large canvas-sided container which he rolled along the halls to collect trash.
By the ominous look he sent her she knew instantly he recognized her as the same girl who had come upon him unexpectedly at the galley dock last night. Before he came back with the empty basket her father called her to his desk. He waited a moment till Punaro closed the door.
“What’s on your mind, Kitten?” he asked, dropping his professional manner like a mask.
“Plenty,” she said. “I don’t like that Punaro fellow coming into your office for one thing.”
Her father threw back his head and laughed. “Now, now, you mustn’t be suspicious of everyone who has a slightly olive cast to his complexion.”
“He has a very Italian name, too.”
“You seem to forget they’re fighting on our side now.”
“Yes, but some of them here are still friends of the Hitlerites.”
Knowing from experience that money could often make a person forget unpleasant things Mr. Carter took out his billfold. “Guess you’d like a little change for the trip to town.”
Kitty laughed. “You’ve never known me to refuse money, have you, Dad?”
“Not yet.” He handed her a bill. “You might get Billy that ball and mitt he’s been begging for. It’ll soon be warm enough for him to play outdoors all day. Maybe the ball will keep him from climbing so many trees.”
Kitty smiled. “He’s a regular monkey when it comes to trees. When I take him to the park he picks out the tallest and climbs up it like a cat.”
“I’m afraid Nina spoiled him, letting him climb that old magnolia in our yard back home.”
“Dear Aunt Nina, how I miss her.” Kitty sighed as she put the money into her purse. “Yours is the second order for playthings I’ve had this morning.”
“Why? Billy ordered something else?”
“Not Billy. Hazel Dawson wants me to get her a set of chessmen.”
“Hazel wants a set of chessmen,” he said, puzzled.
“Seems to be getting quite a fad. Lieutenant Cary plays every time he comes to the USO hall.”
“Oh.” Mr. Carter’s tone carried a world of meaning.
“Oddly enough it’s generally with someone from the galley. First it was Chief Krome and last night it was that young fellow, Punaro, who was in here just now.”
Kitty’s watching eyes caught the surprised look that came into her father’s face.
“Dad, how long has Punaro been in the service?”
“I don’t know. Two or three months, I imagine.”
She felt he was annoyed with her, but couldn’t keep from saying, “It doesn’t take so many months for them to show their true colors, does it?”
“Why so much interest in this raw recruit?”
Kitty Caught the Surprise on Her Father’s Face
“Some things have happened recently to stir my curiosity,” she answered evasively. Her father’s attitude repelled her further confidences, nor did she feel this was the place to talk too much. But she was determined to learn the one fact for which she had come.
“I must go now, Dad. But tell me one more thing.”
“Anything you want to know except military secrets,” he replied, becoming playful again, because she was so serious.
“Why do they haul the hospital refuse away on a barge instead of burning it in the incinerator as they do in other hospitals?”
“We had an explosion at the incinerator several weeks ago. For some reason they’ve been slow in getting it fixed.”
“I see,” said Kitty with a significant nod. “And in the meantime I suppose the garbage is hauled off somewhere in the marshes and burned?”
“That’s right.” Suddenly her father’s face became very serious, and he sent her a penetrating glance. “What are you driving at, Kitty, with all these strange questions?”
“Haven’t time to explain now,” she said evasively. For so long Kitty had had to solve her own problems, when her father was at distant stations, that she had not yet learned how to make a confidant of him. Nor did she want to run the risk of having him put a stop to her investigations. But she made bold to ask one further question.
“Do you know where they haul the garbage, Dad?”
He led her to the window and pointed across the marshes. “See that smoke on the horizon.”
“Yonder—way south?”
“That’s it. That’s where they burn it.”
“Why so far away?”
“We couldn’t stand the stench if it was too close. Even at that distance a southwest wind will bring the odor into my window. I’ll surely be thankful when they use the incinerator again.”
Kitty’s mind was clicking like a teletype machine as she left the hospital. She hadn’t used their boat in a week, and felt she was entitled to a little gasoline for explorations.
Billy looked forward to these weekly visits to town with keen delight, so Kitty didn’t have the heart to curtail his enjoyment. They paid their usual visit to the toy department at the dime store, and took a peep at the ducks in Bayshore Park. At noon they ate at a lunch counter, perched on high stools, which Billy adored. Afterward Kitty made her weekly food purchases at the grocery store on Bay Street, opposite where she always left her boat.
When the grocery boy had packed her things into the launch Kitty looked at Billy, gave him a knowing wink and asked, “Want to go exploring?”
“Oh, Kit, where?”
“You’ll see. ’Way into the marshes.”
Billy’s eyes grew round. “Into a cove or somepen, where pirates hide their booty?”
“No telling what we’ll find ’way off in the marshes.”
It was already one-thirty, and at five Vera was to pick Kitty up for the trip to the beach. She would have to do her exploring in that interval of time. She had made a careful note of the location of that smoke smudge on the horizon, as her father pointed it out from his office. However, Kitty didn’t feel sufficiently familiar with the marshy inlets to take a short cut to the spot. She decided the safest course was to return near enough to Palmetto Island to get her bearings from there, and seek out the channel through which the barge from the hospital traveled in going to the dump.
“Aren’t we gonner explore?” Billy asked in a disappointed tone when the smoke stacks of the Marine Base came into view.
“We’re going to turn off into this inlet right here,” Kitty reassured him.
A bit of wind was blowing, making whitecaps dot the deep green water. Though the weather was pleasant enough ashore, there was a sharp tang on the water that brought a glow to their cheeks.
In the narrowing inlet southwest of Palmetto Island, Kitty had to cut down her speed to keep from running aground in the curving channel. She had never been in this section of the marshes before, and she thought how easy it would be to get lost on the crisscross winding inlets that interlaced the marshy islands. Most of these green mud flats were treeless, but far off in the direction of that smoke smudge, which was her destination, the horizon was broken by palmettoes and pines.
“Where’s the pirate’s lair?” Billy finally asked, growing impatient to reach some destination.
“We’re almost there,” Kitty assured him. They were near enough now to see two or three spirals of smoke rising from a mound of rubbish dumped on a sloping shore.
Fortunately the wind was out of the east and carried smoke away from them, so Kitty had a clear view of the dump. She shivered to see buzzards circling above the smoking pile of refuse. What a fitting place, she thought, for spies to meet for their diabolical planning! Had some foreign agent met Punaro here this morning to take away that box of supplies she had noticed on the barge?
As she drew nearer she saw the rubbish was burning on an old oyster reef off the north end of a large island. The southern side was densely overgrown with palmettoes, pines, oaks and a tangled thicket of mangroves along shore.
“Get out the field glasses, Billy,” she ordered “and we’ll see if we can find any pirates.”
“Oh-h!” gurgled Billy. He made a dive for the stern locker where they kept odds and ends. It was all wonderful make-believe to him.
Kitty had slowed the launch, and before she took the glasses she cut off the motor and let the boat drift. A quick survey of the dump heap made her want to explore, even if it was a repulsive spot, but that was out of the question with Billy along. She was afraid to come even this close for fear he would pick up some germ. The very thought made her hand him the glasses and start the motor again.
Though it was already growing late she decided to take a turn around the small island. She was glad she had taken the chance when she reached the opposite side. There she found a deep, open channel, moving eastward toward the sea. Billy kept looking through the glasses toward the island while Kitty studied the channel.
“Looks deep enough to float a sub,” she thought.
“Kit, let’s go home!” exclaimed Billy, sudden terror in his voice.
“Why?”
“I saw somebody looking at us from the woods yonder. Maybe it was a pirate.”
Though Kitty took the glasses from her small brother’s hands she could see nothing in the mangrove jungle. Had it been only his vivid imagination, or had he seen someone? However, she did not tarry to find out as she gave her motor all the power it would take and headed for home.
It was four o’clock by the time Kitty came ashore on Palmetto Island at a landing spot a block behind her house. She sent Billy home with an armful of bundles to bring Jane down to help with the unloading.
There was many a job to be done in the next hour, but Kitty had learned how to make every minute count. She put the groceries in the closet and the perishable food in the ice box, she planned the evening meal for her father and Billy, and had just put on her slacks when Vera drove up and honked the horn.
It was nice to sit back, temporarily free of responsibility, and enjoy her ride across the island with the competent Vera at the wheel. In the basket at her feet were the ingredients for Chief Krome’s famous shrimp creole, all except the shrimp which the boys were at that moment catching.
The drive to the beach carried them over a half dozen bridges, spanning marshy inlets. Finally they rolled off the pavement into a sand-rutted road, winding through a palmetto thicket. The station wagon turned off finally to the hard beach, and they rolled along within a few feet of the tumbling breakers.
As Kitty looked across the blue-green water mottled with whitecaps, she found it difficult to believe that enemy subs might, at that very moment, be lurking in the cool depths.
“Somebody sent down a boat off shore in the last twenty-four hours,” said Sally. “Look at that oily scum on the water, and the junk floating ashore.”
The receding tide had left part of a water-soaked bunch of bananas right in their path, while crates, bottles, empty boxes and splintered timbers bobbed up and down on the tide.
“We have just three hours to fix our chow, eat and get out of here,” said Vera, “or I’ll never get through that sandy road without lights.”
“I suppose it is too close to the beach to use headlights in there,” said Judy.
They all knew that no lights were permitted anywhere along the entire shore, and that the beach was even more carefully patrolled at night than in the day.
“I don’t care to get stuck on a sandy road again,” said Vera.
They were to meet the boys a mile downshore where an inlet cut through the beach to join the sea. The boys had already been shrimping a couple of hours in the shallows of this inlet. When the station wagon turned a sharp bend in the beach the girls saw a curl of smoke rising beyond a large sand dune that shielded the light of the campfire from possible watchers at sea.
Vera had to keep the car to a narrow strip of beach between the rolling dry dunes and the breakers. When the boys saw them pull up behind the dune they came trotting over to help unload.
“We’ve got the nicest mess of shrimp you ever saw,” boasted Ned Miller proudly.
“How long have you been here?” asked Kitty.
“Long enough to catch something more than shrimp,” retorted Jimmy.
“You’re not ahead of us,” Sally told them. “We saw rubbish washing up all along shore. A U-boat must have hit somebody out there.”
“We don’t claim we’ve located the U-boat,” admitted Ned, “but we did find an old bateau hidden under some mangroves.”
“At least five miles from any habitation,” added Jimmy.
“Oh, I thought they had something,” said Vera with a laugh. “If you had lived in this part of the country as long as I have, you’d be used to bateaux and old boats in all sorts of nooks.”
Kitty watched Brad’s face intently during this exchange, and finally their eyes met. His expression implied that he would tell her more later. There was no opportunity, however, in the next hour for them to talk privately. The boys were already preparing the shrimp for the pot, and Kitty quickly mixed the other ingredients.
The shrimp creole was soon cooking. In the meantime they sat on the sands around the campfire. Its warm glow was more than welcome in the biting salt air. Jimmy Barnes amused them with a hair-raising tale while they waited.
“The beach guard stopped to chat with us a few minutes ago,” Jimmy began.
The Coast Guard Station was several miles down the coast from the Marine Base. Kitty had seen very little of those men since she came to Palmetto Island.
“Jim asked the chap if he didn’t get lonesome down here,” put in Ned.
“‘Lonesome,’ said the guard, ‘why man, I’ve got a box seat at the livest show in America.’ Then he told us something that’ll make your eyes pop,” explained Jimmy. “About a week ago he said a sub was hit right in sight of Palmetto Island, and you’d never guess what they found aboard.”
“Cut out the suspense, Ned, and tell us what,” Vera ordered.
“Fresh bread wrapped in Bayshore Bakery paper.”
“No, not really!” exclaimed Kitty, recalling her interesting visit to the bakery, and the spicy little cakes each nutrition student had been given as a souvenir.
“Of course nobody can blame the Bayshore Bakery,” Jimmy hastened to say. “But it only goes to show that the U-boats are getting all sorts of supplies from our own towns. They say that bread was fresh—couldn’t have been more than a day old.”
“It’s hard to believe such things are going on,” said Lana Bright, her big brown eyes wide as she glanced anxiously toward the eastern horizon.
In the good old days there had always been steamers or small craft on the horizon, but now every ship that passed must be convoyed for protection against subs. Sally and Lana had been brought up on the southern coast and found it hard to realize that a death-dealing enemy could encroach on their childhood playground, as they had always considered the beach.
“And that’s still happening even after most people feel we’ve practically got the U-boat situation in hand,” commented Kitty.
“Yes, and when we take the complacent attitude that we’ve got any of this war business under control and sit down on the job there’s bound to be trouble,” stated Brad.
“That Coast Guard chap also told us about those oil tankers that were attacked right off this very shore last week,” continued Jimmy.
“I heard the firing!” exclaimed Kitty. “At first I thought it was thunder, but Dad said when he came home that a U-boat had been sunk out here.”
“And the guard saw the whole works,” Ned told them eagerly. “He said the tankers were going down-coast when the sub attacked them. In two minutes he had the Coast Guard Station over his walkie-talkie, and ten minutes later our planes were dropping depth bombs. And boy, they got that sub! I’d have given anything to be down here! Makes me wish I’d gone into the Coast Guard!”
After hearing all this Kitty felt still more uneasy about her experience earlier in the afternoon. Could it be possible that the man Billy had seen on the island was the same who owned that boat hidden in the mangroves? She had noticed no boat herself, but one certainly could have been hidden in the dense shrubbery that overhung the water.
Kitty was relieved when their supper was ready, and the hungry boys had been served. Vera poured the hot coffee, and Sally supplied them with fresh bread from the Bayshore Bakery.
“Makes you feel sort of funny, eating this bread and knowing the Germans have recently eaten bread out of the same kind of wrappers,” said Kitty, giving Brad a significant look as she handed him a high-piled plate.
“Let’s sit over on that palmetto log,” he suggested when she picked up her own plate.
“The Coast Guard Saw It All,” Ned Told Them
Other couples had paired off, and Kitty was glad that at last she had a chance to talk privately with Brad.
“What about that boat you saw?” she asked in a low tone when they were seated.
“Wish the others hadn’t spread the news around.”
“Do you think it has any connection with the mysterious business we’re trailing?”
“There’s no telling. If it leaks out at the hospital that people are getting wise to the skulduggery it may put a temporary stop to the dirty business and throw us off the trail.”
“Where did you see that boat?” Kitty asked.
“South end of that island—opposite where they’re burning the hospital waste.”
Kitty’s fork stopped in mid-air, and she stared speechless at Brad a moment. “Why Brad, I passed that very spot today.”
“You?” he exclaimed incredulously. “What were you doing there alone?”
“Not alone. Billy was with me.” Briefly she gave him an account of her day, beginning with the conversation in her father’s office. “Brad, I’m convinced Punaro is smuggling something out of the hospital with the garbage. Who knows but what he’s the one keeping these U-boats supplied with fresh bread, green vegetables and stuff like that.”
“They’re getting it from somewhere, and that’s a certainty,” stated Brad. He was silent a moment, then said anxiously, “But Kitty, you shouldn’t have gone off there in the marshes alone.”
“Billy was with me. You forget I was practically brought up in a boat, Brad. I’m never afraid on the water.”
“But it’s dangerous now. Promise me, Kit, you won’t ever go off like that alone again.”
She laughed at his fears, but her pulse beat a little faster because of his solicitude.
“I may have to sometime, Brad. But I’ll promise to be more careful.”
“Why, anything could have happened to you. That man could have fired from the mangroves, and nobody would ever have known what had become of you two.”
“But I had to know where that barge took the stuff, what the general situation was. I didn’t even think about being nervous—that is, not till Billy told me about seeing the man through our glasses.”
They were silent while they finished their supper, then Kitty said, “Brad, I’ve always heard—that spies come ashore from the subs in rubber boats.”
“So they do.”
“But didn’t Jimmy say the one they saw was an old bateau?”
“So it was. Maybe that’s the boat that comes out to meet the enemy boats. We’ve already caught several of the native fishermen round here in the pay of enemy spies. No doubt there’re still plenty of others free and active.”
“It seems incredible that anyone could be so unpatriotic and low.”
“You don’t know people like I do, Kit. Plenty of people will sell their very souls for a little money.”
“But the risks they take! How do they get away with it?”
“You’d be surprised if you knew. Why, when we first went to war fishing boats all along the coast were supplying German subs with gasoline right under the nose of the authorities.”
“And all of us so skimped for gasoline!”
“Then the government took over most of the fishing boats, and conditions improved.”
Kitty leaned closer and said with determination, “And Brad, we’re going to put a stop to the dirty work going on at our hospital! If I can’t give all my time to my country maybe I can help in this way.”
“I’m afraid we’ve got a big job, Kit. But every day I become more certain that there’s something going on round there that is really bad.”
She glanced at him sharply. “Anything new turned up?”
He nodded. “It may or may not be important. I talked to Ivy, the man who looks after the incinerator.”
“Oh! Do you think he’s working with Punaro and maybe Lieutenant Cary?”
“No, I don’t. I believe Ivy’s on the level if ever a man was. He’s terribly upset over not being able to get the incinerator fixed. He says repair parts have come twice, and both times they didn’t fit.”
“Somebody at the factory is trying to hold up the repairs?”
“Looks that way. And Ivy swears the explosion in the incinerator was the work of saboteurs. Poor fellow, he almost got a bob-tail for it himself. If he hadn’t had such a wonderful record for five years back I guess he would have.”
“What do you think all this adds up to, Brad?”
“Seems plain as the nose on a man’s face. The incinerator is kept out of order to give a free hand to the spies in getting the stuff out of the hospital and into the marshes, where it can be picked up by the enemy.”
Kitty felt the goose flesh prickle along her spine. She had never dreamed when she came to Palmetto Island and went into Canteen work that she would find herself in the midst of such dangerous intrigue.