CHAPTER NINE   INTO THE MARSHES

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.