Nick of Time Read online

  Feeling the slightest twinge of guilt, Nick opened the thick volume and began thumbing through its yellowed pages. And it was immediately apparent that, indeed, his father was no secret bird fancier. As he rapidly skimmed the book he saw that every day his father was carefully noting the daily comings and goings, the “migrations,” of every single German vessel moving through the Channel!

  The “migratory birds” were nothing less than the great German liners, merchant vessels and warships steaming out of Hamburg and the Rhine and migrating across the Channel! His eye falling to the bottom of the page, he saw this startling notation in his father’s hand:

  Documentation delivered: First March 39, 0800 hrs, believed Alpha-Class U-boat sighting vicinity Greybeard Island bearing 230 degrees, west, increased activity all sectors day and night. Thor acknowledge and forward W.S.C.

  Thor? The beautiful power launch he’d seen slipping in and out of the harbor these last few weeks? And who, or what, was W.S.C.? Or, for that matter, an Alpha-Class U-boat?

  Adding to the deepening mystery, Nick saw that there was another secret or two hidden in the drawer as well. Although he could scarcely credit it, at the back of the drawer there was a nickel-plated Webley & Scott revolver, .45 caliber. Picking it up carefully, Nick noticed that it was loaded. His father owned a gun, a loaded gun? Setting the heavy revolver down gently atop a stack of papers, he took a deep breath and reached into the drawer again. The gun had been lying atop a packet of letters, bound with red ribbon. Nick removed the letters, thinking, “in for a penny, in for a pound.” Each envelope had the word “Chartwell” engraved in the upper left-hand corner. Each was addressed to his father, Greybeard Light, Greybeard Island. He dared not open a single one, though he was powerfully tempted.

  Chartwell, Nick knew from the newspapers, was the name of the country house in Kent that belonged to Winston Spencer Churchill! Yes, yes, grand old W.S.C. himself!

  Nick, struggling to contain his excitement, carefully returned everything to the drawer just as he’d found it. First the packet of letters from Churchill. On top of the letters, the loaded pistol. And finally the heavy leather binder. Hold on, had the title been facing him, or away? Away, as he remembered. At the slightest pressure of his fingertips, the secret drawer slid silently shut, locking with a soft click. Staring fixedly at the spot where the drawer had simply disappeared into the desk, he saw his mother’s little gold-framed eyeglasses on the shelf just above. He picked them up and placed them absently in his shirtfront pocket.

  Breathing hard and feeling slightly dazed, he walked over to stand at one of the many large curved windows that overlooked the channel in every direction. There was a flash of pure white brilliance as the great lighthouse beacon swept around just above him. The storm had by now moved off to the east, over the coastal fields of France. It was still lighting up the sky with crackling electricity, but it was nothing compared to the currents flowing through young Nicholas McIver at that very moment. Maybe he’d been wrong, he thought. Just moments ago he’d been feeling sorry for himself, stuck out here on a rock where nothing ever happened. Well, something was happening, that much was sure.

  He looked down at the vast black top of the Channel, stretching away now under a moonlit sky. As usual, there was no shortage of the thin white trails, scribbled across the Channel’s surface in an eastward direction. But now they seemed to have acquired vast importance. Now he knew what they were. They were German submarines. They were the dreaded U-boats, slipping out of Germany and beneath the waves of his peaceful Channel, perhaps toward England. If his father and W.S.C. were correct, of course.

  He shuddered at the little chill of fear, and the sudden sour taste of tobacco in his mouth reminding him that his father’s pipe remained clenched between his jaws.

  His own father, who built sturdy little sailboats that never leaked, and who laughed and told funny stories when he tucked him into his bed every night, was a spy! This man who tended roses on summer days and recited Wordsworth on wintry nights was a spy! One who kept a revolver—a loaded revolver—in a secret drawer and who was by all accounts engaged in this secret espionage on behalf of the great Winston Churchill himself. His own father! It was the most wonderful thing imaginable. Maybe he could scare up a little adventure on this old island after all!

  “Mother!” he cried at the top of his lungs and racing down the stairs three at a time. “Mother, I’ve found your eyeglasses! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  CHAPTER III

  Nazis in the Strawberry Patch

  · 4 June 1939 ·

  AT THE GREYBEARD LIGHT

  A cold, wet nose prying under his chin brought Nick McIver straight up in bed next morning. It was his reliable alarm clock, Jip, who lathered his cheeks with kisses, then bounded off the bed and down to breakfast as was his custom. Through sleepy eyes, Nick saw the dappled sunlight already at play upon his bedcovers. As was his own habit, he swallowed a deep gulp of the briny sea air pouring through the open window. The taste of the tangy air and the sight of the blue channel far below was like having life itself for breakfast. And life, for Nick, was now full of promise.

  He had to believe that the view from his room high atop the lighthouse was probably the most splendid in all of England. How many other boys had complete command of the English Channel in all directions from their bedroom windows? From his towering crow’s nest, he could monitor seagoing traffic to all points of the compass. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he was pleased to see the white-hulled French frigate Belle Poule out of Calais, steaming once more for her home port. He leaned farther out the window.

  Glorious.

  The morning sky had been scrubbed clean of all but a few puffy cottonballs and the sea stretched away far below, a rolling carpet of royal blue littered with whitecaps. In the air, great whirlwinds of terns and phalaropes and storm petrels wheeled about, barking at each other and diving straight and true at each flash of silver in the ocean below.

  Nick craned his head out farther still, looking in all directions for anything unusual in the morning’s seagoing traffic. He saw the Maracaya, a rusty tub out of Cartagena, making her sluggish run up to Portsmouth or Devon, smoke drifting lazily from her stacks. Business as usual, he thought, oddly comforted.

  Nick smiled, lay back against his pillow, clasped his hands behind his head, and considered the exciting turn his life had suddenly taken. Overnight, it seemed, he’d outgrown this little whitewashed room full of childish, boyish things. He now lived in a grown-up world of spies and secrets and submarines. He was pretty sure that spies didn’t get in trouble for being late for supper.

  His eyes drifted up to the shelf on the wall beyond the foot of his bed. It was sagging with books and boyhood treasures. Nick’s ancient brass spyglass, bequeathed to him by his great-great-grandfather, the most prized of all.

  In those days, Nick thought with a sigh, the McIvers had been sea captains. The old telescope was especially beloved because of the faint initials NM on the eyepiece focus ring. Running his fingers over the worn letters, he liked to imagine his salty old namesake heading into battle against the French, manning the helm of an English man-of-war. His ancestors had been men of the sea, real heroes, just like the great Admiral Lord Nelson himself! The sea, that’s where heroes were born and bred, and Nick longed for the salty life with all his heart.

  Last night’s book was still splayed upon his bedcovers. It was an eyewitness account of Admiral Lord Nelson’s tragic death, standing on the quarterdeck of his flagship Victory at Trafalgar. Nelson, just forty-seven years old, had cruelly been brought down by a French sharpshooter, hanging in the topgallant crosstrees of a French man-of-war.

  The four brightly polished stars on the English Sea Lord’s chest had made him an easy target. England’s greatest hero had fallen, his blood mingling with the tears of his comrades as he lay upon the deck, dying.

  Reading and rereading the passage, Nick always felt his hero’s death keenly, with a sadness usually reserv
ed for family.

  There was a fleet of little wooden ships beneath his bed. Nick had fought and refought all of Nelson’s great sea battles. All except Nelson’s last, of course. Nick had decided Trafalgar would be the last battle fought with his wooden fleet, a final tribute to his boyhood hero before he put the toys of childhood away forever.

  Nelson the Strong, Nelson the Brave, Nelson the Lord of the Sea.

  Suddenly, Nick’s bedroom door swung inward with a bang, causing him to sit bolt upright in bed for the second time that morning. There stood his almost seven-year-old sister, Kate. She had one of her many raggedy dolls under her arm and Nick noticed this one had the same big blue eyes and bouncy red curls as his sister did. The little half smile on her face meant he was in some kind of trouble. He’d only had about six years of peace in his life, the ones before his sister had been born, and most of his waking hours were spent trying to keep just a half step ahead of her.

  “Oh. Hullo, Nicky,” she said, leaning against the doorway. “Are you still sleeping?”

  “Tell me something, Kate,” he said through a yawn. “Seriously. Have you ever, ever, known anyone to sleep sitting straight upright? Think about it.”

  “Um, well, yes, actually,” she said, “I have.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a vexation,” Nick said, quoting Mother’s favorite word. “Who on earth sleeps sitting straight upright?”

  “Father, that’s who. In church. Every single Sunday morning!” Kate said, eyes blue as cornflowers crinkling in total victory.

  “Oh,” Nick said, frowning. “Right.” Christmas! Hardly awake for five minutes and already she’d gotten the better of him! It was going to be a long day. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “Well, for your information I am not still sleeping.”

  “That’s good because Father wants to know something,” Kate said, swinging her doll lazily by the hair.

  “What’s that?” Nick asked, covering another yawn with the back of his hand.

  “Well, he’d like to know if you plan to sleep all day or if you’re coming down to—”

  “Oh. Breakfast,” Nick said, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Somehow, having gone to sleep without any supper, he’d managed to forget all about breakfast. “Right. Coming down, straightaway. I’m starving.” Pushing his hair out of his eyes, he tried to recall where he’d thrown his trousers.

  “By the way, Nicky?” she asked, twirling the doll in a tight little arc. “Do you believe in Nazis?”

  “Why, I guess I do,” Nick said, pulling his well-worn summer trousers on, two legs at a time. “Much as anything.”

  “Do you know what Nazis look like?”

  “I suppose I’d know a Nazi sure enough if I saw one up close, Kate,” Nick replied. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, we’re supposed to keep a watch out for them, that’s all,” she said with great seriousness. “We’re going to be birdwatchers, just like Papa. All of us. You, me, even Mummy. That’s what Father wants to talk to you about. He already talked to us about them. Mummy doesn’t believe in Nazis, I don’t think. And Father says Mummy shouldn’t go snooping about in his secret drawers looking at his big birdwatcher’s book if she—oh, race you to the bottom of the stairs, Nicky!”

  She’d seen the stormy look on her brother’s face and decided to beat a hasty retreat down to the kitchen.

  “Hold on,” Nick said. The birdwatcher’s book? “He, he thinks it was Mummy found the secret drawer and, what—hold on a tick will you!” But his sister was already halfway back down the twisting stairway. Nick charged out after her, pulling his shoes on as he ran. “Kate! Come back here! Wait! Don’t—” But she had too much of a head start on him and was already at the kitchen table when Nick burst into the sunfilled room.

  And there, on the kitchen table, just where he’d feared it might be, was the faded red leather logbook from the secret drawer upstairs. On the table right between his parents, who sat staring at each other in stony silence above it. And look at little Katie with the big smile on her face.

  “It was me,” Nick said simply. They all turned to stare at him.

  “What do you mean, Nick?” his father asked, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “I opened the drawer. I took out the book. I didn’t mean to look inside it, Father, I just, I couldn’t help it. I was looking for Mother’s spectacles and I pushed the little button and then the drawer just popped out. I didn’t mean to look, but—I’m sorry, Father, really I am.”

  “Thank you, Nicholas,” his mother said smiling at him. “I’ve been trying to tell the old boy I wasn’t his culprit, but you know your father.” She delicately patted a spot of jam from the corner of her mouth and added, “Well, the cat’s out of the bag at any rate, isn’t it? At least we don’t all have to go on pretending to believe in this silly ‘birdwatching’ business! Isn’t that right, dear husband?”

  Nick’s father gave his mother one of his looks and said, “Well, I certainly knew somebody had been looking at it because the log was put back in the drawer upside down and—well—” He stopped himself and looked at his wife with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry, old thing. I should have known it was young Mr. Curiosity Shop here and not—”

  “No harm done, my darling,” Emily interrupted. She rose from the table and stood behind her husband, nuzzling his head with playful kisses. “In fact, quite the opposite!” Motioning to Katie, she added, “Come along, Katherine, and bring your berry basket. I’m going to need your help if I’m to get that strawberry pie into the oven in time for supper.”

  His sister slid by him, obviously a bit disappointed there hadn’t been more of a row and that Nicholas hadn’t gotten into more serious trouble. Kate didn’t necessarily try to cause trouble herself, but she was always quite happy to see it come along. Provided, of course, that it was her brother, and not Kate herself, who was the focus of it. Luckily, that was usually the case.

  Nick McIver never looked for trouble, it seemed to look for him.

  “Sit up straight and eat your porridge, Nicholas,” his father said sternly. “I want a word with you, young man.” Nick saw his sister’s expression brighten instantly. She imagined he was really in for it now, and she was probably right. She gave him a knowing smile as she rose from the table and was shocked to see the pink tip of her brother’s tongue dart from his mouth.

  “Mother! Nicky stuck his tongue out at me and—”

  “I did not! I was only getting a bit of porridge that—”

  “Nicholas, behave yourself! Oh, Angus, by the way,” Emily called to his father, as she waited by the kitchen door for Kate to collect her basket.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll sound the alarm if we discover any Nazis hiding in the strawberry patch! Won’t we, Katie?” She laughed and sailed out the door, her big straw basket dangling gaily from her arm. Nick could hear her laughter all the way down the garden path.

  Nick’s father looked at him. For a second, Nick feared the worst. But then Kate flew out the door, basket on arm, singing about Nazis in the strawberry patch and Angus’s face broke into a broad grin. But his father’s grin soon faded and he pushed the red logbook across the table toward his son.

  “You’ve read what’s in here, I suppose,” Angus said.

  “Yes, Father,” Nick admitted. “Some of it. Enough to know what it is.”

  “As amusing as your dear mother seems to find all of this, I assure you it is no laughing matter.” Angus paused to relight his pipe and sat puffing it, regarding Nick thoughtfully. “I may need your help, son,” he said finally.

  “Anything, Father,” Nick replied, his eyes shining. “Anything at all!” A trill of excitement was flowing through him, unlike anything he’d ever experienced. His life, he knew, was changing before his very eyes.

  “There is a war coming, Nick,” Angus said. “A terrible war. Your mother doesn’t believe it because her brother’s in government and the government believes there’ll be no war. M
ost people feel that way and I understand Mother’s feelings. But I think war is imminent, Nick. The Germans have fooled us all. Mr. Churchill alone seems to understand England’s desperate situation. He has no power, no authority at all, but he is single-handedly trying to sound the alarm throughout England before it’s too late.”

  “Not quite single-handed though, is he, Father?” Nick asked, placing his hand on the Birdwatcher’s logbook.

  “No, I guess he’s not quite single-handed, Nick,” Angus said, with an appreciative nod to his son. “Since he’s not in government, he must rely on a group of private citizens like me for any little scrap of news about the German naval and air buildup. We’re not all one-legged lighthouse keepers tracking the sea lanes, either. There are scores of British businessmen traveling inside Germany who watch the rail lines. I know a group of schoolteachers in Dorset who watch the coastal skies every night. We’re a loose confederation of lookouts, Nicky. We work in total secrecy and report our findings directly to Churchill at his home in Kent.”

  “Why won’t the government listen to Mr. Churchill, Father?” Nick asked, his eyes wide as he imagined himself part of a vast network of spies.

  “Oh, it’s politics, son, of the worst kind,” he said, leaning back in his chair and letting a thin stream of smoke escape his lips. “Like most politicians, the Prime Minister is telling the people only what they want to hear. You see, most people are like your mother. They hate war, and rightfully so. As you know, we lost an entire generation of boys not much older than yourself in the last war. And that memory is very strong and very painful. Everyone is afraid of it happening again. Everyone wants peace so desperately that the Prime Minister and His Majesty’s government are burying their heads in the sand, pretending that if they give Hitler what he wants, he’ll go away and leave us alone.”