Free Across a War-Tossed Sea by L.M. Elliott Page B

shortage. Landlords get away with charging eight dollars a week for a one-bedroom apartment. Don’t that beat all? My parents needed to take in another couple to help pay that. Besides, Mama was so tired when she came home—after standing for eight hours with only twenty minutes for a lunch break—she had nothing left for me, she said. So she sent me here to Grandpop and Gran. I wanted to go back to our own house, but…” He lowered his voice and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “The government took it.”
    â€œWhat?” Wesley asked. “Why?”
    â€œThey’re building something secret.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œA ways yonder,” he gestured over this shoulder. “About ten mile toward Richmond Air Base and Elko.”
    â€œWhat are they building?”
    The boy shrugged. “Don’t know for sure. But I’m pretty sure I saw the shape of a plane of some kind, covered up with netting.”
    â€œYou don’t say?” Wesley wondered at that mystery for a moment. “Why would they do that?”
    The boy shrugged again. “Beats me.” So much was hushed up because of the war.
    â€œBut they just took your land?”
    â€œThat’s right. Came one day and told us and all our neighbors that we had to leave in thirty days. They tried to set us up in a trailer camp instead. ‘Shucks,’ my daddy said. He’d rather work at the docks anyway, helping with the war. Just like my uncles. Daddy has three brothers. Every last one a true-blue patriot.” He held up a finger with each description: “The youngest is training in Norfolk. He’ll ship out soon with the navy as a messman on a destroyer or an aircraft carrier. Uncle Chester is a wiper on merchant ships. He’s back and forth, on the Atlantic, dodging U-boats, taking troops the supplies they need to keep fighting. Like I said, my daddy builds fighting ships. It’s a cause with my daddy since his big brother died. Uncle Walter was out just past Norfolk, without any navy boys to protect them and…”
    The screen door opened, interrupting the boy. Alma and Ed entered, dressed in their Sunday best.
    â€œWesley!” Alma said in surprise. “Everything all right with the family?”
    â€œOh, yes.” Wesley stood up. “Mr. Ratcliff sent me to ask if you and your sons might be able to help him hay.” He explained Mr. Ratcliff’s offer of bus fare and time-and-a-half wages. “Otherwise he’ll need to hire POWs from Camp Pickett…and it’s just…well, it’ll be hard for Charles to be around Nazis.” Wesley stopped short of admitting that he didn’t exactly want to be around men who might have dropped bombs on his homeland either.
    Ed took off his fedora and suit coat and sat down heavily in a rocking chair. He was a strong man, but elderly and stiff, with deep long lines in his face from working in the sun. He undid his bow tie as he spoke. “I’ll get them word. I’m not keen on Nazis being around here myself, not after losing our boy Walter with the Atwater .”
    Wesley took in a sharp breath. Everyone knew the story of the Atwater . Its sinking was probably the most notorious torpedoing of any American cargo ship. Carrying tons of coal, the Atwater had steamed out of Norfolk all alone, its crew unaware of being shadowed by a Nazi submarine. Right after nightfall, just off Chincoteague, the U-boat opened fire, shelling the ship’s bridge and engines. The Atwate r burst into flames and sunk in fifteen minutes. But the Nazis kept firing on the crew.
    â€œNazis don’t have any hearts, I’d say,” muttered the boy. “How could they shoot at Atwater sailors when all those poor fools were trying to do was put on life preservers and jump into the water. They’d already sunk the boat and all its coal.”
    â€œThe Nazis even gunned down one of the lifeboats,” added