The Ebbing Tide by Elisabeth Ogilvie Page A

“What’s the matter?”
    â€œNothin’, except that the boat’s here with the mine expert from Boston! Franny says they’re gonna tow the thing ashore and take it apart on the beach!”
    â€œOh . . . Well, thanks for telling me, Thea.”
    â€œAin’t you goin’ down to watch?” Thea asked in shrill incredulity.
    â€œI don’t think so—”
    â€œHe’s the cutest thing I ever see in a uniform, that expert. Well, so long!” There was a sound of Thea’s high heels trotting through the house, the doors banged again. Joanna went into Dennis Garland’s room because it was the nearest, and sat down on the bed. She felt suddenly weak; the back of her neck was wet with sweat under her hair.
    She wasn’t afraid because they were going to take the mine apart, but it was the dream. She got up again, feeling light-headed, and smoothed out the spread. From there she went into Owen’s room. There was enough work here for a half-hour. But the windows looked down to the harbor, and she was drawn to them as irrevocably as a nail to a magnet.
    The day was full of April’s uncertain sunshine and when she opened the windows the cool air smelled even more strongly of spring. She leaned out, looking over the tops of the white lilac bushes and the spruce windbreak, over and beyond the fish houses, and saw the Coast Guard cutter riding at anchor at the harbor mouth, its gray paint washed in sunlight. The mine was gone from Stevie’s mooring, and that meant they had taken it to the beach.
    The village was deserted. There was nothing in sight that moved except the gulls, and the blowing grass, and the water that surged and withdrew endlessly on the shore. Everyone was at the beach.
    She went downstairs, slipped on her coat, and collected Jamie from his mudpies on the back doorstep.
    â€œGoin’ to see a boat?” he asked eagerly, trotting along beside her.
    â€œYes, a boat,” she said. She walked fast, as if she couldn’t wait to get there, now that she had made up her mind to go see what was going on. The men had towed the mine in to the foot of the beach, and everyone stood around on the wet, smooth stones that shone faintly in the morning sun. Lying in the wash of the retreating tide, the mine was about five feet long, and there was some sort of mechanism built on one side. A very young seaman and a youthful lieutenant, both in rubber boots, stood ankle-deep in the water and stared at the mechanism.
    The officer looked up, grinned at the nearest knot of men, and pushed back his cap. “That’s a new one on me,” he said candidly. “And I’m supposed to know ‘em all.”
    â€œYou think it’s German?” Owen asked.
    The lieutenant shrugged. “I can’t tell. We’ll go to work on it, anyway.” The sailor waded ashore to a tool kit lying on the stones and opened it up.
    â€œWhere’s the best place to be,” Leonie demanded, “if that things liable to go off? Should I turn off my oil burner?”
    â€œLady,” said the lieutenant, “if that thing went off, it wouldn’t matter where you were. And I wouldn’t worry about the oil burner, if I were you.”
    Joanna stood at one side, away from the others, watching the mine with fascination. She could see it as it had appeared in her dream and in a way, this was as horrible. It lay half in the water like some great, vicious sea monster that has been beached but is still deadly. Jamie, to whom beach stones and water presented one fixed idea, pulled to get free, and automatically she picked him up.
    This is what faces Nils , she thought. Torpedoes, mines, bombs and then the Japs themselves . His bloody head on the water, his bloody head without a face, and she couldn’t put out a hand to save him.
    Inside her, as she watched, the sickness grew swiftly and quietly, until she felt like a cold, bloodless shell enclosing