CHAPTER TEN
THE BEACH PARTY
It was four o’clock by the time Kitty came ashore on Palmetto Island ata landing spot a block behind her house. She sent Billy home with anarmful 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 learnedhow to make every minute count. She put the groceries in the closet andthe perishable food in the ice box, she planned the evening meal forher father and Billy, and had just put on her slacks when Vera drove upand honked the horn.
It was nice to sit back, temporarily free of responsibility, and enjoyher ride across the island with the competent Vera at the wheel. In thebasket at her feet were the ingredients for Chief Krome’s famous shrimpcreole, all except the shrimp which the boys were at that momentcatching.
The drive to the beach carried them over a half dozen bridges, spanningmarshy inlets. Finally they rolled off the pavement into a sand-ruttedroad, winding through a palmetto thicket. The station wagon turned offfinally to the hard beach, and they rolled along within a few feet ofthe tumbling breakers.
As Kitty looked across the blue-green water mottled with whitecaps, shefound it difficult to believe that enemy subs might, at that verymoment, 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 floatingashore.”
The receding tide had left part of a water-soaked bunch of bananasright in their path, while crates, bottles, empty boxes and splinteredtimbers 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 entireshore, and that the beach was even more carefully patrolled at nightthan 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 throughthe beach to join the sea. The boys had already been shrimping a coupleof hours in the shallows of this inlet. When the station wagon turned asharp bend in the beach the girls saw a curl of smoke rising beyond alarge sand dune that shielded the light of the campfire from possiblewatchers at sea.
Vera had to keep the car to a narrow strip of beach between the rollingdry dunes and the breakers. When the boys saw them pull up behind thedune they came trotting over to help unload.
“We’ve got the nicest mess of shrimp you ever saw,” boasted Ned Millerproudly.
“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 upall 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 didfind 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 hadlived in this part of the country as long as I have, you’d be used tobateaux and old boats in all sorts of nooks.”
Kitty watched Brad’s face intently during this exchange, and finallytheir eyes met. His expression implied that he would tell her morelater. There was no opportunity, however, in the next hour for them totalk 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 thesands around the campfire. Its warm glow was more than welcome in thebiting salt air. Jimmy Barnes amused them with a hair-raising talewhile they waited.
“The beach guard stopped to chat with us a few minutes ago,” Jimmybegan.
The Coast Guard Station was several miles down the coast from theMarine Base. Kitty had seen very little of those men since she came toPalmetto 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 thelivest show in America.’ Then he told us something that’ll make youreyes pop,” explained Jimmy. “About a week ago he said a sub was hitright in sight of Palmetto Island, and you’d never guess what theyfound 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 tothe bakery, and the spicy little cakes each nutrition student had beengiven as a souvenir.
“Of course nobody can blame the Bayshore Bakery,” Jimmy hastened tosay. “But it only goes to show that the U-boats are getting all sortsof supplies from our own towns. They say that bread was fresh—couldn’thave been more than a day old.”
“It’s hard to believe such things are going on,” said Lana Bright, herbig brown eyes wide as she glanced anxiously toward the eastern horizon.
In the good old days there had always been steamers or small craft onthe horizon, but now every ship that passed must be convoyed forprotection against subs. Sally and Lana had been brought up on thesouthern coast and found it hard to realize that a death-dealing enemycould encroach on their childhood playground, as they had alwaysconsidered the beach.
“And that’s still happening even after most people feel we’vepractically got the U-boat situation in hand,” commented Kitty.
“Yes, and when we take the complacent attitude that we’ve got any ofthis war business under control and sit down on the job there’s boundto be trouble,” stated Brad.
“That Coast Guard chap also told us about those oil tankers that wereattacked right off this very shore last week,” continued Jimmy.
“I heard the firing!” exclaimed Kitty. “At first I thought it wasthunder, but Dad said when he came home that a U-boat had been sunk outhere.”
“And the guard saw the whole works,” Ned told them eagerly. “He saidthe tankers were going down-coast when the sub attacked them. In twominutes he had the Coast Guard Station over his walkie-talkie, and tenminutes later our planes were dropping depth bombs. And boy, they gotthat sub! I’d have given anything to be down here! Makes me wish I’dgone into the Coast Guard!”
After hearing all this Kitty felt still more uneasy about herexperience earlier in the afternoon. Could it be possible that the manBilly had seen on the island was the same who owned that boat hidden inthe mangroves? She had noticed no boat herself, but one certainly couldhave been hidden in the dense shrubbery that overhung the water.
Kitty was relieved when their supper was ready, and the hungry boys hadbeen served. Vera poured the hot coffee, and Sally supplied them withfresh bread from the Bayshore Bakery.
“Makes you feel sort of funny, eating this bread and knowing theGermans have recently eaten bread out of the same kind of wrappers,”said Kitty, giving Brad a significant look as she handed him ahigh-piled plate.
“Let’s sit over on that palmetto log,” he suggested when she picked upher own plate.
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_“The Coast Guard Saw It All,” Ned Told Them_]
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Other couples had paired off, and Kitty was glad that at last she had achance to talk privately with Brad.
“What about that boat you saw?” she asked in a low tone when they wereseated.
“Wish the others hadn’t spread the news around.”
“Do you think it has any connection with the mysterious business we’retrailing?”
“There’s no telling. If it leaks out at the hospital that people aregetting wise
to the skulduggery it may put a temporary stop to thedirty 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 hospitalwaste.”
Kitty’s fork stopped in mid-air, and she stared speechless at Brad amoment. “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 herday, beginning with the conversation in her father’s office. “Brad, I’mconvinced Punaro is smuggling something out of the hospital with thegarbage. Who knows but what he’s the one keeping these U-boats suppliedwith fresh bread, green vegetables and stuff like that.”
“They’re getting it from somewhere, and that’s a certainty,” statedBrad. He was silent a moment, then said anxiously, “But Kitty, youshouldn’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 likethat alone again.”
She laughed at his fears, but her pulse beat a little faster because ofhis 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 firedfrom the mangroves, and nobody would ever have known what had become ofyou two.”
“But I had to know where that barge took the stuff, what the generalsituation was. I didn’t even think about being nervous—that is, nottill 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 inrubber 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 enemyboats. We’ve already caught several of the native fishermen round herein the pay of enemy spies. No doubt there’re still plenty of othersfree 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 theirvery 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 fishingboats all along the coast were supplying German subs with gasolineright under the nose of the authorities.”
“And all of us so skimped for gasoline!”
“Then the government took over most of the fishing boats, andconditions improved.”
Kitty leaned closer and said with determination, “And Brad, we’re goingto put a stop to the dirty work going on at our hospital! If I can’tgive 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 morecertain 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 manwho 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’sterribly upset over not being able to get the incinerator fixed. Hesays 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 wasthe work of saboteurs. Poor fellow, he almost got a bob-tail for ithimself. If he hadn’t had such a wonderful record for five years back Iguess 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 outof order to give a free hand to the spies in getting the stuff out ofthe hospital and into the marshes, where it can be picked up by theenemy.”
Kitty felt the goose flesh prickle along her spine. She had neverdreamed when she came to Palmetto Island and went into Canteen workthat she would find herself in the midst of such dangerous intrigue.
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