Archon 31

“Waiting Sea”-Continued from page 50as if in extremely slow motion. Finally, he croaked. "Torpedo!”None heard him but the sea. His puny cry vanished inthe explosion's roar.#Gentle hands tugged him down, urging him deeper.Champagne bubbles boiled around him whispering, "Comewith us, Shawn."No! Damn it, no! He fought upward. against the undertowof the sinking ship, toward the orange boundary of his ownworld.Metal shrieked beneath the sea. The ship was breaking up.Dull screech and thunder as watertight doors yielded to everincreasingpressure.... Was he imagining the screams of themen trapped in the flooding compartments?He should have seen the torpedo earlier. Hiswoolgathering had killed ...how many?"Come with us, Shawn." The caress of the sea was gentleand intimate and seductive. Watery fingers tugged him down.No! The orange was right above him now. He broke thesurface, gasped violently...and screamed amidst the burning oilfrom the tanker. The whole sea was aflame. He went underagain, all rationality and hope gone, knowing nothing but thepain and the whisper of the sea.He came to once, clinging to something in an aislebetween lakes of flame. The stern of the tanker retrained afloat,metal glowing cherry red in spots. Amazingly, men danced andscreamed amongst the flares. Somewhere beyond the tanker,an ammunition ship was tearing its own guts out, shooting offall the fireworks of the Fourth. Out in the darkness there was awhoop of horns and rumble of depth charges as the tin canwolves snarled and snapped at the enemy.Blackness returned.Awareness again. A bluishness in the east. The tanker wasgone. Oily small pools of burning oil remained. The flicker ofhuge fires defined the horizon. The convoy was miles andmiles away, maybe scattering. The sea had him now.A chwung-chwung -chwung came from behind him,growing rapidly louder. Diesels. Feebly, he turned till he sawthe lean iron shark shape come out of the dark. He saw thesilhouettes of the men on the tower, He tried to raise a hand,tried to shout, did not have the strength. The sub swam on,following the spoor of its prey. Its wake rocked him to sleep.Fingers plucked at him. Hands dragged him out of the cool,dark sea. He screamed. The pain! He had one glimpse offriendly sailors. of a motor whaleboat, of a grey destroyerbobbing in the background. He sobbed. He was one of thelucky ones.1955They finally talked him into going to the seashore- "About timeyou faced up to it." Gladys cold him when the kids were out ofhearing. "You can't let it rule you. You're not the only man whohad a ship knocked out from under him."All the old arguments. All irrefutable. He did have to faceit, to conquer it.There was a breeze off the ocean, salt and cool. It broughtback that wartime sea. He found himself listening.... He startedshaking. Gladys put both hands on his arm and pushed himforward. The boys put the umbrella up and charged the water,their shouts drifting back like old battlecries fading into themists of time. "C'mon, Dad. C'mon."He Looked at the plain of blue and the far horizon andfroze. He began shaking his head."It's all right," Gladys said. "Just sit under the umbrella. I'llride herd on the monsters”.Umbrella and blanket were too close to the water.After one gut-wrenching minute of trying to watch hisbrood, he turned his back, stretched out on his stomach, andtried to escape into sleep.The surf rolled in behind him, a gentle whoosh, roar, sweepof sand back into the deep. A whisper in the waves, "Shawn,Shawn, Come to us, Shawn."Shaking, he begged sleep to come.He wakened to the cold grasp of watery claws on hiscalves, trying to drag him down the beach. Eager, bubblingwhispers. He clamped his eyes shut and clung to the umbrellapole.Another wave swept in. And another. Oh, God. They hadhim. This time, they had him. They were going to pull him in."Shawn-Shawn-Shawn," came in an eager, tumblingbabble."Shawn! Snap out of it!" A palm hit the side of his face. "I'msorry, Honey. The boys wanted to go get hot dogs.”1968A different coast and a different wife, Madelaine. Lean andcool, ten years younger than Gladys. Hip. Almost able to bridgethe gap to the boys. The sullen, unpatriotic little bastards. Longhair and pimply faces behind ragged beards, desecrating theflag of the country for which he'd almost died....They didn't even try to understand. Called him a fascist.Him! They didn't know what fascism was. They hadn't seen thewolf packs maul a convoy and kill a thousand men...."Here they are," she said. "Try not to mention the war.Either war. Give them a chance. They'll give you one." Amateurpsychiatrist. She was good with words. Gladys hadn't been,The boys liked her well enough. They could talk to her.But why did she have to try killing two birds? ThisMarineland outing... He exchanged unenthusiastic greetingswith his son. The tension... He could think of only one thing tocompare. Salt water in burn wounds.Madelaine chattered brightly in her false, amateurdiplomat way, The boys didn't mind, or didn't detect thephoniness. Or maybe they just accepted It as natural. This wasthe west coast. And, much as they finger-pointed hisgeneration, the foundation of theirs was sand cemented bywillful blindness and wishful thinking."Stop dragging your feet, Dear," Madelaine whispered. “Doyou want these hippie freaks to think you're scared?"Thar was a shot. Just because of what he'd called the“Waiting Sea”-Continued on page 5251