Circle of Bones

“Then you’ve got yd.”

Using her fingers, she traced down the Y column and across the D row. She wrote the letter O.

When she had finished, she looked at the word: TOMBOLO.

“At least it looks like a word this time, but I have no idea what it means,” she said.

“Me neither,” Cole said. He placed his hand on the back of her neck and massaged the tight muscles there. “But again, it was a good idea.”

At that moment, Theo started laughing.

“Theo,” Cole said. “What is it?”

“You seriously don’t know?” Theo said.

“Don’t know what?”

Theo closed his eyes and made a Mmmm sound as though he had just eaten something delicious. “It gives me great pleasure when I know more than you, Dr. Thatcher.”

“You know what a tombolo is?”

Theo nodded, his grin so wide his face looked like it was all mouth.

“Well, spit it out.”

“Your dad, Cole, he was quite the fu

“Okay, so where is it?”

“At the south end of the island. It’s called Scott’s Head. There’s a village — I have two cousins who live there. The bay formed by the tombolo is called Soufriere Bay. It’s an old volcanic crater and it’s very, very deep.”

“Deep enough to hide a submarine?”

“Yeah mon.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

The Caribbean Sea off Guadeloupe

February 17, 1942

“Avions au large de la tribord avant!” one of the sailors on the bridge shouted. Another man handed a pair of binoculars to the captain when he emerged through the hatch.

Woolsey climbed out behind the captain, blinking in the bright slanting sunlight. He stopped for a moment to revel in the warm wind on his face and breathed deep grateful lungfuls of the flower-scented air. He had been on the French boat long enough to understand tribord avant meant starboard bow – and avions were planes – but for a moment, he wanted to let the tropical air thaw his bones. Four days in the hold had taken something out of him. Whether it was by the noose in Martinique, or from these damned advancing planes, odds were he was not going to survive this war. Any small pleasure might very well be his last.

He swiveled his head around to squint into the sky, trying to get his bearings. He was startled to see the low green hills of an island close off their starboard beam, and the water the sub steamed through was no longer the dark shadowy blue of the deep Atlantic. Woolsey estimated they were no more than six miles from shore, dangerously close for a sub the size of Surcouf.

The captain was shouting incomprehensible orders, and his second in command repeated his words into the voice tube. Woolsey wished he could understand what they were saying.

“Lieutenant!” the captain barked.

Woolsey stepped to the front of the co

Lamoreaux did not lower the glasses when he spoke. “Les Americains,” he said. “They are searching to the southwest by the entrance to Pointe-à-Pitre. They have not seen us yet, but it will not be long.”

Woolsey sca

“Do you think it’s a regular patrol or are they looking for us?” he asked the captain.

“Difficult to say.”

Woolsey didn’t think it was so difficult. The Royal Navy had not heard from the sub since she’d left Bermuda. The Allies didn’t trust the Free French to begin with, and once Surcouf went silent, they’d assumed she was no longer a friendly, that she was making a run for the Vichy controlled islands of Guadeloupe or Martinique. Woolsey examined the shore. He had thought all the islands in the Caribbean were high and mountainous, but this was a lush green strip on the horizon. Clouds gathered above the land like a dramatic dome of white and gray cumulous, and a couple of villages of red-roofed houses squatted along the coast.

“Place doesn’t look like much,” he said.

Lamoreaux lowered the glasses and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his wool coat. “This is the low side of Guadeloupe. The volcano is under those clouds.” He turned and pointed aft. “We came through the cut there.” Woolsey followed his finger to the small gray smudge on the horizon. “Between La Desirade and Pointe Des Chateaux.”

Both men turned back to resume their search of the sky off their bow. Surely the planes would spot them soon, Woolsey thought. He noticed the gu

“What’s our depth?” Woolsey asked.

“Twenty-five meters. That is what makes this the last place to look for us. Or so I thought.”

The Surcouf drew nine meters. Woolsey had no idea if the water was deep enough to hide from a plane, but he assumed the captain’s rapid-fire orders were readying the boat to dive. If only they could stay hidden the two hours or so until dark. God, he hated this waiting, but with each minute that passed, their chances for survival lengthened.

They had been ru

One of the sailors shoved a signal lamp into Woolsey’s hands, mumbled something about captain’s orders, then disappeared back down the hatch.

“A few miles ahead,” the captain said, “beyond those small cays called Îles de la Petite Terre, the bottom drops to more than three hundred meters. The question is, will we make it?” The captain turned and spoke orders to his second who again shouted them into the voice tube.

Woolsey examined the small archipelago off their bow. He could make out palm trees and white sand beaches, but no signs of any human inhabitants. The little islets were perfect tropical deserted islands.

The co

Whether or not they would make it in time wasn’t the only question, Woolsey thought. “What about the electric motors, sir?” he asked Lamoreaux.

“Mon Dieu. Our mechanics were working on farm tractors one year ago.” The captain shook his head. “We’ll be good for a few hours. On one motor. No more.”

Woolsey turned his attention to the device in his hands. They were counting on him to signal the damn planes, if — or when — they came this way. But he hadn’t used one of these things since his all-too-brief training more than a year ago. And the one he’d trained on wasn’t made by the bloody French.

Henri Michaut appeared at his side. He reached for the lamp. “You want I show you how?”

“Are you good with this thing?” Woolsey asked the French signalman.

He blew air out through his rounded lips. “But, of course. It is my job.”

“Then you do the signals. I’ll dictate.”

“D’accord.”

Woolsey stepped to the far side of the bridge with young Michaut, and they rehearsed the English spelling of the words, so that Michaut could send the signals as fast as possible.