Toward Night's End by M.H. Sargent

about any reprisals here, did he? He could come and go. Keep an off-base apartment. Put on weight. Get into a pretty good fight. But no one here seems to care about that.”
    “You know what you’re doing wrong? You’re thinking too hard about this.”
    Johnstone shot him an angry look. Then asked, “Do you know why he was over on Bainbridge Island?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Who here would?”
    “No one, I imagine.”
    “His superior officer?” Johnstone inquired.
    “That would be me.”
    “And you don’t know what he was doing over there?”
    Leseman seemed to size up Johnstone, then smiled. “He was on two days of leave when he was killed. We don’t monitor where our men go on their down time. That’s their business. As long as they’re back when they’re supposed to be.”
    Johnstone felt the man was lying. But instead of calling him on it, he asked, “Which would’ve been yesterday?”
    “That’s right.”
    Johnstone waited for something more, but Leseman was apparently finished. “Family?” he then asked.
    The commander looked at the file. “None. Only his mother, and she died last year. Never married.” Leseman then added, “Where’s the body?”
    “Coroner is doing an autopsy.”
    “He was a naval officer. We would have liked to have the autopsy done by our own people.”
    “It’s already in progress,” Johnstone replied. “And he didn’t have any identification on him that he was in the Navy. I only learned that by going to his apartment and talking to a friend of his.”
    “A woman?” Leseman asked.
    “Yes.” They stared at each other, as if each was trying to read the mind of the other. Finally, Johnstone asked, “Isn’t that odd? That he wouldn’t have his military identification on him? I mean don’t servicemen carry their ID at all times?”
    “They do,” Leseman allowed. “Although, maybe his was lost. Or stolen.”
    Johnstone just looked at the commander. “Perhaps,” he said, nodding in agreement. Then looking the commander in the eye, he asked, “His injury? That happen when he was in the Navy?”
    “Injury?” Leseman asked, puzzled.
    “His left hand. All his fingertips were cut off.”
    Leseman studied him for a moment, then said, “It occurred after he had joined, yes. Some sort of accident, as I recall.”
    “Which then took him off active duty status, I imagine.”
    “No.”
    “Really, why is that?”
    Leseman paused, then said, “Again, that information is off limits.”
    Johnstone stared at the commander for a moment. “Pretty strange, isn’t it? He’s allowed weight compensation, the reason for which you say is off limits. He’s allowed active duty status even though his hand injury is quite substantial, I would think. Why the waiver? Again, you say off limits. He gets in a brawl and you don’t know anything about it. He’s found dead, but he had no military ID on him. All very strange.”
    Commander Leseman simply stared at him. “I’d say we’re done now.”

Pacific Ocean 18Miles West of Rockaway Beach, Oregon. March 31, 1942
     
    The bilge pump was still working, but there was much more water coming in than the pump could handle. The engine, on the other hand, had quit some time ago as the water rose high enough to flood out the gearbox. Matthew stood in the wheelhouse, but ironically, he couldn’t do a thing. Without the engine, he had no power and couldn’t steer the boat. To make matters worse, the conditions had worsened, the pouring rain unabated, the gusts of wind even more powerful.
    Matthew briefly wondered where he was. But with no visibility, he couldn’t fix his position if he wanted to. Not that it mattered. He couldn’t change his position anyway. He had a small compass in his jacket pocket, and when the time came, he would lower the wooden dinghy over the side and hope he wasn’t too far from land. But even that was wishful thinking. With the continuing swells and a strong current, he’d have no control over the