Island of Saints by Andy Andrews Page A

mad about something? I mean, I know there’s a sadness there, but are you mad . . . angry?”
    Helen put down the plate and blinked. She hadn’t really thought about it in that way, but answered honestly: “Um-hmm. Yes, ma’am.”
    â€œAre you angry with anyone in particular?”
    Helen thought before she responded. When she did, it wasn’t what Margaret expected. “Yes, ma’am, I am. And no offense, but before you ask me who I’m mad at, I’ll just tell you the truth. I’m mad at everybody. And if you asked me, ‘What about?’ I’d say, ‘About everything.’ I don’t want to be. I don’t think I always have been. But I am just mad. All the time.”
    Margaret opened her mouth to reply, but Helen kept talking: “Margaret, I don’t want you to think that I’m ungrateful. I appreciate so much what you have done for me. I love you all, but there’s something wrong with me. I wake up angry. I dream wild, furious dreams. I don’t mean to be, but I’m mad at you for having Billy. I’m mad at Billy for having you. I’m mad at Danny because he’s so happy . . .” Without warning, Helen’s lip began to quiver, and big tears rolled down her face. “I’m sorry,” she said in a trembling voice before, at last, she broke down and wept bitterly.
    As Margaret replayed the incident later in her mind, she recalled how the young woman had folded her arms tightly as she cried, holding herself, instead of reaching out to her friend who was present, as another person might have done. “The poor child,” she told Billy that night. “She feels alone in a way I can’t quite understand. I just stood there and rubbed her back. I didn’t think she was ever going to stop crying. When she finally did, we talked a bit—I don’t think I helped—then she said she was sorry again for about the twentieth time and left. Lord, I wish there was a phone out at that cottage. I hope she’s all right.”
    AT MIDAFTERNOON, THE U-166 WAS MAKING A COURSE CHANGE. Hans Kuhlmann had followed his young radio operator down into the boat to find Schneider signing off and standing to relinquish the desk. “For you, Commander,” the smug Nazi had said as he handed over a single slip of paper.
    On it, Kuhlmann saw, Schneider had written a time and a specific longitudinal location. Also, in large script at the top of the page, the High Command code for this alteration preceded the message. This confirmed the authenticity of the instructions, however wary Kuhlmann might have been about receiving orders from Schneider. After all, this new location, with no further directive on what to do once there, appeared to be at least one hundred miles away from the previous orders of destination.
    After calculations were made, the submarine, still running on the surface, executed a gradual turn to the right in an easterly direction. Now on a course of 28 degrees, the U-166 would arrive at her intended destination two hours after dark. Kuhlmann would run the last forty miles under water at a decidedly slower rate of speed. This, he determined, would allow the boat to avoid detection on the surface by the increased air and sea activity of a coastal population. Why, in God’s name, he was to surface his boat in a precise location less than two miles off the Alabama coast, Kuhlmann hadn’t a clue. But orders were orders—despite the commander’s escalating sense of indignation at being forced to accept those orders from a man who was technically a civilian.
    When Kuhlmann asked what the U-166 was to accomplish in the surfaced location, Schneider replied, “I will give you that direction when the time comes. The orders are fully authenticated by the High Command so, for the moment, do as you are told. You know as much as you need to know.” It is a good thing, Hans thought upon reflection, that