Underwater Lock

Eleanor pressed herself flat against the iron skin of the Western Star, one hand on the slick plates, the other feeling for the seam where the maintenance recess gave way to a narrow lock cover. The bay water had gone dark green in the shadow under the ship. Her breath came in ragged pulls through clenched teeth. The wool of her trousers clung to her legs like sandbags.

The brass key was in her fist, cold enough to bite.

A chain dangled above her shoulder where the last of the pier light reached under the hull. She could hear boots on deck. Somebody shouted above, then the whistle of steam from the stack. The whole ship seemed to shiver around her.

“Come on,” she said to nobody, and fit the key into the corroded slot.

It stuck at once.

She braced her shoulder against the metal panel and tried again, pushing, then backing off to shake her hand loose. The key moved a fraction. Her lungs tightened. She had the strange thought that she was still on land, still at the ranch, still staring at a dry ditch and waiting for it to fill.

Her throat burned.

She planted both feet against the hull and worked the key with two hands, turning in small jolts. Rust gave way with a gritty snap. The lock clicked.

For a second nothing happened.

Then the panel shifted outward an inch, and a ribbon of black water slid around her wrist. She almost laughed. Instead she shoved her fingers into the gap and hauled. The cover swung open enough for her hand to fit, and inside was a metal case held in a bracket.

She grabbed the handle. It was iron, with a thin strip of leather wrapped around it, and heavier than it looked. Her chest convulsed hard enough to make her see sparks.

She got both hands on the box and yanked it free.

Her body kicked for the surface without asking. She twisted away from the hull, kicking up through the murk, one arm locked around the case. The water above her brightened, then broke.

Air hit her like a slap. She sucked in a mouthful, coughed, and went under again to her eyes before she could catch herself. A wooden tender bumped her shoulder. Hands grabbed her coat. Someone hauled her half over the gunwale while she coughed salt and spit across the boards.

Lieutenant Brooks was there, wet sleeves rolled up, face pale under the harbor light. He took the box from her only long enough to see what it was, then set his hand on it and held on.

Whitmore came up on the pier side, jaw set. “That box is army property. Lieutenant, give it here.”

Brooks didn’t let go.

“Sir,” he said, and cleared his throat once. “Not until it’s opened in front of civilian clerks and dock witnesses.”

Whitmore’s hand closed on the rail hard enough to whiten his knuckles.

Brooks looked at Eleanor once, then back to the colonel. “She nearly drowned getting it. I’m not burying her for your inventory.”

The harbor master’s table waited under the awning, and Brooks set the wet box down on it where every man on the pier could see.

The rescue skiff bumped once against the harbor ladder, and Eleanor nearly slid off it. Lieutenant Brooks caught her by the elbow before she went under again. She was coughing so hard she could not get a word out. Salt ran from her hair into her eyes and down her neck.

“Easy,” he said. His hand stayed on the wet blanket around her shoulders. “Don’t fight me.”

Whitmore stood at the pier rail above them, one glove clenched in his fist. “Lieutenant. Hand over that box.”

Brooks looked up at him, then back at the iron case Eleanor had not let go of even when the men pulled her from the water. He laid his fingers on it, not taking it from her, just making sure it stayed put.

“No, sir,” he said.

Whitmore’s mouth tightened. “That is a direct order.”

Brooks snapped to attention so hard his boots rang on the planks. “Then I’ll need it recorded in front of civilian witnesses, sir.”

A couple of dockworkers had stopped hauling lines to stare. A customs clerk in rolled sleeves stood with his pen half raised, like he had forgotten what he was doing. Whitmore saw them too. His hand went to the rail until his knuckles went white.

“You will not make a spectacle of this,” he said.

Eleanor dragged in a breath that hurt. “You already did.”

Brooks turned his head a fraction toward her. “Can you stand?”

“Soon as I’m not looking at him.”

That got a few hard looks from the dock crew, and one of them hid a grin behind his sleeve.

Brooks set the box on the harbor master’s table in the open office beside the pier. The iron case left a wet ring on the wood. Whitmore came in after it, coat damp at the cuffs, face set like he was walking into a court he meant to win.

Brooks broke the seal with a knife from the desk drawer and laid out the papers inside. He did it carefully, one page at a time, while the clerk leaned in with his spectacles low on his nose.

“There,” the clerk said, tapping the ledger with one finger. “Civilian flour. Seed potatoes. Medical tinctures. All received six weeks ago.”

Whitmore did not move.

The clerk kept reading. “Transferred to station reserve. Signed out under your hand, Colonel. Signed again on the duplicate manifests.”

A sound came out of Whitmore then, not quite a word. He put both hands flat on the table to steady himself.

“That shipment was lost in the brushfire report,” he said.

Brooks’ jaw tightened. “No, sir. You moved it.”

Whitmore looked at the pages, then at the men around the room. “I had a depot fail. Grain spoiled. I was due for inspection. I intended to replace it before winter count.”

“You took food from thirty families,” Eleanor said.

Whitmore shut his eyes once. When he opened them, the fight had gone out of his shoulders. “Yes.”