Red was white as plaster in the sun, his arms crooked tensely. “Saints preserve us,” he said, “that was a close one, indeed.”
Tim stood on the sand, his chest heaving, and scanned the water for signs of the sharks but the fins were gone.
Red said, “They gave it up as soon as you started to splash toward shore.”
“Thank God for that. I swam as if my feet were made of lead.”
The men pulled on their pants and sat on the sand. Red was quiet for a while and then he said, “I’m thinking of Nancy and Tommy back in New Haven, waiting for me to finish with the War. Tommy would be a little boy now, not a baby any more. I’ve never even seen his picture. I keep begging Nancy to send me a photograph of both of them, but I suppose she doesn’t have the money to have one made.” He smiled. “You single men are a happy lot. No family worries. Devil may care, that’s what you are.”
Tim smiled. Then his face grew serious. “I have a girl,” he said. “We have an understanding, but I haven’t spoken to her father yet.”
“A girl is it? Well, you’re a fox, Timmy boy. I’ve lived and fought with you since we left the North and you’ve never so much as mentioned a girl.”
Red’s face took on a faraway look. “Nancy and I were thinking of moving away from New Haven after the war. Tell me, how is life in a country town?”
Tim squinted his eyes. The distant sailing ship had scarcely moved, but the mist had burned away. “The town is clean,” he said. “The yards of the houses are neat, and the village green is really green. The Connecticut River flows wide and deep below the houses. My girl’s name is Kate. She lives three miles down river. Her eyes are blue and her hair is dark. She’s full of life. Sometimes I worry that she’ll bust loose and go to New York or Boston and marry some tall, dark handsome man.”
“But she writes you still?”