“But do you think we will?” she insisted.
He knew she was still thinking of Danny and wanted to help her, but lies, he knew, never help. “Well, yes,” he spoke slowly, “the Old Man will return this way for he never forgets his boys. Grand old boy, Captain MacQueen is.”
“Thanks, Fred. That really helps a lot. And, Fred,” they were at the door of the radio cabin, “if you are sent out to search for Danny on the way back, will you take me along?”
“Well, now that—” he pondered, “yes, I will, if I can, I’ll even let you stow away.”
“Stowaway. That’s a lovely word,” she laughed. “Shake. It’s a date.” With a hearty handclasp, they parted.
That night Sally insisted on taking a two-hour shift with Riggs, blinking out her messages to the ships of the convoy.
“I want to do something besides sitting and listening for trouble,” she told him.
Truth was, a great loneliness had come sweeping over her. Perhaps the dance had done that. Certainly it had brought back memories of other times. Gay days at high school when she joined in the school hops which had not been so grand but had for all that given her a feeling of buoyant youth. There had been times too when, out with her father on a fishing trip, she had fallen in with a jolly crowd and had danced by the light of a campfire.
Now that the ship’s dance was over, and she stood looking at the endless black waters rolling by, she felt very blue. But the instant the blinker was in her hands and bright little messages came to her out of the night, loneliness fled.
“We’re a big family,” she said to Riggs.