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Screw Morris. No, he smirked, screw his wife.
    With dawn almost on him, his view of the ocean was clear, and there was no fog or mist to confuse him. His eyes widened as he took in the panorama before him. He saw a huge ocean liner just offshore with other, smaller ships almost alongside the liner. He quickly realized that the smaller ships were warships!
    Stunned, he lurched to his feet and ran to the center of the little town until he was at the fire alarm bell, which he commenced ringing as quickly and as hard as he could.
    Almost immediately, windows opened and voices shouted their concern. Some, when they realized it was Willy Talmadge on the bell, presumed he was still drunk and having some stupid sort of fit. He hushed them by waving out to sea where the ships were now plainly visible.
    Just about the first person to actually arrive was Chief Morris, grim-faced and angry. “Goddamnit, Willy, you are about to spend a long time in my jail for this.” Then he saw the ships. “Oh, Jesus.”
    Willy knew when he had the upper hand. “Yeah, looks like that big liner’s in some kind of trouble and the others are gonna help it out.”
    Morris quickly agreed with the evaluation. The liner was obviously aground; although he thought there was plenty of water where the ship was, maybe a sandbar had shifted. What was the damned thing doing so close to shore in the first place?
    “Wow, what a sight!”
    The comment came from Homer Walls, the owner of the hotel and publisher of the summer weekly. Homer also had the town’s only telephone.
    Morris grabbed his arm. “Homer, I think you ought to call someone in the big city and tell them what’s happened.”
    Homer smirked. “Did that already. Called the
New York Post
.” Then he looked a little chagrined. “They weren’t as excited as I thought they would be. Seems there were a bunch of explosions and fires all over the city last night and everyone’s in an uproar about them. The
Post
seemed to think they were caused by labor agitators or something and didn’t particularly give a damn about a ship aground off Ardmore.”
    Morris grunted and continued to watch. By this time a number of the townspeople had gathered, and others were coming as quickly as they could. It was apparent that the sight was drawing people from as far away as they could run to the beach. Chief Morris’s wife and four-year-old daughter joined him and brought his telescope. He noticed a number of other spectators using telescopes as well.
    “Hey, Homer,” Morris said. “Guess what? That isn’t an American ship. Looks like a German flag.”
    “Yeah,” Homer replied. “And those don’t look like American flags on the warships either.”
    After further discussion they decided there was no reason why a German ship couldn’t have run aground. As to the German ships helping out, well, why not? Only thing was, the liner didn’t look aground; instead it seemed to be floating freely and held in place by its anchor.
    The crowd grew even more excited when the warships lowered boats and sent men over to the liner. Shortly after, the lifeboats on the liner filled with men and were lowered to the water.
    “Chief, are all those people on the boats wearing the same thing? Like uniforms?” asked Homer.
    “Yep, and those look like rifles they’re carrying.”
    “Holy shit,” yelled Homer. “Now I am going to get those assholes in New York to pay attention!” With that, he ran off toward his hotel and the telephone.
    The lifeboats gathered in a group and commenced to row toward shore. It was obvious that the sailors from the warships were working the oars while those who seemed to be soldiers sat and waited. For what? Chief Morris wondered.
    As the boats rowed closer to shore, the crowd, now quite large, drew nearer to the beach, almost by instinct. On board the closest German ship, the light cruiser
Gazelle,
the captain looked on that movement with dismay. What had once been a lonely stretch of sand