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people.”
    “That’s what I don’t like,” my father said. “All those soldiers, half of them half in the bag. A couple of the Military Police told me it’s like a frontier town down there, with drunken brawls in the streets.”
    “That’s mainly Friday and Saturday nights.”
    “And you sometimes work those nights.”
    “Nobody has ever bothered me.”
    “And I’d like to keep it that way.”
    “It’s just a bunch of little boys getting into trouble because their mothers and wives and girlfriends aren’t here.”
    “And it’s apparently gotten worse since half of those little boys are American soldiers here to build the airfield. They and the British soldiers don’t seem to realize that they’re allies,” my father added.
    “What about the Canadians?” my mother asked.
    My father shrugged. “I can only speak for this Canadian.”
    “Good, because I think we’ve had enough fighting from members of this family already.”
    Wait a minute—somehow this had come back to us again!
    “I just wish I could walk you home each night,” my father said.
    She reached across the table and gave his hands a squeeze. “You’re such a sweetie. I’m just glad you’re now here instead of halfway around the world.”
    “I’m glad, too,” he said. “Although I still think the whole thing is strange.”
    “What do you mean?” My mother was trying to sound innocent, but my father was still asking awkward questions about why he had been reassigned, and why we were with him. Apparently the cover story wasn’t holding water for him.
    “You know what I mean. I’m pulled away from my troops in Africa and reassigned to Bermuda. Doesn’t that seem a little bit … peculiar?”
    “I think it’s mostly because they needed me here, and since you had to serve somewhere, why not Bermuda? We should just be grateful and not question it too much,” my mother said. “Aren’t you glad you’re here?”
    “Of course I am. How could I not be happy about being here with my family instead of being shot at?”
    “I guess there’s not much chance of being shot here, is there?” I asked.
    “Only with a camera,” he said. “Although we certainly could do some shooting back if anybody shot at us. They just finished installing the second big eleven-incher at the dockyards.”
    My father was second-in-command of the guard detail for the dockyards on the far west side of the island—not that anything was that far … it was less than twenty miles away. The British navy for this part of the Atlantic was stationed there, so it was a very important strategic position. My father had told me that sometimes more than two dozen ships were in dock—destroyers, minesweepers, corvettes, frigates and, occasionally, a cruiser or even a full-fledged battleship. Some of the ships became part of convoy duty, providing escorts to protect England-bound ships carrying freight or soldiers from the U-boats. Other ships were part of hunter-killer groups that went looking for the U-boats. That would have been so much better— chasing them instead of running from them.
    “Do you think they’ll ever have to use those guns?” my mother asked.
    “We can only hope not, but we’re trying to be prepared for anything.”
    “Anything … what do you think could happen?” I asked, suddenly feeling a little anxious.
    “I doubt there’s much chance of a full-fledged invasion.”
    “That’s reassuring,” my mother said.
    “But there are 138 islands that make up Bermuda.”
    “That many?” Jack asked.
    “And each one has so many inlets and beaches that you couldn’t count, let alone patrol or monitor, them all.”
    “You think somebody could come ashore without being seen?” I asked.
    “Dozens of people could come ashore without being seen.”
    “But why would they want to do that?” my mother questioned.
    “Espionage and sabotage. The dockyards and the new airfield are prime locations. If I were the enemy, I’d want to know more