Sunday's child

Sunday Everette has a childhood unlike any other in the ?Jim Crow? era of the South, growing up at the Pea Island Life-Saving Station among the barren dunes of North Carolina's stormy Outer Banks. In sheltered isolation, guided solely by the influence of the Station's heroic all-black crewmen, she blossoms into a strong and beautiful young woman with a spirit to match.But Sunday's secluded paradise cannot last. Her calm, simple days by the sea must inevitably give way to the fast-approaching storms of life. Unexpectedly, those darkening skies bring with them an unlikely mix of forbidden love, murder, and revenge'along with a Nazi submarine carrying millions of dollars in gold stolen from Hitler's Third Reich.First in a trilogy, Sunday's Child begins the saga of three unique families from across the world, flung fatally together by three of mankind's most basic traits: war, love, and greed.

PROLOGUE AFTER TRAVELING two thousand sea miles, the heavy log had become saturated. Twenty feet long and twelve inches thick at its splintered base, it had broken off from a foundering schooner near Galveston. Floating east, then south in the warm Gulf Stream around the curve of the southern coast of the United States, it meandered just below the surface around Florida, made a slow, unimpeded path northward, and, passing thirty miles east of Cape Hatteras, ploughed headlong into yet another storm. Even though it was a large object, no human eye would ever see it . . . The message came to the Pea Island Life-Saving Station at 8:20 on the night of November 9, 1918. As usual, the text was brief: DISTRESS SIGNAL RECEIVED THIS HOUR FROM SAILING VESSEL MARTHA JANE /FIVE ABOARD/ BELIEVED ENTERING YOUR SECTOR NOW/ STAND BY FOR RESCUE/ Standing on the rooftop platform above the Station House, Ben Searcy nodded his silent acknowledgement to the surfman who had read the terse message to him. He raised his binoculars again to the northeast. Although Searcy's official title was "Keeper," all six of his surfmen, and most others who knew him, called him "Captain" out of deep professional respect. This one, whose name was Clem, shouted through nearly-horizontal rain driven by the full gale that threatened to tear both of them from their perch, "Orders, Cap'n?" Searcy kept his gaze seaward, but leaned over and away from the wind. "Make ready the boat and send Amos up here. I need a pair of young eyes." Aboard the MARTHA JANE, when he could catch a quick breath, John Tyler loudly cursed the boat, her owner, the storm, and most of all, his luck. He had known this was not a good month to take a boat south, and would not have if he hadn't been so desperate for a job. Any job! Now, he was caught up in the worst nor'easter he could remember and, without a reversal of that luck, he might very well die. So might everyone else aboard this stinking tub. But desperate men do foolish things, and for five hundred filthy dollars which would have guaranteed him paid passage back home to England, Tyler had agreed to skipper the tired old ketch from Annapolis to Fort Lauderdale. The only concession wrung from Jacob Weintraub, the new owner, was that they also obtain the services of a good mate. After haggling for hours, Weintraub had finally agreed and so the MARTHA JANE had set sail with Peter Tomlinson also aboard. Peter was as good a blue water sailor as any Tyler knew, and it was Peter who had kept them all from drowning before now. When the storm first hit them, Weintraub showed that he was nothing more than a bragging amateur who knew next to nothing about heavy-weather sailing and was soon stone-dead drunk. The first time the ketch had heeled over more than ten degrees, taking white water over the starboard rail, his wife had become profanely abusive, then violently seasick, and finally hysterical. The kid, a boy about twelve, was the only one of the family who showed any guts at all. He was small for his age, however, and except for managing to get his miserable parents into life jackets was practically useless. If not for Peter's help, things would have become critical much sooner. He and John had shortened sail twice already in seamanlike time, and had secured everything fast belowdecks. When they discovered serious water rising in the forward cabin, deducing that the old boat was leaking like a straw hat, Peter had tackled the decrepit bilge pump with a furious passion. His mechanical skills had kept them afloat so far, and as the storm worsened, John had wisely decided to run before it, drogue or no drogue, under bare poles, making for Oregon Inlet. From there down to Cape Hatteras, there were few rocks ashore, only sand. Blessed sand. If beaching the old girl became necessary, he wouldn't hesitate to do it. The last time he'd had a chance to glance at the chart, just before commanding Peter to send the distress signal, he had fixed their approximate position due east of the Bodie light. Intermittently, he could see it faintly through the sheets of rain as they clawed over the crests of enormous waves. He strained, without success thus far, to see the much stronger beacon of the Hatteras light. His cursing ceased abruptly when Peter's head appeared in the companionway. "John!" Peter yelled. "The pump is shot. Gone. We're taking on too much water. No pump could handle it. I sent another SOS." "Good man!" "There's more bad news." "Better tell me." They paused to ride over yet another massive wave. "There's a bad crack in the mizzenmast step," Peter yelled. "If the wind gets much worse, I think it may go. Watch yourself. If it does go, it could take you with it. She's sinking, John. Want me to get the others up here?" "Yes, and tie them down." Peter's head disappeared back below, and John reached into the starboard cockpit locker for the flare gun. In forty-six years, thirty of them on the water, he had never prayed. Not once. But now, flying before a force 10 gale generated from the very gates of hell, not knowing whether the vessel would make it through one more trough, John Tyler gripped the wheel tighter and began to pray to his Maker at the top of his voice. He paid scant attention to his mate laboriously hauling every moaning member of the Weintraub family into the cockpit and lashing them snugly to the binnacle. Tyler's last prayer was that they were now close enough to shore for someone--anyone--to see the flares. He raised the gun and fired. Amos Turner saw the red glow first. "There, Cap'n!" He pointed directly east. "Can't be more'n a mile offshore." Glasses in hand, Searcy jerked his head around in confirmation. "Good work, Amos. Let's go." The other five men already had the lifeboat poised at the water's edge. The moment they saw Searcy and Amos running toward them, they knew they would have to go. All eyes were on their leader, who shouted, "Prepare to launch!" The surfmen stretched hands for position, dug their heels into the sand and bunched leg, arm, and back muscles for his command, knowing they'd have to wait only for the short sailor's prayer. The wind was too strong for them to actually hear the brief verse, but each had known it by heart for years, both the two traditional lines and the two Ben Searcy had added: "O God, Thy sea is so big And my boat is so small, Bring us home safely Each of us, and all. Ready . . . Heave!" It took almost half an hour to punch through the roiling surf, and distance covered beyond it was no easier. Every straining man rowed in silence, backs bending backward and forward in a steady rhythm of brute strength. Conserving their collective energy and breathing in unison, they occasionally glanced at the calm face of the man at the tiller, who, in return, gave each a slight nod and smile. No words were necessary; each man knew his job, and not one of them had the slightest doubt that they would succeed this night. They had proved it many times before. Within another half-hour, Ben Searcy saw two more red streaks rise and fall through the distant fury and adjusted his steering accordingly, not toward where the last one had died, but on a course where the stricken vessel must have headed after shooting the flares. He glanced at his men every other minute with mute pride--and no little affection. They were splendid examples of manhood, strong and quietly brave. When called upon, each hand-chosen man was trained and drilled to perform like six fearless parts of one well-oiled strength machine, even in weather like this. Ben reflected that he had seen worse storms than this one, but not very many, and this nor'easter had been something of a surprise. Unexpected. Coming right on the heels of the end of hurricane season, too! He raised a prayer of thanks that it was only early November. Water temperature would be bearable for quite a while, and besides, the current was no doubt pushing the warm edge of the Gulf Stream toward them. He wasn't worried about his men or the vessel's crew freezing to death when they went into the water. Still, there were plenty of other unknowns to--Wait! There's another flare! "Come on, boys," he yelled. "We're gaining!" Head-on, the wide end of the log struck the MARTHA JANE six feet aft of the stem, on her port side, bashing a foot-wide hole through the old planks as if they were strakes of cardboard. The force of the blow pushed her bow slightly to starboard just as she buried her nose in the trough between a pair of wild waves, their tops rising thirty feet higher. Her stern slewed suddenly around hard to port, like from a Chinese jibe. That rapid combination of events, which momentarily altered her centrifugal force, wrenched the mizzenmast from its step with massive torque. The wheel was viciously jerked out of Tyler's hands when the binnacle crashed forward, and the bow of the dinghy catapulted from its weakened stern davits, striking him a glancing blow on his left shoulder as it sailed past him into the maelstrom. Tyler left his feet, pulled in a vacuum that carried him up and out of the cockpit and over the crest of the following wave. Before he was slammed into the dark water, he saw out of the corner of his eye something white. The vision lasted only a split second, yet, as he struggled to the surface with what he knew was a broken left arm, he would have sworn that he had also seen flashing oars. John Tyler heard more than he saw during the next half-hour of his blessedly extended life. From those sounds, however, he vaguely pieced together what was happening around him. The sounds, above the shrieking of the wind, were voices. Voices shouting in a strange accent: "I see one, Cap'n! There, hard a-starboard!" "I see him. Looks like he's unconscious." "I'll go over." "There's two still on board. Hangin' on to the mizzen." "One of 'em looks like a woman." "Right. Somebody's got to board that boat." "She's near 'bout ninety degrees! That boat's gon' roll, Cap'n! Five minutes, she's gon' turn turtle!" "Somebody will have to go anyway." "I'll do it." "Take the axe and extra lines." "Cap'n! There's another one. Looks like a child." "I see him. Get a line to him." On and on it went. Unfamiliar accent or not, Tyler was certain he was hearing the voices of angels. He knew he was going to be saved. Knew the others would be, too. They would all be saved. And soon. That white boat was beautiful. The loveliest thing he had ever seen. Coming closer now. Tyler felt that he could raise his good arm, and knew better than to try to scream. Still, he tried. And tried again. Of course they couldn't hear him. They didn't see him either. Not yet. But they would . . . wouldn't they? A different kind of sound gradually filled his ears. A new sound. An ugly sound, and Tyler knew the MARTHA JANE had rolled over and gone belly-up. Men were shouting to get out of the way before she sucked them under as she went down. He closed his eyes and let his body relax. In spite of the pain in his arm, a kind of peaceful resignation began to settle over him, as if he were simply floating in a quiet, warm pool. If it has to be, well, it has to be. Then, strong hands were reaching out to him. A line was snaked around him under his arms, and the pain of the broken one made him cry out and faint. When he came to, he realized he was in the bottom of the boat sent from God Himself, tangled among feet, legs, and whole bodies. He saw six men manning the oars. Six angels, all clad in yellow foul-weather gear. All wearing sou'westers. He looked up into the face of the angel at the helm, then quickly back again at all those other men. Though the light was almost nonexistent, he nevertheless saw that every single face of the boat crew was . . . black! Black as the night around them! Tyler had just enough strength left to ask the helmsman, "Where'd you people come from, and what the devil are you doing out here in this mess?" The black man smiled down at him. "We're from Pea Island, mister. Doing our duty." Excerpted from Sunday's Child by Tom Lewis All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.