な

སྤྱོད tas-

fiction by Kermit Josephs

・

THE VEIL

He came on board the USS CARNELIAN along with four other teen-age seamen who had been assigned to the little Navy ship more because there was bunk space than because of any need for additional man-power. With seabags across their shoulders, and wearing the T-shirts and white pants which were uniform of the day in Trinidad, they shuffled up the gangway, fumbled a salute to the quarterdeck (where was it anyway?) and stood sheepishly around the desk of the OOD.

I did not notice him at first. I was on duty with the officer of the deck and so took the papers of all five and directed them to the after part of the ship where they would be assigned bunk space and made a part of the ship's organization. "More draftees", I said to Boats as he relieved me. "And green as they come."

I had still not noticed him until we were out to sea, heading once again for Recife, and this time escorting the slowest convoy ever assembled in the South Atlantic. With tankers that could barely make five knots setting the pace, we were in for a long two weeks of running back and forth in front of the convoy, searching the sea for submarines which had for some months ceased to be a

one