The Mystery of the Sea Nun

[cardenio1611]

The moon was shining bright off the Celtic Sea, which was good news for the Nazis and bad for the slow and squat ship that was in the U-boat's sights. The three torpedoes sliced the hull in three pieces, and the Magdalene began to sink at once. Alarms were sounded, but they stopped when they were submerged in sea water. Passengers streamed from their compartments in various states of undress. The water was rising so fast the crew was forced to cut the rafts and lifeboats loose with knives and axes and shout, "Once in the Water, swim to whatever boat you can."

A long figure clad in black did what she had been told. She dove in, swan as fast and far as she could, and pulled herself into an empty raft. She quickly and almost expertly took an oar and began to move the raft in a circle, looking for other survivors. She found one, a woman with long black hair clinging to the back of her red shirt that covered what looked like a man's undershirt and white tennis shorts. Her bare legs shone in the moonlight. The woman plopped in, looked up to thank her rescuer, only to say, "What the bloody hell! Leave it to me to be saved by a blooming penguin!"

The young nun smiled sweetly, taking no offense, and said, "Are you all right?"

"How the hell should I be all right? They sank the bloody ship!"

"You sound all right, considering," the nun said. She staggered a bit from the swell, and said, "Excuse me, but I think we better stroke ourselves free of this or we could hit some rocks." The nun handed the other oar to the woman and said, "Move to the other side and do what I do." The pair stroked and stroked, but they only seemed to be able to keep the boat afloat and going in one direction, toward a small island that rested about two miles from where the ship went down. "Hold on and do what I do," the nun said. "We are going to hit the rocks. Come over here and jump off with me."

"Whatever you say, crazy woman," her breathless companion gasped. As the boat was pulled in, they jumped, and the nun hauled the woman through the knee-deep water and onto land. Considering that her habit stretched all the way to her ankles, the nun moved with surprising agility.

A few minutes later, they were about 100 yards from the rocks. In the distance, they could see glimmers of lights. "They might be searching for us," the nun said. "Quick, help me gather some wood and rocks, as big a pile of wood as you can. They have to be able to see us."

In a just a while, a fire was blazing, and the exhausted pair sat down. "It should dry our clothes too," the nun said.

"Why, aren't we the cheerful one. And a girl scout as well!"

"Well, yes, I was. Oh, forgive me, My name is Mary Grace."

"Doris Windsor," the woman said, although it wasn't her real name. She looked in the nun's thin and warm face surrounded by a white wimple and topped by a black veil. She sized her up and down as to height and weight. "Pardon my dress," Doris said, I was bathing when the torpedoes hit, and I just grabbed anything I could find. I think the shorts are from the lady in the bunk next to mine." They shook hands, and Doris asked, "Are you traveling with other nuns, sister."

"No, it's just me."

"And you meant, Sister Mary Grace, didn't you?"

"Well, technically not. I haven't taken my final vows yet. I was supposed to do so in October, but I don't think that's going to happen. And perhaps that's just as well."

"Oh, really," Doris said, getting up. "Let me get some more wood for the fire." She surveyed the area and saw a large branch that they had dropped on the way from the trees. It formed the shape of a club.

"Yes," the nun continued. "It's just--with all of the evil going on around us, praying in a convent seems important, but safe, too safe. I feel I should be doing something more worthwhile, more clearly helpful. I guess I'm waiting for some sort of sign."

"I see," Doris said, standing behind her. "Mary Grace, do you think the fire will continue burning like this?"

"Oh yes," the nun said, not turning around. "We just need to keep adding fuel."

"Good," Doris, smiling. :And I think I have your sign for you." She brought the club down against the nun's head. Mary Grace's eyes disappeared into white, her mouth opened, and she fell to her side.

Doris knelt down next to the unconscious woman. "Sorry, Sister--I mean, Mary Grace. But two really bad men are after me. And I figure that between them and the Nazis, it would be a good idea if I were dressed as a nun. No one would recognize me. Remember the old saying, Nobody looks a nun in the face. And as I nun, I can go anywhere. Even the Nazis are kinda Catholic unless you get in their way. And I won't." She reached down and took off Mary Grace's veil and unfastened the white wimple that circled her face, making sure that she saw how everything was attached. Next, she lay the nun out flat, undid the black cord that was tightened abound the habit, and pulled the habit down and off. Mary Grace was wearing a white shift underneath, black stockings, and black shoes with thick heels. "You know, I always wondered what penguins wore underneath. Nothing much," Doris said. Doris removed the shift and the rest, and then said, "Wow! I mean, you have nothing to be ashamed of. I wonder why you covered it all up? No matter." She removed her own clothing, and noted, "I got the undershirt from the man I was lying next to last night. He was a pretty great guy, if you know what I mean. But then, of course, you don't." She fondled Mary Grace's breasts and ran her hand down the woman's flat belly. "I bet this is the first time you've been felt up. And definitely the last. Sorry, but if I am the nun, you can't be around." She dressed Mary Grace in her shorts, undershirt and red shirt and put on just the nun's shift, stockings, and shoes so she could move about nimbly. She dragged Mary Grace back to the rocks, noticed a rise that hung directly over the water, and hauled her up there. Seemingly without a thought, Doris pushed the nun's prostrate body off the cliff, and she fell straight down into the water. "Goodbye, Doris," Doris said. "If they find you and identify you by the clothes I was wearing last, then I am dead and the search will end. If your body is unidentified, that may give them pause, and anyway Sister Mary Grace will be gone, across the world, vanished."

Mary Grace awoke as her lungs were filling with water. Instinctively, she propelled her feet off the sea's bottom and shot up to the top. Sputtering and gasping, she turned to see a white blur as Doris walked back to the fire. The waves began to push her against the rocks, so she kicked off and swam, riding with the waves as she had learned as a girl in Westminster and then finding a weak point and plowing through. She struggled but persisted and soon, sweating and weak, she was in the open sea. Suddenly, she saw lights from torches and heard a voice calling, "Anyone there?"

"Yes," she yelled back as best she could. "I'm here." She swam toward a boat, as did other swimmers who pushed and clawed for a place ahead of her. One by one, they were brought up and on. "She tried to kill me," Mary Grace said, but no one heard her in the clamor and hub-bub. From the boat, she could seen just the faintest image of the fire on the island.

The boat sailed to a British ship. Mary Grace and the others climbed up the hanging rope ladder and were greeted by sailors covering them with blankets and offering them coffee mixed with rum. "Your name?", a gruff-voiced sailor asked.

"Mary--," but then she stopped and instead of her religious name gave the name she was born with: "Alice Susan Hellingsford." If I am still to die, I would like my parents to know, she told herself.

"Thank you, miss," the sailor said, writing the name down in a clipboard and appreciatively surveying her figure in the short shorts and shirt that was made more revealing by its wetness. Alice found herself smiling appreciatively back, something she hadn't done in years.

A younger sailor, very shy, came forward and stammered, "You swim very well, miss."

"Thank you," she said. "I was a girl scout in Winchester." Doris probably didn't think that nuns can swim, she said to herself. She saw the gruff-voiced sailor and said, "Excuse me, but it's possible that the name I gave you is slightly different from the one I gave when I boarded, Now if--"

"Miss, if there was a list of passengers, it's down the drink. And there may not have been because passengers were added from other ships that were sunk or their crossings cancelled. What you gave me is what we've got," he said, brusque because he was busy. "So there is no record of Mary Grace being on the ship," she said to herself.

She was told to sit on the deck with the others. Looking out, the fire suddenly loomed brighter. Alice said to herself, "There are evil people in the world. And they have to be fought. Doris tried to kill me. Maybe what she said was right. This was my sign. God's sign. I can return to my parents and tell them my near-death experience has caused me to leave the convent and look for answers elsewhere. As for the almost-nun Mary Grace--"

The captain shouted, "I think I see some lights over on that island. Full speed--"

"Wait!", Alice heard herself saying. "I made that fire, captain. And then I swam to the open sea and found your boats." Both of these statements were true.

The captain appeared to understand the import of what she was saying. And yet, he still asked, "Is there anyone else on the island?"

"Nun," she said. Once again, the statement was true. There was a woman dressed as a nun on the island. But she knew that he would interpret what she said to mean "none" or "no one." Alice whispered, "Doris created the lie, not me. She has to live with it."

"All right," the captain shouted. "Let's go home."

On the island, Doris, fully dressed as a nun, sat as the fire died and the lights she had been watching faded and disappeared.

Alice Susan Hellingsford returned to her parents, secured a position with the Home Office, and was recruited to be one the Bletchley Girls who helped crack the Nazi codes and end the war. After the Nazis surrendered, she was asked to join the OSS and moved to America where she provided intelligence analysis throughout the Cold War. She married a novelist from Boston and gave birth to three children, all of whom provided her with grandchildren.

Around the time that Alice died in 1991, after the Berlin Wall came down, those exploring an island long thought to be deserted found a skeleton of a woman dressed in a nun's habit who had hanged herself with the black cord that bound her habit. Her mystery has never been fully resolved.

[rufusluciusivan]

Good story, well-written and with an unexpected ending.

[esercito sconfitto]

wretched, evil Doris. Killed by a homophone...pronounced by a sincere woman

[FeMilImpos]

Love the story.