Understory, Fall 2026—Issue I (Digital Edition)
Torpedo Alley
by Rick Sapir
Lowering the binoculars, she blinked against the late afternoon glare. The breakers crashed in, then rushed outward, pulling her thoughts across the ocean. To him.
Her thumb opened the leather-bound booklet and she wrote: 3:15, no sightings. Another entry nearly identical to the ones above.
She drew in a deep, slow breath, the salt air tickling the back of her throat.
The cool metal pressed into her palm, as she shielded the pocket watch from the sand and sun. She turned it over, the engraved script catching the light. The worn letters recalled the vows taken long ago: Forever yours, Ellise.
Eyes closed, she let the memory rise: Jacob lifting the watch from his uniform pocket and setting it in her hands. She had remained at the pier until the ship’s wake faded over the horizon.
Another deep breath of the familiar sea air. A year ago. A lifetime.
As the sun set, she trudged up the dunes towards home. Another day, another page.
Inside, she lifted the phone receiver, listening to the silence. Waiting for the connection.
One ring. Then two.
“Ocracoke station. Simmons here.”
He sounded young. They always did.
“Hello, James. This is Ellise reporting in.”
“Ah, Mrs. Gaskins.” He still refused to call her by her first name. So young. “How are you today?”
“Doing well, thank you.”
They chatted through the usual small talk. The weather. The tides. And then silence.
“Well, I better keep this line clear,” he said. “What have you got for me today?”
“Nothing to report. No sightings. All clear.”
“Good,” said James. “The damn Krauts know better than to come around as long as you’re part of the Carolina Picket Force.”
She smiled. Then Jacob’s name slipped into her mind, and the smile evaporated into the familiar ache.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Mrs. Gaskins.”
“Bye, James.” She returned the receiver to its cradle.
Ellise busied herself with the evening chores, then ate a small dinner she hardly noticed.
No new mail today. She slid open the dresser drawer and removed Jacob’s latest letter, the creases already softening with use. Morocco. The word felt mythical. Distant. Unreal. She pictured Bedouins and camels, not the tanks and infantry she read about in the news.
The postmark was a week old. He could be anywhere now. She imagined him marching through dust along the Mediterranean coast, nothing but golden sand for miles.
At night, in the dark, she saw him, in the places where distance didn’t matter. His voice came first, that particular way he inhaled before he spoke. Then his touch. His fingers entwined with hers.
She awoke with her fingers curled against nothingness. Morning dissolved into the afternoon, the hours counting upward, never ending. No mail again today.
After lunch, she returned to her post on the beach. A week earlier, someone had reported a shape offshore, near Hatteras. Maybe a periscope or snorkel, maybe not. But it was enough to rouse the Navy after the recent sinkings.
The Arbutan.
The Ario.
The Atlas.
Their names now spoken only in hushed sounds, becoming memorials.
Ellise swept the horizon from left to right, as they had taught her. Counting headings. Estimating distances.
Vigilance for Victory. The Office of Civilian Defense’s slogan was everywhere on Ocracoke. It reverberated throughout her day. Her only companionship.
A dark shape, barely visible, caught her eye. She leaned forward, straining to close the distance. The shape hovered above the water, not under.
She fixed her gaze on it, ignoring the sting of sand against her face and the roar of the waves. The haze gathered itself, thickening, taking shape. A recognizable shape.
A clock.
She knew the face immediately—Jacob’s pocket watch.
The hands coalesced against the numerals. Both pointing to the four. Twenty minutes past four.
She heard her name carried in on the breakers.
Then a gull’s caw split the moment, and the clock vanished.
Ellise breathed deeply, again and again. Scanning the horizon for the image.
Nothing.
She let the binoculars drop against her chest and opened the notebook to a blank page. Her eyes shifted, looking again to the sea. Waiting.
The sun passed behind a cloud, momentarily erasing the shadows.
Ellise closed the book and took up the glasses once more. But not towards where the vision had been. Instead, she angled them right, and down, following the hands of the watch, as though they’d marked the bearing.
There it is! A dark oval just below the surface. And a thin pipe rising above.
A periscope, she corrected herself, remembering her training.
She jotted the details into her booklet and dashed homeward.
“James!” she shouted into the receiver, interrupting his clipped greeting.
“I saw something. A sighting.” She emphasized the word.
“Easy now, slow down. Tell me what you saw.”
She inhaled deeply. Controlled her voice. Measured each word.
“A dark object. Possible periscope. Bearing one-two-zero. Estimated three to four miles. Stationary.”
The report left her mouth calm. Professional.
Her gaze settled on Jacob’s picture hanging on the wall.
“Are you sure that’s what you saw?”
“Yes. I watched it for fifteen seconds. Then reacquired.” The instructors had drilled that step. Always double check a sighting before reporting it.
“Alright, Mrs. Gaskins. Hold the line, please.” She heard muffled voices, the crackle of a radio. Orders being passed along. The receiver grew heavy in her hand. Seconds stretched.
At last James returned. “Well done, Mrs. Gaskins. We’re sending a cutter to investigate.”
Ellise touched Jacob’s picture as she set the receiver back in its cradle.
The days blurred together, routine stacked upon routine. A letter from Jacob was the only reprieve from constant vigilance.
Most afternoons passed without incident. No sightings of German U-boats—or pocket watches.
But now and again, the vision returned. The hands pointing in different directions. Eight forty. Six-thirty. Five twenty-five. And each time, Ellise reported it.
Once, she asked James if they ever found anything.
“Sorry, Mrs. Gaskins. You know I can’t say anything about that. Loose lips and all. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course.” She stumbled over her words. “I didn’t mean anything. Vigilance for Victory and all that.”
James didn’t respond.
She was about to hang up, when he whispered, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but we got one. Just south of Morehead City. Tracked it from your sighting.”
Silence.
“You’re doing fine,” he added, voice low. “But don’t let anyone know I told you. We could both get in a world of trouble.”
She looked at Jacob’s picture and felt a smile rise. Vigilance for Victory.
The months slipped by, tracked by the postmarks on Jacob’s letters. The latest had arrived only days ago, though it was postmarked weeks earlier. He was near Algiers now. There was talk of Italy next. She reverently laid it in the drawer with the others, beside the faint piles of Mediterranean sand.
The late-afternoon sun did little against the cold breeze coming in off the ocean. She was bundled in her wool coat and scarf, but no gloves. They would only get in the way of her binoculars.
A chill ran through her as she scanned the ocean. Slowly. Patiently. From left to right.
She’d seen it often enough not to be surprised anymore. But her breath still caught as the haze above the water gathered into its familiar outline.
A soft rain began to fall. Or maybe it was mist.
She exhaled slowly, her breath visible in front of her, a warped reflection of the haze above the water. Fading instead of forming.
The shape thickened, and the clock emerged.
But this time, without numerals.
Twelve o’clock. The hour she’d never seen before.
Instinctively, her chin lifted, pushing the binoculars higher. The heavy clouds hung low, pushing against the whitecaps. There was no sky at all.
She widened her view, sweeping around the apparition.
Nothing. Only the angry ocean and low, gray clouds.
She let the binoculars go, the strap pulling them against her. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the thin rain, no longer a mist. She walked towards the surf. Seeking. Searching.
Hoping.
She stopped when the water lapped against her feet.
The clock was already gone.
She leaned in, willing something—anything—to appear.
But there was only rain.
She returned up the dune, kicking up small clumps of sand with each step. The rain peppered tiny pits into the slope.
Ahead, a car waited in front of her house. Olive drab. A white star stenciled on the door.
Her pace quickened, crushing the dune grass beneath her. Feet sinking into the wet, loose sand.
The driver stepped out, adjusting his cap. The bright ribbons and stripes stark against the dull brown uniform.
She was running now. The loose sand giving way to crushed shells. Then grass. Rain slapping her face.
The passenger door opened. Another man. Tall. Dressed in a black suit with a white collar at his throat.
The watch slipped from her hand and hit the ground.
She knew.
-END-
Rick is a career UX and technical writer by day, and a fiction author by choice. After years of documenting software, gas pumps, and database tools, he’s still working on keeping it out of his prose. His wife edits and fixes most important things—including his stories and wardrobe. They live in North Carolina with their excellent dog, one good cat, and one less-good cat.