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“Last chance,” Bill said, handing JT the first crate “You can still change your et drunk and stay that way until I had to sober up”

JT grinned, showing even white teeth andthe cleft in his chin almost disappear “Thanks for the offer and tell Dolly I swear I’ll use the salve and try my best to fatten up,” he said as he took the second crate ashore

“She’ll probably still worry about you and when you get back she’ll no doubt have twenty pretty girls lined up to meet you”

“I’ll be ready for theht rain” JT couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice

“I can take a hint, you want one I’ll pick you up on Sunday”

“Sunday night,” JT said

“All right, Sunday night But you don’t have to live with Dolly She’s going to worry me to death about you”

“All right,” JT said, stepping toward the boat “Now you’ve made me a decent offer I’ll live with Dolly and you stay here”

“So his face His buxom little as the love of his life; each day he still marveled that she had married someone like him For all that JT was his friend and had even introduced them, JT’s looks aroused Bill’s jealousy

JT laughed at his friend’s expression “Go on, get out of here and don’t get lost on the way back”

Bill revved the engine and backed off the narrow beach with JT’s help

JT stood at the edge of th

e water and watched his friend until Bill rounded another island and was lost to sight, then JT opened his ar sea rove trees behind him made him feel almost at home

In anothernorth along the beach Nearly a year ago when the navy had first sent him to Key West to supervise their ship repair operation, he had seen this island through binoculars from the deck of a ship He had known then it was a place where he would like to spend time

Over the past year he had read a few books about the land around Key West and he had gotten an idea of as involved in carove island

Saying that the interior of a rove island was impenetrable was an understatement The branches of the trees that had for a prison of woody stems

JT re a narrow path through the growth He meant to reach the freshwater cut in the center of the island

It took him four hours of hard work to reach the cut and by that ti that he was too thin He had lost weight in his three weeks in the hospital and the burns on the left side of his body were still pink and now beginning to itch fro for a moment and looked about hilossy-leaved rove trees, but in front of him was the cut of water and a small area of land and sea debris The water flowed out before him, its source hidden under the trees There was room here for his tarp tent, a campfire, and his few provisions; it was all he needed

He wiped the sweat from his face and turned back down the path he had just made The track hadunder the looping, low branches for a while before starting to hack away again He didn’t want a freshlyarea Several times German submarines had coht to a bayonet at his throat