The Forty Fathom Bank and Other Stories (17 page)

Because of the high tide caused by the rains and the heavy south winds, it was possible to tow the old
Caspar
far up into Richardson's Bay before she ran onto the mud. The tug carried her anchor out from the bow and the deckhands shackled her chain onto the mooring bitt. Then they went away and left her to rot.

For many years the
Caspar
lay on the mud. The white paint on her hull and superstructure flaked off and her heavy pine timbers weathered until she looked like an old dead tree trunk.

It was because of the high water when they towed her over that she lay so far away from the other derelicts, although some people around Sausalito say it was because she was so ugly. They had to put her away by herself so as not to spoil the majestic beauty of the big sailing ships like the
Emily F. Whitney
that lay close to town where visitors could admire her tall masts and trim hull. Still others said it was because the
Caspar
didn't have a romantic past like the
Beulah
that ran to Alaska or the City of Papeete that once carried Robert Louis Stevenson to Samoa.

Yet sometimes when I used to row out around the
Caspar
and look at her blunt bow and short masts I wondered if this old steam schooner hadn't had as many adventures hauling lumber up and down the coast as those big square-riggers that sailed so grandly to the Orient or the sleek schooners that carried copra and spices from the Islands.

There was another thing I wondered about. Why did old Hans Grondahl stay aboard the
Caspar
when they left her
out in the Bay. The old man was on the boat when they towed her over from San Francisco. He was standing on the foc'sle head and waved to Pederson on the
Sea Ranger
as the tug pulled away.

Old Hans had lived aboard ever since. He used to row over to Sausalito once or twice a week to buy food and tobacco; then he'd go back to the
Caspar
. Sometimes you could see him in his skiff fishing for perch along the rock beach by Belvedere Point. But usually he stayed on the
Caspar
. I had never known anyone to go out to visit him.

Folks around the dock thought he was a little crazy in a harmless way, but no one thought very much about him one way or another. He'd been there so long he was part of the background like the hills around the bay and the weathered old hulls that lay out in the water. I did hear Gustafson say once that he wondered what Old Grondahl would do if the worm-eaten
Caspar
ever broke up in a norther.

During the season of the northers the air is clear and dry. On days like these when the wind is not blowing I like to take my skiff out into the bay and just look around. The hills and Mount Tamalpais which towers above them stand out sharply against the sky, and the water is pure blue. Tall buildings along the skyline of San Francisco and the streets on the hillsides appear to be quite close. The world seems bigger on these days.

It was on such an afternoon that I rowed out to the
Caspar
. I had not been close to the boat for a long time and I could see where planks had fallen off the sides and light shone through the openings. The bow was still high above the water but the stern where the living quarters were had a heavy list. It looked as if she might be broken amidship.

When I came around the after end I saw Old Grondahl. He was in his shirt sleeves leaning on the rail. The faint blue
smoke from his pipe drifted out over the water. A lonely figure.

“You've come a long way, son,” he said when he saw me in the skiff.

“Yes, but if the wind comes up I'll get back in a hurry.”

“It'll blow tonight,” he said, “but not till late. Come aboard and have some coffee.”

I tied the skiff and climbed up the Jacob's ladder. I noticed that the deck was clean. It looked as if it might just have been holystoned.

Hans Grondahl opened the cabin door and I followed him in. It seemed strange to see the brass door knobs polished. Inside, the cabin was nicely painted. There were oil lamps hanging in gimbals on the bulkheads and several photographs of the
Caspar
taken many years before. In one of them I recognized Grondahl. He had handlebar mustaches and wore an officer's cap. He had a big smile on his face. The picture must have been taken on the after deck just outside the cabin door. Along the forward wall were shelves filled with books. They were mostly big books with large gold titles in raised letters. They looked very old. In one corner of the cabin on an ancient cast-iron wood and coal stove stood a big enameled coffee pot. The coffee smelled good.

Grondahl placed cups on the table and poured the coffee.

“I hope you like it black,” he said. “I have no cream.”

We sat in silence and drank the coffee. Then to make conversation I remarked:

“It's quite comfortable here. Have you lived aboard the
Caspar
long?”

Old Grondahl did not answer for awhile. Then he said slowly as if mentally adding up the time.

“I was a deck hand on her maiden voyage. I been with her ever since. Fifty-one years.”

When I had finished the coffee I stood up and looked out through the porthole. The sun was down behind the mountain and lights had begun to twinkle from the shore. There was a ripple on the water.

“Well, thank you for the coffee,” I said. “I should be leaving now. The wind is coming up.”

“I'm glad you came,” he said. “I believe you are the first.”

When I had rowed back to Sausalito I pulled my skiff out of the water and lashed it to the dock. Then I went home and waited for the storm to break.

That night the sky opened up and let the north wind loose. It streaked naked through the valleys of Sonoma and down over the water. It seemed as if not even God could curb the fury of the north wind when it came down over the hills and swept across the bay.

By morning the wind had gone. When I got up I looked out over the bay to see what damage had been done in the night. The big eucalyptus tree at the foot of the hill was down and lay across the power lines. A few fishing boats were up on the beach, and the foremast of the
Emily F. Whitney
lay in the water with a tangle of yards and rigging. The
Caspar
was gone. A dark spot above the water looked as if it might be a bit of her bow.

Down at the dock people stood around looking at the wreckage. Gustafson was there and when I asked him about Old Grondahl he said that most probably he had been drowned. It was just as well, he said, because Grondahl was getting old.

The night of the fifth day passed and dawn came dull and gray through the mist that lay over the water. But the coming of the sun brought no change in the appalling blood-warm air. The man, stripped to the waist, could feel neither heat nor cold on his naked skin. The night and the day and the sea and the air were all one deadly sameness.

He stood on the deck close to the wheelhouse watching the albacore lines while the boat pushed on through the oily sea. His eyes followed the long limp curves trailing aft to the little ripples where they dipped into the water. And farther still, past the stern, where he saw the feathered jigs weaving slowly from side to side, yellow and white in the murky greenness. He saw the two divergent waves rolling disconsolately away from the stern, forming an infinite vee that lost itself in the vapid stillness of the sea. From time to time he looked back toward the east where he knew the Island of San Nicolas lay thirty miles across the water. Fifty miles beyond that was Anadapa Island and another twenty-five miles still farther was Santa Barbara on the mainland. But he could see nothing save the thin edged horizon like a ruled line and the pale gray zone of haze above it. In all directions lay the ocean, dull gray and heavy as lead in a mold.

He lifted the cover off the hatch on the after deck and looked down into the fish hold. He could see the rows of albacore, stacked like cordwood, their streamlined bodies, white bellied and black backed, stiff in the melting ice. Their great round eyes glazed, stared obliquely out of the
sides of their heads. Down in the bilge the water from the ice splashed between the oak ribs. The ice was melting fast. He knew he would have to head back to Santa Barbara that night.

He put the hatch cover back and stepped over to the bilge pump that was bolted on to the side of the wheelhouse and started pumping out the bilges. The water gushed out of the hose in a clear stream. He pumped with one hand and held the hose with the other letting the water pour over his head and run down his back and over his shoulders. It soaked his pants and ran down into his heavy rubber sea boots but the stinging cold felt good and he flexed the muscles across his chest and breathed deep.

When he finished pumping he went back by the stern and hauled in the port inboard line to clear away the kelp that had caught on the hooks. Long tendrils of slime green sea grass clung to the bulbs on the brown ribbons of kelp. The lukewarm seawater dripped off his wrist onto the deck. He pulled the barbed double hooks out of the tangle of sea grass and kelp, straightened out the feathers and let the line back into the water, being careful that it did not foul the other lines. Then he stood for awhile looking down into the wake. He noticed how the water formed into a hollow like a translucent green cradle close to the transom. The bottom of the hollow was mirror smooth and he could see far down into the torpid gloom below. The propellor pushed up a low mound of water that bubbled and swirled six feet or so aft of the stern. It formed a long straight path of slow turning eddies that faded into the sea toward the east where the land lay.

He went forward again and stood by the wheelhouse. The sun was higher but its light, diffused by the veil of mist, made the sea and the sky one dreary blend of gray and
white. His pants, still wet from the icy bilge water, were no longer cold to his flesh. He could feel their damp heaviness clinging to his legs and the thick wool socks soggy and tepid inside his boots.

A hundred yards abeam an albacore leaped. For an instant the full length of its body stood in sharp relief. Close astern he saw another break water. Then one hit on the long dog line that ran to the masthead. The line snapped taut, the shock spring stretched out to full length. He moved across the deck to the stern and pulled on the line with wide-armed strokes, slowly and steadily till the fish was close to the boat. Then with a quick jerk he lifted it up on the deck and hit it a sharp blow between the eyes. The fish stiffened and its mouth opened wide. He twisted the hook out of its mouth and a trickle of dark blood spread out on the deck. Then he picked the fish up by the tail and threw it into the ice hold and went back and dropped the line into the water.

For several hours the boat moved along with the school and the fish came, striking two and three, sometimes five and six lines at once until the man's arms ached and the deck was red with blood and thick with slime from the mouths of fish. Then they were gone and the sea was quiet.

For a while he sat on the hatch and rested. He could hear the barrel-toned exhaust rumbling in the stack on top of the wheelhouse and deep in the hull the velvet drone of the engine. The sun, now well past the zenith, cast a flat lusterless light down through the haze. The sea appeared like a mirror that had been breathed on.

The boat still traveled west, the track of its wake as straight as a plumb line. The man looked back over the water. Sixty, maybe sixty-five miles, he thought, to San Nicolas. Then seventy-five to Santa Barbara. Twelve hours.
He could be in before morning. Next day he would unload, then north to San Simeon, Monterey and the clean cool fog off Frisco.

Suddenly the dog line straightened. He reached for the line and started to pull but the hooks had snagged in a big clump of kelp and the line was tight. As he leaned back against the weight of it the heel of his boot skidded on the slippery deck and his body spun in a half circle. He let go of the line and make a wild leap for the gunn'l. He missed and for an instant he seemed to hang suspended in the air. Then suddenly he felt the warm seawater close over his head.

He flung his arms out trying to catch hold of the dog line but the weight of the sea boots dragged him down. He saw the dark shadow of the kelp slide by, heard the muffled swish of it through the water. He sank deeper. Pale shafts pierced the green gloom around him. He could feel the dull aching pressure of water against his eyes, the wire thin hum in his ears. He tore the knife from its sheath on his belt, slit the boots down to the soles and kicked them off. Then he swam to the surface.

The boat was two hundred yards across the water and moving steadily away. He saw the hull outlined clear and sharp against the gray curtain of sky, the black lettering on the white transom, the empty wheelhouse, the slender bleached outrigger poles like skeleton arms reaching out over the water. Faintly there came the hollow whisper of the exhaust and the low pulsating hum of the engine.

For a moment he half expected the boat to stop or perhaps to circle back. Then slowly, as the boat went on, he felt a dull coldness surge up into his chest and spread out through his limbs. He started swimming, wildly thrashing his arms and kicking his legs. His pants and wool socks dragged in the water. He swam until the humid air burned
in his lungs and the blood pounded in his temples. But the boat, gliding smoothly over the water, was getting farther away. He stopped swimming and with great whistling sobs sucked air into his wide open mouth.