The Forty Fathom Bank and Other Stories Page 13

  Pete was just the most perfect kind of guy I could have ever met up with, and I hoped sometime to be able to talk him into going outside with me in my boat. Maybe by him being along with me, I thought, I could get over the crazy fear I’d had of the ocean ever since I was a little kid, a real strange feeling I’d probably gotten from all the stories I’d heard about storms and undertows and ships going down and drownings in the surf and all that, but that at the same time had made the ocean seem so fascinating and exciting. I used to dream of getting out there, scared or not, if that makes any sense. Besides, I knew he could teach me more in one trip than I’d be able to learn in a year by myself. Yet, although I had asked him any number of times, he didn’t seem interested in going out. Several of the other fellows had asked him, too, but he never would go. “I go out,” he’d say, “when I get boat for myself.”

  And this was apparently what he had in mind. He worked in a brewery up the road and was probably saving his money and looking. He knew every boat on the Bay. But there wasn’t one that suited him. Either it was under-powered or overpowered, had too little or too much deck space, or, and this was his most usual comment, “She’s not strong.” What he was looking for, he said, was a boat “that fits me.”

  Though he hadn’t been out for some time, he always wore black dungarees, a big silver buckle on his belt, a hickory shirt, all nice and clean, and a blue watch cap. His heavy peajacket was usually slung over one big shoulder as he walked about the docks on his days off and talked to the fellows working on their boats. He was sure-footed as a goat and just seemed to float right up a ladder with his jacket hanging on his shoulder and, big as he was, he could jump from one boat to another as light as a feather. Once in a while someone would rib him about the peajacket and watchcap saying, “You look a bit salty there, Pete.” But he’d just smile at them good-naturedly behind his short-stemmed pipe. Of course there wasn’t a one of us who wouldn’t have dressed the same way except we knew we couldn’t get away with it.

  Every Sunday morning he’d put on his pin-striped suit that always looked too tight on his big muscular body and with his black Fedora hat, a white handkerchief in his lapel pocket, his orange-tan tie, he’d take the ferry over to the city where he went to his Greek Orthodox church to attend the early service.

  Since my boat had a fairly roomy cabin with a little potbellied stove to keep it warm, quite often of an evening some of the fishermen would row in from their moorings for coffee and some yarn swapping. One night along about the end of summer, Pete and some of the other men dropped by. Tony Landucci had come in earlier with some fish and a couple of crabs and we had cooked up a big cioppino. We’d finished eating and were drinking coffee when Tom Olson asked me when I was going to get started fishing.

  “Probably in the spring,” I said, “but the fact is, if you want to know the truth of it, I’m kind of scared of that ocean.”

  “An honest statement if I ever heard one,” Tom said, “it’s something to be afraid of.”

  I looked over at Pete who was just sitting there listening but looking like he hadn’t heard anything.

  “I tell you something,” Karl Swenson said, “I been fishing all my life, and I still have plenty respect for the ocean. Some times after bad storm I say to myself, what the hell you want to be fisherman for. I keep going though, like dumb animal. But that storm in the Gulf of Alaska was the worst I ever see. I almost stop fishing then for good.”

  “You got a good boat,” Pete said, “you ride out anything.” It was the first time I had ever heard him sound annoyed. “Sure she blow up in the Gulf. But you keep your hand on the tiller, you don’t drown. I tell my partner this. But he don’t listen. He go below, and put on life jacket and get ready to die. Sure it bad, blow maybe one hundred mile wind. No cloud and full moon. Then we see big rocks. Water break maybe two-three hundred feet up. Oh, sure, she look bad. But there is big hole in rocks with beach in back. My partner get scared then and start to jump. I yell him stay with boat. Goddam storm, I say, but we make it. You watch. But either he don’t hear me or he don’t believe me. So over he go, and that the last anyone ever see of him. Just about then, big breaker come bustin’ in high as mountain and makin’ plenty noise too. She pick up that boat like toothpick and away we go. Goddam bastard storm, I say, she bad one. But I don’t let loose the tiller, just keep her head up. Then right through the rocks, maybe forty-fifty knots, so fast, I tell you I hardly see nothing except that foam and spray. I nearly bust both arms, but I don’t let loose that tiller. Pretty soon she hit sand. Oh, sure, she take out bottom, bust up everything. But I get out alive. Two days I climb rocks, look all over beach. Don’t find nothin’. I cry like baby, yell Goddam you devil bastard storm. But I get out alive, I tell you. I do it again too. I get new boat, go back same place, I show not scared of ocean.”

  Pete was breathing kind of hard when he finished his story. It was pretty clear by then he wasn’t really amazed at Karl for his talk of giving up and all but just plain angry at the ocean for wrecking his boat and drowning his partner, the kind of anger you get when your pride has been hurt. So I knew it wouldn’t be long now before he’d be back on that same coast proving to himself he could beat his old enemy. And then I got to thinking that it was guys like him that must have been responsible for building up this whole area in the old days, big illiterate guys, but darn smart though, who looked at the mountains and the ocean like they were enemies that had to be beaten down with their bare fists, guys you don’t see the likes of much these days because there’s not much need for them anymore.

  “Why you don’t get that big Greek to take you out,” Tony said. “He’s too dumb to be scared of anythin’.”

  “Maybe I do just that,” Pete said. “Maybe I show this boy you don’t know damn thing what you talk about.”

  Ever since I’d known Pete he’d always seemed a little absentminded, as though he had something else he was thinking about, something more important than whatever it was he was talking about at the time. Now, maybe because he was annoyed, he seemed to be right there. He lit his pipe and really made the smoke go. But pretty soon he was chuckling like something had struck him very funny. Then he began ribbing Karl and Tony about a lot of crazy things that must have happened in the past. And he was laughing like I’d never heard him laugh before.

  I didn’t really believe he was serious when he said he’d go out with me, but the following Saturday he came down to the boat and began getting things ready. He went through the engine first, changed the points, cleaned the plugs and adjusted the carburetor so the old mill idled down nice and even, and just seemed to purr. Then he went over the steering, tightened up some loose bolts in the quadrant, greased the sheaves and adjusted the tension on the cables. “Steering gear need work,” he said, “but she O.K. for good weather. After trip we fix right.” When everything seemed in good shape, I got out the salmon gear. The rest of the day and most of Sunday we spent getting all the jigs and weights and lines in order. Then he told me to be ready the following Saturday around about two in the morning, and we’d head up toward Point Reyes and try our luck.

  All that week I was as excited as a little kid thinking of how good it would be to quit my job and earn my living fishing. I ran the boat over to the gas dock, and filled the tanks. I washed down the decks and got everything cleared away below. I even cleaned out the bilges and polished what little brass there was in the wheelhouse. It was a great week and full of great feelings. But now and then I’d get to thinking about things that happened when I was a child, like the time when the Lyman Stewart went aground in the Gate and my father took me out one gray morning to see how the storm had broken her clean in half with her bow on the beach and her high stern pounding in the waves way out by Mile Rock Light. Then I’d remember the story my mother told me about the wreck of the old Steamer Bear on Cape Flattery when she was a young girl and how this woman was thrown up on a rock and nobody could get to her and how she’d sung “Nearer My God to Thee” in the
stormy night before she was washed away into the black water. And I’d remember the awful feeling it had given me and how I used to dream about it and wake up at night with the whole dark picture of it in my mind. But right in the middle of it I’d think about Pete and those big hands of his and of how crazy they looked hanging out of the sleeves of his pin-striped suit when he was going to church on Sunday mornings and his big Greek face with that dumb hod of a pipe sticking out of it and right away I’d forget about the other things and feel happy all over again.

  Right at two on Saturday morning, Pete was there. I didn’t even hear him climb down the ladder and jump over onto the deck. While the engine was warming up, we had some coffee—he was a great one for coffee which he liked boiled down thick and black, like a mug full of road oil. The weather was nice and clear when we pulled out, with some big stars over the hills, and San Francisco just a glow across the Bay. But I could hear the big diaphone blasting from the Bridge, so I figured there must be fog outside. We had the current with us and moved along at a pretty good clip by the docks and ferry slips. There was no wind to speak of until we got past Lime Point. Then a cold breeze came up that was blowing a thin mist through the Gate.

  Now I had been all over the Bay, and I’d gone way up into the sloughs. I’d seen some good days and plenty of bad ones too, with heavy winds and rough water. But there was something different about everything once we went under the Bridge. A strange kind of chill was in the air like nothing I’d ever felt in the Bay, a big, dark, cold feeling that seemed to wrap itself right around you. Through the mist, the moon, which was quite low and about at the full, showed dark gray, then bright silver. The black swells that came in from the ocean lifted the boat up like she was nothing at all and went rolling by without a sound. Under the mist, the lights on Mile Rock and Point Bonita to the north were big and bright, and when they swept over the water, the tops of the swells looked wet and shiny as they uncoiled from out of the darkness and went sliding away shoreward. I was standing at the wheel and holding the spokes pretty tight in both hands. Pete was standing beside me. His big hands were in the breast pockets of his peajacket. His thick body rolled a little with the movement of the boat, but his booted feet seemed bolted to the deck. In the little light from the binnacle, his dark, Greek face, with its short, black pipe, looked carved out of wood. He was gazing out over the water ahead and seemed quite at home.

  Yet, though I’d never been outside before, I knew all about the coast thereabouts, from studying the charts. I knew where channels were and the lights and buoys and all the points and reefs and rocks. So when we cleared Bonita, I kept in the North Channel, far enough out to be safe from the rocks but not so far as to get onto the Four Fathom Bank which is a shallow bar a couple of miles off the point known as the Potatoe Patch. In heavy weather, the seas break and roll over it, and a ship with any draft at all will hit bottom and a small boat would probably have no chance whatever. Of course, in fair weather like we had that morning, there was no danger. But I kept in the channel anyway. By the time the sun came up over the hills along the coast and the light sea mist had cleared, we were well offshore in the area of Point Reyes with our lines down and the engine idling along nicely.

  “So you like be fisherman?” Pete asked. We were sitting on the after cabin, watching the lines as the boat rolled pleasantly over the long swells. “You learn things right, you make good money. You never be rich, but you be free. No boss. You in business for yourself. Go north in spring. Go Fort Bragg, Eureka. Go up Alaska if like. In winter, go south. If not like, then stay home. Sleep when wind blow.” He was in a fine mood. I’d never seen him look real happy before. Now he just kind of beamed. “Fisherman no have listen to big bull in office,” he went on, “eat plenty, make strong man. Sea very pretty too.” He pointed with his pipe stem toward the east where the blue water sparkled in the early sunlight. “Sun come up, sun go down. Very pretty. Night time, see plenty stars. Sea smell good too.” He took a big breath and let it out slowly. “Sea like good wife. You talk, she listen. Sometimes bad too, like storm in gulf. Wind go crazy, try kill you. Oh, sure, you scared. But who know, maybe that good too.”

  This was another side of Pete, a side probably few people ever got to see, and I felt kind of proud to be one of them. Just then he reminded me of my eight-year-old brother on one of those times when he wasn’t being silly or showing off or raising hell or making stupid faces, but just being serious about something he liked because, at such times, his whole face got beautiful like Pete’s was that day, just thoughtful and happy and real peaceful looking.

  We trolled all morning and picked up half a dozen silversides and a couple of big king salmon. Around about noon, the wind began to build up, and by four or so was blowing pretty hard. It was about that time we had the first trouble with the engine. Some rust scales from the gas tanks had clogged the screen in the sediment bowl under the carburetor. Pete went below and removed the bowl and cleaned the screen.

  “Not good,” he said when he came up. “You take out gas, clean tank before go out again.” He looked out over the water, then at the shore. “We drift plenty far,” he said. “Not good engine stop now.”

  An old coastal freighter, some distance west of us, was moving in toward the Gate. The smoke from her stack, blowing forward over her bow, made her look like she was going full speed astern. Steep waves were beginning to run over the big swells. Here and there the tops broke, making nasty little flecks of white on the blue-black water.

  “Go in now,” Pete said. “Pretty soon blow very hard.”

  I spun the wheel around and headed back toward the Gate. Pete went aft, brought in the lines and secured things on deck. The old freighter had altered her course, and was cutting across our bow maybe half a mile ahead. I could see her rusty iron plates daubed with red lead and the big white spray from forward as she plunged into the rising seas. The sky was quite clear, and the sun, which had been slanting downward, suddenly got big and red. And then, almost as I watched, it eased itself right down into the limpy water along the horizon. The old freighter’s mast head light came on and high above, the full moon shone kind of cold and white in the clear evening sky. The swells were so big by now, that when the boat was in the troughs, everything disappeared completely. I changed my course a few degrees figuring to follow the freighter, which was heading for the north channel, close in to Point Bonita.

  “We stay outside Potatoe Patch,” Pete said. He had come into the wheelhouse and was standing beside me at the wheel. “North Channel no good now. If engine stop, we go on rocks.” He filled his pipe and lighted it. His big, tanned face was as calm as if he were sitting on the dock on a quiet Sunday afternoon talking about net-mending or the benefits of a fisherman’s union. And feeling his calm and confidence, somehow I wasn’t afraid either. He was a great guy and a great teacher too, I thought, as I changed the course again, this time heading out well to the west of the Potatoe Patch which I could see now in the moonlight, some four or five miles ahead, was beginning to churn up white.

  Everything went well for the next half hour or so despite the wind which was howling down from astern at almost gale force. I managed to ease her out in the big quartering seas so we could clear the bar by a good mile or more. Now and then a wave would break and wash over the after deck which, if I’d been alone would have scared the hell out of me. But with Pete there, the whole thing was kind of exciting. My fear was gone. Even my muscles seemed to get stronger. I stood with my legs apart and spun the wheel about, keeping the boat from getting broadside in the troughs. I revv’d up the engine and drove the hull forward over the black hills that raced down on us from out on the ocean like I’d been doing it all my life. It was a great feeling, the best and biggest feeling I’d ever known.

  I don’t know how far we were from the Potatoe Patch, maybe a mile, maybe less, when the engine stopped the second time. It coughed once, picked up again, sputtered, then died completely. In an instant, Pete was out of the wheelhouse and dow
n below. The boat with no headway now, went wild, bobbing and tossing, lifting, and falling. The wind had a heavy sound like a big wave rushing up on a beach. The water itself didn’t make much noise, just a hissing sound with now and then a kind of snapping. Pete hollered up for a flashlight. With the boat flying around the way it was, it took much longer to clean out the screen and get the bowl back on than before. I crawled up into the wheelhouse again with Pete close behind me and started the engine. Then I looked ahead. Not a hundred yards away, a huge wave broke and crashed. Beyond, in the bright moonlight, as far as I could see, was nothing but seething white water.

  “Pete,” I yelled.

  But he was not there. The door to the wheelhouse swung open then banged shut. Suddenly I remembered the steering quadrant. Good Christ, he’d gone out on deck! I pulled back on the throttle and started to bring the boat about. But it was too late. Another wave picked her up and just threw her right into the boiling foam of the Potatoe Patch.

  For the next few minutes, or hours, or years—I can’t remember what happened to time—I just hung on to the wheel. The moon was scribbling white lines all over the black sky. I could hear the crash and boom of breakers all around and the engine labor as the boat climbed the steep slope of some gigantic wave, then race at full throttle, as she dived, almost vertically downward, into a deep through.

  Suddenly the boat spun broadside to the seas and began to drop like it was going right to the bottom. Down, down, down. Then something exploded overhead; the cabin door was ripped from its hinges; black water rushed in through the broken wheelhouse windows. I was still hanging on to the wheel, but the violent shock of that massive wave crushing down from above threw me against the after bulkhead with such force that for a minute I must have been knocked unconscious. When I managed to get back to the wheel, the boat was out of the Potatoe Patch. The big wave that had smashed down on her must have picked her up again and thrown her off the bar just like the one before had thrown her on. I looked out on deck for Pete. In the moonlight, the deck was empty. I shouted his name. There was no answer. I shouted again. My throat seemed like it had a rope around it. I crawled out through the doorway, screaming into the wind. Still there was no answer. Then I realized he had been washed over. Oh Christ! I jumped to the wheel and was about to turn back. But I knew right away that that would be useless. The chance of finding him on that wild bar was next to impossible. Suddenly all my strength seemed to go. I leaned against the wheel aching all over and kind of empty inside.