The Forty Fathom Bank and Other Stories Read online

  Suddenly from high above, the big white breasted gull folded his wings and, dropping like a bullet through the cloud of smaller gulls, snapped up a fat sardine that had just swung over the roller. He shook his head and started to take off when I saw he was hooked. As the line went down he flapped his powerful wings and, for an instant, rose into the air, his hooked beak dragging the ganion up with him, and in that instant two small speckled gulls fell screaming upon him, pecking and tearing at his widespread wings until he disappeared in a swirling gray and white bundle beneath the water.

  Whether or not May had seen the gull I could not tell. About the middle of the set, he put on another anchor and a third one when the end buoy line went over with its bamboo pole and the flag for a marker. Then he motioned for me to cut the engine.

  I was still thinking about the big gull getting hooked and dragged below. However, there was no more reason, I told myself, for getting sentimental over the death of a bird than for the sardine he had attempted to eat. But for the chance turn that got it into the purse seine net, the sardine would now be breeding in the sea or feeding upon some lesser unfortunate who, in its turn should, by like analysis, have my sympathy also.

  I switched off the engine and, still standing in the wheelhouse, looked out on the deck. May, who was washing his hands in the bucket of seawater, seemed to have completely forgotten the big set we had just put down. His unlined face, with its clean tanned skin and quiet green eyes, looked relaxed and peaceful. The unconscious rhythm with which he moved seemed in perfect harmony with the sky, the water and the slow rolling deck upon which he stood. And as I watched him, it occurred to me that never in my life had I known anyone who appeared so free of worry and so serenely detached from the harassments of life.

  Yet, whether at the time I admired May’s complacence or merely envied it, I do not know; but the quiet pleasure he took, not only in his work but in just the simple business of washing his hands, was having a strangely salutary effect on me. The tension in my muscles and stomach that, until then I’d never quite realized was there, slowly ebbed away and a kind of airy lightness began to flow through my body. The curtain of anxiety that as far back as I could remember had obscured and distorted my vision lifted, and a new and surprisingly beautiful world appeared almost magically before me. The late morning sun that normally would have been nothing more than a disturbing reminder of time wasted made a broad silvery track southward, a liquid pathway over which I could easily imagine myself a child again, skipping excitedly toward some divine kingdom in the sky, while all around me the slow, inbound swells flashed and twinkled as from countless bright trinkets in the blue darkness of the water.

  With a feeling of unaccustomed delight, I stepped out on deck. The air was warm and soft, and in the silence of the stopped engine I made a surprising discovery. I could feel the Blue Fin floating. I say floating because when the heavy hull, vibrating to the pounding pistons, was moving forward at seven or eight knots, there was no feeling of floating, only a persistent and distracting clamor that numbed the senses. Now as we lay buoyantly lifting and falling on the long swells, the lapping of waves at the waterline, the woody thumping of the rudder post and the muted creaking of planks and timbers, all combined to bring my senses into perfect harmony with the easy motion of the sea around me.

  At the time, however, I did not question this curious transition in myself, whether May’s influence had wrought the change or if something else, perhaps some natural safety valve, was responsible. The unusual experience of feeling myself fully alive and the unbelievable joy it brought left no room for reflection. With new awareness I gazed out over the water. Close by I could see the buoy keg, bright red and strangely out of place on the wide expanse of blue on which it bobbed, and above it the black flag fluttering languidly on its bamboo pole. Far away and looking no bigger than a period, appearing and disappearing against the pale sky, I could make out the first flag that marked the far end of the line. Between those two flags and stretching over two miles of ocean floor, I knew lay some thousand baited hooks. But the thought of sharks down there, of tonnage, of liver, of Vitamin A, of the war in Europe, of work, of money, seemed to vanish altogether in the cool blue stillness of the day. Even my family, though no more than twenty-odd miles from where I stood, seemed remote as if they were living in another life.

  Suddenly I had a deep desire to talk to Ethan May, or possibly not to talk at all, but just sit and eat or maybe smoke a cigarette. I was still standing by the open door of the wheelhouse and May had just gone below. He had taken off his skull cap and put it in his trouser pocket. I followed him down, got the Primus stove going and cooked up some canned stew and made a pot of coffee.

  We ate in what I seemed to feel was a kind of friendly silence, with the Blue Fin rolling just a little, the portable table open between us, he sitting on the starboard bunk, I opposite and the soft sunlight through the open ports making slow patterns on the white painted bulkheads. May’s black suitcase was open beside him and when we had finished our coffee, he brought out a big almond chocolate bar, broke it, and handed me, I think, the larger half. I still remember, after twenty years, how it tasted, of the pleasant, homely feeling I had while eating it, and of the cigarette I smoked and of May’s pipe, that short stemmed, heavy bowled, comfortable pipe he filled and tamped with his thick strong fingers and the way he leaned back on the narrow bunk and puffed contentedly until we went up on deck again to bring in the shark line I’d almost forgotten and that had probably soaked too long or had lost its bait to the big red ocean crabs.

  Yet once the engine was going and the Blue Fin’s big wheel began to churn up a mound of white water astern and a wide ribbon of wake streamed out of the dark, sparkling water, the troubles, fears and complex uncertainties were back in an instant. It was as if they had never left me. I headed toward the first buoy line, and when the flag was alongside, I slowed down while May brought in the keg with the boat hook. So far he made no indication, either by gesture or expression, of what we might expect to catch. He worked with the same quick efficiency as before, a kind of buoyant cheerfulness in his strong, coordinated body. Now, as the buoy line came in over the starboard roller and around the flat, grooved wheel of the power gurdy, my anxiety was such that I could feel my heart beating heavily in my chest. When the anchor was up, I swung the wheel over and put the bow a few points off the direction of the set and then, with one hand on the wheel and my head through the open window, I gazed down at the mainline that was coming in slowly from off the ocean bottom. But as far as I could see down into the wavering depths, the hooks hung clean and empty on their long ganions. As the last of the set came in, I caught myself, despite my disappointment, watching tensely for the body of the big gull. But by the empty hooks it was evident the crabs had gotten him. When all was aboard, one small male soupfin lay on the deck along with a few red cod, a couple of worthless leopard sharks and some odds and ends of sticklebacks, smoothhounds and a skate or two. May threw everything back except the cod which we could sell, and, of course, the one soupfin which, when I weighed it on a small spring scale, though it was less than thirty pounds was worth more than twenty-five dollars. A whole week’s wages at the real estate office! I looked around for the boats I had seen that morning. All were gone. A thin trail of smoke lay low and quite still on the horizon far off to the west. Beyond that, the ocean was empty. And, except for the soundless passage of the long shimmering swells, there was no movement anywhere. Even the gulls that had been with us all morning had disappeared. And standing there on the Blue Fin’s slow rolling deck in the middle of that immense blue emptiness with the sun slanting, as it seemed, by the minute toward the sea, I was aware of such an overwhelming sense of hopelessness that had it not been for Ethan May, who with his same imperturbability was coiling up the last of the buoy lines, I would have turned north and headed back to the Gate.

  5

  As soon as the gear was in order May began once more the long job of baiting the hook
s. Somehow I think he must have suspected how I felt, for I sensed a subtle change in his movements and, though I may have been wrong, a suggestion of concern on his face that seemed, in some particular way, to indicate tacit sympathy. Of course all this was a long time ago, and my thoughts since then may well have colored the accuracy of my memory. I stepped back into the wheelhouse and turned up the throttle.

  “Where to now,” I shouted back as cheerfully as I could. May put down his work and came in beside me.

  “I think we’ll have better luck on the forty fathom bank, off Año Nuevo Island,” he said in his soft, slow voice. There was not the slightest trace of resentment in his manner, nothing at all to reflect my failure of the morning. “We can try one set today and then set out again early in the morning.” He paused to draw a little circle on the chart and then went back to his baiting.

  The white conical tower of the light station at Pigeon Point was visible above the water a point or two to the east of south. A few miles beyond, I could see on the chart, was Año Nuevo. Using my homemade parallel rule I drew a line from our present position to the circle May had drawn and set the Blue Fin on her course. The distance I figured to be about eighteen miles, which would take some two and a half hours. I studied the area around the circle May had drawn. The chart showed the dark, sinuous line at the edge of the forty fathom bank. The legend indicated a green sand bottom, and close by, mud, green mud, brown mud, and occasionally shell. Westward, the ocean floor dropped abruptly and farther out configurations of pale blue lines showed depths to nineteen hundred fathoms. Here and there names appeared like Pioneer Sea Valley or Guide Seamount; names that told of some sinister terrain far below the depths of light penetration, peaks and valleys in silent blackness and vast deserts of slimy ooze. I lit a cigarette and waited for the hours to pass. Whatever dreams I had had that morning of making a windfall in the shark business had vanished completely by now. My only hope was that we might catch one or two more to pay expenses. But even that looked improbable.

  When May finished baiting, he lined up the tubs, got the keg and bamboo pole ready on the after deck, then washed his hands, folded his skull cap and put it into his trouser pocket and went below. He returned in a few minutes, however, with two big navel oranges, handed one to me and sat down on the deck of the wheelhouse. After peeling his orange and flicking the skins expertly through the doorway and over the side, he parted the segments and ate them slowly, one by one. Then, with his back resting comfortably against the bulkhead, he lit his pipe and began to puff away quietly as if he had no care in the world. After a while he put the pipe away, let his bald head droop forward, and the next moment, despite the pounding of the engine directly below him, was fast asleep.

  Suddenly I felt very much alone and was tempted to wake May up on some pretext or other. But there was nothing I could think of to ask him. Then it occurred to me that even if he were awake he probably wouldn’t say anything anyway. I leaned on the sill of the open window. There was no wind and the sky was so blue it seemed to pulsate. The water had darkened considerably and toward the west looked almost black. The machine-tooled straightness of the horizon was so devoid of even the tiniest irregularity that I found my gaze drifting slowly from one end of the ocean to the other. Actually, there was no need for talking, I thought, at least not out there. My wife and I talked almost all the time. Sometimes we talked all night long. But as I stood there looking for something to see on that empty ocean, I could not remember a single thing we had ever talked about, except possibly our mutual worries over money and even these we hardly ever expressed in so many words. I ate the orange May had given me. Remembering it now, that orange was probably the most succulent and sweetest I’d ever eaten. I lit a cigarette, but since it didn’t taste good after the orange I flicked it over the side and watched it swing aft and disappear into the white furrow of the wake.

  And then, still looking out over the water, I began to think about the little story of the fisherman and his wife that I had read so often to the children from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I pictured the poor fisherman quite clearly, hauling up the big flounder that was an enchanted prince and the flounder saying, “I pray you let me live; what good will it do you to kill me?” When the fisherman returned for succeeding wishes, I remember how the sea had changed from purple and dark blue to gray and was thick, and finally, when he came for his last wish, how the sea came in with black waves as high as church towers and mountains and all with crests of white foam at the top. And thinking about the fairy tale I had read so often made me think of the children and I felt a painful twinge of guilt. And all the while these odd bits of thoughts went through my mind, and the engine pounded, and the Blue Fin, rolling slowly, moved steadily out toward the forty fathom bank, Ethan May slept.

  When Pigeon Point was off our port quarter and I could just make out what looked like it might be Año Nuevo Island with its tiny white sliver of a light tower, May got up from the deck of the wheelhouse, put on his black skull cap and looked out through the window. Then he came over by the wheel and, after glancing at the chart, suggested we take a sounding. I threw the engine out of gear, got out the lead line and put some tallow in the cup at the bottom of the lead. As the Blue Fin drifted in a slow circle, I put the line down. We were in thirty-eight fathoms, and when I brought the lead aboard, there was green mud on the tallow. May took the wheel and headed west, stopping from time to time, while I took the soundings. When the depth showed forty fathoms and green sand was on the tallow, May went aft and let out the buoy line.

  6

  I used to believe that time would efface certain memories, or at least take the pain out of them. I see now that this was wishful thinking. Time passes and things change. Outwardly I’m no longer what I was. I eat too much, gain weight. I’ve gotten soft, lost my hair. My wife, who was once quite shapely, is troubled by a figure problem. Her hair has turned gray. Time passes and things change. But, for the most part, they’re happy changes. We do not talk all night as we once did. We come and go pretty much as we please. Healthy love exists between us all, a tranquil kind of love engendered by the freedom from anxiety that springs from the security of affluence.

  But these doubts, these ugly shadows. They skulk about. I wait but they do not go away. And then one moment off guard, one little rift, and a whole scene appears before me. It is mid-afternoon, cool, bright with a moving shadow under the lee of the Blue Fin’s rust-mottled hull. I feel a slow rolling, driving forward, hear the prolonged S sound of the bow wake, the ominous hiss of the up-flung shark hooks. Ethan May’s sturdy figure stands framed against the sky. After twenty years, this scene, and one other, cling obstinately, at times obsessively, defying altogether the effacing power of time, and every effort of will.

  We were a good five miles offshore. The white sand beaches had sunk below the rim of ocean. Faintly, I could see the broken segments of yellow cliffs extending to the north and south and out of sight. Long hills, round and brown and parted here and there by wide hazy valleys, faded back into the dim gray peaks of the coastal ranges. The smell of land seemed far away. Over the stern roller, the heavy mainline, with its sardine pendants like silver ornaments, descending at a steep angle and disappearing far below the watery darkness, made me acutely conscious of the eerie depths below. At that moment I had but one desire, and that was not for sharks—I’d given up all hope by then—but to be back in the City, back with my wife and the children, however impoverished we might have been, however dismal the future might have looked.

  When the set was down and the last buoy line was out, we went below for a bite to eat and some hot coffee. As always, May sluiced down the deck, washed his hands, and after folding his black skull cap and putting it into his trouser pocket, followed me into the galley. Nothing seemed to disturb him. The fact that all the other boats had gone, that we had gotten almost nothing on our first set, that we were now far out on the ocean and completely alone with the end of the season almost on us, all of which had put me in
to a state close to despair, seemed to affect him not at all.

  Nor could I tell how he felt about the gull getting hooked that morning. I could only assume that he took that too, like everything else, as a matter of course. He ate the big salami sandwich I put on the table with obvious relish. And when we had finished our coffee, he settled back for a while with his pipe. Shortly he got up.

  “We’d better pick up the line,” he said. “It’ll be dark soon.”

  “You think there’ll be anything on it?” I asked in a voice that must have shown my nervousness.

  “Well, I hope there’ll be,” he said in his slow soft voice. “We just do the best we can.”

  I started up the engine and headed the Blue Fin back alongside the first marker. May pulled the keg and the pole aboard and the set line followed. I leaned out of the wheelhouse window and squinted down into the water watching as it came up from the bottom. I could see the line bending away into the clear blue darkness and a few bare hooks swinging on the ganions from the taut manila. Then from out of the depths I could see the long, gray-brown body of a soupfin emerge slowly into the underwater sunlight. Further down was another. I jumped back to the wheel, cut the engine to an idle and headed the boat along the line. Then I grabbed a gaff and pulled the shark up onto the deck.

  I don’t remember how long it took to get the set in, but I remember that it got dark and that either May or I turned on the deck light. Beyond that there was a weird, dreamlike quality about everything, the white light overhead, the quick liquid reflections on the black water, the irregular sput and gurgle of the underwater exhaust, some dim stars rotating in drunken circles and the feel of the steel gaff driving into hard live flesh. And there were strange sounds like grunts and sighs, at once human and unearthly, of fleshy turning and twisting, of the fleshy thud of the axe head, the squeak of rubber boots on blood, the impotent slapping and bumping of heavy bodies from the black hold. Yet through the delirium of twisting, sighs and thumpings, the unreality of steel in live flesh, black blood glistening, the thick ammonia stench rising and all enacted in that disk of hard light entombed in night sea darkness, a part of my mind, with machine-like accuracy, was counting . . . one two . . . two . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . five . . . five . . . six . . .