AMONG THE BLACKFISH AND TOMCODS
Hardly had the men ceased cheering when the boom was swung back,
another huge stone was lifted from the wharf, and loaded aboard the
sloop. A third followed, was lowered upon rollers on the deck and
warped amidships, to trim the boat. The mooring-lines were cast off,
and the sloop’s sail partly hoisted for better steering, and a
nervous, sputtering little tug tightened a tow-line over the
Screamer’s bow.
The flotilla now moved slowly out of the harbor toward the Ledge.
Captain Brandt stood at the wheel. His face was radiant. His boat had
met the test, just as he knew she would. She had stood by him too many
times before for him to doubt her now.
There had been one night at Rockport when she lay till morning, bow on
to a gale, within a cable’s length of the breakwater. This saw-toothed
ledge, with the new floating buoys of Captain Joe’s, could not
frighten him after that.
Yet not a word of boasting passed his lips. He spun his wheel and held
his peace.
When the open harbor was reached, the men overhauled the boom-tackle,
getting ready for the real work of the day. Bill Lacey and Caleb West
lifted the air-pump from its case, and oiled the plunger. Caleb was to
dive that day himself,—work like this required an experienced
hand,—and find a bed for these first three stones as they were
lowered under water. Lacey was to tend the life-line.
As the tug and sloop passed into the broad water, Medford Village
could be seen toward the southeast. Sanford adjusted his marine-glass,
and focused its lens on Mrs. Leroy’s country-house. It lay near the
water, and was surmounted by a cupola he had often occupied as a
lookout when he had been Mrs. Leroy’s guest, and the weather had been
too rough for him to land at the Ledge. He saw that the bricklayers
were really at work, and that the dining-room extension was already
well under way, the scaffolding being above the roof. He meant, if the
weather permitted, to stop there on his way home.
Soon the Ledge itself loomed up. The concrete men were evidently busy,
for the white steam from the mixers rose straight into the still air.
An hour more and the windows on the lee side of the shanty could be
distinguished, and a little later, the men on the platform as they
gathered to await the approaching flotilla. When they caught sight of
the big blocks stored on the Screamer’s deck, they broke into a cheer
that was followed by a shrill saluting whistle from the big
hoisting-engine on the Ledge, answered as cheerily by the approaching
tug. Work on the Ledge could now begin in earnest.
If Crotch Island was like the back of a motionless whale, Shark’s
Ledge was like that of a turtle,—a turtle say one hundred and fifty
feet long by a hundred wide, lying in a moving sea, and always fringed
by a ruffling of surf curls, or swept by great waves that rolled in
from Montauk. No landing could ever be made here except in the eddy
formed by the turtle itself, and then only in the stillest weather.
The shell of this rock-incrusted turtle had been formed by dumping on
the original Ledge, and completely covering it, thousands of tons of
rough stone, each piece as big as a cart-body. Upon this stony shell,
which rose above high-water mark, a wooden platform had been erected
for the proper storage of gravel, sand, barrels of cement,
hoisting-engines, concrete mixers, tools, and a shanty for the men. It
was down by the turtle’s side—down below the slop of the surf—that
the big enrockment blocks were to be placed, one on the other, their
sides touching close as those on a street pavement. The lowest stone
of all was to be laid on the bottom of the sea in thirty feet of
water; the top one was to be placed where its upper edges would be
thrust above its splash. In this way the loose rough stones of the
turtle’s shell would have an even covering and the finished structure
be protected from the crush of floating ice and the fury of winter
gales.
By a change of plan the year before, a deep hole nearly sixty feet in
diameter had been made in the back of this turtle by lifting out these
rough stones. This hole was now being filled with concrete up to
low-water level and retained in form by circular iron bands. On top of
this enormous artificial bedstone was to be placed the tower of the
lighthouse itself, constructed of dressed stone, many of the single
pieces to be larger than those now on the Screamer’s deck. The four
great derrick-masts with “twenty-inch butts” which had been ordered by
telegraph the day before in Sanford’s office were to be used to place
these dressed stones in position.
The situation was more than usually exposed. The nearest land to the
Ledge was Crotch Island, two miles away, while to the east stretched
the wide sea, hungry for fresh victims, and losing no chance to worst
the men on the Ledge. For two years it had fought the captain and his
men without avail. The Old Man of the Sea hates the warning voice of
the fog-horn and the cheery light in the tall tower—they rob him of
his prey.
The tug continued on her course for half a mile, steered closer, the
sloop following, and gained the eddy of the Ledge out of the racing
tide. Four men from the platform now sprang into a whaleboat and
pulled out to meet the sloop, carrying one end of a heavy hawser which
was being paid out by the men on the Ledge. The hawser was made fast
to the sloop’s cleats and hauled tight. The tug was cast loose and
sent back to Keyport. Outboard hawsers were run by the crew of the
whaleboat to the floating anchor-buoys, to keep the sloop off the
stone-pile when the enrockment blocks were being swung clear of her
sides.
Caleb and Lacey began at once to overhaul the diving-gear. The
air-pump was set close to the sloop’s rail; and a short ladder was
lashed to her side, to enable the diver to reach the water easily. The
air-hose and life-lines were then uncoiled.
Caleb threw off his coat and trousers, that he might move the more
freely in his diving-dress, and with Lonny Bowles’s assistance twisted
himself into his rubber suit,—body, arms, and legs being made of one
piece of air-tight and water-tight rubber cloth.
By the time the sloop had been securely moored, and the boom-tackle
made ready to lift the stone, Caleb stood on the ladder completely
equipped, except for his copper helmet, the last thing done to a diver
before he sinks under water. Captain Joe always adjusted Caleb’s
himself. On Caleb’s breast and between his shoulders hung two lead
plates weighing twenty-five pounds each, and on his feet were two
iron-shod shoes of equal weight. These were needed as ballast, to
overbalance the buoyancy of his inflated dress, and enable him to sink
or rise at his pleasure. Firmly tied to his wrist was a stout
cord,—his life-line,—and attached to the back of the copper helmet
was a long rubber hose, through which a constant stream of fresh air
was to be pumped inside his helmet and suit.
In addition to these necessary appointments there was hung over one
shoulder a canvas haversack, containing a small cord, a chisel, a
water-compass, and a sheath-knife. The sheath-knife is the last
desperate resource of the diver when his air-hose becomes tangled or
clogged, his signals are misunderstood, and he must either cut his
hose in the effort to free himself and reach the surface, or suffocate
where he is.
Captain Joe adjusted the copper helmet, and stood with Caleb’s glass
face-plate in his hand, thus leaving his helmet open for a final order
in his ear, before he lowered him overboard. The cogs of the
Screamer’s drum began turning, followed by the same creaking and
snapping of manilla and straining of boom that had been heard when she
was loaded.
Meanwhile between the sea and the sloop a fight had already begun. The
current which swept by within ten feet of her bilge curled and eddied
about the buoy-floats, tugging at their chains, while wave after wave
tried to reach her bow, only to fall back beaten and snapping like
hungry wolves.
The Cape Ann sloop had fought these fights before: all along her
timber rail were the scars of similar battles. She had only to keep
her bow-cheeks from the teeth of these murderous rocks, and she could
laugh all day at their open jaws.
With the starting of the hoisting-engine the steam began to hiss
through the safety-valve, and the bow-lines of the sloop straightened
like strands of steel. Then there came a slight, staggering movement
as she adjusted herself to the shifting weight. Without a sound, the
stone rose from the deck, cleared the rail, and hung over the sea.
Another cheer went up—this time from both the men on board the sloop
and those on the Ledge. Captain Brandt smiled with closed lips. Life
was easy for him now.
“Lower away,” said Captain Joe in the same tone he would have used in
asking for the butter, as he turned to screw on Caleb’s face-plate,
shutting out the fresh air, and giving the diver only pumped air to
breathe.
The stone sank slowly into the sea, the dust and dirt of its long
outdoor storage discoloring the clear water.
“Hold her,” continued Captain Joe, his hand still on Caleb’s
face-plate, as he stood erect on the ladder. “Stand by, Billy. Go on
with that pump, men,—give him plenty of air.”
Two men began turning the handles of the pump. Caleb’s dress filled
out like a balloon; Lacey took his place near the small ladder, the
other end of Caleb’s life-line having been made fast to his wrist, and
the diver sank slowly out of sight, his hammer in his hand, the air
bubbles from his exhaust-valve marking his downward course.
As Caleb sank, he hugged his arms close to his body, pressed his knees
together, forcing the surplus air from his dress, and dropped rapidly
toward the bottom. The thick lead soles of his shoes kept his feet
down and his head up, and the breast-plates steadied him.
At the depth of twenty feet he touched the tops of the sea-kelp
growing on the rocks below,—he could feel the long tongues of leaves
scraping his legs. Then, as he sank deeper, his shoes struck an
outlying boulder. Caleb pushed himself off, floated around it,
measured it with his arms, and settled to the gravel. He was now
between the outlying boulder and the Ledge. Here he raised himself
erect on his feet and looked about: the gravel beneath him was white
and spangled with starfish; little crabs lay motionless, or scuttled
away at his crunching tread; the sides of the isolated boulder were
smooth and clean, the top being covered with waving kelp. In the dim,
greenish light this boulder looked like a weird head,—a kind of
submarine Medusa, with her hair streaming upward. The jagged rock-pile
next it, its top also covered with kelp, resembled a hill of purple
and brown corn swaying in the ceaseless current.
Caleb thrust his hand into his haversack, grasped his long knife,
slashed at the kelp of the rock-pile to see the bottom stones the
clearer, and sent a quick signal of “All right—lower away!” through
the life-line, to Lacey, who stood on the sloop’s deck above him.
Almost instantly a huge square green shadow edged with a brilliant
iridescent light sank down towards him, growing larger and larger in
its descent. Caleb peered upward through his face-plate, followed the
course of the stone, and jerked a second signal to Lacey’s wrist. This
signal was repeated in words by Lacey to Captain Brandt, who held the
throttle, and the shadowy stone was stopped within three feet of the
gravel bottom. Here it swayed slowly, half turned, and touched on the
boulder.
Caleb watched the stone carefully until it was perfectly still, crept
along, swimming with one hand, and measured carefully with his eye the
distance between the boulder and the Ledge. Then he sent a quick
signal of “Lower—all gone,” up to Lacey’s wrist. The great stone
dropped a chain’s link; slid halfway the boulder, scraping the kelp in
its course; careened, and hung over the gravel with one end tilted on
a point of the rocky ledge. As it hung suspended, its lower end buried
itself in the gravel near the boulder, while the upper lay aslant up
the slope of the rock-covered ledge.
Caleb again swam carefully around the stone, opened his arms, and
inflating his dress rose five or six feet through the green water,
floated over the huge stone, and grasping with his bare hand the
lowering chain by which the stone hung, tested its strain. The chain
was as rigid as a bar of steel. This showed that the stone was not
fully grounded, and therefore dangerous, being likely to slide off at
any moment. The diver now sent a telegram of short and long jerks
aloft, asking for a crowbar; hooked his legs around the lowering chain
and pressed his copper helmet to the chain links to listen to Captain
Joe’s answer. A series of dull thuds, long and short, struck by a
hammer above—a means of communication often possible when the depth
of water is not great—told him that the crowbar he had asked for
would be sent down at once. While he waited motionless, a blackfish
pressed his nose to the glass of his face-plate, and scurried off to
tell his fellows living in the kelp how strange a thing he had seen
that day.
A quick jerk from Lacey, and the point of the crowbar dangled over
Caleb’s head. In an instant, to prevent his losing it in the kelp, he
had lashed another and smaller cord about its middle, and with the bar
firmly in his hand laid himself flat on the stone. The diver now
examined carefully the points of contact between the boulder and the
hanging stone, inserted one end of the bar under its edge, sent a
warning signal above, braced both feet against the lowering chain,
threw his whole strength on the bar, and gave a quick, sharp pull. The
next instant the chain tightened; the bar, released from the strain,
bounded from his hand; there was a headlong surge of the huge shadowy
mass through the waving kelp, and the great block slipped into its
place, stirring up the bottom silt in a great cloud of water-dust.
The first stone of the system of enrockment had been bedded!
Caleb clung with both hands to the lowering chain, waited until the
water cleared, knocked out the Lewis pin that held the S-hook, thus
freeing the chain, and signaled “All clear—hoist.” Then he hauled the
crowbar towards him by the cord, signaled for the next stone, moved
away from the reach of falling bodies, and sank into a bed of sea-kelp
as comfortably as if it had been a sofa-cushion.
These breathing spells rest the lungs of a diver and lighten his work.
Being at rest he can manage his dress the better, inflating it so that
he is able to get his air with greater ease and regularity. The relief
is sometimes so soothing that in long waits the droning of the
air-valve will lull the diver into a sleep, from which he is suddenly
awakened by a quick jerk on his wrist. Many divers, while waiting for
the movements of those above, play with the fish, watch the crabs, or
rake over the gravel in search of the thousand and one things that are
lost overboard and that everybody hopes to find on the bottom of the
sea.
Caleb did none of these things. He was too expert a diver to allow
himself to go to sleep, and he had too much to think about to play
with the fish. He sat quietly awaiting his call, his thoughts on the
day of the week and how long it would be before Saturday night came
again, and whether, when he left that morning, he had arranged
everything for the little wife, so that she would be comfortable until
his return. Once a lobster moved slowly up and nipped his red fingers
with its claw, thinking them some tidbit previously unknown. (The
dress terminates at the wrist with a waterproof and air-tight band,
leaving the hands bare.) At another time two tomcods came sailing
past, side by side, flapped their tails on his helmet, and scampered
off. But Caleb, sitting comfortably on his sofa-cushion of seaweed
thirty feet under water, paid little heed to outside things. His eyes
only saw a tossing apron and a trim little figure on a cabin porch, as
she waved him a last good-by.
* * * * *
In the world above, a world of fleecy clouds and shimmering sea, some
changes had taken place since Caleb sank out of the sunlight. Hardly
had the second stone been made ready to be swung overboard, when there
came a sudden uplifting of the sea. One of those tramp waves preceding
a heavy storm had strayed in from Montauk and was making straight for
the Ledge.
Captain Joe sprang on the sloop’s rail and looked seaward, and a shade
of disappointment crossed his face.
“Stand by on that outboard ha’sser!” he shouted in a voice that was
heard all over the Ledge.
The heavy outboard hawser holding the sloop whipped out of the sea
with the sudden strain, thrashed the spray from its twists, and
quivered like a fiddle-string. The sloop staggered for an instant,
plunged bow under, careened to her rail, and righted herself within
oar’s touch of the Ledge. Three feet from her bilge streak crouched a
grinning rock with its teeth set!
Captain Joe smiled and looked at Captain Brandt.
“Ain’t nothin’ when ye git used to’t, Cap’n Bob. I ain’t a-goin’ ter
scratch ’er paint. Got to bank yer fires. Them other two stone’ll have
to wait till the tide turns.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the skipper, throwing the furnace door wide
open. The danger was passed for the second time, and in the final test
his boat had proved herself. Yet again he did not boast. There was
only a fearless ready-to-meet-anything air about him as, with
shoulders squared and head up, he walked down the deck and said to
Captain Joe, in a tone as if he were only asking for information, but
without the slightest shade of anxiety, “If that ’ere ha’sser’d
parted, Cap’n Joe, when she give that plunge, it would ’a’ been all up
with us,—eh?”
“Yes,—’spec’ so,” answered the captain, his mind, now that the danger
had passed, neither on the question nor on the answer. Then suddenly
awakening with a look of intense interest, “That line was a new one,
Cap’n Bob. I picked it out a-purpose; them kind don’t part.”
Sanford, who had been standing by the tiller, anxiously watching the
conflict with the sea, walked forward and grasped the skipper’s hand.
“I want to congratulate you,” he said, “on your sloop and on your
pluck. It is not every man can lie around this stone-pile for the
first time and keep his head.”
Captain Brandt flushed like a bashful girl, and turned away his face.
“Well, sir—ye see”—He never finished the sentence. The compliment
had upset him more than the escape of the sloop.
All was bustle now on board the Screamer. The boom was swung in
aboard, lowered, and laid on the deck. Caleb had been hauled up to the
surface, his helmet unscrewed, and his shoes and breast-plate taken
off. He still wore his dress, so that he could be ready for the other
two stones when the tide turned. Meanwhile he walked about the deck
looking like a great bear on his hind legs, his bushy beard puffed out
over his copper collar.
During the interval of the change of tide dinner was announced, and
the Screamer’s crew went below to more sizzle and doughballs, and this
time a piece of corned beef, while Sanford, Captain Joe, Caleb, and
Lacey sprang into the sloop’s yawl and sculled for the shanty and
their dinner, keeping close to the hawser still holding the sloop.
* * * * *
The unexpected made half the battle at the Ledge. It was not unusual
to see a southeast roll, three days old, cut down in an hour to the
smoothness of a mill-pond by a northwest gale, and before night to
find this same dead calm followed by a semi-cyclone. Only an expert
could checkmate the consequences of weather manœuvres like these.
Before Captain Joe, sitting at the head of the table, had filled each
man’s plate with his fair proportion of cabbage and pork, a whiff of
wind puffed in the bit of calico that served as a curtain for the
shanty’s pantry window,—the one facing east. Captain Joe sprang from
his seat, and, bareheaded as he was, mounted the concrete platforms
and looked seaward. Off towards Block Island he saw a little wrinkling
line of silver flashing out of the deepening haze, while toward Crotch
Island scattered flurries of wind furred the glittering surface of the
sea with dull splotches,—as when one breathes upon a mirror. The
captain turned quickly, entered the shanty, and examined the
barometer. It had fallen two points.
“Finish yer dinner, men,” he said quietly. “That’s the las’ stone
to-day, Mr. Sanford. It’s beginnin’ ter git lumpy. It’ll blow a livin’
gale o’ wind by sundown.”
A second and stronger puff now swayed the men’s oilskins, hanging
against the east door. This time the air was colder and more moist.
The sky overhead had thickened. In the southeast lay two sun-dog
clouds, their backs shimmering like opals, while about the feverish
eye of the sun itself gathered a reddish circle like an inflammation.
Sanford was on the platform, reading the signs of the coming gale. It
was important that he should reach Keyport by night, and he had no
time to spare. As the men came out one after another, each of them
glanced toward the horizon, and quickening his movements fell to work
putting the place in order. The loose barrow planks were quickly
racked up on the shanty’s roof, out of the wash of the expected surf;
an extra safety-guy was made fast to the platform holding the
hoisting-engine, and a great tarpaulin drawn over the cement and
lashed fast. Meanwhile Captain Joe busied himself in examining the
turnbuckles of the holding-down rods, which bound the shanty to the
Ledge, and giving them another tightening twist, ordering the heavy
wooden shutters for the east side of the shanty to be put up, and
seeing that the stove-pipe that stuck through the roof was taken down
and stored inside.
All this time the Screamer tugged harder at her hawser, her bow
surging as the ever-increasing swell raced past her.
Orders to man the yawl were now given and promptly obeyed.
“Keep everything snug, Caleb, while I’m gone!” Captain Joe shouted, as
he stepped into the boat. “It looks soapy, but it may be out to the
nor’ard an’ clear by daylight. Sit astern, Mr. Sanford. Pull away,
men, we ain’t got a minute.”
* * * * *
When the Screamer, with two unset stones still on her deck, bore away
from the Ledge with Sanford, Captain Joe, and Lacey on board, the
spray was flying over the shanty roof.
Caleb stood on the platform waving his hand. He was still in his
diving-dress. His helmet only had been removed, and his bushy beard
was flying in the wind.
“Tell Betty I’ll be home for Sunday,” the men heard him call out, as
they flew by under close reef.