One could hardly find a more perfect morning than this in early March.
The sun was heralded over the hills in a blaze of glory; meadow larks
strung like beads on a telegraph wire were calling their cheery notes,
and robins were singing their overture to the morning sun.
Boarding the Key Route train, I soon arrived at the Oakland mole, to
find it crowded with a restless tide of humanity, waiting impatiently
for the overdue boat. Each arriving train added to the congestion,
until the building between the tracks and the gangway was crowded with
anxious commuters.
Finally, after much speculation as to the delay, the tardy boat
arrived, and a steady stream of people flowed by the three gangways to
the upper and lower decks. The last straggler was on board and the
gangplank lifted, reminding me of the stories I had read of raising
the drawbridge across the moat of some ancient feudal castle, and
leaving the mole with its imitation portcullis behind we steamed out
into the bay. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and there was not
enough wind to straighten out the pennant from the masthead.
We were hardly opposite Yerba Buena Island, however, when we ran into
a fog that completely engulfed us. To plunge from bright sunlight into
a blanket of gray mist so dense that one cannot see fifty feet in any
direction, has just enough spice of danger about it to make it
interesting. It was like being cut off from the world, with nothing in
sight but this clinging curtain enveloping one like a damp cloud,
settling like frost on everything it touches, and glittering like
diamond dust.
An undercurrent of anxiety pervaded the ship, for we were running with
no landmark to guide us, and with only the captain's knowledge of the
bay and the tides to bring us safely through.
Passengers crowded to the rails, straining their eyes into the dense
smother, while whistles were blowing on all sides. The shrill
shriek of the government tug, the hoarse bellow of the ocean liner,
and the fog whistle on Yerba Buena Island, all joined in a strident
warning, sending their intermittent blast over the water.
[Illustration: FOG ON THE BAY]
Our engines were slowed down to half-speed, or just enough to give her
steerage way, while the anxious captain peered from the wheelhouse
with one hand grasping the signal cord, ready for any emergency.
The sea gulls that in clear weather follow the boats back and forth
across the bay by the hundreds, were entirely absent, except for one
sturdy bird that, evidently bewildered, had lost its way in the fog,
and had alighted on the flagpole as if for protection.
Suddenly across our bows a darker spot appeared, which gradually
assumed shape, and a Southern Pacific boat loomed like a specter from
the smother of fog. The size was greatly enlarged as seen through the
veil of mist, and the dense smoke that poured from her funnel settled
around her like a pall, adding greatly to its weird appearance.
Our captain was on the watch for just such an occurrence, and three
short, sharp blasts from our whistle notified the oncoming boat that
we had stopped our engines. But the tide was running strong, and we
drew closer and closer together, until we involuntarily held our
breath, and nerves were strung to the highest tension. The great
screws churned the water into foam as we slowly backed away from each
other, like gladiators testing each other's strength, and the Southern
Pacific boat vanished into the fog like a ghost, swallowed up, as if
wiped from the face of the waters, sending back its deep bellowing
whistle as if bidding an angry defiance to the elements.
Slowly we moved forward, feeling every inch of the way, like one
groping in the dark, passing boat after boat without accident. One, a
three-masted schooner, loaded with lumber, came so near that we could
toss a stone on board, and a woman who stood in the bow waved a large
tin horn at us, and then applied herself to blowing it most
industriously.
At last the bells on the piers at the ferry came floating across the
waters, faint at first, but growing louder as we advanced, and never
did bells sound sweeter or more welcome I imagine they were thrice
welcome to our captain, for they gave him the direct course to our
anchorage. Slower and yet slower we moved, our screw scarcely making a
ripple on the water, for many other boats were cautiously feeling
their way to their respective berths, and we must use all our caution
not to run foul of them.
At last came the cry from some one, "There's the light," and flashing
out from the pier, its electric rays cutting its way through the wall
of fog, shone that intermittent flame, and we knew that only a few
feet away was the dock and safety.
As the crowd hurried from the boat, anxious to reach their several
places of business without further delay, many turned and looked up at
the wheelhouse, to see the man whose nerve and faithfulness to duty
had piloted us safe to port. In that blue-uniformed figure, still
standing with hand upon the wheel, we saw a person boyish in
appearance, but every inch a man.
[Illustration]