Down to a Soundless Sea (10 page)

The couple’s cork vests would have doubtlessly brought them to the surface again, but the starless sheet of night hid everything beyond the next wave, and finding the couple would prove little more than an exercise in futility without a boat. Captain Leland, a good Catholic, crossed himself with pragmatic reverence.

The captain kept his few remaining men close about him for fear of losing another soul to the waves. Though his own strength ebbed slowly into the frigid waters, Captain Leland
pestered and prodded his half-drowned crew to hang on for their lives. Where he found the will to be optimistic about their future was a mystery to one and all, but they were obliged for his strength of character. They had been clinging to the mast’s tattered rigging for close to an hour by Mr. Page’s calculation, and there hadn’t appeared so much as a ghost of possible rescue. Where were the damn boats? Why hadn’t the motor launch returned as ordered?

Chapel, isolated within his blindness, was perforce required to interpret everything from the inside out, and it was one of these intuitive themes that peacefully indicated to him that his suffering would soon come to an end.

His limbs were no longer governed by the rigid cold. In fact, he felt new warmth rise within his bones. It beckoned him to release his grasp on fear and sleep untroubled on the cresting foam. To sleep was to surrender oneself into the hands of creation. All he had to do was let go and drift away on the waves. Luckily he was still lashed to Mr. Gladis, who in turn was secured by a strong line to Mr. Page.

Abruptly, and from the bleak void beyond his last dreams, there exploded an intrusive bubble of shouting and banging. Unexpectedly, Chapel slowly became aware of being discourteously hauled into the air like an exhausted tuna and then lifted down over the gunwales of a boat.

In his disjointed confusion, Chapel thought he heard the earnest chirping voices of his black gang, and he called out Tino’s name. In response, he heard Tino’s voice tell him that all was well. Then he glided into a relaxed dream of his own death. He wondered what his mother would say, and laughed.

Chapel had become reconciled to the thought of passing on and subsequently resented the wrenching summons to
return to life. It was his last thought before passing out in the bottom of the Point Sur lifeboat.

It was hours before Chapel could reliably decipher the credible difference between dreams and reality. He had heard people talking from beyond the uncertain veil of consciousness. The voices mixed with his dreams, and he was surprised to hear Mr. Page’s voice emanate from his mother’s mouth, while his old dog, Grover, moaned and swore blue lightning just like Mr. Gladis.

While slowly coming to the surface of authentic comprehension, Chapel became aware that he still experienced the same angry frustration and annoyance that had marked his reluctant extraction from the safe, warm eternity of the sea. For Chapel, it almost felt akin to being forcefully dragged from his home.

His first waking sensation was one of extreme discomfort. Chapel remembered that his face had been soundly cooked, but he now experienced a burning sensation all over his body. When he tried to move, Chapel found himself completely sheathed and swaddled in a heavy cocoon of considerable thickness and strength. He couldn’t even move his arms.

Chapel knew it was still dark and that he lay upon the beach, the first because he could still smell the salty night fog and the second because he felt the pounding of the surf through the sand. He knew he was sheltered under a tent, because he could smell mildewed canvas, but the exact purpose of his heavy shroud disturbed his thoughts considerably. He imagined he had already been wrapped in old ship’s canvas, ready for burial. He longed to tell somebody he wasn’t dead. At least
he didn’t think he was dead. After several moments of fruitless struggle against confinement, Chapel cried out for release. He swore his whole body was a bed of coals and begged for his liberty before he went mad with the torment.

A familiar and restoring brogue came out of the dark in short, emphatic gasps. It was Mr. Gladis. “Go a mite easy there, Mr. Lodge. You’re safe now, old son. A doctor has already gauged your timbers. You’ll float again. He said you suffered something evil from the cold. Battened you down for warmth, he did. Mr. Page here has a bottle of medicine for you. See to his needs, Mr. Page. Just breathing plays raw havoc on my ribs just now.”

Chapel felt Mr. Page kneel and slide his arm under his neck and shoulders. Page lifted the helpless bundle a few degrees, placed the spout of a small bottle between Chapel’s lips, and coaxed him to drink it all. “The doctor says you are to swallow it all, Mr. Lodge. He warranted it would make you as comfortable as conditions allowed. He also said your burns weren’t to give you cause for undue distress. He said that once the swelling went down you would get your sight back.”

Abruptly Chapel began to violently cough and sputter. The bitter flavor of the syruplike concoction had suddenly met resistance. Chapel begged for water. Mr. Page obliged and at last managed to muster the last of the medicine down Chapel’s gullet with additional water to help the tonic pass.

Mr. Page spoke words of reassurance all the while. “That there doctor is a genuine piece of work if ever I saw one. He’s as tough as a bosun’s boot, and that’s no mistake. When he heard our poor ship was stove in on the rocks, he borrowed a stallion and galloped all night to get to us. You can show your
gratitude with patience, Mr. Lodge. Rest easy. The doctor said he would return. You just sleep while you can.”

The cumulative dosage of reassurance and remedy had their effect. Slowly Chapel could feel all previous discomforts and trepidation slip away to be replaced by a warm, drifting sense of well-being that excluded all reference to the terrifying experiences of the last few hours. Within a few minutes he was adrift in a sleep impervious to the assault of dreams, but he looked like a dead walrus.

Mr. Page commented on the eerie similarity to Mr. Gladis. The chief engineer laughed, which caused him to wince convulsively in pain. He sputtered out orders as though still aboard ship. “Now, stuff that nonsense, Mr. Page, and make yourself useful. Rummage up some dry tobacco and a dram of something besides water. Black rum would be much appreciated, if there be such about. I’m like to blow out my valves with the pain in me staves, so put your soul into it, if you please.”

When Chapel at last awoke from a dreamless pit of drugged sleep, it was to find he was in another setting altogether. Though his eyes were still well bandaged, he could sense that he now lay on a narrow metal bed between clean sheets. He had been washed and dressed in a long flannel nightshirt.

He lay quietly, enjoying long-forgotten sensations of peace and warmth. After a while he began to wonder if Mr. Gladis and Mr. Page were savoring similar joys, so he called out their names in a rusty unused voice that reflected his weakened condition. There was no answer but the echo of his voice in an empty room. He called again and, in response, he heard a door
open and footsteps approach his bed. Sadly the voice of his visitor was unknown to him.

“How fare you, sailor? I’m Willard Copes, assistant light-keeper, Point Sur Station. We were beginning to wonder how long you would sleep. You’ve been kissing feathers for two days now. Dr. Roberts said you would sleep a while, but we didn’t think you’d be out this long. He gave you a draught to that purpose, I know, but we worried he might have overdone it. If you’re fit enough to eat, I’ll have some food sent up to you. Doc said to keep it simple at first, but you should regain your gut in a day or two. He left some ointment for your face too. He was confident we could take off your bandages in a few days. He couldn’t say for certain, of course, but he’s of the opinion that your eyes will take care of themselves if you’re careful with the burns.”

Chapel asked after Captain Leland, Mr. Gladis, and the others. Mr. Copes said that the coastal freighter
Eureka
arrived off the point shortly after the accident. The storm had moved on east by then. She had taken on those survivors who had regained their composure enough to step aboard another ship and had transported them north to Monterey.

Those who had seen the hand of the Almighty imprinted upon the disaster chose to be carted north in wagons rather than face another voyage. Under the circumstances, it was probably a sound decision, according to Mr. Copes.

The last survivors had departed the previous day. Mr. Gladis was transported with the help of a mule litter fashioned by Mr. Page. The remaining survivors were anxious to get as far away from the site of the wreck as possible. The others, like Mr. Gladis, needed further medical attention in Monterey. The coast road couldn’t have proven a comfortable journey at that
time of the year. The road was badly rutted by the winter rains, and rumor had it there had been landslides just south of Yankee Point.

Noting Chapel’s melancholy silence, Mr. Copes said that officials from the Pacific Steamship Company would arrive in a couple of days to inspect the site of the wreck. Chapel could, no doubt, make arrangements for return transport and back wages with them. Until then, Doc Roberts had ordered rest, hot food, and perhaps a whisper of medicinal whiskey after dinner to abet a sound sleep.

With that pleasant promise, Mr. Copes bid Chapel a peaceful recovery and departed with a light step. Chapel turned his anguished face to the warmth of the afternoon sun as it came through the window. He was consoled by the sensation that he could see as well as feel the light through his bandages.

That night Mr. Copes was as good as his word. After a delicious dinner consisting of creamed chowder of abalone and clams and a half loaf of hot fresh bread, Chapel was presented with a generous tumbler of peat-flavored whiskey. Mr. Copes stayed for a while to keep him company. He expressed a very natural curiosity about the disaster, but his questions were professionally pointed and almost crossed the hedge into language similar to that of an official inquiry.

After a few minutes, Mr. Copes apologized by saying that he had been a lighthouse hand all his life. It was his nature to take a veteran’s interest in such particulars.

Chapel spoke freely of what he knew, but stated for the record that it wasn’t very much. Only those on the bridge could know the truth of the matter, and the bridge officers alone would be consulted by any official board inquiry. “The engine-room black gang certainly knew when the ship was bound for
the bottom, because we were the first bastards to get wet. Unfortunately, we knew little else save bilge gas and blind panic. If the
Los Angeles
died from negligence, sir, we would be hindmost in line with knowledge of it, or blame for it.”

Chapel was relieved to hear that Mr. Copes was called to agree. He said he had known many a shipwrecked seaman in his time and well understood the guarded prerogatives of rank. The truth was whatever an officer said it was, and no argument was tolerated. Mr. Copes at last took Chapel’s empty glass and, after changing his medicated bandages, wished his patient a good night.

It was as still a night as that part of the coast might experience, but it did not remain that way for long. As Chapel lay upon his bed he could distinguish every variation in the intensity and direction of the rising wind. His hearing had become acute in the few days he had been denied his sight. He knew that the winter tides were exceptional in this phase of the moon. If the offshore winds continued to rise to meet the incoming tides there would be little of the poor
Los Angeles
left for the Pacific Steamship Company representatives to inspect when they did arrive.

Sad little indeed, save beached hatches, spars, and general flotsam. The rest, the sea-torn bones of a dead ship, lay washed beneath the waves off Point Sur. These sorrowful reflections gathered momentum as Chapel regarded his own future. He was disheartened at the thought of finding himself beached once more after so short a voyage. He was no better than the flotsam now strewn upon the coast. Even as human salvage, Chapel was worth far less than the lost chrome and wool in the ship’s hold, and that knowledge secretly angered him.

Like most seamen, Chapel had a tendency to awake
automatically at every change of the watch whether he was aboard ship or not. This night was no different, but each time he awoke, his resentment surfaced afresh to plague his soul.

Prior to waking for the last time, Chapel suffered a nightmare of jolting reality. Though woven within an array of images he didn’t really comprehend, Chapel unquestionably saw himself as old, bent, bat-blind, and wallowing among the iron-sick hulks of beached derelicts like himself. His end would come without dignity, without grace, begging for pennies and praying for death. He had seen such images numerous times in his travels and feared that fate above all others.

When he awoke from the dream, Chapel found himself caught on a thorn of envy and resentment. He begrudged every man who possessed his freehold outright. Every owner of his own ship, every master of his own land, was a king compared to Chapel. His life and future were conceded to the whims of authority or the ravages of nature. Nothing was truly his own.

Chapel immediately decided it was time to face several realities of an unpleasant nature. The first step would be the hardest. Everything depended on what he discovered in the next few minutes.

Chapel knew the approximate time. He could hear the first stirring of men as they coughed and hacked their way from the grasp of sleep. He sat up on the edge of the narrow bed and began to unwind the medicated bandage that covered the upper half of his face. The layers of bandage seemed unending, and with every loosened wrap, Chapel balanced between dread and steely resolve to know the truth. At last the cotton pads over his eyelids came away with the end of the gauze.

Slowly he reached up to gently touch his scalded face.
Though it seemed swollen and tender, the pain was no worse than a common sunburn. Next he touched his eyelids—they too were swollen and raw. When he tried to open them, nothing happened. The muscles were willing, but the eyelids refused to rise. With a gentle touch, Chapel determined that his eyes were sealed with a crust of dried tears. He rose and felt his way to the washstand. He had heard Mr. Copes use it and knew its approximate location. Gingerly, Chapel poured cool water from the pitcher into the basin, found a cloth, and began to bathe his eyes until the dried tears dissolved and allowed his tender lids to open.