Down to a Soundless Sea (12 page)

The human soul could tolerate only so much anguish before failing like a cracked eggshell. Chapel recalled an old carpenter’s mate who had once confided that life didn’t make you stronger with time. Just the opposite—it made you more fragile with each passing year. Things like misery, affliction, and torment just sped the progress toward the “shroud eternal.”

That night, in spite of his weariness, Chapel found it next to impossible to sleep. Even the fine, dark rum Mr. Copes shared with him after supper encouraged wakefulness rather than sleep.

He tossed about to make himself comfortable, but his restless self-questioning found lumps at every turn. Again and again he mulled over future prospects. Each possibility seemed blunted by the fact that his life was not in his own keeping.

Chapel was also keenly aware that sailors who did survive an unlucky wreck were themselves seen as ill-starred and were often unwelcome Jonahs aboard their next vessel, as though they themselves were the responsible agents of the ship’s destruction.

He had met seamen who had spent many months beached because their fellows, an infinitely superstitious lot, would not tolerate even a hint of bad luck near their ships.

Chapel was not resentful. He readily understood the power of a seaman’s affinity for his ship. He harbored the same feelings. He too would be wary of a star-crossed hand who had ships die beneath him or who constantly found himself beached by ill fortune.

At last Chapel slept, but the crossover between the cares of his waking state and those of his dreams was marginal at best. He dreamed of being taken aboard the power launch after the wreck, but when he opened his eyes in the dream he was alone. There remained no evidence of the men who had pulled him from the frigid waters.

Instead, he found himself adrift on a glass-smooth sea, floating gently upon swells of translucent, green water. When he looked down he found himself gripping a hand line and bobbin. He was fishing and, from what he could remember from the dream, enjoying himself immensely; in fact, the feeling of well-being stayed with him for quite some time.

After dressing and taking breakfast with his hosts the next morning, Chapel determined to walk down the steep road from the lighthouse and across the broad isthmus that led to the coast road. He needed the exercise, and though heartened by Mr. Copes and his attentive friends, Chapel resolved to spend
as much time alone as possible. He had much to mull over, and the distractions of even friendly conversation set him at odds with his thoughts.

As he made his way down the winding road from the lighthouse complex, Chapel passed two of the lighthouse attendants on their way up. The men were deep in discussion and almost missed Chapel’s greeting. He heard them speak of the remaining lifeboats. The first man said he feared the high tides would either destroy or refloat the boats by tomorrow if left unattended.

They were expecting Stew Paterson, from the logging company, to bring down a long team of mules to help draw the boats farther up on the beach until Pacific Steamship decided what to do with them. But just when they could expect the team to arrive was anybody’s guess.

The second man piped in with the opinion that it was all a great waste of time. The boats were a write-off for the company. In all likelihood they would never hear another word about it. “Those boats are as good as kindling right now,” said the second keeper. “No good will come of the effort. Mark me, kindling by the fourth tide, or I’m a Welsh mine pony.”

Chapel decided to go have a look at the boats for himself. They were all that was left of his ship, and he determined to bid them a friendly farewell before the surf and tides reduced them to painted bones among the spindrift and beached kelp.

It was a long walk down to the shore, but Chapel felt all the better for the excursion. He made his way out to the beach and the wet, hard-packed sand just below the tide line. Scattered debris from the
Los Angeles
still littered the beach. There seemed little left of value except to the crabs and gulls. Everything
of even marginal utility had been carted away by the local inhabitants.

Higher on the shore, Chapel could still make out the tracks of the wagons that had come down to the beach for that purpose. He supposed that it had been one of those conveyances that had hauled his unconscious and waterlogged body up the hill.

As he approached the boats, Chapel saw for himself that what the two lightkeepers had said was true. As he had seen from the lighthouse, the lifeboat used by the black gang was now banked and half buried in wet sand above the low-tide mark, and the other, though seemingly intact, had a part of her port stern stove in by a spar that had crashed through her strakes on the crest of a wave.

The motor launch, though larger than the other two boats and in relatively the same position on the beach, seemed to have survived unscathed. It was obvious that her stern had been washed repeatedly by the tides. The waves had undercut the sand beneath the aft portion of the launch, and it was a sure bet that the next few tides would either tear up her stern or continue the erosion under her keel until she either broached to an incoming wave and swamped or floated away on the foam to return to shore as painted driftwood in a few weeks.

Chapel indulged the sailor’s instinct to climb aboard and inspect the extent of damage, or in this case, salvage—an immemorial tradition following the death of ships. He was naturally surprised to discover everything in place. The double-ended motor launch had only recently been converted from an oar- and sail-driven thirty-foot cutter. She was powered by a cranky two-cylinder Union gas engine that could brag only minimal practicality in anything but harbor conditions.

For this reason her masts, yards, and lugsails were still soundly lashed to the thwarts, and her oarlocks and tholepins were stowed in their proper places. Her long sweeps had been replaced with box oars, but aside from that, everything Chapel expected to find on a motor launch cum lifeboat was there.

An afterthought brought Chapel to inspect the fuel tank. He found it more than two-thirds full, approximately twenty gallons. The water casks were sealed and full and the soldered, tin boxes of emergency rations were still securely stowed in the appropriate lockers beneath the stern sheets.

Hand lines, fish tackle, sea anchor, and spare stores remained in place under the bow locker. Chapel supposed that the local ranchers had little use for oars, sails, or the like. It was sad to imagine this motherless child as so much driftwood, but it was already too late to save her.

The worst of the winter tides were due in the next forty-eight hours. He had heard the lighthouse keepers speaking of it. It seemed most unlikely that the Pacific Steamship Company would send a vessel to retrieve three storm-battered boats. The tides would steal their property from under their noses, and no one would really care. Already the southwest winds were adding to the momentum of the swells. If the surf cut up rough, the next few tides would see the last token of the
Los Angeles
above the waves. Her signal yard and company pennant would be drawn back into the sea. As for the boats, when the mule teamsters finally did arrive, they would be looking at an empty beach.

Chapel shook his head and jumped off the boat onto the wet sand. Little puddles of seawater instantly appeared in his footprints. He looked up to the lighthouse and experienced a spontaneous shiver.

Great ribbons of drifting fog had appeared without Chapel’s notice. They wrapped themselves about the great rock like giant fingers. The light flashed out across the misty waters, and the sonorous bellow of the foghorn began to reverberate over everything.

As he walked toward the road that climbed up through the advancing mists to the lighthouse, Chapel turned one last time to look down at the shore. Within moments everything became one with the fog and all detail melted away.

Chapel began to reflect upon questions that were only now finding resolve and purpose. He faced a world of diminishing prospects, and only determination and ingenuity could lead him out of his pit of aching uncertainty. But one thing became certain with time. If the dream was a true reflection of Chapel’s soul, then he was free to be his own vessel and his own master. All he needed to do was chart the course and leave the rest to faith and the dream.

Mr. Copes was disappointed not to find Chapel at supper. He was also disappointed in his search after the meal. He discovered after asking others that Mr. Lodge was nowhere on the premises. So without company, Mr. Copes enjoyed the dark Jamaican rum all by himself and went to bed. He would rise to tend the light by three—plenty of time to look in on the cast-away then.

When Chapel proved still absent at three in the morning, Mr. Copes became alarmed. He informed the others of his discovery, and a small search was mustered out at first light.

The fog had advanced in heavy damp waves of ever-increasing density throughout the night. Even with a storm lamp
set bright, it was difficult to know where to set foot, much less carry out a competent search over acres of hillside and shore.

The men returned after an hour of calling Chapel’s name into the foggy void. Lamentable though it was, the lighthouse crew were forced to surmise that unfortunate circumstances might have led to an accident. It was a long fall off Point Sur, and the fog would have disguised every track up the hill save the main road, and that was none too safe under certain conditions.

Whatever the truth behind the disappearance of Mr. Lodge, nothing could possibly be accomplished before the fog lifted. As it stood, the lighthouse crew had their hands full with other duties. Mr. Lodge was in God’s hands until something like a real search could be fielded.

It seemed markedly unusual to everybody’s way of thinking, but the impenetrable coastal fog lasted four days and nights without breaking. The warning horn on Point Sur almost set everyone within earshot at one another’s throats before the gray wall lifted. A serious search for Chapel was initiated for part of each day, but nothing of substance was ever discovered. The tidal surge had predictably made a mess of the lifeboats, but that had been expected.

The capsized lifeboat was buried even deeper in the sand, and the waves had torn off the rudder and rudderpost and cast it up on the beach like a bone. The second boat barely floated sixty yards offshore, suspended between heaven and hell by her airtight lockers, a sad purgatory that would not last for long. The motor launch, however, was gone, but it was not remarked as anything unusual. Everyone had seen how precarious her beaching had been. The boat would no doubt be found dashed against the rocks or swamped upside down somewhere.

The loss of company property, of course, meant little when set against the disappearance of one of the survivors. But in the end Mr. Chapel Lodge, ordinary seaman, late of the wrecked
Los Angeles
, was to become just another unhappy footnote in a long report to the Lighthouse Service.

It might be equitable to say that Mr. Copes, and perhaps others, remembered the poor lost sailor in their prayers for a while, but no other observances were ever seen as necessary or appropriate.

Twelve years had passed since the
Los Angeles
disaster, and few but coastal residents and seamen bothered to recall the incident. The tale was trotted out for curious tourists now and then, but most of the time people preferred not to speak of the episode. Then one day a well-dressed gentleman with snow-white hair and a handsomely manicured beard made his way down the Monterey wharf with a lovely young woman hanging happily upon his arm.

The gentleman wore a light-blue, linen suit and a dashing straw boater worn at a rakish angle. He carried a walking stick to address a limp of the left leg, but the impairment didn’t seem to hamper his movements to any great degree.

The young woman, the gentleman’s granddaughter by all appearances, insisted that they descend to the lower level of the wharf where the fishing boats unloaded as they came in. She maintained that the freshest salmon could only be purchased right off the boat.

The old gentleman smiled, acquiesced indulgently, stroked his goatee, and followed with a wave of his stick. Once below in the cool shadows beneath the main wharf, the stench of the
fishing trade became more pronounced, but the old gentleman reveled in the aroma. When the young woman dashed off to inspect a promising catch being unloaded, the gentleman settled back to watch the approaching boats come off the bay.

One boat in particular caught his attention. The small craft was unusual for a Monterey fishing vessel. It sported an odd little pilothouse well astern that was obviously not part of the original design of the vessel. With its diminutive mizzenmast and staysail, the boat had the look of a small Norwegian trawler without the normal net booms.

Instead, she carried three large tackle reels port and starboard. The gentleman estimated that each reel must have carried at least two thousand feet of sturdy linen line. No other standard fishing gear was visible. Something about the boat’s design caught the old gentleman’s eye. He couldn’t quite place where he’d seen those lines before, but he would remember.

As luck would have it, the boat in question made points to land near the very spot where the man was standing. As he watched, a handsome Mexican boy with shaggy hair came forward from the pilothouse to prepare the spring lines for docking. The gentleman noticed that the vessel wasn’t a company boat because she carried no fleet number on her beams, but he did mark the name hand-painted in red letters on the bows. She was called
Trabar Fortuna
.

As the fishing boat coasted toward the landing, the Mexican boy prefashioned a full hitch in the bowline and then cast it deftly over the appropriate piling. Before the bowline had even gone taut, the boy had accomplished the same with the stern. The vessel came gently to rest against the pilings without even a squeak. The white-haired gentleman nodded his
head and smiled in admiration. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was still something odd about the little vessel. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the incongruity, but it was there somewhere.