The man laughed, his voice casting strokes of anguish through muffling fog. He motioned toward me, beckoning me to follow him. His boat began to rock. With the engine running low there was not enough power to keep the boat’s head pointed toward the sea.
The bow of the forty footer appeared, sliding whitely through mist. It was as insubstantial as the lobster boat was substantial. The forty footer wavered, more ghostly than the surrounding fog. Were it not for the solid sound of engines the forty would be vague as a cloud. I watched the drama unfold; watched ghostly forms of men huddling in quick conversation as the forty swept past, made a turn toward the channel, and eased back toward the lobsterman.
The forty made its turn, then eased toward the cliffs, closing alongside the lobster boat. I could see Tommy clearly. His black hair glowed above a face only slightly less visible than darkness. For moments his face seemed only surreal as he concentrated on laying the forty alongside. Case and Wert—and a vague shape like an echo of me—stood at the rail. Two figures jumped, and to his credit, Wert tried. His shoulders moved forward, but his feet did not follow. He fumbled, fell against the low rail, regained his feet.
I watched us make mistakes, as young men in action almost always make mistakes. The few minutes of action aboard that lobster boat stretched toward timelessness. A slow motion movie.
Case fell and rolled. My own vague form hesitated, finding its feet, as the madman stepped from the wheelhouse. The madman carried no weapon, and he raised his arms. As the form ran into him, I could see he only tried to shield his face. The madman fell against the wheelhouse, then rose slowly back to his feet. My form disappeared into the wheelhouse where it would port the helm, then search for a child who was not there. Case slowly stood, his left hand holding a wrench, and his right hand clasped to his left shoulder. His wound came from falling against a spike or a tool.
The madman howled and slowly retreated to the bow. He screamed, “Stay back, stay back, stay back.” Then he screamed, “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy.”
Case followed him as the forty made a tight sweep away and turned back toward us. Case should have waited for help. That madman was no threat. As the madman pulled a stake from a lobster trap, Case stumbled. He was on his knees, trying to throw the wrench, when my shade appeared from the wheelhouse. The two men were so close that my dive at the madman actually carried me over Case’s back; and I, watching my own ghost, saw that the madman tried to stab no one but himself. The sound of the forty’s engines rose.
How much did Tommy see? He saw it all. How much did Wert see? Practically none. Wert stood in the stern beside the engines.
And so it was that madness covered Tommy’s face, and that in this time of torment two madmen sacrificed themselves on the altars of their guilt.
Tommy, who had killed with depth charges, now drove toward the rocks in a last and frantic display that may—or may not—have had the least thing to do with saving Case; a man who did not need saving. The madman stood facing the huge blade that was the forty’s bow, and he screamed in exaltation or expiation, waving his arms toward him as if to attract the bow against his chest.
When the forty hit rock it stumbled, then drove its bow onto the beach, the tearing of steel striking showers of sparks as it crumpled against rocks. Wert tumbled against the engine house as water flooded the stern. Tommy cut the engines, ran aft where the lobster boat lay rolled on its side in shallow water. The bow was sheared away, and beneath the hull extended legs in sea boots; legs of the lobsterman, twisted and torn. Case lay against a crumpled rail with blood draining in arterial spurts, while my faint form lay halfway in shallow water, my head resting on a rock like a young boy nestled against a pillow. Tommy did not dive in, he fell in as he hurried first toward Case, then toward me.
I do not know whether it was my voice—although I think it was-or the voice of the sea that called forth: “A sailor’s pay. A sailor’s pay.”
They gathered about me, the spirits of those four men, as I drew up the anchor and began working the boat back toward moorings in the city. The pale, moon face of Wert lived faintly in the mist. It silently protested, explained, attempted to find language that would in some way speak inexpressible thoughts.
Case stood beside me at the helm—the wan form of Case, the kind face of Case—a man who had made his own young mistakes. He did not bare his chest, did not display his wounds. If anything he seemed proud that I had raised a knife to help a friend.
These were my comrades. In many ways they were closer to me than the living crew of my Alaskan vessel.
Tommy and the lobsterman seemed no more than tendrils of fog that intermixed, that somehow bonded together for the present, and perhaps for eternity. It came to me that all of us, or parts of us, are doomed to strut our roles on that obscure stage during all nights when ice fog lies across the harbor. The lobsterman will endure his earned portion of hell, and we, the crew of that forty footer, will inflict our errors on him.
I now understand that Tommy’s silence was the silence of madness. When he could not speak he took action, perhaps even trying to do the right thing; but I know now that no one could protect him from the knowledge that he had killed Case. I also know that Tommy protected me, for he had to have figured out my share of our mistakes. From that weather cutter to which our Cap transferred him, he slipped overboard in search of silence. He knew that, sooner or later in his drunkenness, the story would get abroad.
Tommy was heroic in his way. Darkness reached for him twice, the first time with depth charges, the second time with the grounding of the forty. He fought against darkness in the only way he could. He sought the eternal silence of death.
Darkness tries to kill light. I pulled the old claspknife from my pocket. Wert seemed only confused, while Case smiled. The interleaving forms of the lobsterman and Tommy appeared to express only sadness. Perhaps the knife should have been thrown overboard.
But, it still rests in my pocket, to be carried until death, and perhaps carried to the grave. This knife is all I have of youth, because I know now that the part of me that remains on that cold coast is the ghost of my youth, forever tied to the rising scream of diesels.
The men disappeared into mist as I groped the final approach to moorage. There is little left to say. I will return to Alaska, and will make three more trips from Anchorage, maybe four. Then I will retire and find a small apartment near the docks. Although I will never finish my business with my comrades and the sea, I think perhaps they have finished their business with me. We, who were never really at war, have somehow still discovered peace. I think that between all of us, all has been forgiven.
Handsprings in the Sea