The Forty Fathom Bank and Other Stories (19 page)

Right at two on Saturday morning, Pete was there. I didn't even hear him climb down the ladder and jump over onto the deck. While the engine was warming up, we had some coffee—he was a great one for coffee which he liked boiled down thick and black, like a mug full of road oil. The weather was nice and clear when we pulled out, with some big stars over the hills, and San Francisco just a glow across the Bay. But I could hear the big diaphone blasting from the Bridge, so I figured there must be fog outside. We had the current with us and moved along at a pretty good clip by the docks and ferry slips. There was no wind to speak of until we got past Lime Point. Then a cold breeze came up that was blowing a thin mist through the Gate.

Now I had been all over the Bay, and I'd gone way up into the sloughs. I'd seen some good days and plenty of bad ones too, with heavy winds and rough water. But there was something different about everything once we went under the Bridge. A strange kind of chill was in the air like nothing I'd ever felt in the Bay, a big, dark, cold feeling that seemed to wrap itself right around you. Through the mist, the moon, which was quite low and about at the full, showed dark gray, then bright silver. The black swells that came in from the ocean lifted the boat up like she was nothing at all and went rolling by without a sound. Under the mist, the lights on Mile Rock and Point Bonita to the north were big and bright, and when they swept over the water, the tops of the swells looked wet and shiny as they uncoiled from out of the darkness and went sliding away shoreward. I was standing at the wheel and holding the
spokes pretty tight in both hands. Pete was standing beside me. His big hands were in the breast pockets of his peajacket. His thick body rolled a little with the movement of the boat, but his booted feet seemed bolted to the deck. In the little light from the binnacle, his dark, Greek face, with its short, black pipe, looked carved out of wood. He was gazing out over the water ahead and seemed quite at home.

Yet, though I'd never been outside before, I knew all about the coast thereabouts, from studying the charts. I knew where channels were and the lights and buoys and all the points and reefs and rocks. So when we cleared Bonita, I kept in the North Channel, far enough out to be safe from the rocks but not so far as to get onto the Four Fathom Bank which is a shallow bar a couple of miles off the point known as the Potatoe Patch. In heavy weather, the seas break and roll over it, and a ship with any draft at all will hit bottom and a small boat would probably have no chance whatever. Of course, in fair weather like we had that morning, there was no danger. But I kept in the channel anyway. By the time the sun came up over the hills along the coast and the light sea mist had cleared, we were well offshore in the area of Point Reyes with our lines down and the engine idling along nicely.

“So you like be fisherman?” Pete asked. We were sitting on the after cabin, watching the lines as the boat rolled pleasantly over the long swells. “You learn things right, you make good money. You never be rich, but you be free. No boss. You in business for yourself. Go north in spring. Go Fort Bragg, Eureka. Go up Alaska if like. In winter, go south. If not like, then stay home. Sleep when wind blow.” He was in a fine mood. I'd never seen him look real happy before. Now he just kind of beamed. “Fisherman no
have listen to big bull in office,” he went on, “eat plenty, make strong man. Sea very pretty too.” He pointed with his pipe stem toward the east where the blue water sparkled in the early sunlight. “Sun come up, sun go down. Very pretty. Night time, see plenty stars. Sea smell good too.” He took a big breath and let it out slowly. “Sea like good wife. You talk, she listen. Sometimes bad too, like storm in gulf. Wind go crazy, try kill you. Oh, sure, you scared. But who know, maybe that good too.”

This was another side of Pete, a side probably few people ever got to see, and I felt kind of proud to be one of them. Just then he reminded me of my eight-year-old brother on one of those times when he wasn't being silly or showing off or raising hell or making stupid faces, but just being serious about something he liked because, at such times, his whole face got beautiful like Pete's was that day, just thoughtful and happy and real peaceful looking.

We trolled all morning and picked up half a dozen silversides and a couple of big king salmon. Around about noon, the wind began to build up, and by four or so was blowing pretty hard. It was about that time we had the first trouble with the engine. Some rust scales from the gas tanks had clogged the screen in the sediment bowl under the carburetor. Pete went below and removed the bowl and cleaned the screen.

“Not good,” he said when he came up. “You take out gas, clean tank before go out again.” He looked out over the water, then at the shore. “We drift plenty far,” he said. “Not good engine stop now.”

An old coastal freighter, some distance west of us, was moving in toward the Gate. The smoke from her stack, blowing forward over her bow, made her look like she was going full speed astern. Steep waves were beginning to run
over the big swells. Here and there the tops broke, making nasty little flecks of white on the blue-black water.

“Go in now,” Pete said. “Pretty soon blow very hard.”

I spun the wheel around and headed back toward the Gate. Pete went aft, brought in the lines and secured things on deck. The old freighter had altered her course, and was cutting across our bow maybe half a mile ahead. I could see her rusty iron plates daubed with red lead and the big white spray from forward as she plunged into the rising seas. The sky was quite clear, and the sun, which had been slanting downward, suddenly got big and red. And then, almost as I watched, it eased itself right down into the limpy water along the horizon. The old freighter's mast head light came on and high above, the full moon shone kind of cold and white in the clear evening sky. The swells were so big by now, that when the boat was in the troughs, everything disappeared completely. I changed my course a few degrees figuring to follow the freighter, which was heading for the north channel, close in to Point Bonita.

“We stay outside Potatoe Patch,” Pete said. He had come into the wheelhouse and was standing beside me at the wheel. “North Channel no good now. If engine stop, we go on rocks.” He filled his pipe and lighted it. His big, tanned face was as calm as if he were sitting on the dock on a quiet Sunday afternoon talking about net-mending or the benefits of a fisherman's union. And feeling his calm and confidence, somehow I wasn't afraid either. He was a great guy and a great teacher too, I thought, as I changed the course again, this time heading out well to the west of the Potatoe Patch which I could see now in the moonlight, some four or five miles ahead, was beginning to churn up white.

Everything went well for the next half hour or so despite the wind which was howling down from astern at almost
gale force. I managed to ease her out in the big quartering seas so we could clear the bar by a good mile or more. Now and then a wave would break and wash over the after deck which, if I'd been alone would have scared the hell out of me. But with Pete there, the whole thing was kind of exciting. My fear was gone. Even my muscles seemed to get stronger. I stood with my legs apart and spun the wheel about, keeping the boat from getting broadside in the troughs. I revv'd up the engine and drove the hull forward over the black hills that raced down on us from out on the ocean like I'd been doing it all my life. It was a great feeling, the best and biggest feeling I'd ever known.

I don't know how far we were from the Potatoe Patch, maybe a mile, maybe less, when the engine stopped the second time. It coughed once, picked up again, sputtered, then died completely. In an instant, Pete was out of the wheelhouse and down below. The boat with no headway now, went wild, bobbing and tossing, lifting, and falling. The wind had a heavy sound like a big wave rushing up on a beach. The water itself didn't make much noise, just a hissing sound with now and then a kind of snapping. Pete hollered up for a flashlight. With the boat flying around the way it was, it took much longer to clean out the screen and get the bowl back on than before. I crawled up into the wheelhouse again with Pete close behind me and started the engine. Then I looked ahead. Not a hundred yards away, a huge wave broke and crashed. Beyond, in the bright moonlight, as far as I could see, was nothing but seething white water.

“Pete,” I yelled.

But he was not there. The door to the wheelhouse swung open then banged shut. Suddenly I remembered the steering quadrant. Good Christ, he'd gone out on deck! I pulled back on the throttle and started to bring the boat about.
But it was too late. Another wave picked her up and just threw her right into the boiling foam of the Potatoe Patch.

For the next few minutes, or hours, or years—I can't remember what happened to time—I just hung on to the wheel. The moon was scribbling white lines all over the black sky. I could hear the crash and boom of breakers all around and the engine labor as the boat climbed the steep slope of some gigantic wave, then race at full throttle, as she dived, almost vertically downward, into a deep through.

Suddenly the boat spun broadside to the seas and began to drop like it was going right to the bottom. Down, down, down. Then something exploded overhead; the cabin door was ripped from its hinges; black water rushed in through the broken wheelhouse windows. I was still hanging on to the wheel, but the violent shock of that massive wave crushing down from above threw me against the after bulkhead with such force that for a minute I must have been knocked unconscious. When I managed to get back to the wheel, the boat was out of the Potatoe Patch. The big wave that had smashed down on her must have picked her up again and thrown her off the bar just like the one before had thrown her on. I looked out on deck for Pete. In the moonlight, the deck was empty. I shouted his name. There was no answer. I shouted again. My throat seemed like it had a rope around it. I crawled out through the doorway, screaming into the wind. Still there was no answer. Then I realized he had been washed over. Oh Christ! I jumped to the wheel and was about to turn back. But I knew right away that that would be useless. The chance of finding him on that wild bar was next to impossible. Suddenly all my strength seemed to go. I leaned against the wheel aching all over and kind of empty inside.

Though the bar had broken the force of the waves, the
swells were monstrous and the wind howled louder than ever. Dead ahead the big light on Bonita flashed twice over the stormy water, then eclipsed. Beyond, I could see the long chain of yellow lights on the Bridge and beyond that, the soft glow of the city inside the Gate. I set a course directly under the center of the Bridge and began slowly to unbutton my shirt, which was soaked.

Suddenly my insides began to twist up in a knot. God Almighty! Pete was back there somewhere in the middle of that white whirlpool! Oh, Jesus! Goddam bastard Potatoe Patch! I shook the wheel with all my strength and pounded my foot on the deck. I could feel the hot tears on my face. Goddam bastard, I kept shouting. Then a thought came to me. Maybe with all his strength, he could have kept alive. Maybe he'd gotten through it and was, right at that moment, floundering around in the waves on this side. I started to turn the boat around but realized again how hopeless it would be. Then I remembered the flares in the locker below. I'd pull into the cove behind Bonita and signal the Coast Guard. There might be a chance, one in a million, but maybe, with their big lights and all, they might be able to find him. I swung the wheel over and with the waves bearing down broadside, rolling the boat over so the gunnel and half the cabin was awash, I headed, with the throttle wide open, for the cove in the lea of Bonita.

In a matter of minutes, I was in the lea of the point. I threw the engine out of gear and cut the throttle. Suddenly it was very quiet, only the crashing of waves and the high sound of the wind. I had just started down the companionway to the cabin when I heard a strange sound from below. I stopped to listen. It was a low mumbling, like a voice from underwater. And it came from the cabin! I dropped down quietly and switched on the light.

And there was Pete! He was down on his knees by the bunk. A life jacket was strapped onto his back; another was clutched in his arms. He did not look up but went right on praying in a kind of low sing-song, with his head bent down. His watch cap was gone, and his hair, which I had never seen before, was gray with a bald patch in the middle. I switched off the light, went back to the wheelhouse and headed the boat in toward the Bridge once more.

Once inside, the storm stopped as if by magic. The Bay off Sausalito was flat calm. I tied up at the dock and turned off the engine. The moon had gone down behind the hills, but by the night lights on the dock, I could see the ripped out door and the shattered wheelhouse windows. I stood back in the shadow inside. In a little while, Pete came up. He had taken off his life jacket. He did not look at me, but stepped out on deck without making a sound. I watched him pull the boat in and jump over onto the ladder. One foot missed the lower rung, and his leg went into the water. Then he climbed slowly and kind of heavily up onto the dock. I went out on deck and watched him walking slowly between the stacked lumber and winches and shored-up boats. His head was bent down and his arms hung kind of straight by his sides. He stopped for a moment by a big halibut boat under a cargo light by the boat shop. I could see him quite clearly. He looked up at the high bow, then reached up and ran his hand over the smooth lines of the forward part of the hull. A moment later, he disappeared in back of the old storage shed. I stayed there awhile longer, then went below. I turned in quickly, but exhausted as I was, I could not sleep.

The next day, and for a good while after, the boat was a kind of showpiece, with the windows all broken, the running lights torn off and wires hanging from the splintered
end of the mast. Of course, I had to tell everyone the whole story a hundred times and answer all their questions. When they asked me about Pete, I said he was right with me all the way through and that I'd have never made it without him, which was the truth.