Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  “Well, the charts do show a small group called the Farallon Islands about twenty or twenty-five miles off the mainland.” He rushed on when he saw the look Alice shot him. “But we passed them off the starboard side sometime during the night. No, what you hear is the mainland. I would guess from the sound that we’re not much more than a mile offshore now.”

  Alice nodded in triumph at the puzzled brother and his wife, who weren’t sure what they had done to generate such a passionate outburst. Alice ignored them, just as she ignored Will’s questioning glance. No islands. Not now.

  Captain Richardson had struck most of the sails, and they were moving forward very slowly. Two sailors stood at the prow with a sounding line—long ropes with knots every six feet, or every fathom, and a lead weight tied on one end. Another of the crew was high overhead in the crow’s nest at the top of the tallest mast. Occasionally they could look up and see him; mostly he was shrouded in the mists. Every eye was fixed dead ahead. It was not a comfortable thing to bring a ship in this close to shore and not be able to see what lay in your path.

  One of the sailors at the prow dropped the sounding line over the side again. The coiled rope unwound with a soft hiss until it finally was gone and snapped taut against the hawser to which it was tied. The sailor turned, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted back toward the bridge. “Still twenty fathoms or more, Cap’n.”

  “Aye,” Richardson called back. “I want a sounding every minute.”

  “Aye, sir.” The two sailors began reeling the dripping rope back in again, coiling it neatly as they did so. Alice peered forward. The fog was thinning noticeably now, looking like clouds of dust gusting before the wind. Suddenly there was a cry from above them, and every head jerked upward when it came.

  “Land ho! Half a mile dead ahead off the port bow.”

  Alice swung her head to the left. There was a momentary glimpse of a high promontory of land and sharp cliffs that dropped to rock-strewn beaches. Much of the hillside was golden brown, but here and there clumps of low green bushes clung to the hillsides. And then it was gone again.

  “I saw it,” she cried, grasping Will’s arm.

  “Yes!” he answered.

  Excitement swept the group. A stiffening breeze was blowing from behind them, the warmer air over the water rushing in to replace the cooler air over the land. It was sweeping the fog bank away in its rush to make landfall.

  Then there was a collective gasp, followed by cries of joy. Off to the left of the ship, framed in perfect clarity by the surrounding mists, steep hillsides rose straight up out of the sea. They could see the white line of surf, rocky beaches, seabirds soaring over the heights, the thick green foliage which capped the upper reaches. What was most thrilling was that the landmass did not spread clear across their path. Directly in front of them it was clear water. The land came out into the sea, then stopped.

  There were groans as another fog bank rolled back across their view. But the cloud was low enough that it didn’t reach the top of the mast, and the man in the crow’s nest could see over the top of it.

  “Land ho!” the lookout cried again. “Another peninsula off the starboard bow, sir. Roughly the same distance as the first.”

  “Can you see if the land comes together?” the captain shouted.

  “There are two points of land jutting into the sea, but nothing dead ahead, sir.”

  “Sounding line?”

  “Still more than twenty fathoms, sir,” came the reply.

  Will nodded in satisfaction. The sounding line had only twenty knots on it, but that was more than enough. If it didn’t hit bottom, that meant they had at least twenty fathoms, or a hundred and twenty feet, of water beneath the hull. Since the ship drew only between two and three fathoms when it was fully loaded, as it was now, there was no threat of beaching her yet.

  The Brooklynmoved forward slowly, the sounding linesman crying out periodically, the lookout in the crow’s nest reporting regularly. The breeze was strong enough now that it was whipping up the first of the whitecaps. The fog was clearing rapidly before it. Then suddenly it was clear, with only wisps of the fog before them. Directly ahead there was nothing but water. On both sides the land rose sharply out of the sea, but the distance between the two points was at least a mile.

  Will gripped Alice’s arms. “It’s the Golden Gate, Alice. The entrance to San Francisco Bay. We’re there.”

  Alice reached out and took Will’s hand and squeezed it hard, beaming with joy. She went up on tiptoe and put her mouth to his ear. “You are a very fortunate man, Will Steed.”

  “I am?” he whispered back. “Why is that?”

  “Do you know what day it is today?”

  “The last day of July.”

  “That’s right. Do you remember what I told you when we left the Sandwich Islands?”

  He frowned, clearly stumped. Then suddenly the frown disappeared and he grinned broadly and nodded. “I do.”

  “That’s right,” she said happily. “I told you that you had July and then you’d better have me to California.”

  “Mr. Brannan! Come to the bridge immediately.”

  Will turned in surprise. It was Mr. Lombard, one of the officers. He was on the bridge beside Captain Richardson, who had a telescope to his eye, looking up toward the headlands that towered above them now on either side. They were still wreathed in wisps of clouds and mist. Above the excited chattering of the passengers, the officer’s voice barely carried.

  Lombard cupped his hands. “Mr. Samuel Brannan. Report to the captain immediately.”

  Will squinted a little. He had come to know the officers well, and there was just a hint of anxiety in Lombard’s voice. “Stay here,” he said to Alice. “I’ll be right back.”

  She turned but he was already pushing through the crowd toward the back of the ship. He arrived at the ladder leading to the bridge just as Sam Brannan and one of his counselors did. Will stopped. He didn’t want to assume he was wanted when he wasn’t, but Brannan motioned for him to come along.

  Now the noise had subdued somewhat. The passengers seemed to sense that something was afoot and were watching curiously. When the three Latter-day Saints reached the two naval officers, the captain motioned them to follow and they went to the back of the bridge where they were out of sight of most of the passengers.

  “Mr. Brannan,” said Captain Richardson, handing over the telescope, “take a look up on the point of that bluff.”

  Will’s head snapped up. It took him only a second or two to see it, even without the spyglass. The edge of the cliff was lined with walls of stone. At regular intervals the tops of the walls were notched with square openings. At each opening Will could see the black snouts of cannon. This was a fort, and they were about to pass beneath a full battery of artillery.

  Brannan put the glass to his eye, searched for a moment, then found it. He gasped softly.

  “It has to be Mexican,” Mr. Lombard said. “And they’re looking right down our throats.”

  “I suggest you get all of your people below decks, Mr. Brannan,” Richardson said, staring upward even as he spoke. “Just in case. We have no reason to expect that we’ll be fired on, but we can’t be sure.” Then to his officer he began snapping out orders. “Mr. Lombard, alert the crew. Get the five-pounder ready for action. Rig the sails for fast running on my command.”

  The officer snapped out an “Aye” and was gone. Richardson turned back to Brannan. “We don’t want to frighten your people, Mr. Brannan, but we need to move with dispatch.”

  Twenty minutes later the hold opened and someone came clattering down the ladder. “Mr. Brannan.” It was the voice of Mr. Lombard.

  There was instant quiet below decks. Sam Brannan stood and walked to the doorway which led into the passageway. Will stood and edged closer so he could hear.

  “Yes?”

  “The captain says your people are welcome to come back topside,” the officer said. “We’ve passed the fort. Near as
we can tell, it’s deserted. There’s no one there. We’re into the bay now.”

  A great sigh of relief swept through the group as Brannan called back to Lombard, “Thank you. That is welcome news.”

  Once they had cleared the entrance to the bay, and with the fog gone, the captain raised more sail and the Brooklynmoved along briskly again. The passengers lined the rails all along both sides of the ship. For a time they kept looking back nervously, watching the fort they had passed, but they were beyond the range of her guns and soon the threat was forgotten. Now many of them were crying out, pointing to this or that sight in case someone had missed it.

  Alice’s own excitement—dashed so abruptly when they had to go back below decks—had quickly returned, and her eyes drank in everything eagerly. They had come through the narrow passage known as the Golden Gate, and now the water opened up into a huge bay, a great inland sea. Directly ahead and to their left a barren, rocky island thrust itself out of the bay, as though it were guarding the entrance. To the left, perhaps two miles farther on, another small island was wreathed in the last of the morning fog. Seabirds were everywhere, dipping, soaring, bobbing on the water, hopping awkwardly along the rocks. Across the bay the land came down to meet the water, forming the eastern shore. It was a bleak, treeless shore. Here there was little green to be seen. The summer sun had turned everything brown. It was nothing like Robinson Crusoe Island or Honolulu, but Alice didn’t care. This was North America, the same continent from which they had left. More important, it was their final stop. The voyage was done.

  A movement caught her eye, and she turned to see a line of soldier pelicans wing past them, barely skimming above the choppy water. She felt like shouting at them, telling them that Alice and Will Steed would soon be moving in to live with them.

  “Sail ho!”

  It was a cry from the man in the crow’s nest again. Every head turned up to see which way he was pointing, then jerked around to look in that direction. It took almost a full minute more before the ship rounded the land enough for the rest to see what he had seen. Once again there was momentary panic. Once again they were roughly jerked back to the painful reality that they were entering a war zone.

  “It’s a man-o’-war!” the lookout cried. “Twenty guns.”

  There were cries of alarm, and several began running for the holds that led down to their quarters. Mothers yelled for children. Husbands moved to find their wives.

  Will was peering ahead, looking at the cut of the sail and the shape of the hull. He felt Alice clutch anxiously at his arm, but didn’t turn. The Brooklynmoved with agonizing slowness, and the other ship revealed itself very slowly. Finally, Will looked up. “I think it’s a Yankee man-o’-war,” he called up to the lookout. “Can you see a flag?”

  On the bridge, Captain Richardson had the telescope to his eye and was peering at the other ship, which was now almost fully in sight. The man in the crow’s nest also had a glass to his eye. He was leaning forward precariously, trying to see better. At his height, he had the better view.

  “It’s an American ship, sir. She’s flying the Stars and Stripes.”

  A ragged cheer went up and there was applause from the passengers below.

  Will felt Alice lean against him in relief. “I thought she looked like a Yankee ship,” he said, trying not to show just how relieved he was himself.

  “She’s seen us, Cap’n. She’s rigging for war.”

  Will leaped for the railing. Without a glass, he couldn’t see much more than specks of movement, but then the sound of a bosun’s whistle came to them faintly across the water. Instantly it was followed by the measured beat of a drum. Will felt his heart go cold. He had seen this enough times up close to know exactly what was happening. The watch on the American ship must have been deeply shocked to look up and suddenly see a ship rounding the entrance to the bay and bearing down on them. The bosun’s whistle signaled the danger. The drum beat out the call to general quarters. Sailors would be racing for the stations. Guns were being loaded and trained on the approaching sails. Others would be racing to the magazine and would start wheeling out black powder and cannonballs.

  “Call to quarters,” Captain Richardson yelled, still looking through the telescope. Instantly Mr. Lombard began blowing their own whistle, calling all the crew to quarters.

  Will leaped forward, racing toward the bridge. “Captain! Have the women line the rails. Have the men hold their children in their arms. They won’t fire on us until they’re sure who we are. Let’s show them we’re not hostile.”

  Richardson shoved the telescope into its case and turned toward his own ship. “Mr. Brannan,” he bawled, “you heard Mr. Steed. Put the women alongside the railing. Get some children up there where they can be seen. Move! Move!”

  The general scramble toward the hatch now reversed itself. Though nervous, the women moved swiftly to the railing. Men grabbed smaller children and put them up on their shoulders, then moved to stand behind the women. Soon the starboard railing, the one facing the oncoming ship, was lined with women and children.

  “They’re standing down, sir,” cried the lookout. “They’ve seen us. It worked.”

  That brought another cheer from the people.

  “Look, Will,” Alice said, “there are more ships.”

  Will was already looking at the numerous masts that were coming into view behind the man-o’-war. He nodded. “That first one’s a whaler. The next two look like hide droghers.”

  “Hide what?”

  “Droghers. They’re like barges, only rigged as cutters or schooners. There’s a big trade in cattle hides out of this part of Mexico.” He pulled a face. “Now, there is a sailing assignment I hope to never face. They say the smell is so strong, people know they’re coming three days before they ever reach port.” He was still looking at the little cove that was opening up to their view. “And there’s a second whaler,” he noted. Now they could see at least five or six ships anchored together, with the man-o’-war being the largest.

  A cannon boomed and women screamed and dropped down, holding their ears.

  “It’s all right!” the captain shouted. “That’s just the shore battery bidding us welcome.”

  “Bosun, fire one round of acknowledgment.”

  Three of the crew jumped to where their own small cannon was in readiness near the bow of the ship. In a moment, it roared an answering shot.

  “Captain?” It was the lookout again. “They’re launching a rowboat. I think they mean to come and say hello, sir.”

  “Fine, fine,” Captain Richardson said. It was obvious that he was greatly relieved now, as were his passengers. “Mr. Lombard, prepare to receive visitors aboard.”

  Lombard nodded briskly. “Aye, Cap’n. Preparing to be boarded, sir.”

  As they watched the slow progress of the rowboat coming toward them, the Brooklyncontinued to move toward the cove where the ships were anchored. Now the rocky headlands gave way to more rolling hillsides. These came down to the water to meet sandy beaches. There was suddenly the terrible stench of something dead.

  “Ew,” Alice said, pointing. “Look, Will.”

  Coming into sight was a long stretch of sandy beach. It was strewn with the bleached carcasses of slaughtered cattle that were white with swarms of seagulls. Farther back from the water were large stacks of dried cow hides, stiff as sheets of metal. Will wrinkled his nose. Did they do the slaughtering right on the beach? Incredibly, there were several people lounging on the beach, watching the approaching ship as though this were something that happened every day of the week.

  “That must be Yerba Buena,” he said to Alice. Just beyond the beach a few scrubby oak trees sprung out of a wiry-looking grass or vegetation. Farther back, low sand hills, or dunes, gave way to rising ground. There, in a totally random fashion, they could see a collection of buildings. The largest was an adobe building that looked like it had once been an army barracks. But all around it there were small wooden houses, lean-tos whi
ch faced away from the beach, and some ramshackle shanties that looked as though the slightest puff of wind would bring them crashing down. The finest-looking building was a newly constructed adobe building, also quite large. From past experience, Will guessed that that was probably the customshouse. Tax collectors always seemed to get the best accommodation. Next to the building another American flag snapped in the brisk breeze.

  There was a loud thump as the rowboat from the American warship clunked alongside the Brooklyn.At Sam Brannan’s urging, the Latter-day Saints moved forward in a group near the bow. There was considerable nervousness among them. It was a great relief to know that they had not landed in a country hostile to Americans. On the other hand, these were representatives of the United States of America, a country that had at least twice before refused to offer help or sanctuary to the beleaguered Mormons.

  A rope ladder was tossed over the side, and in a moment a uniformed officer climbed aboard the Brooklyn.He was followed immediately by two others. Captain Richardson and Mr. Lombard stood at attention, waiting.

  The lead officer—Will saw from the epaulets on his shoulders that he was a commander—came to attention and saluted Richardson sharply. “Sir. I am Commander John B. Montgomery, captain of the twenty-gun Portsmouth,a ship of the United States Navy.” He turned and looked at the assembly of families who were gathered behind Richardson. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed loudly, “I have the honor to inform you that you are in the United States of America.”

  There was a moment of silence as those words sunk in, and then in one spontaneous burst of enthusiasm, someone’s voice rang out. “Three cheers for America.”

  As one, hundreds of voices rang out with gladness. “Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah!”

  “Derek.”

  It sounded far away, but he thought he recognized the voice. He tried to open his eyes, but it was as though someone had barred the shutters over the windows and there was no prying them open.