THE GHOST SHIP

by Gerrie Ferris Finger

  She held up the crystal glass. “What makes it so special?”

  “It's a blend of West Indian rums ordered for and used by the British Royal Navy until late in this century.”

  “And by seamen everywhere?”

  His lips upturned a little. “It wasn't something you could go to the retail store and buy, but men of the sea had access to it, especially those who went to the West Indies.” He looked thoughtful. “Life at sea was hard, and rum was one of the few comforts men on board a ship had. Their ration was a pint a day. It was passed out at noon, and many of the crew slugged it down and were instantly drunk and unable to work. An admiral named Vernon thought it affected their 'swinish morals' so he issued an order that the rum be cut – a quart of water to a pint of rum.”

  She recalled the ritual around the scuttlebutt on the Deering. “Grog,” she said.

  For the first time she looked up at Lawrence. He seemed stiff and remote. He wasn't in the room.

  Rod said, “I have a bed upstairs, and the leather sofa in the other room makes a bed. Your choice, you can sleep upstairs in the bed that furnished my great-grandfather's house, or the one down here.”

  “Down here is fine, and you don't have to make it up. I'm not tired.”

  “I'm not hurrying you. I'm not tired either.”

  “You have to be exhausted. That whale was heavy.” How mundane did that sound?

  “Not as heavy as you might think. Once we got him into some water, he got buoyant and it was mostly a matter of staying out of his way.”

  “He was a fighter then?”

  Rod stared at the fire for a moment. “No, he wasn't. He was calm as if he were a rubber float. He seemed relaxed.”

  “Unusual?”

  “Fright is normal for an animal in peril, or in a strange circumstance.” He had a quizzical look on his face. “In the lamp light I saw one of his eyes. I swear to God he looked like he was amused.”

  She glanced up at the portrait of Lawrence. The eyes seemed to shift away from hers.

  Rod asked, “What is it?”

  “Nothing. What causes whales to beach themselves?”

  “That's a question for the ages. Some think that they get sick, but not all whales that wash up are sick. Take pilot whales, they travel in pods. One may be sick, but many times the others on the beach are fine. No one has yet been able to read a whale's mind, although they are smart and have a language of their own, and no one knows why the whole pod comes ashore.”

  She recalled a little ancient history. “In Mesopotamia, archeologists have opened graves to find that slaves and guards had been entombed with the royal person. They had chosen to go to eternity with their masters.”

  “What strange mammals we are.”

  “Indeed,” she said finishing her drink. “Do you believe all mammals are thinking beings?”

  “Not only mammals. Even insects. Study them and you'll see reason in their behavior.”

  “A heady thought.”

  He laughed. “Rum emboldens us, it also philosophizes us. Is that a word?”

  “Sounds like it to me.”

  He stood and picked up her glass. “You should know O Lady of the Thesaurus.”

  “Never travel without one.”

  An awkward silence filled the room. She asked “Tell me about your work.”

  While they shared another rum, she listened while he talked of marine life and his plan for a new marine fisheries station in Hatteras.

  Then he got up for the third time and when he came back, he handed her the glass and sat on the three-legged stool. His knees touched hers. He leaned forward and laid his palm on her knee.

  “I apologize for – everything.” His intimacy caused a sinew deep in her soul to shift. “I'm not very good at this …”

  What man is, she thought, and put a hand over his. “You don't have to say it, Rod. I apologize, too. I haven't handled things well.”

  “It isn't that. I sometimes think I'm too insulated.”

  “How?”

  He leaned back and took a healthy swallow of rum. “Too close to my roots, too close to the sea. Too unworldly.”

  That last word – unworldly – sounded like it could have come originally from Carmen's mouth. Ann shook her head. “I don't think that.”

  “When one entity, like the sea, is the focus of your life, you get too fuddy-duddy – as if …” He shrugged.

  “As if you've married it?”

  “Yeah, and got old together, too soon.” He brushed his hair from his forehead with an impatient hand, and laughed. He stretched forward and took her hand. “Don't mind me, I've spliced the main brace well and good, and when I do, I mumble and get stupid.”

  She smiled, knowing that she, too, had spliced well and good. “I'm happy that you invited me to splice with you.”

  “Friends?” he asked seriously.

  “Friends,” she said, feeling his hand press firmer.

  He got up. “Before I begin to stagger, I'll get your the bed things.”

  “A blanket is fine. It's almost four.”

  “Is it?” He looked at the grandfather clock. “Not much sleep for me. I'm up at dawn. I've got a whale to look out for.”

  “I'm an early riser no matter what time I turn in,” she said, determined to go with him.

  “I'll try not to wake you when I leave. Make yourself at home. It's a small place, so you won't have to search long for what you need. Help yourself to any food or drink, and…” When she grinned, he paused. “What did I tell you, I mumble on and on.”

  Like two people on a precipice, their eyes lingered, then flicked away, and came back to hold one another.

  His mouth opened as if he would gasp out his pent-up feelings. Standing, he pulled her up and crushed her breasts to his chest in a curiously strong but tender way. His lips met hers in a full and glorious kiss that tasted like sweet rum and passion fruit. It wasn't the love scene that she imagined, and it certainly wasn't one she'd ever experienced before – the race up the steps, the clothes flying to the floor – the crush of flesh into flesh.

  They lay apart, their backs on the soft mattress. Then like ballet dancers, they turned to face each other and began to explore in the mellow light shining up the staircase. She brushed her fingers on his arm and on the side of his cheek. His hand drew a line from her eyebrow to the corner of her lip. “Beautiful Ann,” he whispered and cradled her face in his strong and tender hands. He kissed her closed eyelids and lowered his warm mouth to hers.

  Slowly, to the cadences of their hearts, they stroked the places that burned and cried out for more, when, at last, their muscles joined to do the eternal dance of lovers. When their bodies had softened, they lay apart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  --

  “October is a time of transition off Cape Hatteras,” Rod said as the deep-hulled fishing boat putt-putted through the no wake zone of Hatteras Marina. Soon, the immaculate white boat was in the inlet, her bow raised, the hull slicing through the rough waters.

  She hadn't heard Rod slip from the bed, but when sleep left her, she heard him downstairs. She grabbed the sheet blanket and wrapped it around herself. Timid as a new born fawn, she descended the steps.

  “Up so early?” he'd said, splashing milk into oatmeal.

  She gushed it out, before her tongue got tied. “I'd like to go with you.”

  He looked amused, as if expecting to hear it. “It's rough out there this time of morning. It's cold as the devil, too.”

  “I've got my peacoat and a hat.” She hadn't intended to sound so little-girl.

  He went to her and leaned down and kissed her mouth. “Hmmm, just as sweet.”

  She nuzzled into his neck. “Hmmm, you, too.”

  He brushed her hair from her face. “You're so warm, and it's so cold out there.”

  “I'd like to go with you.”

  “How can I tell you no.”

  Dizzy with joy, she said, “I'm immune to the cold.”

 
“I'll get you something waterproof.”

  Holding the sheet to her body like a toga, she danced around the room, and it seemed to delight him when he came back.

  Snug in waterproofs, she was still dizzy with joy as the Cormorant bumped the waves. The boat was thirty-two foot long, twelve foot wide and was powered by twin three-hundred horse power engines. He looked over his shoulder and beckoned her to his side. At the wheel, she looked through the acrylic windshield. Water sprayed furiously into the air. As they swung closer, it coated the shield. He said, “We're approaching the legendary Diamond Shoal. It's the coming together of artic water and warm gulf water that causes the eruptions. In that spray is sand and seashells, which is deposited to make the sand bars.”

  “I don't see sand bars.”

  “They're under water.”

  She looked at him but didn't say anything. The Carroll A. Deering had been impaled on a sandbar above the water.

  As if he'd read her mind, he said, “Sometimes when ships plowed into the shoals here and at Frying Pan Shoal, they pushed the sand up, like bulldozers.”

  That answered that.

  He said, “You can see that in the old days when there were no natural landmarks along the flat coastline, ships had to come close to shore to get a bearing. Today, that's not true. Look at the equipment we have.” He ran his arm over the cockpit's elaborate screens and dials and gyroscopes and antennae. Even fish finders.

  Rob powered down and set binoculars into his eye sockets. As he’d done several times now, he scouted for the whale, careful of the propellers even though they had guards on them. “Minke's are human watchers,” Rod said. “They'll come right up to your boat. Their breath smells awful, thus they're called stinky minkies.”

  She laughed. “How often does stinky Minke jump out of the water?”

  He lowered the binocs. “Minke's hardly ever breach nor raise their flukes out of the water when they dive.”

  “So we could bump into our stinky Minke while he's catching his breath.”

  “He's a pretty fast swimmer, and a deep diver. If he's in good health, he'll….” Instantly Rod had the glasses back at his eyes. “Speaking of our stinky Minke – I believe we just caught up with him, or he with us.”

  He cut the twins, and she followed him to the bow. He said, “It's a Minke. Maybe ours.”

  She saw the dark lump on the water, and, to the west, two Coast Guard pontoon cats approached. Rod went into the wheel house and spoke into the radio. He came back to the bow and said, “They've been following this fellow, or he's been leading them.”

  “How intelligent are whales.”

  “On a scale of idiot to genius, every whale that reaches a year of life is a genius. Idiots don't survive in the ocean.”

  He spoke as he studied the whale through the glasses. It floated just below the surface, sometimes raising its head and then disappearing.

  “How far is he from us?” she asked.

  “A hundred yards.”

  “Looks closer.”

  “Just a wedge shot away.”

  “You play golf?”

  He lowered the glasses. “When I get time. How about you?”

  “When I get time. Haven't played in a couple of years.”

  Plugging the binoculars into his eyes, he said, “We'll play when we get time.”

  “I'd like that.”

  For another thirty minutes they paralleled the whale when suddenly it disappeared beneath the waves. Rod cut the power, and the Coast Guards boats drew nearer. The three boats wallowed in the waves for a minute or so before the whale broke through the water, rammed itself into the air, arched sideways and dove straight into the deep.

  “Wow!” She realized she hadn't breathed during the spectacular display.

  Rod said, “Show off!”

  “Wow!” she said again. “I thought he didn't breach.”

  “He made a liar out of me. But I'm sure of this: he's telling us not to worry about him.”

  “I wish he'd do that again.”

  “He might,” Rod said, smiling at her. “Just for you.”

  The morning had that silvery quality that made her feel as if she were part of the sky and sea, and the beautiful animal that had just arisen from the sea like the fabled phoenix. Rod put his hands on her shoulders, then slid them down her upper arms. He squeezed gently, and said, “Great feeling, huh?”

  “Indescribable.”

  “Now our work's done, you up for a ride?”

  “Yes!”

  Back in the cockpit, Rod radioed the Coast Guard. They would whale watch a little longer before calling it a morning. “Breakfast time,” Rod said. “You hungry?”

  “Not yet.”

  “A Pusser's Painkiller will taste good when we finally get in.”

  “What kind of rum drink is that?”

  “Wait and see.”

  Pushing the throttle just a little, Rod waved his hand over the eastern horizon. “Look out there. See how blue the water is?” She nodded. “It's very warm. The northbound current of the Gulf Stream allows ships to coast up the seaboard.”

  She could see beyond the greenish waters to the warm blue waves.

  Heading east, Rod throttled down. “We're going to ride the cold green waters of the Labrador Current southward. These two currents are great sea lanes, except here, where that Gulf Stream is flowing too close to the shore. If we were a tall sailing ship, we'd be forced into a very small channel, and if conditions worsened, and we weren't very good sailors, we'd wreck.”

  “But the currents are marked on the charts,” she said, remembering those in the Carroll A. Deering's wheelhouse.

  “You can't mark shifting sands on a chart. And, you take an offshore wind of twenty knots or more, that'll easily blow ships onto the shoals.”

  “It's like a magnet,” she said, trying to catch hold of a memory.

  “It is a magnet,” he said.

  She felt that he wanted to discuss the Deering voyage, but didn't know how to begin. To her, this moment was to be cherished for what it was, a healing time between her and a man whose love for nature made her heart feel like a hot air balloon.

  He cut the engine and led her outside the cockpit to the stern. He invited her to sit in the casting chair. As she sat, she smiled. The day was splendid, the rising sun a perfect egg yolk amidst the puffy white clouds. She took a deep breath, letting the cool sea air mingle with her exhilaration. Rod stood at the rail and looked through his binoculars. Then he turned and motioned for her to join him. “Come.”

  She rose and went to stand beside him. “Here take these, I've another pair.” He went to the cockpit while she adjusted the lens.

  When he came back, she asked, “What are those birds?”

  “Least Terns,” he said. “And there's an Osprey. He's pretty far out.”

  She looked at the bird skimming the water with his talons poised. “Cool.”

  “He's a fish hawk. He grabs the fish with those talons.”

  The large bird, fish in talons, soared into the air from the surface of the sea. “His wings bend,” she said.

  “Look,” he said, lowering his glasses and pointing over the bow, “Sooty Terns and Brown Noddies. Listen to the guttural call of the Noddy.”

  She laughed. “I can see the brown part. Who names these guys?”

  “Sailors.”

  “No wonder.”

  “Once you enter the gulf stream, you see birds you've never seen before.”

  “Do they follow boats?”

  “Some pelagics do. Storm-Petrels usually don't. Speaking of the devils. Here comes a flock of black-capped Petrels amongst the Cory's Shearwaters. They're going South.”

  “How can you tell? They're flying willy-nilly.

  “Crikey!” he yelled. “It's a Wilson's Petrel flying with a White-faced Storm-Petrel. Pelagodroma marina. Here, switch binocs with me, those have a camera.”

  She took his binoculars and focused on a brown-backed bird gliding close to the
water. “Which one is he?”

  “That's the White-faced Storm Petrel. Rare around here. Watch it closely.”

  “Looks like an owl with a long bill.”

  “It's the white head. Look how he banks with that fully extended wingspan.”

  “It's beautiful,” she said, euphoric. This ocean, this man, this bird. This came as close to heaven as she'd ever dreamed.

  Suddenly the bird touched the water and bounced up, then it hit the water again like a soccer ball. She laughed. “He's on a pogo stick.”

  “That's exactly what every observer says,” he replied, his voice tight with excitement.

  They watched the bird feed for several minutes. Rod muttered, “P.m.eadesi has whiter forehead and a whitish hind neck.”

  “What?”

  He looked up, and she realized by the wonderment in his sapphire eyes that he was talking to himself. He grinned an apology. “He's a subspecies. Cape Verde where he breeds. Are you interested in all this?”

  Swamped by a wave of wonderment, she said, “Yes.”

  “This bird is associated with hurricanes. We just had one. Hurricanes reach deep into the sea. The salinity changes, and good stuff comes to the surface for the birds to crunch on.”

  “Like?”

  “Egg masses, baby shrimp, crustaceans.”

  “Yum.”

  “That fellow thinks so.”

  “You think it's a fellow?”

  “Yeah, females have longer wings and tails. Their tails are a little more forked.”

  “Where do these guys roost?”

  He smiled and looked at the sea-hopping bird. “They don't. They live at sea, and when it's time to breed, they find a cranny in a cliff somewhere and lay an egg. They can't walk on land very well.”

  “The sea is their life.”

  He looked at the bird, which had finished dining and was taking off. “Yes, like mine, I guess.” The brown-and-white bird banked, rose gracefully and joined the flocks of Sooty Terns, Brown Noddies and Wilson's Storm-Petrels.

  “Where's its mate?” she asked.

  He looked into her eyes. “She'll find him.”

  --

  With the promise of a Pusser's Painkiller awaiting them, they chugged into the harbor. Ann was famished. She'd shared his oatmeal before dawn while they looked into each other's bloodshot eyes.