Water Lessons

by Chadwick Wall

  "Now how's that, hah?" Bill said, looking up over his shoulder. "This is the original blueprint for the John Paul Jones, from 1912, the year of its construction. That year the Titanic sank, but this baby here was born. Built at the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, right down in Bristol, where they got their famous museum today. Captain Nat, Nathanael Greene Herreshoff—the old genius drew this himself. This paper came with the purchase of the boat. I could sell this old dog-eared print and buy a damned boat myself. 'Course, that's something Mac woulda done. And we all had to say bye to him. Guess you heard about Crazy McTierney?"

  "A few good things. And many not so-good things."

  "Yyyyeah. You could say that. I'm sure you and I'll get along a lot better than Mac and I did. I just have a unique sense of… humor, for lack of a better word. I'm a little crabby, but my word means somethin'."

  "Bill, I like you already." Jim slapped him on the shoulder. "I don't know about when I initially started chatting with you, but you're all right now."

  Bill gave a long belly laugh, sounding like a shopping mall Santa Claus. "By the way, Jim," he pointed across the room, "that's your desk there, overlooking the shop, through that window."

  "Nice. Yes, the Commodore showed me."

  "Walter told me you call him that. We used to call him 'the Cap'n'. But 'Commodore'… that's funny." He rose again to his feet, wincing slightly. "Old knees 'bout to go out. Now, let me introduce you to the guys. Or rather, the local ruffians and scoundrels."

  Bill led the way downstairs into the shop. Before them stood the John Paul Jones, drydocked in its channel. Jim allowed his eyes to comb over the vessel. The three proud masts—the taller mainmast in the rear and the consecutively shorter mizzenmast and foremast with their crosstrees, sails, blocks, and halyards—had been temporarily removed.

  Just below the bowsprit or "widowmaker" that jutted out of the bow was a figurehead. Instead of a mermaid, as Jim half-expected, hung a painted carving representing a ship captain of the Revolutionary War era. John Paul Jones himself.

  Jim wondered if this piece was original to the vessel.

  A few feet away, two men in masks cut a section from the planking of the hull, near the bottom. Each held handsaws against the hull, perhaps fifteen feet apart. The two men stopped after a few seconds and stared at Jim and Bill, who stood mere feet behind them.

  "Billy, morning to ya. Is that our new McTierney?" one of the men joked. The men set down their saws. One approached them with a sort of bowlegged gait.

  "Just playin', friend. Hey, you're Jim?" the man said. He was portly, nearly bald, with sunburned skin and bloodshot, pale blue eyes. The eyes squinted and searched the new boss as if for some clue to his character.

  "That's me," Jim said. "And from what I hear about this Mac character, I'll prove to be a little different."

  "I sure as hell hope so, Mistah Scoresby! Mac was a hoot," the man said, shaking Jim's hand. "I'm Donovan Butler."

  Donovan slapped the back of the handsome young man next to him. "And this is Joey DaSilva, our Portugee boy genius of sailing. Kid comes from a line of seagoing Portugee-zees windin' all the way back in this state to the 1600s."

  Heavy steps plodded on the schooner's deck. Donovan and Joey turned toward the boat and looked upward. A lone figure stood at the railing.

  "Chief, whaddaya say?" Bill thundered.

  "If he ain't Mac, man, he can't be half bad," deadpanned the man, almost in a kind of exhalation. Each of the workers laughed.

  Jim studied the man. He was tall, with russet skin and long dark hair parted in the middle. He was dressed in torn, paint-stained jeans and a Red Sox t-shirt. Though not unsightly, the face was quite rugged, weathered, and with an aquiline nose broken just below the bridge.

  "Why don'tcha introduce yaselves?" Joey said.

  "Well, excuuuse my manners, gents," the man on the deck said. "I'm Ted. All the guys call me Chief."

  "Ted ain't really a Chief, Jim," Donovan said. "But he's a real Wampanoag. Sometimes we call him King Phillip, after their famous leader."

  "You don't mind?" Jim said.

  "Not at all," Chief said. "Is it true you're from the bayou?"

  Donovan turned toward Jim. "I can hear some accent comin' from ya."

  "I grew up mostly in Folsom, Louisiana. Little town maybe fifty miles north of Nawlins."

  "Well, Jim," Chief said. "This boat here may be a little different from those little canoes you paddle through the marshes!"

  "Don't worry, I do know the difference. I grew up sailing ketches, sloops, spinnakers, daysailers on Lake Pontchartrain and in the Gulf." Jim declined to mention all the elapsed years since he had sailed, that his sailing abilities had since atrophied. He would have to study sailing after work, lest he embarrass himself when the men finally saw him in action.

  "Well, Jim," Bill said. "Let's show you around your old Commodore's latest acquisition—all one hundred and six feet of her." Motioning for Jim to follow, Bill climbed up the rolling stairwell, and everyone joined them.

  "Here she is." Bill stomped a foot on the deck. "What a beaut, eh? Only seagoing vessel more majestic would be one o' them nineteenth-century barques or clipper ships or brigantines."

  "I second that motion." Jim's eyes scoured the boat.

  "We got a decent amount o' work ahead of us on this old gal," Bill said. "But at least we ain't gotta redo any of the framing or tinker with the ship's head. She was fairly maintained."

  "What work is Walter lookin' to do?" Jim said. "If I remember, he mentioned the aft-mast, a little on the hull, and a little deck repair."

  "Yep, some fine tuning. Walter purchased her in decent shape. We are replacing that aft-mast and a section of planking on the port side, which you just saw. It'd been a little leaky on the trip down. We're replacing some of the deck and fasteners. We gotta sand and paint the whole deck and hull. It really ain't as much work as it could be."

  Jim and the men toured nearly every square foot of the vessel, from the wheel in the pilothouse to the bowsprit, down the hatch and into the galley, the fo'c'sle, the berth area, the head and the sink, the cabins, and the captain's quarters. Jim noted the boat's sheer size and its authentic appearance and condition. Framed prints and photographs from the first years of the twentieth century accented the dark wooden walls of its corridor and rooms.

  All furniture and accessories, save in the commode, looked "like they were installed by Captain Nat Herreshoff himself," Jim said upon leading the four men back onto the deck and down the rolling stairwell.

  While Bill poured coffee into the five mugs, Jim noticed a paint-flecked, battered portable stereo resting next to a box of fresh doughnuts on the table. Donovan flipped one of its switches.

  For Jim, there was no mistaking the unique voice and the melodic soaring of guitars. He raised his coffee to toast his new crew.

  "I like it! That band, Boston. It was kind of local, too," Jim said. "This song 'Rock 'N' Roll Band'… that's not one of their best ones though."

  Chief uttered with palpable assuredness, "I can tell ya gonna like it here in the shop, boss, with all us workin' boys. Welcome to our morning ritual."

  Jim surveyed the warehouse, his hands on his hips. He knew with certainty he would enjoy working at this brokerage so very much more than the one in Boston. But he could sense the challenges that lay in wait. These men must respect him.

  He could not show them weakness, and he could not show he was too much of a novice on the water. Ah, but the water.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The sixty foot ketch Undaunted rose and fell on the foamy blue like the head of a great galloping steed, as westerly winds bore her that Saturday afternoon away from the Harbor Islands. The Commodore had chartered the craft specifically for that weekend's training. He motioned to LaRon beside him to turn the wheel to the left.

  Walter grinned and said, "The day is turning out splendidly."

  Jim knew why. The Mount Zion and St. Brendan's boys were responding well to
the training and the drills. Jack had led the adults and boys on an abandon-ship drill, a man-overboard drill (with Jack being the rescued). Afterwards, Walter had led a brief tutorial on the bowline knot, the square knot, and the anchor bend knot, through various nautical terms such as "aft" and "jettison" and "starboard", and through a crash course on sailing etiquette and safety.

  It was quite crowded under the biminy on the cockpit's couches, where the children sat in their lifejackets. They watched Walter teach steering as he let each boy take the wheel for several minutes.

  After many hours, Jim's queasy stomach had returned to normal. He joined Jack, who stood amidships, grasping the mainmast. They practiced with the two chaperones on working the halyards, sheets, and sails, their chief task on the boat.

  The Reverend and Tim had impressed Jim with their familiarity with many sailing terms and nautical concepts, such as water displacement, tacking, and capstans. The two men had, after all, received their Coast Guard licenses some months ago. And since the kickoff in Bob's Southern Bistro, both chaperones had pored over sailing volumes and websites, refreshing their knowledge. They seemed well versed in safety and protocol, as well as in the logic behind certain sails and sailing techniques.

  Notably absent that day was Natasha. Early that morning Jim had asked Jack about her. Jim immediately detected a sore subject, from the shock and disappointment in his friend's face.

  Though polite, Jack had not been his usual jocular, high-spirited self the past three hours. He seemed only half-present as he had hooked himself around the mast with his right arm and stared blankly out into the waves, shifting his gaze through his wavy blond bangs to acknowledge Jim or one of the other two men, commenting on a question posed or an opinion given.

  After Jim enlisted the help of the other three men to lower, and then raise, the sail on the mizzenmast, he asked Jack to instruct the boys on winds and wind speed. Jim wanted to trade places with the Commodore.

  He half-squatted while scampering aft of Jack and the chaperones toward the cockpit. Jim grabbed one of the biminy's metal poles and hauled himself inside. He hoped he had successfully masked his fear and lack of balance, his handicaps borne of the great hurricane. Jim knew full well he had not yet regained his sea legs of days past.

  "Ahoy, maties!" Jim said.

  "There ya are, my man," the Commodore said. "I was just instructing the boys on steering, tacking, and navigation. Each had a few minutes at the wheel. Teach here for about twenty or thirty. My trick is done. Jack and I can freshen everybody up on sails and lines."

  "Yes, sir," Jim said, clutching the wheel in his hand. "Keep heading directly east?"

  "Do so 'til I get back. And we've got to work on that balance of yours, Jimmy."

  Jim's stomach sank. Walter had noticed. The old man climbed the three stairs and marched across the deck with a sprightliness befitting a man forty years his junior. Walter greeted Jack and the chaperones with a wave, then hooked his arm around the mast and commenced conversation.

  Jim looked at the boys seated on either side of him. "I guess you now know all about steering this thing, right? Turn it to the right and it tacks left, turn it to the left and it tacks right?"

  "Yeah!" said Dwayne, his little friend from New Orleans. "I just learned to steer it!"

  "Excellent!" Jim said. "It's fun and scary at the same time, your first time!"

  "We just saw a humpback whale, Jim!" said Seamus.

  "You did? I was too busy up there at the mast. In a little while we can go up there. Or the Commodore will bring some of y'all up there and he'll show you."

  "You talk funny!" Scott collapsed into a laughing fit. The other two St. Brendan's boys followed suit.

  "I know, I know," Jim groaned. "I'm from a land—a galaxy—far, far away."

  LaRon screamed and pointed past Jim at the starboard side, out into the waves.

  Under a circling gang of seagulls, perhaps two hundred feet out in the water, a humpback whale had appeared. It skimmed the surface, going the same direction as the ship.

  A resounding cry arose from the cockpit. Jim and the boys cheered in unison. Even the Commodore, Jack, and the two chaperones ahead of them at the mainmast joined in.

  And then in a heartbeat, the whale disappeared, as if disintegrating into the ocean. A collective "ooh" welled up from under the biminy.

  "Now that was a sight," Jim said. "I haven't seen the likes of any whale in my whole life. Last year I did see a little pilot whale, dead on Crane Beach, in Ipswich, but today was different." Jim felt his pulse quicken. He sucked in his lips, remembering the bloated bodies he saw last August.

  "Maybe the whale's a good-luck sign," Lance said. The yellow-and-black of his Boston Bruins jersey stuck out in disheveled fashion from under his life preserver.

  Jim launched into a brief tutorial, touching on the whaling industry, the connection of the wheel to the rudder, the importance of watching for the captain's cues, the characteristics of various sailing vessels, from the ketch to the sloop, the yawl, and the spinnaker. He related the most notable features of the John Paul Jones, the year of her construction, and the differences between that schooner and the Undaunted. Jim was perhaps thirty minutes into the lesson when the Commodore appeared at the biminy's stairwell.

  "Hey, my boys!" Walter said with gusto. "How's the lesson coming along, gents?"

  "Lots of stuff to remember, but it's interesting," Seamus said.

  "Good, son. Now Jim, I'm bringing up the chaperones. If you guys could catch up a bit, I'll take these kids to the mizzenmast and teach 'em lines and sails. Fair winds and following seas!"

  "Aye aye, Commodore," Jim said.

  After bottlenecking at the bow-side of the cockpit, the boys filed up the little stairwell and followed the old man to the mizzenmast. Jim remained at the wheel. Soon the chaperones appeared.

  "Lookin' for us, Jimmy boy?" Tim Murphy said.

  "Actually, I was! Please take a seat, kind sirs."

  Reverend Ward and Tim each sat on a couch. "Hope you weren't asleep at the wheel!" Tim said.

  "Nah," Jim said, "there's no rest around those little ones. They'll keep you on your toes."

  "That they will," Reverend said in his baritone. "How are you today, Jim? These kids too much for you?"

  "Ready to throw in the towel?" Tim said in a jeering tone.

  "Not for the world. They've been great so far. No complaining, no fights. I bet they love it up there with the Commodore. I know they're itching to learn, from all their questions."

  "Just hope one don't go overboard!" Tim laughed. "Glad we got those vests on 'em!"

  Jim bit his lip.

  The Reverend said, "I wouldn't let the boys set foot on deck without them."

  "See that humpback whale?" Tim hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

  "Amazing," Jim said.

  "We won't be seeing a sperm whale or a blue whale. They're dadgum near driven to extinction," the Reverend said.

  "'Dadgum? Bob's Bistro?" Jim said. "You and I are cut from the same cloth, Reverend. Never thought I'd hear 'dadgum' again! I've come home."

  Jim waded into a lengthy discussion of steering, seamanship, and the history and practice of navigation. During their talk, much time was spent alternating at the wheel.

  Walter appeared. "Shall we have a little peek at the old GPS?" He glanced at the screen attached to the dashboard.

  Jim looked past the old man and glimpsed Jack with the boys, holding up a hand to illustrate some point.

  "Yes, sir!" the Reverend said. "After all, we don't know where Jim's really taking us."

  "To the end of the world, off the edge, and into the abyss," Jim said. "Or all the way to Bermuda."

  Walter placed his hand on the wheel. "Lemme take her a while. You've done what I've asked. But now I've gotta turn this baby around. We've headed just far enough out into the North Atlantic. Now for the final treat of the day."

  Jim knew he should feel excitement but instead the worry built within hi
s breast. The vessel was so very far out from shore into the sea. But even greater—Jim feared that the others would see this trepidation.

  "Looking forward to it," Jim said, forcing a broad smile. If only he could maintain his grit of the last few months…

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  With the Undaunted moored at the visitors' dock and her life vests stowed away and hatches locked, the brave new world of Lovells Island was now—for the boys of Mount Zion and St. Brendan's—ripe for exploring. Jim and Walter led the train of boys off the deck and down the dock, shoreward. Jack and the chaperones brought up the rear.

  They approached the visitors' center. Walter turned and asked Jim to watch over the group while he went inside the wooden-shingled shack to claim his reservation for the campsite.

  "Friends," Jim said, raising his arm. "For those who might feel a little seasick, I am the bearer of good news: at least we're on dry land until tomorrow morning. We'll pitch tents after Walter locks down the campsite. Then maybe we can go exploring!"

  A great cheer burst from the crowd, a fusion of the boys' glee and the adults' mock-elation.

  The visitors' center door burst open. The Commodore waved a map in the air, an energetic grin spread across his face. "All right, friends," he boomed. "Follow me! I won't getcha lost."

  Jim and the party pivoted and pursued the lively old man. Walter led them down a shell path through the two-feet-tall seagrass on the long drumlin bluff above the seashore. To their right was a wall of dunes partially obscured by a forest of seagrass. Just beyond lay a stretch of sand, seagrass, and granite boulders. Next was a narrow strand of shells and sand. Finally there was the ocean beyond, with its symphony of choppy blue-green waves kissing a cloudless royal blue sky. Gulls circled in various congregations within this vast expanse. Crowning this scene lay an island far off on the horizon.

  To the left of the path, a wooded copse thick with black cherry, gray birch, and apple trees surrounded a small cranberry bog, dark and still as obsidian. On its surface floated patches of green water lilies with their white flowers. Insects faintly buzzed in the thicket to Walter's left. To his right were the sounds of the squawking gulls and the crash of waves.