Water Lessons

by Chadwick Wall

  "One day he came to me and said he'd had enough. It was the last day of his tour. Wanted to go home. I persuaded him to enlist for another tour, as he hadn't conquered his fear. Two days later, our tin can hit a mine my flotilla had missed. He screamed on impact. It was honestly more like a shriek. A squeal. Wilkins lost both of his legs and an eye and it ripped his guts to shreds. Took him two days to pass. But not after I visited him and saw that hazel eye staring at me, expressionless. Son, I have seen that eye stare me down for decades now…"

  Jim said nothing, just watched Walter as he focused his gaze out past the bow into the horizon.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  At quarter past noon the pipe fell from Walter's lips and clattered across the finished floorboards of the cockpit. The old man bared his teeth like an angry wolf and gripped the wheel, as if the ship was about to plummet off the edge of a waterfall.

  "God save us all. Oh, the children!" Walter blurted in a half-whisper, half-gasp.

  "Walter, what is it?" Jim said. He had never seen the old man in such a way. Perhaps, in his old age, he was overreacting.

  "White squall. Look at those scuds. We may be done for," Walter stammered in the same tone. He reached over and yanked the brass shaft from where it was attached to the cockpit wall and banged over and over at the brass bell.

  The lieutenants and boys, who had been lunching in the mess room, surfaced on deck. With several frantic waves of his hand, Walter ordered all on deck to hurry to the cockpit. "All hands, get over here! Get in here, all of you! Sit down on the floor by the wheel! Hurry!"

  "Shouldn't I batten down the main hatch?" Jim shouted.

  "No," Walter thundered. "Stick with me, son, right here."

  Jim stood there feeling helpless, his hands at his sides, as he felt the fire grow within his belly. Yet he saw nothing on the horizon, or in the water before them, save a cluster of low-hanging clouds and something he had never seen: a strange, large patch of white-capped waves, of broken water.

  Tales of white squalls, accounts of tornado-like storms that struck on lakes and oceans, without warning and often in good weather, filled Jim's mind. He had watched a film on the subject years back.

  The old man still bashed the brass bell when the men and boys clustered around them at the cockpit's entrance.

  Walter boomed, "Everyone, listen to me! It's an emergency! All lieutenants, secure the lifejackets of the boys in your charge. And then secure your own and get on the floor in this cockpit. We're heading into a squall. We're almost in it!"

  A wave of exhortation and cries of desperation moved through the group of boys, who now sat on the deck next to the wheel.

  "All vests are secure," Tim Murphy said.

  "My guys, too," Reverend Ward said. He enunciated with strength, but his voice still wavered.

  Jack Spaulding crouched just beside them. His face displayed an unmistakable expression of terror. Jack knew full well what a white squall was.

  "Okay, now listen to me, men!" Walter yelled. "I'm going to radio news of the squall. I need you boys to hug your hands around your knees, like Lance over there. Sit up against each other. Good. Now Tim and Jim and Bill, Reverend and Jack, you interlock hands like this, form a canopy over them. We're gonna hit the squall in a minute. That thing's wide as hell so we can't avoid it."

  Walter grabbed the VHF radio and began to bark into it. Jim paid no mind to the words, as he was lost in thought. Surely this couldn't be happening to him again. And now to more friends of his, and now to children!

  The lieutenants got into formation and shielded the boys. The Reverend prayed out loud, rushing boldly through his orations but pronouncing them with great clarity.

  Jim glanced at his watch. It seemed like an hour had gone by. Yet only two minutes had passed.

  The wind gusted. Jim trembled as he looked up. Walter stared down at him, the eyes steeled with a fierce, resolute intensity.

  "Should we move below deck?" Tim said.

  "You don't wanna be below deck," the old man spoke in staccato. "She may capsize. Many do in squalls. She may even founder."

  One of the boys under the pile began to weep.

  "It's all right," Jim said, "we're gonna get y'all through this. You'll see."

  Walter said, "It may just be a wee one. We've got our life vests on. If we stick together, we'll be okay."

  "Wait!" Jim shouted. "Where is Chief?"

  "Ah, damn!" Walter said. "He never came up. Good God."

  "Chief!" Walter yelled.

  The whistling grew louder. All at once a massive wind from the stern jolted them forward, but they did not break out of formation. Two of the masts snapped and slammed across the deck. A cockpit window shattered, raining shards and splinters of glass upon the backs and the arms and shoulders of the adults atop the huddle.

  Jim kept his head tucked down between his shoulders, with one arm grabbing Tim's, while his other arm linked through Jack's. The fierce whistling and tearing and whipping of the wind, the clinking sound of the broken glass upon them, and the shouting and cries of some of the boys persisted. Despite the din, the young Reverend's effusive thread of prayers sounded out like the bold, deliberate, forceful call of a foghorn in the night.

  "Hold tight, men!" Walter yelled. "It should last only a few minutes. Hold tight! Bear it, men! Bear this, now!"

  The Reverend's prayers came faster and faster, resounding like the plodding of a charging stallion. Jim recognized the twenty-third psalm of King David:

  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

  Deep inside the huddle a boy, LaRon or Jeffery, echoed the words, praying along with the Reverend. Dwayne wept, now in the midst of his second vicious storm.

  A great lashing sound, almost like that of a bullwhip, cut the air, and then a great flapping noise ensued. The lines of the downed masts flailed about in the violent winds, and the sails slapped against the deck. Once more, the great schooner lurched fiercely forward. It began to sway, then list slightly to port.

  "Ah no. Ahhh," the old man said, sounding exhausted. "Hold tight, don't you dare let go! I fear she mighta broken open."

  "My God," Jack said within the huddle with an air of doom. "Should one of us get ready to lower the lifeboat? Should we stay in here? I need to find Chief now!" Jack poured out his words in a sort of half shout, half supplication, to the old man.

  "Hold tight for a minute longer," Walter bellowed. "Hold tight, I'm ordering you. We leave on my order. We need to stay in here as long as we can. That wind could blow us clean overboard."

  "I'm gonna get Chief, damn it!" Jim yelled with anger. He glanced up but Walter was gone.

  At that moment the roof of the cockpit ripped open, then wafted away. The walls collapsed, one of them landing on the Reverend's back. A second blast hit them from starboard.

  In a heartbeat, their formation disintegrated. They plunged into the dark blue deep, chilly despite the warm June day.

  Jim held his breath, and his spine stiffened with an almighty terror, as he felt the cold grip of his old foe. Water had kept him on that New Orleans rooftop the summer before as his friend lay expiring from shock and exhaustion, water had murdered so many innocents in the city that he loved, water plagued him with dread for days and nights since. Once again water was on the verge of robbing him, and those he cared about, of life and peace. His lungs felt like they would burst if he could not curse the water aloud.

  Jim kicked to the surface. "Everyone swim away from the ship!" he screamed. "It's heelin' over! It'll go down!"

  He counted Bill, Tim, and Jack in the water, and spotted Reverend Ward some distance away. Between them, five bo
yish heads bobbed in the water. The old man was nowhere to be found among the waves and floating debris.

  "We need to get Chief and the old man," Bill shouted, paddling in place and blinking water out of his eyes, looking like an old dog swimming.

  "Where's Dwayne?" Jim yelled. "Where is Dwayne?"

  "I don't know! I don't know!" Tim Murphy yelled. He, Bill, and Jack had formed a circle in the water with LaRon, Jeffrey, and Scott. Reverend Ward clung to the floating wooden roof of the cockpit, perhaps twenty feet away. He had pulled Lance and Seamus to his side. Their shaking arms held fast to the roof in turn.

  The winds had stopped and the squall had broken up. The old man had been right—only minutes in duration.

  "Watch the boys here!" Reverend Ward shouted. "I'm gonna swim and find him!"

  "I am, too!" Jim yelled. "Tim and Jack, get the boys to hold fast to that. I'm swimming back for Dwayne!"

  "Where's the Commodore?" Scott screamed, clinging to the floating roof.

  "Yeah, where is he? And where's Dwayne?" LaRon cried as he appeared, swimming freestyle toward the floating roof. Swimming with one arm, Jack towed Jeffrey slowly toward the Reverend.

  Jim launched into a fierce freestyle swim toward the listing ship, stopping just short of the hull. He spotted Dwayne. With a splash he went under about fifteen feet before Jim, just against the hull of the ship.

  Jim forced himself forward. He could not find the boy in the opaque waters. Jim surfaced. He spotted Dwayne about twenty feet away, alongside the hull, just as the boy again submerged with a strange sound.

  Jim swam as fast as he possibly could, and just feet shy of the mark, unfastened his life vest and dived. He swam diagonally down, kicking his legs backward and forward like a sprinter. With an outstretched arm, he found and clutched the boy's shirt and then his arm. Jim's own heart leapt as he pulled Dwayne close, kicking and exhaling through his mouth.

  They shot toward the surface. Jim found the light. The boy gasped, coughing vehemently.

  Jim half laughed, half wept. "Ah, Dwayne, we almost lost you, friend."

  Dwayne coughed again. Jim held him tight to his chest with one hand and stroked through the water with the other, kicking the whole time. "Soon we'll all be eatin' at Bob's again. Why no life jacket?"

  Nearly a minute passed, with nothing but Dwayne violently coughing and spitting up water. "Couldn't… swim…with any with it," Dwayne finally said.

  "Dwayne, that was so against the rules, buddy."

  The others began to shout for joy. Jack and LaRon clung fast to a large piece of wooden flotsam, just feet away from the cockpit roof. Jim handed Dwayne over to Reverend Ward, who grabbed the boy and held him close.

  Jim said, "Little guy lost his vest."

  Reverend Ward smiled, clinging to the floating roof with his other arm.

  "What about Walter and Chief?" Jim said. "And Walter was wearing his vest. He's got to be out there. He couldn't have gone under."

  "Jim, you have no life vest, brother," Reverend Ward said.

  "Doesn't matter. Lost it so I could actually swim. I'm goin' find the old man."

  "I'm comin', too," Bill said.

  "Swim with me, damn it," Jim said. "But keep that vest on."

  "Hurry," Jack said. "Trust me, the boat's about to go down. It's taking on water as we speak."

  Jim and Bill swam toward the ship, still afloat about one hundred feet away. Its three once-proud masts were downed. The ship listed slightly but steadily to port. A single line from one of the sails draped over the port side into the water.

  "Why don't ya climb that line, if it holds?" Bill shouted, several feet behind Jim. "I'll swim around the boat. I got the vest. If I don't spot Walter, I'll climb the line."

  "All right," Jim said, then pulled himself slowly up the line, hand over hand. He collapsed onto the deck, struggling for a moment to breathe. Below him, he knew, Bill swam the perimeter of the ship.

  Jim pulled himself to his feet. He shot across the boards. He saw the spot where the wind had shorn the cockpit clean off the deck. Only a lone collapsed wall and the steering wheel remained. Hadn't Walter been swept into the water with them all? Or had he been snagged on the rail, and again gone below deck to radio?

  Jim grew frantic as these thoughts fired within his mind. He ran sternward. Then something caught his eye.

  Jim halted and slowly turned his head to the left. Under a spar from the collapsed mizzenmast lay a soul- crushing sight. Jim broke out in a sprint for the center of the deck. He stopped just short of the wreckage of Walter Henretty, with the hulking figure of Chief kneeling a foot away.

  "Walter," Jim whispered in a hushed tone.

  Lying on his back, Walter still breathed. The wooden spar had broken off the mast and pinned his abdomen to the deck. A piece of the mast had crushed his thighs. Walter gurgled blood with each breath, a trickle running down from his mouth. His face was a strange ghost-white. His head rested on the deck, his hands motionless at his sides. The eyes narrowed, glassy with death. Not a shadow of fear or horror showed in them, solely an expression of fatigue and resignation, of final and humbled surrender.

  Strangely, Jim also caught a glimmer of humor in the squint of the man's eyes. "W… Walter?" he whispered, barely able to form the words. He leaned over and tried to pull at the spar, to no avail.

  "Aye aye, Cap," Walter croaked. "I was caught by the rail… and didn't go overboard… then I crossed the deck. I was going for Chief. Spar came down. Crushed me."

  "Oh, Walter..."

  "'S'all the crew together?" Walter was barely audible now, and slurring his words. The lids were coming down, growing heavier.

  "Every last one of them. I came back for you," Jim said. "Me and McGreevey here did."

  A thud sounded on the deck. Bill, dripping wet and out of breath, jogged toward them.

  "That's him right now," Jim said.

  "Walter," Bill said, drawing up alongside of Jim, his eyes displaying tenderness and deep shock.

  "Give my love to my two girls and son. Give my love to… all the others down there… and all my friends…"

  "Walt…" Jim whispered. "Walt…"

  The lids drooped until they almost closed.

  "You find your way now… my son…"

  The lids shut completely. A new, thicker stream of blood—nearly black it was so very crimson—welled up and ran from the old man's mouth with his last breath.

  Bill squatted and placed an index and middle finger to Walter's throat. He stood, closed his eyes, and let his chin hit his chest. "He's gone."

  They were silent for a moment.

  "We gotta jump off this death trap before she goes under," Chief said. "The surge slammed me against the work table in the engine room. Messed up my hip, my leg. Otherwise I'd try to get this off him."

  "Can you still swim?" Bill said.

  "I'm gonna have to," Chief said.

  "Damn," Jim said. "I want to get that ax in the hall, chop him loose."

  "It's too late, and you know it," Bill said with resolve. "It'd take probably ten minutes to free him. This thing's goin' to the bottom any second. Come on, Jim."

  Bill broke for the side, toward the dangling line. Jim took one last look at his expired friend, the shell of a once strapping man who had traversed the seas for over half a century, now lying blood-soaked, spent, vanquished under a fallen mast.

  Bill reached the rail. Jim started to run, then turned and dashed for the stairwell. He grabbed the ax hanging on the wall just inside the entrance.

  "Jim!" Bill shouted back as he waited at the rail.

  "I'm not leaving anyone behind again!" Jim yelled.

  He sprinted back toward Walter and brought the ax down upon the spar—just to the side of the body—over ten times until the spar broke in two. Jim grabbed the space with both hands, crouched, and strained with every measure of his power. He rose, and with him the spar, which he tossed aside.

  "No, Walt would want it this way," Bill shouted. "A watery g
rave with his ship. His last vessel, too, man. Now let's get off this boat!"

  Jim tugged with all the strength he could muster, gritting his teeth and growling like a flustered wolf. He rolled the rest of the mast off Walter's lifeless legs to the deck.

  "I can't lift him, Jim," Chief said, grimacing and straightening his life vest. "I'm messed up. It's got to be you."

  "Then do it, Jim!" Bill screamed. "Hurry, damn it!"

  Tears blinding him, Jim knelt and gathered Walter's arms around him and lifted him to where he was nearly upright. He threw the limp body—still clad in a life vest—over his shoulder and stepped shakily toward the rail.

  Jim grimaced. He could feel Walter's broken femurs shift.

  Bill, followed by Chief feet away and moments later, leapt off the rail into the deep. They hurtled toward the now-calm waves and disappeared, reappeared, and commenced swimming.

  Jim stepped cautiously over the rail, which he grasped with one hand and Walter's bloodied legs with the other. A sound, strangely familiar, emerged in the distance. He peered through the midday sunlight into the horizon.

  A helicopter approached. And a powerboat—some sort of speedboat—motored his way. The famed Chatham Coast Guard had intercepted the old man's radio call.

  Jim grinned, knowing Walter, though deceased, was coming home with him. He looked down at the dark blue waves, spotted here and there with floating debris, and once again saw that flooded street as he was raised by cord into the helicopter. He gripped his friend tightly with both arms and leapt out as far as he could.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  A week had passed since the funeral. It seemed like an entire year. Jim had yet to return to Henretty & Henretty. He admitted to Dewey he needed several days off. Dewey understood, Jim surmised, since he wrestled with his own grief. Jim still sometimes fielded calls and received orders from the Back Bay carriage house.