by Scott O'Dell
We left the cove and followed Chief Bonsig up the bay and past a small island. He kept pointing ahead, but we could see that he had not left a float to mark the site of the wreck, and for a while we feared that he would not find it again. Yet, like a homing bird, he went straight to the place, and now clothed in my torn shirt, stood up in the canoe and gave us a toothless grin, then a speech in a language which I took to be Spanish.
We anchored the boats midst wild shouts and singing. The men had forgotten their grievances, or at least had laid them aside—how only a few days before they had watched my brother dive and quietly wondered how they could cut his air hose without being caught. They even gave three loud cheers for the Alert, the finest ship that ever sailed out of Nantucket, and three for Caleb Clegg. My brother must have heard the cheers as we bolted on his helmet, but he gave no sign.
The bay was calm except for a pod of whales that swam about in the distance and sent up misty fountains and struck the water thunderous blows with their mighty flukes. Everyone, including the Indians, pulled in and anchored around the diving launch. There were many offers of help, but Judd and I refused them and set the pump in motion.
The crew cheered again when Caleb slipped over the side and went down in a whirling cloud of bubbles. I saw him reach the deck of the ship and walk slowly along it, a small school of fish swimming beside him. Then, as he drew near the forward hold and bent over to examine the hatch, the movement of the hose disturbed the silt that had gathered upon the wreck and he was lost to view.
My brother was not down long, for it was near nightfall, and he brought back little news, but the men cheered him again. We rowed off to the ship and took the pump with us, fearing that the Indians would steal it in the night.
There were more songs at supper and much laughter. It was a different ship from the one I had been living aboard. But I knew how suddenly their mood would change if Caleb found that the cargo of the Amy Foster had drifted away through some hole rent in her bottom.
After supper I took Caleb his tray of food. He was standing at the door of his cabin, with his gaze fixed upon the horizon. He did not speak and I put the tray where the big cat could not reach it. I was leaving when he called out to me.
“Avast there,” he said. “How dost thou fare with the Whale? Dost the white monster excite thee? And what of Captain Ahab who pursueth it over the world’s far seas? Yes, what of Ahab? How doth he strike thee?”
“I’ve not read all the book,” I said.
“How far hast thee trod?”
“As far as chapter fifty-eight.”
“Thou readest fast.”
“I skip parts.”
Caleb laughed. “Thou skip because thou fiercely pursuest something and do not wish to be checked by wily circumlocutions. Chapter fifty-eight? Oh, yes, I recall it. It goes, ‘Consider the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure…Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other…Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of men there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from the isle, thou canst never return!’”
Caleb paused, took from his mouth the pipe he was smoking, and threw it, still lighted, into the waters beneath.
“‘What business have I with this pipe?’” he said.
“‘This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild vapors among white hairs…I’ll smoke no more…’ not until the log is found. But tell me, Nathan, what dost thou think of Ahab? In thy reading of the book, surely thou hast come upon him ere now?”
I recalled, as Caleb paused to throw his lighted pipe away and explain why he had done so, that I had read in Moby-Dick a description of this same curious act. Captain Ahab himself had thrown his lighted pipe away, giving up his right to peace while the White Whale still lived in the sea.
Some of the things that long had puzzled me about Caleb became clearer in my mind. I saw that his own misfortunes at some time in the past had drawn him toward the luckless Ahab. Both men had riven faces, both walked with difficulty, my brother upon a short and twisted leg, Ahab upon one of ivory. Moreover, Ahab had vowed to search out and slay the White Whale that had maimed him; my brother had sworn to find the Amy Foster, whose loss had likewise maimed him.
“What dost think of Captain Ahab,” my brother asked again, “so far in thy readings of him?”
Yet at this moment, with Caleb’s gaze fixed upon me, I doubted that he was aware that his appearance, his acts, his words were those of Captain Ahab. There was a secret sympathy between them, that was all. He was not slavishly acting out a part, a role which he had devised. He was not Captain Ahab, but a man tortured in body and mind who had read of Ahab and in time unknowingly had become Ahab.
“From what I’ve seen of him,” I said, “he’s to be pitied.”
“He would not welcome thy pity,” Caleb answered.
“I suppose not,” I said. I wanted to say, “Both of you are madmen, and madmen have no need of pity.”
“Dost think Ahab right? Would thou pursuest a fiend that hath snatched a limb from off thy body?”
“No. I’d be afraid that he might snatch another limb. Perhaps my life, too.”
“Thou would rather live half a man and see thy enemy go unscathed? But I shalt not ask thee more until thou finish with the book and knowest Ahab’s inner workings. Avast, get thee at it.”
I left him there in the doorway looking off across the moonlit waters, climbed into my bunk, and opened the book where I had stopped reading. As I read on, whenever Captain Ahab came into the story, it was not he whom I saw standing alone upon the quarterdeck or shouting commands into the wind, but my brother, Caleb Clegg.
9
At gray dawn we sailed north toward Isla Ballena, closer to the sunken ship. With the sun we were ready to dive. Again, each man of the crew was eager to work at the pump. Even the little Indian chief wanted to take a hand, though the air was hard to breathe and the sun was fierce. My brother grimly smiled at all the eagerness and while Judd bolted on his suit, from within the brass-bound helmet I heard something that sounded like a hollow laugh.
Our four launches were anchored in a circle around the wreck. The men crawled to the gunwales and cheered once more as Caleb went down. The water was clear except for myriads of small fish that had found a home in the sunken ship. I saw him reach the deck, brushing the fish away from his helmet as if they were so many flies, and disappear into the hold.
When half an hour passed without a signal of any kind, uneasiness began to spread from boat to boat. Blanton wondered how he could find the barrels of ambergris among all the hundreds of barrels that held sperm oil. Second mate Still doubted that one man could handle the heavy barrels by himself. Everyone had a question or some uneasy doubt.
The men fell silent as another half hour went by, then a faint signal came along the line, four short pulls twice repeated, telling us to send down the grappling hook and chain. We watched the gear go down, Caleb crawl out and drag it back into the hold. Minutes passed, the ship’s bells struck nine, struck the half hour, then the signal came to haul.
It took the strength of three men, heaving hand over hand, to bring the line in. Nearly the size of a hogshead, the cask came up in slow circles, like a hooked shark that had grown tired. Trailing weeds covered most of it, but as it drew close to the surface I clearly saw, burned deep in the rounded top, the letter A.
“‘A’ stands for ambergris,” Troll said.
“Two hundred pounds of ambergris,” said Blanton who had helped to
haul it in, “or more.”
“Two hundred pounds worth seven dollars an ounce,” someone said in a shaky voice.
The cask was hauled into the launch and an ax found to breach it. Captain Troll hesitated, thinking no doubt that Caleb Clegg should be there to oversee such an important undertaking. But the angry mutterings of the crew quickly changed his mind, and with one blow he split the oaken top.
Slowly, as we pressed around the barrel, there oozed from it a small gobbet of dull-gray matter, waxy soft. We all, except Captain Troll, stared down at the unpleasant sight. I had never seen ambergris before, but surely this was not the fabled substance from which perfume was made, such things as pastiles and hair powder and precious candles, and which the Turks carried reverently in their caravans to Mecca.
Captain Troll thrust a finger into the gray gobbet and waved it under our noses. I was suddenly enveloped in fragrance, so powerful, so enchanting that it made my senses reel.
The only one who was not awed by the ambergris was Chief Bonsig. He reached up and pushed his nose into it, then backed away, made a horrible face, and climbed back into his canoe, where he sat as though numbed.
“The barrel’s worth twenty thousand dollars,” said Captain Troll.
“And there’s more to come,” Blanton said.
“If what Caleb Clegg said is true,” Troll added.
Again we let down the grappling hook. Silent and breathless, the men watched while Caleb picked up the hook and carried it into the hold. An hour went by, but I knew that my brother was not looking for ambergris.
At last he signaled and we pulled him in, taking a long time to do so lest he suffer from quick-changing pressures. As the brass-bound helmet was lifted off his shoulders, I saw that his face was white and drawn from the hours below. Yet the grim smile that I had seen when he went down still was there.
“When do you dive again?” Blanton asked.
“How many barrels did you see?” Captain Troll asked.
A chorus of questions followed, but my brother did not answer them. He stood looking around at the peaceful waters of the bay, at the whales playing, at the ship, and the hot sky. At last he looked at the row of grinning faces.
“Dost thou now believe Caleb Clegg?” he said hoarsely. “Sailors of fair weather and shirkers of the storm, tell me, art thou now of a different mind than oft before?”
“Aye!” spoke the crew as one, each man at that moment willing to suffer whatever insult that might be heaped upon him.
“Dost thou now wish to remain at Magdalena until yon rich harvest is gathered in?”
“Aye,” came the answer, every man knowing that without Caleb Clegg more casks of ambergris might never be found. “Aye, aye!”
Without further words Caleb turned his back upon them and had me row him to the ship. Nor did he confide in me, as he sat in the stern staring out over the bay. Yet I was aware that he had sent up the barrel of ambergris and promised the men still a richer harvest, only to buy the time he would need to find the log of the Amy Foster. And find it he would, no matter how long it might take him.
10
After we had eaten supper, the old man and I went quietly off to the cove. There was no need to make excuses for our leaving. Indeed, no one saw us go. The barrel had been rolled into the forecastle, and when we left, the men were sitting around it, merrily drinking the jug of rum my brother had sent along, sniffing the heady fragrance that not only had the power to make a man feel drunk, but also was worth seven dollars an ounce.
The sky was clear except for a line of puffy clouds low in the south. Since the moon was nearly full, work on the chest went faster than before. In two hours Judd had chipped away the last of the barnacles.
With hatchet and claw hammer, we then set about the lid. It was held tight, water-tight, by oakum and pitch, as well as by square nails set two inches apart and deeply driven into the unyielding wood. It would have been far easier just to bash in the lid, but again the old man refused.
Prying at the smaller end of the chest, which was square and of a different shape from the larger end, we managed to unloosen four of the corner nails and draw them out. All the while the old man cautioned me to take care not to injure the wood.
It was past eleven o’clock by now, so we hid the tools and covered the chest with branches, as usual, and made our way back toward the cove. We had reached the edge of the mangroves, when at the same moment we saw beyond us a boat lying beside ours on the beach. The old man grasped my arm and instantly we drew back into the shadowed brush. A voice hailed us not more than a dozen paces away. It was Captain Troll and he was sauntering toward us, puffing on his pipe.
“At the clams again?”
Neither Judd nor I answered.
“I didn’t know that you found them on trees,” he said.
“Not on trees,” Judd said, “but all around them.”
Troll looked at us as we stood there empty-handed.
“Where are they? The two of you have been out here since suppertime. You should have a bushel by now.”
I thought it wiser to tell him about the chest, but kept my silence and hoped that the old man would think of something to say.
“We’ve been hunting ducks,” Judd said. “They nest out here at night.”
“Yes, I’ve seen them flying,” Troll said. “But you had poor luck. You’d have better luck if you took a gun.”
“Yes,” the old man said, weakly.
We walked down the beach, Troll falling into step behind us. As we slid our boat into the water, Troll took hold of the old man’s arm and jerked him around.
“What are you up to?” Troll said. “The two of you have been coming here every night. You don’t think I believe it’s to catch clams and hunt ducks, do you?”
The old man pulled his arm from Troll’s grasp. “Believe what you want,” he said.
“What I want, is it?” said Troll. “Well, I believe that you’ve found something that’s drifted here from the wreck, something valuable.”
The old man said nothing and I picked up the oars and set them in the locks and began to row.
Captain Troll took a step toward us, jumped back as a small wave washed over his feet, then shouted, “What is it you’ve found?” He waited. “You don’t answer. Well, I’ll find out or have you flogged, the both of you flogged.”
For a time he stood looking after us, then began to walk back toward the mangroves. He would not find the chest that night and he would need to look hard in the daytime.
When we reached the ship I went straight to my brother’s cabin. I found him on deck, his eyes fixed upon the sky. I had to speak to him twice before he heard me.
“It seems,” he said, “that things are amiss above us. The heavens are paled o’er with a sickly look.”
During the excitement of the past hour I had not noticed that the cloud bank, which earlier lay on the south horizon, had moved quickly up the sky and now had begun to overrun the moon.
“In such a way,” Caleb said, “did the fateful storm come upon us. On such a night, after windless days and fearsome heat.”
Hastily I told him about the chest I had found, all that had happened to it, and how Judd and I had just been threatened with a flogging. Caleb seemed not to hear me, at least he did not answer, as he kept his eyes on the fast-changing clouds.
“Aye, ’twas on such a night,” he said and walked to the rail and back. “Couldst fate repeat itself and catch us once again? Couldst our good ship be wrecked as was the Amy Foster?”
Caleb gazed along the quiet deck. He raised his eyes and scanned the furled sails and the three bare masts. He glanced overhead at the racing clouds. Like something caged, he paced up and down, groaning to himself. It was clear that he wanted to take the ship out of the bay into the open sea, but some dark memory stirred his thoughts and held him back.
&nb
sp; “Should we sail?” I said.
Caleb stopped his pacing and looked at me. “Aye,” he replied. “We should have sailed an hour past.”
“Then give the order,” I said.
As if all this time he had been one of the crew waiting for a command, Caleb roused himself and said quietly, “Call the men.”
I hurried to the forecastle, shouting as I went, and after a time awakened the crew. Mumbling, they staggered up the ladderway and were met on deck by an order to hoist the anchor and man the rigging, to bring in the tethered launches.
“Where hides the loutish Troll?” Caleb said to me, casting a look toward the captain’s empty station.
“On shore,” I answered. “Remember that I told you we left him there.”
“The ship shalt also leave him there,” Caleb said. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted aloft, “Full sail, hear me, full sail and break thy backs to do it.”
The launches were hoisted on deck and fastened down. A light, copper-tasting wind now blew from the south. It caught the sails, the ship lay over and began to move slowly seaward, Caleb at the wheel.
I looked astern and though the moon was veiled saw a boat well out from shore, coming toward us. “Troll,” I said and pointed.
Caleb made no move to change the ship’s direction, but placed his feet apart and took a firmer hold upon the wheel. Looking off toward Rehusa Strait and the gathering clouds, my brother then said softly:
“And now the Storm-Blast came and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us west along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe.”
11
Between Isla Santa Margarita and Isla Creciente, lies the Strait of Rehusa, which leads by a twisting channel from the bay into the sea. The shores of the two islands are rocky, separated by shelving sand bars and little more than a ship’s length of deep water.