Wreck of the Gossamer

by Shawn McCarthy

  Climbing up to the middeck, hands pressing against the tilting walls for support, Victor passes near his own bunk. He suddenly remembers the beautiful wooden puzzle boxes. Running back to the room, he drops to one knee and pulls them out from their hiding place. If this ship ends up going down, and God help them all if it does, he wants to take the boxes with him when he abandons ship.

  He slings the sack over his shoulder. Back in the companionway, he and George race to lock all available hatches.

  “This should have been done sooner!” Victor shouts.

  “The captain never ordered it!”

  “Fuck him.”

  The steel of the ship may have flexed slightly. One of the hatches won’t latch anymore. Dropping to their knees, they try to force the metal door into place.

  A low rumble suddenly shakes the ship.

  Down in the engine room, the water has climbed high enough to make the ship list another five degrees. As this happens, the accumulated water sloshes to one side where it suddenly reaches and cools the bottom curve of one of the heavy boilers. In an instant, the stressed metal at the bottom cools and rapidly contracts while the rest of the boiler remains hot.

  With a terrible pop and hiss, the boiler blows out one of its side seams, sending rivets flying. One of the rivets blasts right through Johnny C.’s left shoulder. He kneels into the water, holding the wound. His screams are lost in the roar of the escaping steam.

  With a grimace Johnny C. sinks beneath the dark water as the ship continues to tip. The second boiler blows shortly thereafter. The hot water rushes out, flattening out along the floor, mixing with the other water and heating it until the room feels like a warm bath.

  The Gossamer is not coming back up now, not with all this water piled inside. The next wave pushes the freighter further off its centerline, and Victor bangs his head again, this time against the wall of the companionway. His world turns gray.

  There comes a point in any marine tragedy that can be called the point of no return. This may happen when a list becomes too severe or when the waves become too high. Sometimes it happens when several smaller problems stack up to the point where, together, they merge into one huge problem that cannot be overcome. With the rupturing of its boilers, the Gossamer reaches its point of no return. Its list becomes a slow, steady tip. The lack of power, because the boiler is gone, means the captain can no longer steer amidst the waves. The crests of the breaking waves finally shove the vessel too hard, turning her completely on her side and even beyond.

  The starboard paddlewheel, which is now facing the sky, starts to pinwheel freely. There is enough steam still in the pipes to feed its piston, but it has no real power. The wheel is nothing more than a spinning flower decorating a grave.

  The keel starts to move down again. For an agonizing minute the optimists in the crew believe she might recover. The Gossamer is quite seaworthy after all. She has survived a good battering during other crossings. She’s weighted well too. She might right herself—given enough time. But there is no such luxury. Another wave slaps directly into the exposed top deck. Then another. Finally, the pounding whitecaps tear the main hatch away like a lid from a cheap tin can. The force literally pivots the ship around its huge, buried portside paddlewheel. At the same time the starboard wheel is ripped completely off, housing and all. It floats off over the waves like a giant straw boater hat.

  The sea rushes in hard, and the Gossamer will never sit upright again.

  Victor sloshes and rolls in the dark companionway, trying to force himself out of his daze. He knows he has to climb up to the deck.

  As he struggles to stand, the incoming water pushes a loose footlocker along in front of it, hitting him in the chest. His breath blasts out and he fights to get it back. The companionway fills quickly. Can he swim out? No. He lacks the breath to do that. If only he had the air. If only. The boat starts to roll over, upside down now. He loses his sense of direction and finds himself sliding back into the crew quarters, all the way back near his bunk. He finally finds an air pocket near the floor, which has suddenly become the ceiling. The ship groans. He thrusts his head into the air pocket and breathes greedily. Coughing and gasping, his heart pounds. Lack of oxygen. Cold. The thought of trying to swim back down the companionway frightens him. But he must do it. He has to.

  He takes a big breath and prepares to dive, but he hears the ladder to the main hatch rip loose, followed by the sound of the hatchway itself groaning and folding. He hears another noise too, louder and more intense. It’s an otherworldly groan that shakes the Gossamer to its core. Victor can’t quite see it, but in his mind he pictures either the main smokestack, or perhaps the stubby mast, slowly being bent over.

  Like a giant lever, the mast pries at the deck as it falls, twisting and contorting all the metal beneath it. That includes the ceiling of the companionway nearest to Victor. The entire space folds down, sealing itself tighter than a lid on a garbage can.

  For the first time, Victor deeply panics. He has to find a way out. But there is no time left. He pounds at the metal walls until his knuckles bleed.

  He looks toward the only opening in the room. The porthole. It’s way too small for a ship of this size. Why didn’t the ship’s architect see that! A crewman could never fit thought it. Victor certainly will not fit through it. But the puzzle boxes … at least they might be able to float free. Victor turns to look behind him. Even in the darkened room, even through the water, he can see the floating sack that he had been carrying just minutes before. His stomach tightens.

  Victor slaps and tugs at the dogs on the bottom of the porthole. They slowly unscrew. Prying them away, he yanks at the glass with his bleeding fingernails. More water rushes in as it opens, but so what? Water doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters now.

  Strangely, he starts to feel at peace with that part of it. Somehow, knowing there is nothing more he can do removes the sense of panic, and releasing the boxes gives him a sense of purpose. It lets him hold all the horror around him at bay.

  Hand feeling around inside the sack, Victor also thinks about his other wooden boxes—the big crates up on the deck. He wonders if they are light enough, with their equipment inside, to float free. And what about the other items he tossed inside? Would anyone be lucky enough to find them?

  He tugs the puzzle boxes out of the sack, and he thinks about how this—all of this dreadful chaos—becomes part of the risk when you cross the ocean. You know catastrophe lurks. You accept the danger because, odds are, such a tragedy won’t happen to you. If something does go wrong, you try to save yourself if you can. But if everything fails, you simply accept your fate because you spun the roulette wheel. You took the gamble and this time, this one time, you aren’t one of the lucky ones.

  Victor forces his hands toward the porthole. Shoving hard against the flowing water, he forces Johnny C.’s puzzle box out first. It immediately rises and disappears. The ship lurches back onto its side. The porthole is now pointing straight up and the ship is totally underwater. Victor kicks hard to keep himself near the small window. The air pocket he had relied on suddenly bubbles away through the open hole. No air left. Victor pauses for a moment, kisses his own box goodbye, and shoves it through the port.

  He hears the swearing and the crying somewhere behind him, probably in the crushed companionway. Then he hears voices above him at the surface of water, muffled like they’re shouting through a thick pillow. Those must be the voices of the lucky few who managed to abandoned ship. They are the ones who will ride the waves in stomach-churning rises and falls.

  His task complete, Victor leaves his arm hanging out of the porthole. It feels like he’s waving good-bye to the watertight box as it floats upwards. Or maybe he’s waving farewell to the light? In spite of the dark storm clouds, he can still see some light up there beyond the surface. So far away. It really is beautiful, isn’t it? His father always said that it was.

  Good old bearded Eli Marius always had said a day of living was mor
e important than any job he might have, or any problem he might face. Eli said days were meant to be enjoyed. Life was a party.

  Victor had never understood his father. Now suddenly, as everything drifts away from him, he understands. His father had many friends. Victor, being all business and work ethic, has very few.

  And now that sky. That water. That world. All gone, and never truly explored or deeply enjoyed.

  The water darkens. Is that happening because the surface is now so far away? Or is it just the lack of oxygen? Victor doesn’t care. A dead man’s peace awaits him as the Gossamer heads toward the bottom. Arm still outstretched, Victor reaches toward the fading light.

  It remains elusive.

  Sometimes the ocean chooses to consume, rather than give, and this is one of those times.

  The wrong place. The wrong time. The wrong choice.

  Just that quickly, Victor Marius has left the party.

  Chapter 8

  Rebel Remains

  Sullivan’s Island, Charleston, South Carolina

  June 18, 1891

  It’s barely eight in the morning, and temperatures at the shoreline near Charleston already have climbed past ninety degrees. A fifty-year-old woman stands near Branch Inlet southeast of the city. She softly tugs at her cotton blouse’s high white collar. It’s a discreet action that allows a little heat to escape from inside her clothes while she still maintains the prim formality expected from a proper Southern lady.

  But, lady or not, the man she talks to while standing at the water’s edge does not look at all like a gentleman. His shoes are scuffed and shabby. It’s been three days or more since his face has seen a razor. His clothes—dark pants, light blue shirt, and a gray summer jacket—look expensive, yet they’re a good twenty-five years out of fashion. An older cut with a longer coat. His pockets bulge, and the handle of a cheap knife tilts forward from inside his coat.

  “Well, thanks for seeing me off,” the shabby man mumbles to the woman. “I wasn’t expecting that I’d ever see you again.”

  “No need to avoid it. And you know why I’ve come, Devlin. I still don’t understand why you’re heading north, and I’m here once again to try to talk you out of it. You’ve always hated the North, especially those wretched cities, New York and Boston. They’re absolutely full of the very people you hate.”

  The man shrugs. He just looks toward a blue dory waiting at the end of a short dock. The little boat, and the young sailor tending the oars, belong to an eighty-eight-foot steamer anchored at the far side of the island, near the mouth of Charleston Harbor. The ship, captained by a childhood friend of Devlin’s, is a speedy contract carrier that transports cargo and U.S. mail up and down the East Coast. It visits most of the major cities between Boston and Savannah. At full steam, it can make it from South Carolina to Massachusetts in just under five days.

  “I told you already, Kate. It’s just something I have to do. You know that. I’ve tossed it around in my head and talked about it for years.”

  “I know you have, Devlin, but I’ve never liked the sound of it. It’s bad blood. Sour grapes. I’ve told you and told you. Sometimes you just have to let things go.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, I think you do.” She touches his arm. It’s the guiding touch of an older sister, not a friend or a lover. Yet Devlin has long avoided her guidance. He takes a step back, and her hand drops to her side.

  “Listen,” he says, “Clayton is waiting for me. He’s already breaking the rules just by letting me aboard. I’m not going to keep him waiting.”

  She steps forward again, pleading with him, reaching for his broad shoulders. “You can’t go. You can’t do this! Please! That’s why I came here this morning. All this anger of yours. All this resentment you have. You’ve had it for twenty-five years, and it’s gotten you nothing. Aren’t I correct? Nothing but a black heart.”

  “You’re talking foolishness. I’m just going there for … well, for business. Two months, tops.” He starts to step into the dory. As she watches him, she rolls up her sleeves, both to cool herself and to do something with the anxiety that’s building up inside.

  “If father could see you now,” she shouts, “he’d be ashamed. Ashamed, Devlin!”

  Devlin Richards turns suddenly. Not quite leaving the dory, he points a finger at her. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.”

  He squints in anger. “If our father was here, he’d be proud of me, woman! Damn proud. He’d see a man who’s a fighter. A man who has decided finally to retake control of his destiny. That’s what he’d see.” He looks his sister up and down with a sneer. “And that’s more than I can say about you!”

  She glares at him and starts to fix her hair. She’s already lost the battle against the day’s humidity, and now just struggles to keep her composure.

  “Nothing to say about that?” Devlin laughs. “You’ve managed to regain your status. You’re looking right prosperous lately, Kate. But how did you to that? By marrying a Yankee? Think our daddy would be proud of that? No, my dear. You are the one he’d be ashamed of.”

  She looks him in the eyes, hurt, then looks away.

  “You pretend that the rest of your family is on board with your decisions, Kate. Well, most of us ain’t. Hell, I’m the only one in the family who even talks to you anymore. Have you noticed that?”

  Kate’s glare hardens into an icy stare. Devlin removes his foot from the dory, turns, and takes a couple steps toward her.

  “Did you think we wouldn’t notice that the lumberyard owned by that precious Yankee husband of yours imports wood from the North and the West? Hell, he even imports from Mexico. But he never buys anything from the loggers who work right here in the Carolinas. Why is that? Is it because your husband is just another damn Yankee, Kate? Spends more time looking out for other Yankees than he does for his townsfolk? He’s just here to take what he can from us while putting the screws to what’s left of the old Confederacy, even after twenty-five years.”

  Kate speaks to him through clenched teeth. “That’s nonsense. What’s done is done, and I know that my Edger is a good man. You hear me? And as for me, I did what I had to do to restore a good name to this family. To bring some level of success back to us. You need to remember that, Devlin. You used to have a good name once too.”

  Devlin laughs out loud. “A good name? We never had a God damn good name!” He spits at the sand. “Oh yes, you love to remember Father and the old homestead fondly, don’t ya?” Behind him the sailor shifts uneasily in his seat, but Devlin continues speaking to Kate. “You’ve got some nice little storybook picture in your head about what things were like when you were a little girl. Don’t you? Perfect family we had, eh? But you conveniently filter out the bad parts. You forget where all the old family money came from.” He walks right up to her, finger pointing at her chest. “You know what our father did for a living! Hell, Kate, you know what our whole family did, and we did it for three generations.”

  “We were planters!” Kate responds. “We had rice fields! And some tobacco growing in the valley.” She shouts it with pride. But Devlin makes a sweeping gesture toward a dirt road behind her.

  “We had a little pissant farm, Kate! A little food for ourselves and the servants. That’s not where the family fortune came from. We bought and sold niggers. That’s what our family did for years, and you know it. That’s where the money came from. But you can’t even make that word pass your lips, can you? Go on! Try to say it!”

  He walks around her as she looks at the clouds. “Come on and say it, Kate. Our daddy was a slave trader! He owned two ships! He also owned one of them squares of land downtown that was used for slave auctions. You know all that. It’s what paid for your petticoats and bonnets when you were a girl.”

  He sees her tense and close her eyes. But he continues just the same. “That’s right. Fresh nigger flesh, sold into the fields nearly every week.”

  Kate turns away, hands ove
r her ears.

  “And that’s why our family took the hardest hit of all, Kate. Twenty-five, no, twenty-six years now! A whole generation has passed since the end of that bloody war. Look around you. Other businesses around here eventually were rebuilt. This city has ships, docks, and cotton mills and sugar warehouses. But not our business! Oh no, not our dirty little family business. Our kind of trade was gone for good, wasn’t it? And our family never prospered again.”

  Devlin holds his hands above his head and turns in a slow circle. “Now look at me, sister. Just look right close! Do I look like a man who was able to recover when the family business went to hell? Hum? Do I look like I was able to rebuild?”

  Kate snarls at him. “The business you speak of was never one that I was proud of. So why should I care if it never came back?”

  “Maybe you don’t. But I sure as hell care, Kate. Because we lost everything. Even the farm. Just a long, slow decline for the Richards family, wasn’t it? Hell yes, it was. Took us a long time to accept that.” He squints at her, and she can see the great festering anger in his eyes. “Well, I’m sick of being on the downside of it, Kate. And I know whose fault it is.”

  “It’s no one’s fault. It was just the end of an era. A move on toward other things for everyone.”

  His voice drops to a whisper. “Is that what you think? That what you tell your Yankee husband? You know damn well whose fault it was! You saw the blue army come through. Three of them boys held you down and had a right nice bit of fun with you, Kate. Don’t you remember that? The rest of us in the family sure remember it.”

  “You!” she seethes. “You promised to never speak of that. Years ago you promised me!”

  “Yes, but it’s just you and me out here today, sister, and that oarsman over there who will never see you again. I know you’re angry too. We all are. We just keep it hidden. Keep it tucked away inside because it’s not good for business.”