“What?” Olaf asked, rolling his eyes up to look at Noah.
“Here,” Noah said, handing him the glass of water and putting the afghan over his father’s lap. “How often is that sort of thing happening?”
“Not often,” Olaf said. “Not often at all.” Again he waved his hand. “Grab that book over there.” He pointed at the bottom shelf of the chest-high bookcase next to the sofa.
“Which book?” Noah asked.
“I forget what it’s called. The black one.”
Noah pulled a book from the shelf. “This?”
“Let me see,” Olaf said. He took the book and thumbed through to the back of it. “This is the one, it’s got transcripts of the radio contact between Jan and the Coast Guard and the other boats in the vicinity.”
“Dad, we don’t need to talk about this anymore. I mean, maybe you should get some rest.”
“I’m all right.” He handed the book back to Noah, who opened it to the first transcript, a communiqué between the Ragnarøk and the U.S. Coast Guard station in Gunflint.
“Read that,” Olaf said.
Noah did:
22:15
Captain Vat: Pan-pan, pan-pan, pan-pan. All stations, this is SS Ragnarøk, SS Ragnarøk, SS Ragnarøk. Our position is[pause] 48 degrees 10 minutes 7 seconds and 88 degrees 20 minutes 7 seconds. Repeat, 48°10′ 7″ and 88° 20′ 7″. We are in heavy seas, wind gusts up to 78 knots, sustained winds 45 to 65 knots. Wave size variable to 20 feet. Report a major diesel leak in main fuel line. Repeat, major fuel leak in main line. Bearing 268° for Thunder Bay. Wish to alert any vessels in the area and U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards of our situation. Have a crew of 30 men; cargo 12 tons of taconite. This is the SS Ragnarøk, over.
U.S. Coast Guard: SS Ragnarøk, this is U.S. Coast Guard station Gunflint, change to channel 68, over.
Captain Vat: Roger.
Coast Guard: SS Ragnarøk, do you copy?
Captain Vat: Roger, we copy.
Coast Guard: SS Ragnarøk, do you require assistance?
Captain Vat: Negative. I only wanted to make you aware of our situation. The leak is bad, I’ve got a dozen men working on it, and the heavy seas aren’t helping, but we should be okay. We’re heading for Thunder Bay — speed of 7 knots. Should be sheltered by 0:30. Over.
Coast Guard: Roger, SS Ragnarøk. We’ll keep an eye on you.
Captain Vat: Roger that.[Pause] Are there any other vessels in the area?
Coast Guard: Negative, Ragnarøk, you’re alone.
Captain Vat: Roger. Out.
Coast Guard: Out.
Noah saved his page in the book with his thumb. “How far were you from Thunder Bay?”
“The last position I charted we were twenty-four nautical miles from the entrance to Thunder Bay. That’s what, about twenty-eight miles?”
Noah opened the book and scanned the page. “And how fast is seventy-eight knots?”
“Seventy-eight knots?” Olaf closed his eyes to think. “About ninety miles per hour.”
“That’s like a hurricane.”
“It was blowing, no doubt about that.”
Noah shook his head in disbelief. “So you make the pan-pan. Then what?”
“Then Captain Vat made the decision that saved my life. In the chart room behind the wheelhouse, he ordered me and a crew to the stern in order to assist Danny. He told me to take three guys, one of whom he wanted at the phone the minute we got to the engine room. The rest of us were to help out any way we could.”
“Why’d he send you?” Noah asked.
“I was pretty good with mechanical things,” Olaf said. “I guess he thought I could help.”
Noah paused, sure the question he wanted to ask was the most delicate so far. He put himself in the position of being ordered across an icy deck with winds gusting to ninety miles per hour. He thought about Lake Superior exploding across the deck. He thought about getting to the engine room, where thousands of gallons of diesel fuel were smeared across so many combustible engine parts. He thought of the nearly eight hundred feet of water beneath the keel of the ship. And he knew he would have been terrified. “Were you scared?”
Olaf looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t remember being scared, no. But I sure wasn’t excited about what we had to do.”
“Why didn’t you use the tunnels?” Noah asked.
“The Rag didn’t have a tunnel.”
“But you could have just walked on top of the ballast tank.”
Olaf smiled. “I forget how well you knew those boats. The Rag’s ballast tanks didn’t have square tops. They were slanted to meet the bulkhead without any straight angles.
“The object of the design,” Olaf said, “was twofold. First, it was made to make cleaning the cargo hold easier. Without a straight ledge to sweep, we would save a half hour’s labor every time we changed cargos. That adds up over a season. It was also an engineering concept that allowed more of the ballast-tank water — when the ballast tanks were full — to sit lower in the bulkhead, creating a lower center of gravity with less water. This way it would take less time to pump the water out. The idea was a flash in the pan, and no other boats I ever knew were built the same way.
“It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. We got across the deck fine. It’s what we found when we got there that was the problem.
“I stopped in my berth and changed into some dry clothes before I gathered the men to come with me. I stripped out of my damp pants and socks and shirt and put on my union suit and dry pants, fresh socks and a turtleneck. I grabbed my pea jacket, my mittens, and hat, and when I was all bundled up I topped myself off with the raincoat and the orange life preserver that had sat for years in the wooden basket above my desk.
“For some stupid reason I checked the four porthole windows in my cabin,” he said. There was surprise in his voice, like it was a memory that had only come back to him then, all those years later. “I wonder why I did that.
“Whatever the reason, it gave me the minute I needed to remember my watch. Your mother had given it to me the Christmas before. It was on a sterling chain in my desk. I kept it there for safety.
“When she gave it to me she told me it’d bring me luck. I decided I wanted to have it with me when I died. In fact,” Olaf said as he dug into his pocket, “here it is.” He handed it to Noah.
It was beautiful, a tarnished nickel-silver pocket watch with an analemma on its face. The movement was visible behind a rear crystal, and when Noah flipped it open he saw the name of the watch company engraved on the bezel. UTVIKLING URMAKER — KRISTIANIA 1920.
“I’ve never seen this before,” Noah said.
Olaf was settling stiffly back into the chair. “It needs to be polished,” he said.
“So you put the watch in your pocket?” Noah asked.
“I did.”
“And then you went to get the other guys?” he said, handing it back.
Olaf began fingering the clasp with one hand as he tried to remove some of the patina. “It’s a damn strange thing, isn’t it?” he asked. “This flimsy little watch, this soft metal chain.” He looked up at Noah. “And that big old boat. Steel made from the ore of her predecessors, steel they’d made army tanks from. Almost a million rivets, two football fields long, eight thousand tons. One of them made it and the other one didn’t.”