Leander blew the warning whistle for his last voyage. From the wheelhouse he could see the rain falling onto the roller-coaster. He saw Charlie Matterson and his twin brother throw a tarpaulin over the last section of cars to come down. The merry-go-round was still turning. He saw the passengers in one of the boats of the Red Mill look up in surprise, as they were debouched from the mouth of a plaster-of-Paris ogre, to find it raining. He saw a young man gaily cover his girl’s head with a newspaper. He saw people in the cottages up on the bluff lighting their kerosene lamps. He thought how sad it was that on this, their first trip away from home in so many years, it should rain. There were no stoves or fireplaces in the cottages. There was no escape from the damp and the doleful sounds of the rain for the matchboard walls of the cottages, salt soaked and tight, would resound when you touched them like the skin of a drum and you would hardly have settled down to a two-handed game of whist before the roof began to leak. There would be a leak in the kitchen and another over the card table and another over the bed. The vacationers could wait for the mailman, but who would write to them?—and they couldn’t write letters themselves for all their envelopes would be stuck together. Only the lovers, their bedposts jingling loudly and merrily, would be spared this gloom. On the beach Leander saw the last parties surrender, calling to one another to remember the blanket, remember the bottle opener, remember the thermos and the picnic basket, until there was no one left but an old man who liked to swim in the rain and a young man who liked to walk in the rain and whose head was full of Swinburne and whose nickname was Bananas. Leander saw the Japanese, who sold fans and back scratchers, take in his silk and paper lanterns. He saw people standing in restaurant doorways and waitresses at windows. A waiter took in the naked tables of the Pergola Cantonese Restaurant and he saw a hand part some window curtains in the Nangasakit House, but he couldn’t see the face that looked out. He saw how the waves, that had been riding in briskly, subsided in the rain so that they barely lapped the shore. The sea was still. Then the old man, who was standing waist deep in the water, suddenly turned and struggled up the beach, feeling the inward pull of the storm sea. He saw the gladness with which Bananas was watching these signs of danger. Then the sea, with a roar of stone, drew out beyond the line of sand to the stony beginnings of the harbor bottom, forming a wave that, when it broke (the first of a barrage that would sound all night), shook the beach and scooted up after the heels of the old man. He took off the lines and blew the whistle. Spinet started to play “Jingle Bells” as the Topaze went out to sea.
There was a channel at Nangasakit—a granite breakwater bearded with sea grass and a bell buoy rocking in the southwest sea, white foam spilling over the float as it tipped. The bell, Leander knew, could on this wind be heard inland. It could be heard by the card players rearranging pots and pans under their leaky roof, by the old ladies in the Nangasakit House and even by the lovers above the merry jingling of their bedposts. It was the only bell Leander had ever heard in his dreams. He loved all bells: dinner bells, table bells, doorbells, the bell from Antwerp and the bell from Altoona had all heartened and consoled him but this was the only bell that chimed on the dark side of his mind. Now the charming music fell astern, fainter and fainter, lost in the creaking of the old hull and the noise of seas breaking against her bow. Out in the bay it was rough.
She took the waves head on, like an old rocking horse. Waves broke over the glass of the wheelhouse so that Leander had to keep one hand on the windshield wiper to see. The water pouring down the decks began to come in at the cabin. It was dirty weather. Leander thought of the passengers—the girl with the rose in her hair and the man with three children, all wearing shirts cut of the same cloth as his wife’s summer dress. And what about the passengers themselves, sitting in the cabin? Were they frightened? They were, nine times out of ten, their fear clothed lightly in idle speculation. They fished for their key rings and their small change, gave their privates a hitch and, if they had some talisman, a silver dollar or a St. Christopher medal, they rubbed it with their fingers. St. Christopher, be with us now! They readjusted their garters if they wore them, tightened the knots in their shoelaces and their neckties and wondered why their sense of reality should seem suspended. They thought of pleasant things: wheat fields and winter twilights, when five minutes after the lemony yellow light in the west was gone the snow began to fall, or hiding jelly beans under the sofa cushions on Easter Eve. The young man looked at the girl with the rose in her hair, remembering how generously she had spread her legs for him and now how fair and gentle she seemed.
In the middle of the bay Leander turned the boat toward Travertine. It was the worst of the trip, and he was worried. The following sea punished her stern. Her screw shook the hull at the crest of every wave and in the hollow she slipped to port. He set his bow on Gull Rock, which he could see clearly then, the gull droppings on top and the sea grass fanning out as the waves mounted and swallowed the granite pile. Beyond the channel he would be all right with nothing ahead of him but the run up the calm river to home. He put his mind on this. He could hear the deck chairs smashing against the stern rail and she had taken in so much water that she heeled. Then the rudder chain broke with the noise of a shot and he felt the power of the helm vanish into thin air beneath his hands.
There was a jury rudder in the stern. He thought quickly enough. He put her into half speed and stepped into the cabin. Helen saw him, and she began to shriek. “He’s a devil, he’s a devil from hell that one there. He’ll drown us. He’s afraid of me. For eighteen weeks, nineteen on Monday, I’ve been out in all weathers. He’s afraid of me. I have information in my possession that could put him into the electric chair. He’ll drown us.” It was not fear that stopped him, but a stunning memory of her mother’s loveliness—the farm near Franconia and haying on a thundery day. He went back into the wheelhouse and a second later the Topaze rammed Gull Rock. Her bow caved in like an egg shell. Leander reached for the whistle cord and blew the distress signal.
They heard his whistle in what had been the parlor and was now the bar of the Mansion House and wondered what Leander was up to. He had always been prodigal with his whistle, tooting it for children’s birthday parties and wedding anniversaries or at the sight of an old friend. It was one of the waiters in the kitchen— a stranger to the place—who recognized the distress signal and ran out onto the porch and gave the alarm. They heard him at the boat club and someone started up the old launch. As soon as Leander saw the boat leave the wharf he went back to the cabin, where most of the passengers were putting on life jackets, and told them the news. They sat quietly until the boat came alongside. He helped them aboard, including Spinet, including Helen, who was sobbing, and the boat chugged off.
He unscrewed the compass box from its stand and got his binoculars and a bottle of bourbon out of his locker. Then he went up to the bow to see the damage. The hole was a big one and the following sea was worrying her on the rocks. As he watched she began to ease off the rocks and he could feel the bow settle. He walked back toward the stern. He felt very tired—almost sleepy. His animal spirits seemed collapsed and his breathing, the beating of his heart felt retarded. His eyes felt heavy. In the distance he saw a dory coming out to get him rowed by a young man—a stranger—and through this feeling of torpor or weariness he felt as if he watched the approach of someone of uncommon beauty—an angel, or a ghost of himself when he had been young and full of mettle. Tough luck, old-timer, the stranger said, and the illusion of ghosts and angels vanished.