The Dark Canoe (7 page)

It was well past noon as we wearily rowed up to the
Amy Foster
.

Blacksmith Grimes, who liked to display his strength, was alone at the pump. The rest of the crew sat around in the launches, with their eyes fixed upon the signal line. Captain Troll held it in his hand as if he were waiting for a fish to bite. He knew where we had been, but since he didn't ask what had happened to us we did not bother to tell him.

About an hour later, he jumped to his feet and shouted, acting exactly like a man who has been fishing all day without luck and then suddenly hooks into a monster. Caleb had signaled for the chain and grapple.

The crew cheered as the grapple descended. In silence they waited for the signal to haul in. When it came they began to count their share of the ambergris and make plans for the future. Grimes said he would leave the sea, and good riddance, get a soft rocking chair, and sit on the porch and watch the ships leave Nantucket harbor. Blanton had a farm in mind where he could raise ducks. Greene did not like ducks, but he did like Toggenburg goats. Everyone had a plan of some sort.

As for myself, I watched the line slowly come in, but I did not expect another cask of ambergris. I knew that the grapple held in its claws something far different. I knew because Caleb had told me after the second cask was found that he was going to search only for the log of the
Amy Foster
.

The claws held a small iron box, much like the one in which my mother once had stored nutmegs, cloves, and other spices from the Indies. Troll unhooked the box and flung it down upon the platform, with the look of a fisherman who expects a toothsome sole at the end of his line and finds instead a bony skate. The crew stared.

After a short while my brother came to the surface. The first thing he did when we removed his diving suit was to look anxiously around for the iron box, as if he thought it might have taken wings and flown away. It sat at his feet, rusty and streaked with mud. Judd handed him a bar to pry the lid, but he refused it, and, gathering the box in his arms, asked me to row him to the ship.

The big white cat met us at the door of the cabin, pleading for food which for some reason it always needed. Caleb gently brushed it aside, picked his way through the clutter of books, and set the box on the chart table. Though the cabin was not dark, he asked me to light the lantern. I thought then that he was ready to open the box and went off to fetch a hammer.

When I returned he was standing at a porthole, his eyes fixed upon the distant sea. Impatient, I struck the iron box a blow with the hammer and asked if now he wished it opened. He slowly turned, passing a hand across his forehead. He gave me a look of desperation, as if he feared to know what lay inside, as if on that day of approaching storm he might not have written a command, after all.

At last, when he did not speak nor move, I swung open the lid and took out the log of the
Amy Foster
. It was a small book bound in leather, half the size of the iron box, soaked through by the sea, the edges curled and stuck together. It was more like a lump of dough than a ship's log.

I held it out to him, but so great was his excitement that the book fell from his grasp.

“Thou canst do what is needed,” he said. “Thou hast steadier hands and eyes that art less fearful than mine.”

I placed the logbook on the table, and without knowing if I were doing the right thing slipped the blade of a penknife lying at hand between the pages of a small section. The paper was of a fine linen make and inch by inch came apart.

Caleb seized the pages from my hand and searched them for a date. “'Tis the tenth of August I have here. It lies farther along. The twenty-first of September, if I recall.”

While Caleb watched over my shoulder, I started over again. The next pages I pried loose held an entry for September first. At this time Caleb left me to pace the deck. The following entry was for five days later, but so dimmed by water that it scarcely could be read.

I was seized by the thought that the final page, if ever I came to it, the page that Caleb was pacing the deck about, might be damaged beyond reading. Always before, I had secretly hoped that the log would never be found, for if what Caleb had said was true, then my brother Jeremy had lied to the board of inquiry, to everyone, to me.

The logbook lay open on the table, the last pages waiting for the sharp blade of the knife. It would be a simple matter to destroy them. I confess that I stood there, thinking. The ship's three clocks struck the hour of five. The clocks were not in time with each other and their bells went on ringing for a long while. I heard Caleb's steps on the deck, moving back and forth, the bump, bump of his good foot, the soft, dragging slide of the other.

Yet it was not from any real concern for Caleb that I unloosened the last page with the greatest of care. Nor was it from pity. It was the knowledge that if I did destroy the writing there before me, I would never know whether or not my brother Jeremy had solemnly lied to the board of inquiry, lied because he had willfully disobeyed a command, lied to save himself.

Setting the page down, I called to Caleb. He hobbled slowly in from the deck, as if now that the moment had come he feared to face it. He lifted the lantern from its hook overhead and held it close. His body was shaking and the light wavered back and forth. I took the lantern from him.

The writing was in his hand, large and with a forward, headlong slant to the words. We read them together, I to myself, Caleb aloud in his quiet, far-off voice.

“‘September twenty-first,'” he read. “‘The southern storm approacheth. Do not be caught in Magdalena. Take the ship to sea. Heed thou my command, Jeremy, take the ship to sea. Thou shalt…'”

The sentence ended abruptly. The last word was scrawled across the page as if at that instant Caleb had dropped the pen.

“‘Thou shalt,'” Caleb said, slowly repeating the final words. “'Tis unfinished. Yet enough. Whilst the fever raged, still did I give the command. Aye, 'tis plain, 'tis plain that I did give it.”

Caleb set the lantern back on its hook and gazed down at me. I waited for him to say a word or give some sign of rejoicing. He had come five thousand leagues and searched for weeks to learn if he had given this command or if instead he had only dreamed it. On that morning in Nantucket, saying not a word as they stripped him of his captain's license, he did not know. But now at last the log sat there on the table for all to see.

I waited. The cabin was quiet, save for the big white cat who lay purring on a pile of books, and the creaking of timbers as the ship rose and fell to the movement of the tide. Silently Caleb looked down at me. Perhaps he felt that his long search had been for nothing, now that Jeremy was dead. Perhaps this was the same sad moment for him, despite the years of hatred between them, that it was for me.

There was no answer when I knocked on Caleb's door early the next morning. But Sapphire was crying for food, so I went in and fed him part of my brother's breakfast.

The lantern had burned through the night, and having guttered low, was filling the cabin with streamers of gray smoke. I turned it off and set it aside to take below. On the chart lay the lumpish pages of the log, now bound together with a piece of heavy twine. Caleb was asleep, lying on his bunk fully clothed, as if he had fallen there in a moment of deep exhaustion.

I gave Sapphire the rest of Caleb's breakfast to keep him quiet and picked up the lantern. As I tiptoed to the door and glanced back to see if the sounds had awakened my brother, I was struck by something I had not noticed before.

Summers in Nantucket when the family went to the shore to swim, Caleb never came along. And aboard ship at times when everyone dove from the deck or rowed ashore to swim, he stayed in his cabin. For that reason I had never until this moment seen the twisted leg he hobbled around on. Now, as he lay sprawled across the bunk with one trouser leg pulled up, the long, twisting wound was exposed.

I closed the door quietly behind me, feeling that I had seen something I should not have seen. And yet, as I walked down the deck trying to blot it from my mind, the scene in the cabin persisted. I then realized that I wanted it to, that for the first time in my life I had seen my brother whole. Always before he had been an object to fear and to pity, but never someone, a human being, who could be liked and perhaps loved.

The news I brought to the forecastle was a surprise. When I told Captain Troll and the crew that Caleb was asleep, everyone began to grumble. Troll paused with a spoon of mush halfway to his mouth.

“Asleep,” he said, “with all that ambergris waiting out there?”

“Winter's coming,” Blanton put in. “You can't dive with the wind blowing fits and waves running.”

Troll shoved the mush into his mouth. “Asleep,” he said. “Clegg's asleep!”

I went into the galley and got my breakfast and brought it back to the table.

“Caleb Clegg's asleep,” I said, “because he's tired. For a month now he's been the first on deck in the morning and the last to go to bed. He found the ambergris. You have two casks of it. Another morning or even another day won't make any difference to any of you.”

Troll jabbed the table with his spoon. He puckered his smooth, pink face and was about to say something in reply when Tom Waite walked in.

“Nathan's right,” he said. “Let Caleb sleep if he wants to.”

Tom went up the ladderway, motioning us to follow, and we manned the launches and rowed over to the
Amy Foster
. It was hard work getting Tom into the diving suit because his arm still pained him. But once the helmet was bolted on, he slipped over the side and sank with a wave of his hand, graceful as a frisking dolphin.

An hour or more passed while the pump wheezed and rattled, sending air into the depths, and Tom's breaths came floating back to us in a chain of bright bubbles. Then the first signal came on the line, but not for the grapple hook. It was a signal to pull Tom in.

“What's down there?” Troll asked, trying to speak calmly, as soon as Tom's helmet was off. “How much ambergris? Ten casks? Twenty? Sit down. That's it, take your time and get a good breath. What's your guess? Twenty-five casks?”

After a while Tom got to his feet, took a deep breath, and glanced down at the wavering outlines of the sunken ship.

“Thirty?” Troll said.

“Nothing,” Tom answered. “I didn't find one cask of ambergris. And the sperm oil is beginning to float. Every cask I saw was breached.”

Troll took off his square-crowned hat and mopped his brow. He stared at Tom.

“Breached?” he said. “You saw no ambergris?”

Tom nodded. “If there's ambergris down there, it's hidden deep. We'd have to haul every barrel to find it. And there's not enough good oil to fill a lamp.”

Troll glared down into the water. “Things are becoming clear,” he said, his voice rising to an angry whine. “Little wonder that Clegg's asleep.”

Taking a quick step forward, he gave the helmet a swipe with his foot, then a kick that sent it tumbling overboard. He watched the helmet slide away from the launch and sink. Again he wiped his brow.

“Man the boats,” he shouted. “We're finished with the
Amy Foster.
”

The ship was quiet the rest of the morning. Troll sent off three men to fill the water casks and three to hunt geese in the marshes. The rest of us he ordered into the rigging with tar pail and brush. Troll gave no reasons, but it seemed that he was getting the ship ready to sail.

About noon Caleb appeared in the galley and asked for a cup of coffee. A short time later, Captain Troll came down the ladder. You could never be sure how Troll felt, except that when he was in one of his bad moods a thin smile often lurked around the corners of his mouth. The smile was there as he spoke to my brother.

“I guess we'll be sailing anytime,” he said, “now that we've found all the ambergris.”

Caleb looked at Troll over the rim of his cup. “How dost thou know that all hath been found?”

“While you were asleep this morning,” Troll replied, “Tom Waite made a long dive. That's how I know, Mr. Clegg.”

Caleb finished his coffee and put his cup on the table. “Tom is a fine diver, whilst I am poor,” he said. “Thou canst trust him about all things that lie beneath the sea.”

Troll for a moment seemed to be taken aback by my brother's willingness to believe Tom Waite. The thin smile around his mouth grew thinner.

“Tom also reported that the barrels are breached,” Troll said. “Oil is leaking everywhere.”

“Yes, I have noted this,” Caleb said. “On my last dive. 'Tis a bad sign, yet some good oil must remain.”

“If any does,” Troll answered quickly, “it will take a month to haul it out, Tom tells me.”

“Aye, a month, yet canst be done if all turn a hand,” Caleb said. “Dost wish to search or sail? 'Tis for thee to choose.”

Captain Troll walked to the ladderway, glanced above at the hot sky, came back, and thrust his feet apart.

“I choose to sail,” he said. “I've already sent men for supplies. We can sail before nightfall.”

“Nightfall?” said Caleb. “'Tis too soon, Mr. Troll. There are certain things that must be done ere we sail.”

“Well, let's do them,” Troll said.

“No, 'tis something thou canst not do. Thou hast a practical turn of mind, Mr. Troll. What's needed here is the impractical. More the flighty sort, so to speak, that sees the bone beneath the flesh, the star behind the cloud.”

Troll glanced at me as if he thought I would know what Caleb was talking about. Disappointed, he came to a decision. At least he set his hat squarely upon his head, walked with measured steps to the ladderway, and disappeared above.

I should have known what Caleb meant to do. Since the log had been found and he had little interest in trying to recover Jeremy's body, there really was only one project left for him. But I did not know until he sent me flying off to fetch Old Man Judd that he meant to do something with his canoe.

“Gather thy best tools,” he told the old man, “and thy sharpest nails. No bent ones, mind thee, none drawn hastily from common wood for we undertake a most uncommon task. Likewise gather a goodly length of oakum and a brimming pot of pitch for we shalt require them.”

Judd did as he was told and within the hour we set out for the cove. The canoe was where we had left it, high above the tide, its odd-shaped lid, the packet of sea biscuits, and flask of water lying nearby.

With his hands clasped at his back and his head cocked to one side, Caleb strolled around the canoe—stalked is perhaps the better word—studying it from all angles, saying to himself, “Aye, 'tis the dark canoe, which comforted Queequeg as he lay upon the brink and in time bore good Ishmael safely homeward. Aye, 'tis the one, the one.”

Not until he had made a dozen circuits of the canoe did he turn to Judd. “Now where wouldst thou begin?” he asked. “Not from the beginning for it hath already a shape given by a master hand, proven seaworthy by the years and circumstance. What say about this, Judd?”

Thinking no doubt of Nantucket, Judd was for nailing the lid on at once.

Caleb looked askance, shook his shaggy head. “Nay, thy haste confounds me. Back the mainsail and plot a different course. Toward the north, Judd, the true, polar north.”

“What?” said Judd. “What do you aim to do with it?”

“Hast thou not been told already?” Caleb said, as though to a half-bright child. “To sail, Judd, upon the sea, the sea that lies beyond yon headland. This first. Then upon the airier seas that foam and swirl within the mind.”

“Well,” said Judd, “if such is the case we best had smooth her down a bit.”

“Aye, use a cautious hand. There's only one of this. Thou canst not make another should you try from now into eternity. Take care. Thinkest twice before thou unloose thy skills.”

With a slight shrug, Judd thought for a while. Then of a sudden, somehow caught up in the spirit of the task, he set to work. He worked slowly, as he had before when together we had removed the lid, filled the nail holes with putty, and planed all edges satin-smooth.

“Canst tie a Turk's head,” Caleb asked while we were rowing back to the ship at sundown, “the size to fit a grasping hand?”

“No,” I said, “but I can tie a bowline.”

“A good knot, but 'tis cumbersome to the eye. Judd, canst thou tie the Turk's head? Aye, so I thought. Thou hast tied many in thy day. Then have for me in the morning early fifteen such knots. I myself shalt tie the rest. Nathan here can lend a hand. Tom Waite also. And mind ye, line of the best quality, an arm in length, the bitter end worked with pitch, the other in a fulsome Turk's head.”