Excerpts From  

Two Tankers Down

By Robert R. Frump

Copyright 2010

www.twotankersdown.com

 

(The Situation: Two tankers founder in the North Atlantic off Cape Cod as Coast Guardsmen attempt to launch small boats to rescue the officers and crew.)

 

Chapter Eight: Orders

With Webber

Sunday, February 18, 1952

A strange procession of vehicles crawled out from Chatham toward Nauset Inlet.  A DUKW and a Dodge four-wheel drive "power wagon" moved over the slippery beaches, buffeted by spray and wind.

Soon, they came up to where the Pendleton stern ought to be but they could see nothing.  They were near Nauset Beach, above the Mayo's Duck Farm, atop a hill. 

Then for a moment, the blow broke and the snow and drizzle slackened.  And through that hole in the weather, Webber could see the ghostly outline of the stern of the Pendleton.  She was huge, even a quarter mile offshore.  He thought she looked as if she were galloping along the huge waves.  Dark and sinister; that's how Bernie saw  her. The stern sent up froth and foam each time it rose and fell in the seas. 

Through the wind they could hear a whistle, Tiny Myers and his crewmen, pulling down on the lanyard.  Four blasts and then a pause.  Four short blasts and then a pause.

Webber could not answer them. No way he could shoot a line to them at that distance in these winds.  No chance of a rescue via line and trolley using the old Lyle Gun and the "Breaches Buoy" method.  

They did not even have a radio.  The best thing they could do was get back to the Coast Guard station fast.  They slipped and slid back to Chatham to confirm the sighting. 

        And Webber could hear how it was all shaping up on the radio once he got there.  He heard how Bangs and his boat were like a ping-pong ball.  Deployed here to the Fort Mercer, there to the Pendleton bow, here to the Pendleton stern, then back to the Pendleton bow.

         And there grew in him a sickening feeling.  Up until now, he had worried about his friends out there in the boat.  But now he knew what was coming his way.  Cluff had no one for the Pendleton stern.  Cluff was delaying it, but Webber knew this assignment was coming his way.

         He knew what Cluff was thinking.  They arrived back at the station dripping wet and told Cluff what they had seen.

Cluff was silent for minutes.   And then Cluff, knowing he was almost certainly pronouncing a death sentence for the young man, said slowly in his Virginia accent.

         "Webber, pick yourself a crew. Ya-all got to take the 36500 out over the bar and assist that thar ship, ya-heah?"[i]

         Webber heard all right, and a sinking feeling came to his stomach.  No chance at the Chatham Bar.  No chance!  And why me?  Why me?  My wife is sick.  I haven't spoken to her in two days. Why me?

         Instead, Webber said, "Yes Sir, Mr. Cluff, I'll get ready."                

         Bernie Webber  knew exactly who he wanted for the crew, all men he had worked with before.  The only problem was, none of them were there.  There wasn't even a full crew left in the station.  Just a junior engineer, one seaman and a guy from a light ship who was in transit, waiting for the storm to break to go out to his ship.  He wasn't even a rescue guy.  Another reason not to go.  Another reason the mission was impossible.  He could tell Cluff that.

"Hey Webb," said Seaman Richard P. Livesey. "I'll go out with you if you want."

[ii]          Engineman Andrew J. Fitzgerald  and Irving Maske the light ship guy, offered the same deal: Bernie, if you need us, we'll go.

Well, hell. He knew Livesey.  A funny guy.  People sometimes didn't take him that seriously around the station sometimes because he was always joking, but Webber had seen him in action and knew he was a good man.  He had this odd habit, a humble one, forget about the jokes and stuff.  Whenever they finished a patrol when Livesey was on board, no matter how trivial or routine, Livesey would have a single parting phrase to Bernie.

"Thanks, Webb," he would say quietly.  And there was no hint of a joke in it, no irony.  Livesey was a good man.  He got excited and enthusiastic even if they were running supplies to a lighthouse.

And the other guys?  Well, he didn't know the lightship guy at all, except that he cooked for them sometimes – and he was pretty good.[iii]  Fitzgerald he knew was first rate.

Not his regular crew.  But they were willing.  They were able.  He would be lying if he used them as an excuse not to go out.

Solemnly, Webber lead his little band of volunteers out to the CG 36500 mooring and along the way a friend and neighbor, a veteran fishermen named John Stello, hailed Webber.  Stello had a reputation as a fearless risk taker, a man who went out anywhere there were fish any time in any weather.

         "You guys going out in this?"  Stello looked worried.

Webber nodded grimly.

         "You guys better get ...lost ... before you get too far out," Stello said.  In other words, say you gave it a try, then come back. 

This was about as official cultural permission to play it safe as Bernie could get.  The roughest toughest fisherman in a tough fishing community was telling him to take a dive, to hit the mattress and stay down.  There would be no goading slurs if Bernie did that.

"Call Miriam," Webber bellowed back. [iv]

 Let my wife know what's up. In so many words: tell her how I died.

Stello thought about that one.    The upside of making that call.  Tell Miriam now?  Let her know she's a widow, or about to be?  Or give her a few more hours thinking her husband might be alive and well.   He did not tell Webber yes or no about that one.  Miriam knew how it worked on nights like this, that there was always a chance her husband was at risk.   Stello would  have to give it some thought.  Webber knew he'd do the right thing.  They were both men of the sea and he knew Stello would see that Miriam learned of his fate appropriately and would handle it right.

         For Webber, Chatham was like a snow globe, with him inside it;  a village with small cottages and glowing lights that showed through the snow.  He loved this   place.  It was magical.

         They rowed out in the dory with no problems and clambered on the CG 36500.  The 90 horsepower motor sputtered and spat and Webber steered it from the aft-most position.   One could ski behind a 90 horsepower engine attached to a normal boat but that was not the job of a lifeboat.  The job of a lifeboat was to get there and back, carrying a load slowly and surely.   

Well, Webber thought, given everything, this is the boat I want.  I could not ask for anything better.  And I know the bar as well as anyone.  Cluff's choice made sense for a moment.

         Then they were heading at 8 knots through the protected harbor, already soaked to the skin and shivering, facing darkness broken only by the white of the blizzard.  The shore looked like a Christmas card.  Lights of houses soft through the snow.  Blurry harbor lights.

Webber keyed the radio mike and checked in.  His confidence had waivered.  He was positive they would receive orders to return.

         "Proceed as directed," the radio crackled.

         And in the dark, with the lights of the town of Chatham muffled by the blizzard, the young men did an odd thing.  One of them began humming an old hymn, someone picked up the words and they all began singing.  Webber did not even recall knowing the words before then.

 

"Rock of ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide thyself in thee;

Let the water and the b blood,

From thy wounded side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Save from wrath and make pure.

 

 

         The religious solemnity of the hymn then gave way to a more sentimental, secular tune.  "Harbor Lights" had been a huge hit in 1950.  Now, the young men sang the verses they remembered.

 

"I saw the harbor lights

They only told me we were parting

The same old harbor lights that once brought you to me

I watched the harbor lights

How could I help if tears were starting
Goodbye to tender nights beside the silv'ry sea"

 

 

 

 

Neither song was a real upper.  Not exactly the "Flight of the Valkeries."  But both were authentic of the feelings aboard the boat.  The songs comforted the men.

The  CG 3500 reached Morris Island and now they could hear the water roaring on Chatham Bar.  Webber called in again, thinking,  Come on, come on, recall us, return to base.  This is impossible

         "Imperative you continue to sea,"  the radio crackled back.

[v]        They could not see the waves ahead, just hear the crash and bang ripple down the shore in front of them.  The noise was fearsome.  Breakers of this sort sound as if a thousand forklift trucks are dropping a thousand loads of lumber in succession from a height left to right across miles of the shore.

         Webber maneuvered the little boat closer, into the vortex of the noise.  Still they could not see the waves, only hear the explosion of thundering surf.

It was decision time.  Could they make it?

Hell no, they couldn't make it. 

          Stand at the seashore as the breakers hit your ankles.  Or your knees.  Catch a three-foot one at your waist.  Feel that force.  Take a four-foot breaker at your chest. 

Then imagine monster breakers twice your size, some three-times your size, tall as a house, hammering hard on the sand. Pounding the sand.  Tons heavy.  Not the hammer coming down.  The anvil.  

This is what they faced.  Anyone could see they couldn't make it.  The boat would be thrown back by tons of water, smashed to splinters on the sand with the men inside.

         And Webber thought: No one will blame us if we turn back.  I'll just tell them we couldn't make it.  Everyone heard what Stello said and he's one of the toughest fishermen about. No one would criticize him.  Stello had given him the code words.  Bernie knew it was a pass from the culture.  No loathsome slurs here.  All Bernie had to do was say they were lost.  Could not get their bearings. 

Webber's whole body shivered and did not stop.  Take it a step further, he said to himself.  Suppose we survive the bar?  He only had a magnetic compass, no radar.  They'd never find the ship. There probably weren't any survivors on the stern.  Even if he did risk the lives of his crew to cross the bar, this would be senseless.  They'd never find the Pendleton.

         He would turn back now.  Why waste the lives of these good men on his boat.  He was responsible for three souls here.  They were looking at him for leadership now, he knew that, out of the corners of their eyes.  They were hoping they'd turn back too.

         Then he thought:  Who am I?  What's my job?  The question came to him in a calm way and the answer came in the same manner with great clarity.

         "I am a Coast Guard first class boatswain mate...  My job is the sea and to save those in peril upon it..."

         And the tradition of the Coast Guard, the pure simple heroic tradition of saving lives, the tradition and the "book" propelled Webber.  Every Coast Guardsmen who had trained him, encouraged him, drilled into him the tradition, every man who trained the men who trained him, every one of them was there with him.[vi]  Spoke to him.   The Landry.  Newcomb. Masachi.  The old guy at the light tower.  Bangs.  Cluff.  All the way back to Pea Island and the lifesavers who coined the phrase.  Back to Etheridge. 

You have to go out, you do not have to come back.  

         Webber keyed the mike.

          "We'll try," he said.  

         He still could not see the bar.  He could only hear it.  Feel it.  He did not sense any heroic spirit.  No bravado.  He felt resigned.  He was like a soldier ordered into battle, into a hopeless charge.  He had his orders.  He had his discipline.   Now he would die. 

He was harnessed into the boat by a rig that lashed him to the wheel.  His men had no harnesses.  They all crowded into the coxswains partition behind the windshield.  Webber alone wore no lifejacket as it restricted his ability to steer.  Well, at least they'll find their bodies, he thought. 

         "Hang on!" Webber yelled to his crew then, and then gunned the engine and the CG 36500 turned at full speed into the darkness, into the vortex of the horrible, growling Chatham Bar.

         The first wave seized  the CG 36500 with no respect at all for its ton of bronze.  It flipped the boat, her ballast and all four men completely clear of the water as if she were just a flimsy balsa wood model, and flung her back toward the harbor.  

         They were airborne, hanging there above the monster waves, clear of the water, a part of the snowy blizzard and the air now, little prop speeding, whining, clear of the water, biting only air.   The hang time seemed an eternity.

         Then they hammered down hard in the trough of the wave, hard on the boat's side.  They were far, far over on their side.  Too far over.  Webber struggled in the rear to turn the bow into the next monster, try to meet it head on. [vii]

         They were not going to make it.   Already, the curl of the breaker hung above the boat, and the base of the wave too was crashing, crushing down on CG 36500.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine: Stranded

  Feb. 18, 1952 – Monday, Feb. 19, 1952
Onboard the Bow of the Fort Mercer

In the chart room of the bow section of the Fort Mercer, the general alarm – a klaxon like siren – continued to sound, powered by the emergency batteries on board the bow.   None of the men seemed to notice the annoying noise.  It was just a part of the chaos.  Then Second officer Fahner snapped the alarm switch off. [viii] The general alarm was loud enough to let men on board the ship know there was a problem, but not loud enough to serve as any sort of rescue-us signal to searchers. 

The officers took stock.  They had no food, no radio, no water, no flares. 

What they did have was a blinker light to communicate to any ships that came near.  In the stern section, the blinker would have done no one any good.  No one aft knew code.  The officers were engineers.  Only the deck officers and radioman – "Sparks" as he was called on every ship -- could blink back and forth Morse code.  It was terribly old-fashioned even then, but it was the most modern technology the men on the bow possessed.

And soon, they would have a chance to use it.  Out of the gloom, they saw ship lights.  It had been hours since the wreck.  Out of the gloom and the spits of snow and foam and rain sailed the Short Splice, a navy utility ship.  And it was blinking out rapid code to them – a series of dots and dashes via its blinker – about 5 p.m.       

For Fahner, it was a joy to see Sparks and the chief mate work their battery-powered blinker – little more than a flashlight.  Geez, these guys were pros.  Fahner knew some code but Sparks and the mate?  It was as if Fahner spoke high school French and these guys were  Parisians.

A burst of blinks, of dashes and dots of electronic light, would flash from the gray shadow of the navy ship and Sparks would translate.

This is the Navy ship Short Splice.

The Chief would flash back a detailed report of their status.  No food, warmth or water.  Fear capsizing.  Help?

No good for us to try, the Short Splice winked back.  We're not equipped for rescue. 

But Coast Guard cutters are on the way.  A boat is on the way.   Estimated time of arrival is three hours for the Coast Guard.  Hang in there.  We'll stand by.

A cheer and groan rose within the men on the bow.  Help was on the way.   This was good.  You couldn't argue with that.

But three hours to wait?  It was cold and getting colder.  Hypothermia and frostbite were taking their tolls.  The men could not remain functional for much longer.   It had been nearly five hours. Most of them were drenched.  They'd try putting their hands in their pockets, in their pants, to warm up their fingers and restore feeling to them.   It would work for a while, but even in their pockets their hands grew colder – a sure sign their overall body temperature was dropping.  Captain Paetzel still was without shoes or boots and his feet were frostbitten pegs now, with little feeling in them.

It was 5 pm and light was fading.  So the rescue ships, when they arrived, would be approaching in the dark.[ix] 

Still, they were glad to see her when she arrived.  The cutter Yakutat with Commander Joseph W. Naab in command,  beat the Short Splice estimate by about half an hour and came into sight, well lit, around 7:30 pm.[x]

Fahner could not keep track of the code as it flashed between the two ships.  It went something like this.

This is the Coast Guard cutter Yakutat.  What is your situation?

And Sparks and the Chief let them know. 

Dots and dashes flashed back between the cutter and the half ship and the short version of the long message from the cutter was this.  We're going to fire lines to you.  Then we'll take you  off using trolleys, or haul you off with rafts.   Stay inside as we shoot the lines.

 

Soon, there were muffled explosions from the cutter as their line cannons detonated and shot out lead laced ropes to the Fort Mercer.

Seven times they fired.  They tried all angles.  They gauged the wind, the seas, the snow as best they could.  Seven times,  the spray and wind carried off the lines; none landed. [xi]

The eighth time seemed the charm.  The line passed over the Fort Mercer bow section and stayed there.  Problem was: it landed in the radio antennae above the bridge house.

The men on the bow could see it.  They set out to retrieve it.

Huge waves!  Wind of 50 mph and more.  Three times they set out to retrieve the line.  Three times they were driven back.  It was just too dangerous.  Water was sweeping the bridge housing.  The bow was listing more to starboard now as well.  The bow had the floating action of a bottom-weighted fishing bobber.  The front of the bow section and its empty tanks floated free of the fray, for the most part, above the deckhouse, which was regularly dunked and drenched by the sea. [xii]

This was a heartbreaking business for Naab.   He was meant to save men's lives.  That was his duty.  But he could not put a single line aboard.  He could see that the men would not last much longer where they were. [xiii]

And so it was the officers of the Yakutat blinkered over the question:  Can you make it to the forward-most bow area?  You'll have better protection there.  And we'll have better access to you.  Forget about us shooting lines in this dark soupy weather.  We'll float some lighted rafts down to you.  But you have to get out of the bridge and down to the rail level some how.

Great idea. How?

There was no longer any interior passage.  Go down the stairs to the main deck?  The passageways were flooded, just as the captain's quarters had been.  The exterior ladders had been ripped loose and carried away by the waves.

If they had some rope, they might make it out the bridge windows or off the deck or out the portal on the side where the wind was not so hard.

 If they had a rope.  Might as well say, if they had a helicopter.  Better yet, wings. They had neither rope nor helicopter.  No wings either. 

And Culver, the quartermaster said, guys, let's tie the blankets together.  It was like the classic escape caper where one ties sheets and blankets together and shinnies to the ground from a third floor window.

Fahner thought about that.  He fingered the blankets.  They would have to rip them and tie them.  He doubted they would hold up – particularly for Paetzel, who was a heavy guy.

Fahner fished out the signal flags from the bridge.  These were the lines and the flags that were run up the mast to show various states of the ship or the weather.   They were tough cords, tough flags.  They could use them instead of the blankets.

Everyone agreed in an instant and they set about the work.   The chief and Sparks blinkered back the plan.  All of them were happy to be doing something, and doing something they knew: knots and lines were a primary skill of seamen.  All of them, Captain through the ordinary seamen, set to work on forming this makeshift line.

It seemed good. It seemed strong, one half hour later when they were finished. [xiv]

And aboard the Yakutat, the rescuers were busy tying their own knots and lines.   This was a makeshift effort they were assembling:  A line of rafts, lighted, tied together by lines that were also lighted.  They would use almost every piece of rope and line onboard the Yak to assemble the rescue apparatus. [xv]

If the men reached the deck level, the Yakutat would drift this line of rafts in close to them.  The men could jump and swim to the rafts and lines.  Or if lucky, if the drift was right, they could jump into the rafts.

If the men reached the deck level. If the signal line rope held.

It was well past 9 pm in the evening and the storm was not slackening.  The men had been exposed now for more than nine hours to freezing temperatures and raking, wet winds.

 

Fahner looked down the side of the bridge house.  It was a long drop down to a catwalk that led forward.   Peering through the spray, he could see that there were four grids missing on the catwalk.  He rethought the entire idea. 

So cold.  He had no choice.  It was the last thing to do.  That is how he saw it and thought about it.  The last thing to do.  No choice now.  They would die on that bridge.  Slowly by exposure.  Or quickly by drowning.  The starboard list was greater now.  The bow section was tilted up but increasingly tilted over.  By this time, their counterparts on the Pendleton bow were dead.  Fahner did not know that, but the Yakutat officers almost certainly did.

 

The chief mate Jack Brewer was the first man down the rope.   He moved through a large porthole on the bridge, dangled for a moment, and went down the line.  Waves nipped at his heels, but his feet caught the catwalk and he was down.  Perfect.

This gave Fahner strength and hope.  He took the line that lashed him to the third mate and removed it.  And without a lifejacket, he too, went down the line of cord and flags. 

His legs flailed out for the catwalk.  They caught.  He gained purchase.   He was down.  And then he was moving forward.   Forward and up.  No time to stay and help the next man down.  You had to hurry forward, scurry over those missing grids, or the waves would catch you.

Third down was the third mate, and Guilden too made it and rushed to Fahner.  They reattached the line that bound them together.   Both men were high up on the bow now, and looked down the ramped deck of the Fort Mercer toward the bobbing bridge house.  Then they opened the carpentry shed on the bow and began looking for a lifejacket for Fahner – and anything else dry that could keep them warm. 

And so the men descended from the bridge to the main deck level.   Paetzel and the radioman were the last two left. Paetzel was big, with a comfortable layer of fat to keep him warm.  Sparks was very thin with no insulation from the cold.  Still it was hard to tell who was shivering the hardest.

"Captain I'm not going to make it.," Sparks said to Paetzel.

  "You'll make it!" Paetzel replied.    "Hold on until you reach the catwalk."

Sparks climbed through the porthole and hung onto the metal of the porthole for a long time before grabbing the line.  He stared down at the catwalk, trying to time the waves.   They were perhaps 30 to 40 feet apart, the wave cycles, and the timing needed to be right. 

Down the line Sparks went.  He saw a lull in the waves and descended toward the catwalk.

The wave cycle was right.  But he missed the catwalk with his legs.  He landed on the deck itself with no purchase, no leverage, no point to catch himself.    He flailed on the rope as the wave cycle, which had receded, built again and blew up a big monster that washed over him and the catwalk.

And Paetzel could see it all happen from above.  He could see that Sparks held onto that line for a good long time before the sea just took him and washed him off to his death.

Paetzel did not waste time or second-guess his own descent.  Death was certain in the bridge house.  He ducked out through the portal, swung his considerable weight over onto the side of the ship, and nimbly enough for an overweight out of shape old seadog with frostbitten feet, caught the catwalk and moved forward. [xvi]

What the men saw then was both phantasmagoric and utterly beautiful. The cutter  had pulled upwind of the Fort Mercer bow.  The Yakutat rescuers had tied a string of well-lighted rafts together and floated them down from windward.  All of this in a roaring blizzard.  All in the dark of night.

The rafts drifted down, lights glowing through the snow, like someone's fantasy of a Christmas procession. Luminaries on First Night.   On the forecastle, the men had a chance now to strike out for the rafts out there in the water.   The Yakutat had said to jump when the rafts got close. 

Fahner and Guilden were in the forecastle carpentry shop rummaging for a lifejacket.  Fahner found one and the two officers, literally bound together, undid the line between them.

Paetzel was maneuvering up the tricky catwalk. [xvii]

And the chief mate and the two seamen looked at the line of rafts, the rescue processional.  Up above, coast guard planes dropped flares.  Lights cut through the motes of snow and rain.  And down drifted the rafts towards them, even with the bow now. 

Was this close enough?  How far away were they?   When should they jump.

Aboard the Yakutat, Naab watched with utter dread.  They had been positioning the rafts to drift alongside the bow section, to get the rafts in close.  This  was easier said than done.  The winds, the waves, the snow and rain all made it difficult to maneuver and drift the line down in the dark. 

And at precisely the wrong moment, the line to the rafts gave way.  Just parted and let the rescue processional loose into the storm.  [xviii]

The rafts swooped sharply toward the bow section.  Naab did not even have time to warn the seamen.  The cutter crew watched in horror, each of them thinking some version of, "Don't jump."

The chief mate and the seamen figured this was it.  The line of rafts raced toward the bow section and came even with it.  It was now or never. They did not hesitate.  They had seen Sparks washed to his death.  All three men climbed the railing of the Fort Mercer bow and jumped for the rafts.  Only Higgins, the ordinary seaman, held back.

Paetzel and Fahner met at the forecastle.  Where's the chief and the other men?  They asked each other the same question because none of them had seen the men jump.  Only Higgins was left.      They jumped, he told them.

 

Fahner looked out at the rafts.  Did they make it?  No way.  No way they could have, he thought.  The rafts to his eye were 300 yards away across an expanse of mountainous seas.  You got five minutes in these waters, he figured.  Five minutes before you either drowned or succumbed to hypothermia. [xix]

As if to confirm it all, the rafts were quickly carried away and with them went every piece of line and equipment the Yakutat carried.  So the cutter chased after her runaway rafts.  The rescuers needed that equipment and there was always a chance, too.  Always a chance that one of the men had made it, climbed into the raft, was riding out the waves now.

It took the Yakutat the better part of two hours to recover her gear.  All this time, the men on the bow hunkered down, finding whatever warmth they could.  The top of the bow was more stable; it was not warmer.  Paetzel found a flag and draped it over his head.  His feet were still shoeless.  The men took turns rubbing his feet, trying to keep the blood circulating there. 

But  increasingly the men felt more hopeless.  The chief and the radioman both were gone now – their aces on the blinker and code.  There was little they could say now to the cutter and less they could understand as to the cutter's intention.

The Yakutat rounded in the water, her gear secure and headed back to the bow of the Fort Mercer.  She got as close as she could.  The thought may have been to hail the survivors via loudspeaker, tell them the cutter would stand off until morning.  

Higgins interpreted it as another rescue effort.  The cutter seemed convincingly close.  He jumped the rail and leapt for the cutter, falling into the chaos of ocean between the ship and the half-ship.  He was gone in ten seconds.  No one had a chance to reach him.  The sea just took him and there was no sight of his orange life jacket after one cycle of waves.

The Yakutat backed away then.

The cutter turned to and left the Fort Mercer.  It was well past midnight and there seemed little she could do.  The storm was not slackening.  The flares from the plane comprised mood lighting for a horror scene, not visibility for a rescue.  The survivors would have to hang on until daylight. Further rescues would lead to more harm now.  They had to wait for better conditions. Naab felt the worse hour of his life as he realized this, then snapped back to command.  There is nothing more we can do now, he thought.  We need to just wait until daylight.  His own crew had taken a beating in these seas.  Everyone was exhausted.   They needed some rest.  Naab prayed that the old hulk would still be floating.

The four men, Paetzel, Fahner, 3d mate Guilden and Turner, the purser, watched as the rescuers retreated.  Where the hell were they going?  Guilden found a bell near the forepeak and began ringing it.  Paetzel, in the glare of the flares from the plane, took off the flag from his head and waved it wildly skyward.  [xx]

We're still here, they were saying.  We're still alive.

But the plane stopped dropping flares and departed soon after.  The Yakutat was a good seven miles away.  

Before he turned in, Naab had a thought for what the Yakutat might try next.  What they needed, Naab thought, was a small boat.      And someone like Webber and Bangs.  Who did they have?   Everyone pointed to Ensign William R. Kiley, from Long Branch, New Jersey.  He was a big man built like a moose, some said, and he could handle small boats. [xxi]

 What did they have?  A Monomoy surfboat.  A craft even more ancient than the CG 36500.  It had been designed to row through the waves that crashed near Monomoy outside of Chatham, to shoot through such perilous conditions as the Chatham Bar.  All the modern technology, and this 19^th Century boat was his best shot, Naab thought.

In the morning, they could see the Fort Mercer bow fine.  The weather had slacked.  Barely.  But it had slacked and if nothing else, visibility was better. 

What they saw was not encouraging. 

The Fort Mercer bow, already at an angle of 45 degrees stern to bow, now was at a 40-degree angle to starboard.  It was pitching up and over.  Water  was flooding inside the buoyant tanks that remained.  Something had stressed more the cold steel.  Something was letting water in and weighting the ship over to the right side, and soon, to capsizing.

Moose Kiley had to be damned good in that boat.

 

Order now

www.twotankersdown.com