After the Limehouse stretch, we picked up a tug, and soon the Plummer was tied up at the London docks, which Tee said were the harbor side of the Bank of England and Leadenhall Street. On up the river was London Bridge; then, bending on around, was Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. That May 10 was a memorable day in my life.
Some three hours later, after we had been cleared by customs and immigration, it was time for Tee and the dog to depart. Though it was busy aboard ship, the bosun allowed me thirty minutes off to say my farewells. In all the excitement of arrival, there had been little time to think that I had indeed safely delivered W. L. Appleton. Intact. I was proud of that.
Soon we stood on the dock, just talking a minute prior to her getting carriage transportation on to Belgravia and that four-story house filled with servants. She said she could get home very easily, and not to worry further. I said good-bye to her, and to Boo, having fulfilled everything.
But she lingered on to say, "Wouldn't you like to see where I live?" There was a certain glint in her blue eyes. Purpose in the way she stood. Boo sat beside her feet, peering around at merrie old England.
Fearing further involvement that might lead almost anywhere, I said, "Tee, you've told me all about that house, and I'm going to be very busy in this port. The bosun said that the only time I'll have free will be Saturday afternoon and Sunday. And I haven't made my plans for those days."
The glint seemed to grow. She said slowly, "Ben, would you not like to see the Tower of London, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, the fish market at Billingsgate? Covent Garden? Ride on an omnibus and take a tunnel under the Thames? Go to a music hall..."
I gazed at her for a long time. Would it never end?
25
AS I COMPLETE this account of a hectic period in my boyhood, when the Mother Sea was laughing at me dawn to dark, the year is 1914, and I'm in the weathered shingle-roof house that John O'Neal built at Heron Head, North Carolina.
I'm sitting at the oak table, off the wreck of the Hermes, in the same chair I occupied when Mama and I occasionally had a festive supper with Teetoncey back in the winter of '98 and '99. The chest off the Minna Goodwin is within eyesight, and Reuben's Mattamuskeet buck head is still on the north wall here in the front room. Not much has changed in this old house, and that has been on purpose. Our plot of hammock land also looks about the same, and that bent oak, on which a hooty owl perched the night I was born, still clings to its roots at the head of our pathway.
Despite everything that's happened in the outside world, and I've seen a lot of it now, not much has changed on our Outer Banks. Everyone goes about his or her way in a caring fashion. Of course, ships still crash on our shores in gales of wind, but more are steamers than sailing vessels. That, we can't control.
There have been changes of a human type, though. Reuben came home from the seas three years ago and is now a dirt farmer in Beaufort County, over near Mineola. Happily married, at last, he has a fine country-girl wife and baby daughter. He's quite content to grow crops and raise chickens and milk a Guernsey cow, staying out of earshot of the surf. I see him now and then.
Keeper Filene Midgett died a few years back on an ebb tide and is now peacefully buried in Chicky ground, not too far from Mama and the two crosses of Tee's parents, with A for Appleton on them. Filene can watch his beloved and equally feared Atlantic Ocean from his site, and surely does. Jabez Tillett now commands Heron Head Lifesaving Station, and in his own quiet way, between eight-foot spits of chewing plug, runs it well. Mark Jennette is the keeper down at Chicky station, though he swears he's going back to sea on a turbine ship.
Of no surprise, Kilbie Oden went to the university at Chapel Hill and is now in finance, threatening to copy old man Vanderbilt up North. Frank Scarborough is teaching school down in Hatteras village.
My life has changed some, too, naturally. After thirteen years of voyaging, and having reached second mate's papers, I came home, at least temporarily, ten months ago to assume second-in-command of Heron Head station. Jabez will be retiring from the Lifesaving Service in three years, and I suppose I'll follow along behind Filene and Jabez, and so many others before them.
The reason I came home is the old reason. I swore I wouldn't get married until forty or so, but found myself taking the vows in 1910. It was a wearing-down process by a very skillful girl. But I don't really regret being worn down into matrimony. She gave up some things, too.
She's out in the kitchen now, big as a small barrel with our second child. Our first was born two years ago, a boy. I'm not sure he looks like me, but we called him Ben, anyway. He gets around pretty well on short, strong legs; even down toward the muddy Pamlico and that old dock, which I'm now repairing in spare time.
Lucky that we've got a big yellow hound to keep watch on that two-year-old. That hound I "shared" with Tee passed on to canine heaven in 1908 and is buried in Belgravia. Probably the first Banks hound that ever had the distinction of going to his rest in such a fancy place. This Lab we've got now is called Hans, brought over from England. Old Boo contaminated the breed despite all. Hans will never be a duck dog like his papa was at one point, but he has other talents. His mistress tells everyone he's an "extraaaaordinary guardian." So British.
I have to laugh about something else. Just a few minutes ago, Tee bundled the boy up, and he and Hans went off the steps and out into the yard. Tee called after them to say, "Now, don't go near the water, Benjamin," sounding just a little bit like the Widow O'Neal; such an echo from the past.
About the Author
Theodore Taylor
Acclaimed author Theodore Taylor was born in North Carolina and began writing at the age of thirteen, covering high school sports for a local newspaper. Before turning to writing full time, he was, among other things, a prizefighter's manager, a merchant seaman, a movie publicist, and a documentary filmmaker. The author of many books for young people, he is known for fast-paced, exciting adventure novels, including the Edgar Allan Poe award winner The Weirdo; Air Raid—Pearl Harbor!; and the bestseller The Cay, which won eight major literary awards, among them the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. Mr. Taylor lives near the ocean in Laguna Beach, California.
The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal Page 13
