by Philip Roy
My grandfather looked out the window.
“Could be a squall this evening,” he said.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be a fisherman,” I repeated.
My grandfather picked up his lunch and rain gear.
“Well, I’m off to the wharf.”
I turned and looked at my grandmother. Awkwardly, she caught my eye.
“Don’t be late for school,” she said suddenly.
I sighed deeply.
“Well,” said Ziegfried later, “you tried, Al. You were honest.”
“It was like talking to a brick wall.”
“When people build up expectations over a long time it can be pretty hard to lose them. How would you feel if we had to scrap the submarine?”
“Terrible! I would feel absolutely terrible!”
“Me too, Al. But you see what I mean.”
“Yes, I see what you mean. But I still think it’s not right for my grandfather to decide my life for me.”
“Well, with that, Al, I agree. I only hope your grandfather comes to see it that way before it’s too late.”
We hooked up the periscope in the winter and had fun raising it above the plastic shed and looking out to sea. We took turns spotting ships and fishing boats and even the occasional seal. We also installed the sonar system but couldn’t test it until the sub was in the water. Not a day went by that I didn’t wonder when that would be, but I never mentioned it. Ziegfried was as anxious as I was; there was no need to share my impatience.
In the winter I trained on the stationary bike. Ziegfried attached weight to the propeller shaft to simulate the drag of water. I got lots of exercise. Ziegfried tried the bike too, but after fifteen minutes he was praising the virtues of engines again. I laughed.
Every dry-dock test we could do we did do, such as running the engine and charging the batteries, then running the propeller on battery power alone. We also tested the bicycle’s capacity for juicing up the batteries, which wasn’t exactly thrilling. We discovered it took roughly ten hours of pedalling to charge the batteries enough to run the sub for one hour. That didn’t seem like a fair trade to me, but Ziegfried pointed out that I would be propelling the sub and juicing the batteries at the same time, so it was not as bad as it seemed.
In the winter we completed the electrical, heating and lighting systems and tested them. We hooked up a shortwave radio for contact between the sub and junkyard, although I would have to be on the surface to send or receive signals. We sent away for books on navigation, ship-to-ship communication and ocean currents, and we studied and discussed them. I had to learn Morse code and how to read flags. I had no idea I would have to study so much, but Ziegfried said you can’t go to sea if you can’t communicate in the language of mariners. As with everything else, there was more preparation required, more factors to consider, and more work to do than I ever dreamed. It always seemed endless to me and I feared that the sub, and I, would never leave shore.
But it was not so.
Chapter Seven
By April, the ice was gone and I was down at Deep Cove, sticking my toes in the water, trying to hurry along the warming process. Work on the sub was at a difficult stage for me — the stage of ironing out the kinks. Everything had the appearance of being more or less finished, but this was precisely when Ziegfried was the fussiest, and he meticulously went over the order and functioning of every single item in the sub — with a patience I found painful to observe. There was little for me to do besides study the mariner manuals. If Ziegfried tested a system, and it worked, why would he have to test it again, and again and again? But he was insatiable in his need to test the equipment. I had long ago learned to bite my tongue, but I couldn’t do anything about the painful expression on my face. After all, it was less than two months to the end of school, my fourteenth birthday . . . and my grandfather’s expectation of my appearance on his boat. Ziegfried knew all of this, but made it clear the sub would never leave the yard until he was confident everything was in proper working order.
“Do you know why most of the early subs failed?” he said, as he watched the gauges in the air-compressors rise during a test and I sat behind him and fidgeted nervously with my hands.
“Lack of testing?” He shook his head.
“Leaky valves. The builders just didn’t know enough about water pressure. They constructed valves that couldn’t take the wear and tear of the sea. Many sailors lost their lives because of a space between fittings no thicker than a quarter. I’ve read all about it. There’s no room for error, Al. As they say at the American submarine academy, the sea doesn’t care if you are sincere.”
I knew he was always right about these things; it was just so difficult when the deadline was so close.
On the 1st of May, Ziegfried gave me an early birthday present. I came into the yard after school and saw a box with ribbons resting on the stationary bike.
“What’s that?”
“A present.”
“For who?”
“For you.”
“But it’s not my birthday.”
“It will be. Anyway, you need it now. Go ahead. Open it.” I tore off the ribbon and opened it up. Inside was a black spongy suit; feet, gloves and headpiece fell out. “What’s this?”
“A wetsuit.”
My eyes opened wide.
“A wetsuit! Wow! Hey! I could go diving right now. I won’t get too cold. Wow! Thank you. I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Go down to the water and try it out. Take the belt that’s hanging on the chair. Without that you won’t sink. That suit is pure buoyancy.”
“I will. Thank you so much. It is the nicest present I ever received.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I took the suit and belt and hurried down to Deep Cove. It took nearly half an hour to get into the suit the first time. Then I couldn’t hear anything but my own breathing. It was so stiff I felt like a space man walking across the beach. I stepped out over the stones and let the icy water soak into the suit. At first it was very cold, but warmed up quickly with my body’s heat. As the suit absorbed water it lost its stiffness and I could move freely about. With a grin I started to swim towards the drop-off.
The water was about ten feet deep. I was so enjoying the wetsuit that I never bothered to look ahead, and nearly swam straight into something big and black. I lifted my head just three feet away and got the biggest scare of my life. For once, I really panicked. I spun around and raced back to shore as fast as I could. I reached the shallows and ran up the beach, not the least bit careful where my feet landed. I turned around and stared at the water. Nothing had followed me. Then, ever so slightly, I saw a swelling just beneath the surface. It wasn’t moving, but the waves cresting over it revealed a large mass. I climbed the bluff to take a better look.
Something was in the water but it was not moving by itself. Likely, it was dead. By its size it looked like a whale. Whales had washed up in other places. This must have been what it was.
What a fright it had given me. How disappointing to have panicked. That didn’t seem like the thing an explorer would do. I was so proud that Ziegfried thought I was brave. Here now, I had run out of the ocean like a chicken. I wanted to redeem myself, but, in truth, I was afraid to go back in the water.
I’ve got to do this, I thought. What explorer is afraid of a dead whale?
For fifteen minutes I just stared, hoping the whale would wash up by itself. But it didn’t. Okay, I thought. I can do this. I am going to swim out there and look at that whale and do my diving just as I planned.
I immersed again and started to swim slowly towards the whale. My heart beat loudly at all kinds of unhappy possibilities. Perhaps the whale was not dead, just sleeping. Perhaps it would grab me and carry me out to sea. I knew that wasn’t very realistic; whales were gentle creatures. At least that’s what you always heard.
Fifty feet away it looked enormous. My heart beat so loudly I had to stop. Sudd
enly the thought of riding around in a tiny submarine through the vast, dark ocean seemed a lot more dangerous. But a huge sense of disappointment came over me when I thought that, so I swam a little closer, then stopped and listened to my heart pounding. I swam a few feet closer, then stopped. A few feet more and stopped again. Now I could see the whole whale clearly. Probably it was dead, but what if it were just sleeping and I startled it awake and it accidentally crushed me against the rocks trying to escape the shallow water? I decided to swim around it. But which end, the head or tail? I chose the tail.
As I went around the whale I was suddenly filled with sadness. It was almost as if I were staring at a dead person. On the other side, I stopped and stared for about five minutes. I was happy for having conquered my fear, but felt terribly sorry for the whale.
At the drop-off, the wire was still attached to the buoy. I breathed deeply and dove to fifty feet without any trouble. But the wetsuit was tricky: one minute you were warm enough; the next, an icy shiver rushed through your body. After two more dives I decided it was enough excitement for one day.
On the way back in, I swam right up to the whale and touched it. Its skin was hard, not soft and rubbery at all, but hard, like wood, and scaly, with barnacles. I swam around the head but got a fright at one of its eyes. It was dead, surely, but something about its eye spooked me — its wildness maybe, or perhaps because it came from the depths of another world. I felt deeply sorry for it, and told it so, then swam back to shore.
I went back to see Ziegfried before going home. He felt sad for the whale, too, he said, but was more surprised I had gone back out.
“All by yourself? You went back out all by yourself and touched the whale and everything?”
He shook his head back and forth.
“You’re as bold as a man could be, Al. It’s no wonder your soul rebels at the idea of working on a fishing boat — you’ve got greater things in you, much greater things.”
I smiled.
“The wetsuit is really nice.”
“I’m glad. I give you a wetsuit and you go out and find a whale. Hah!”
“But I’m worried that people will see the whale on the beach,” I said, “and take an interest in Deep Cove — just at the time we might be wanting to launch the sub.”
I studied his face for any reaction to the suggestion the sub might be ready that soon.
“Well, yes, you’re right. They will certainly see the whale. And yes, it could become a problem for us if people start hanging around the cove. There are other places to launch the sub, I suppose, but none so close. But let’s not worry too much about what might happen. Let’s deal with what happens when it does.”
I agreed. At least he was concerned about the launching.
Chapter Eight
The whale washed up on the beach and drew lots of attention. Crews came from TV stations and interviewed local fishermen and filmed everything. I watched the filming on the beach, then saw it on the news, where, to my surprise, everything was changed. In the first place, Deep Cove was an isolated, rocky cove where no one ever went, except me. On TV they made it look like a favourite beach. They suggested the fishermen spent weekends there with their families. I had to laugh; none of the fishermen could even swim.
Then, just as I feared, people talked about the schooner and made it sound like more than it was. She went down in a terrible storm hundreds of years ago, they said. Many people lost their lives. I knew that no one had died. Worst of all: they said the schooner was carrying a secret cargo but was sunken so deep and was surrounded by such a terrible undertow it was impossible to reach her. One fisherman said that nobody knew how deep the ocean was at Deep Cove but it was probably unfathomable. Another hinted that maybe the Loch Ness monster was down there. I burst out laughing when I heard that. But what really surprised me was how the TV gave as much attention to the deep and mysterious cove and its sunken ship — which was mostly untrue — as it did to the dead whale on the beach, which was true.
For a few weeks there were people hanging around the cove, which was frustrating. I had to dive early in the mornings, before school. For a few days I couldn’t dive at all, because the fishermen had to cut up the whale. Otherwise, it would rot and the cove would stink terribly all summer. So I waited until the whale was butchered and the tide washed the beach clean.
May passed so slowly it was painful. Then, in the first week of June, my grandfather gave me an early birthday present and told me to open it right away so I could get used to it — a pair of boots for the fishing boat. I said thank you quietly and put the boots in my room.
“You’d better wear those boots around for a week or two,” he said, “so that you’re good and used to them.”
I just dropped my head. In the second week of June I carried my tent out to the woods and cleared a space for fires. I didn’t tell anyone, not even Ziegfried. Every day I dropped off a few cans of food and spare clothes and my sleeping bag. I took a large waterproof tarp from the junkyard and hung it above the tent to ensure complete dryness. Lastly, I brought out a radio and my mariner manuals.
In the third week of June, school ended and I turned fourteen. On Sunday, my grandfather told me to get to bed early because we would go fishing first thing in the morning. I felt stomach-sick all day. In the evening I returned to the house, wrote my grandparents a long letter in which I thanked them for all the love and care they had given me all those years. I apologized for leaving and hoped they would forgive me for following a life of my own choosing. I concluded by promising to write letters regularly and to come back and visit before long. I left the letter on my bed and went out to the woods.
During the first night I could hardly sleep. I made a fire and a pot of tea and sat and poked the coals with a stick. I thought of all the adventures lying ahead of me. I wanted to sail every ocean and explore every island and continent. It would be dangerous sometimes, I knew. I might even die young through some unforeseen accident, or at the hands of modern-day pirates, but as I stared into the dancing flames I felt a wonderful certainty for the direction I had chosen for my life.
In the morning I went to the junkyard as usual. Ziegfried was installing a tiny electric motor to retract a floatable cable that would serve as a radio antenna when the sub was submerged. He knew it was the day I was expected on the fishing boat and he eyed me closely, but didn’t say anything. Neither did I. I knew it was important to show that my actions were my own.
On the second day it was different. I had taken a long time to get to sleep, then slept in. So it was much later than usual when I showed up at the yard. Ziegfried was fashioning a small anchor for the sub. When he saw me he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Sleep in, Al?”
I yawned and stretched.
“Yup. But I had the best sleep of my life last night.”
“Did you now? How’s that?”
“I set up my tent in the woods. It’s really cozy. You wouldn’t believe how many shooting stars there are in one night.”
“Your grandfather came around earlier.”
“He did?”
“Yup. Said he figured you were staying here.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I thought you were camping out in the woods. I guess I was right.”
I stared at the ground. I didn’t know what to say.
“I told him I’d keep an eye on you.”
“You did? Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I was thinking, Al.”
“Yes?”
He looked stern.
“I was thinking . . . we could launch in August. What do you think?”
Excitement raced through me like a lightning bolt. “I think that sounds pretty good.”
“Well, there are a million things to do, of course. The truth is, many of the systems need to be tested in the water. Only then will we know for sure if she’s seaworthy.”
I nodded. “The water’s nice and warm in August. We can spend lots of time in
and out of the sub while we’re testing her.”
“That we will, Al.”
By July, I was diving in the afternoons again. There were no traces of the whale, or tourists, except for a little garbage on the beach. I had gotten used to the wetsuit but didn’t need it anymore, or the raft. Now I could swim out to the buoy, breathe deeply and dive to seventy-five feet — without stones. I descended at a calm, steady rate and could stay under water for two full minutes. This would have seemed impossible a couple of years before.
At seventy-five feet the schooner was so close. The unopened boxes on its deck lay waiting for me to grab, but I could dive no deeper. Any more and it felt like my chest would cave in. But it was exciting to look up and see the surface so far away. And two minutes underwater made me feel like a merman. It also gave me a significant advantage in dealing with dangerous situations.
In July, Ziegfried was working feverishly hard on backup systems to back up systems. It was hard not to think he was overdoing it. His latest idea was an automatic inflation of the ballast tanks if the sub should suddenly plunge below 225 feet. A pressure gauge fitted to the outside of the sub would trigger a switch inside, the tanks would automatically fill and the sub would rise. But he couldn’t test it.
“I’m not sure, Al. Maybe we should set the depth at 250. I think the sub will take it, what do you think?”
“Twenty-five feet is not a big difference.”
In truth, I didn’t know what to say. He always seemed to judge on the side of being too cautious. There were so many safety features, and I understood how they all worked and could fix them mostly, if necessary. All that remained was to get the sub into the water and try everything out.
“Maybe we’ll split the difference,” he said, “and set the gauge at 237.5 feet.”
“That’s a good idea. Then we can test it.”
“Oh, you bet we will test it.”
Also in July, we built a trailer for transporting the sub. It had fourteen wheels and was cumbersome and unsightly and existed for one function only: to get the sub into the water. After that, it would be dismantled. The sub was either a success or a failure. Either way it would stay in the ocean. We made no preparations for bringing it back to the yard.
