Supersedes All To: 1-11-88
3909 Words Precisely
Fog Index Factor: 6.27
Non-Fiction
truth-or-consequences, 1988
Published by Nautical Quarterly

 

THE LITTLE NUGGET

 


In the summer of our seventh year, life slowed considerably. We were approaching our record of forty six consecutive days without work. We were bored, and nerve endings were stretched like a piece of nylon hawser about to part. The crews huddled around the banks of radio transceivers mounted in the company office by day, and by night slept with the phone under the bed just in case. The tugs had been polished and shined and buffed in places that didn't have names. Lines had been coiled and washed and spliced and whipped and fooled with until they were damned near wore out. Things, unidentifiable things had been painted and sanded and washed and painted again, just for the fun of it. There was even some physical disagreement over which one of the crew should inherit the privilege of scrubbing the head, and several proposals were made to repaint those funny little marks on the compass card. We were bored.

And so it was little wonder the crew was particularly gleeful when a snotty gale moved in from the southeast one dreary night. In this business, wind was work, and the more of it the better. We all settled in for an evening of sublime anticipation of what was sure to come: a job. On such a miserable night as that, we were certain to get a call...

"Mayday, Mayday" came coursing through the speaker as a frantic voice fought for control. Our heads jerked alive and adrenaline shot through our veins. But a second more and we were cheated. It was only some sailboat who had lost his mast. He was in no immediate peril, though unbeknownst to him, and the Coast Guard would gladly come hold his hand, and so we relaxed, and waited. Surely the next one would be ours.

And as if on cue a second horror stricken scream split the silence and we all sat up with a start. Things were definitely picking up and we listened intently to the next few words. But again we were foiled. It was only a man whose anchor had dragged, and some consoling soul was kind enough to calm the befuddled captain and set him straight again. Were we doomed to inactivity? Had we offended the Oyster Gods or the Spirits of the Deep?

In this manner we passed the evening. While a raging gale hurled itself like a demented demon at anything afloat outside, we sat with our equipment, our expertise, and our thoughts, feeling rejected and useless. Mayday after calamity came and went, and for one incredible reason or another our services remained unrequested. We had honed our professional responses to a fine gleaming edge. Our equipment was as worthy as it comes, and we were eager to show the world our stuff.

It was late; most of the crew had straggled on home, defeated for another night. Even Ron shuffled off to bed. In fact it was just Jim and I who kept the relentless watch on our piece of sea. We knew it would come. If we just meditated hard enough-- Not that we wished disaster on anyone, mind you. But if the ax was to fall by the grace of the gods, then let us be close at hand to do what we could..

And then it came. Tentative, halting, as if the caller feared some reprimand for proclaiming his distress, "Ah, mayday", he stated quite matter of factly; "Ah, mayday anyone...."

"This is Coast Guard Group Hansley station sir, please state your emergency."

"Ah, we've lost our dingy." The mike unkeyed; then immediately keyed up again, and the voice said only, "over."

The Coast Guard paused appropriately....

"Group Hansley back sir, ah, sir when someone loses a skiff, ah, it's not proper procedure to proclaim a mayday, over...."

"Ah, yes, Coast Guard, I understand." Again there was a pause while the speaker unkeyed and keyed up again. Then, as matter of factly as before he stated:

"Uh, there was someone in it, over.."

There was a pause, then, "Oh...... ---Ut- hem, ah, I mean, Hansley back, Roger that sir, what is your present position?"

This was interesting---but nothing more. A skiff was of no commercial interest to us, and the saving of lives had not proven financially rewarding-- we left that to the Coast Guard. But the incredible dilemma continued to unfold before us... The voice on the radio was that of the master of the yacht "Nugget". She had met with rather inclement weather twenty miles out, and some of her crew had volunteered to make ready the skiff, just in case. As the little ship's constraints were slacked, however, a freak lump of ocean managed to jar her loose, and over the side she went. As if that weren't enough, the son of the owner made a foolhardy gesture for as the "Little Nugget" landed upright on the back of a smoking sea, he leaped from the relative safety of the mother ship and landed miraculously unscathed in the skiff.

The "Nugget's" engines were ordered dead slow and her course adjusted to head up to the mountainous waves. And much to the glee of the watching men, the engine aboard the "Little Nugget" coughed to life. But just as it seemed as though the sea had met her match and the man might yet be saved, there occurred yet another curious event, for the man in the skiff decided suddenly that he no longer cared to take his chances aboard such an obviously ill fated little craft, and so, armed only with a ski vest, he flung himself into the foam and the froth of the cold north Pacific, the "Little Nugget" left to fend for herself as best she could, unmanned.

This new development was dutifully reported to the exasperated Coast Guard station.

The master of the "Nugget", now fully engulfed in the confusion of it all, claimed that if he were to turn his ship in that sea, she would certainly roll in the trough and be lost. His son, he knew, was gone, doomed to a final few moments before the cold and the sea overtook him. And the shadow of death and sorrow descended upon us.

But fifteen minutes later, just as the mood of all had hit its perigee, an unfamiliar voice broke through the gloom.

"Coast Guard Group Hansley, this is the tug "Western Islands", ah, we've just picked up a man out here, uh, we're about twenty miles north northwest the light, uh, he's barely conscious. Do you have any information as to where he might have come from, over?" The tug Western Islands had nearly run him down, had it not been for the watchful eye of a crewman relieving himself over the port bow.

And so the master of the Nugget was put in contact with the skipper of the Western Islands; congratulations were exchanged and appropriate arrangements were made for the transferring of the swimmer to his own vessel at some mutually convenient port. But when asked the fate of the "Little Nugget", the owner of the mother ship only laughed.

"If you can find her," he said, "you can have her....." And that was his last transmission.

Now we were not so bored as to dispatch a sea going rescue tug into the teeth of a snarling, romping southeast gale for the sole purpose of saving some eight foot skiff. The thing was, after all, unmanned. The outboard probably didn't work anyway.. No sir, we had more self respect than that.. Certainly we did... But it was not more than forty seconds later that Jim and I gazed, knowingly, into each others foolish expressions. We had been lying around for forty one days, whining and bellyaching that we had nothing to do. And here, now, presented squarely in our laps was something.... A mission... A purpose... At last a job.... Never mind that it was but a tiny punt, not even worth the bother of her owner to pick up. And never mind that she was most likely an ungainly, rotting hunk of flotsam. Never mind that it would cost us ten times her value-- fifty times, to fetch her back. We had a job..

This was to be little more than a mission of mercy, with not even the possibility of fair compensation at its conclusion, and so, in a brief moment of profound absurdity, we stepped aboard the eighty eight footer and touched the button. Eight hundred horses sprung to life so far below in the engine room. I called in a full crew as if it were a major operation. We may as well be comfortable..

"Coast Guard Group Hansley, this is the salvage tug Charmain," I called softly into the radio, hoping to remain almost anonymous. "Be advised we are underweigh the last position of the 'Little Nugget', over"....

But the reply came booming back: "CHARMAIN, GROUP HANSLEY, ROGER, UNDERSTAND YOU WILL BE ATTEMPTING TO SALVAGE THE SKIFF THEN, IS THAT CORRECT? OVER!!!"...

The bastards..

From the instant the massive lines of our tug were slipped, we began to sense some greater force at work. This was to be the creme de la creme of simple-ness. We were a sea going tug, one of the finest, one of the bravest, on but a mission of mercy for a poor, abandon skiff. The maneuver was but an exercise, a flexing, almost imperceptibly, of a muscle.. And yet from the very beginning....

For an hour and a half we slogged seaward, beating our ship's head time and again against some unseen and unmoving chunk of rolling ocean. Seas were breaking against her wheelhouse doors when we finally closed the throttle and began to search for the Little Nugget. To find the needle in the haystack was one thing, but to locate such a thing in such a place while some giant hand continually threw the entire pile in the air and let it fall all about you, well, humor has its limits of good taste....

But eventually we acquired a radar target, dim, wavering, fading in and away as would a small object tossed on the waves. A course was plotted and yet another ten miles of ocean slipped astern. We were confident. We commanded one of the most respected rescue tugs on the coast, a powerful, intimidating beast; a ship who had, with sheer grit and brute determination, wrenched a hundred imperiled crafts from the clutches of the ravenous brine. We were now to descend upon our prey and gently pluck her from the sea, as might a majestic Eagle swoop and catch her fallen young and return it tolerantly to the nest. Just a hundred yards more, the blip on the screen was steady now, growing, almost there.. But just as the cat prepared to pounce, the bird flew away. Or rather several hundred of them. For we had come to the rescue of three hundred tired and less than grateful seagulls who'd been resting on a snarled mass of logs and debris and floating seaweed forty yards in diameter. The birds had perched atop the organic raft and appeared to our radar as a tiny ship, which now discouragingly vanished into the midnight sky...

For two hours more we searched without a clue.

Finally: "Tug Charmain, the steamer 'Pride of Bolivia' calling, uh, we've just spotted some sort of object out here. --Understand you are searching for a vessel adrift-- anyway this thing is about half a mile astern our position at this time if you'd like to check it out, over".

Here was a break.

We had radar contact with the steamer and promptly plotted a position half a mile astern and laid in our course to intercept. Six miles more we traveled in grand anticipation of putting an abrupt and timely end to the unbecoming charade. We were fools enough to be out there at all and more bumbling still to have fumbled so far. But we were in it that far. Let us see it through.... Let us yet pull it off in some dignified manner.... But it was not meant to be, for as we ran down our coordinates we discovered our ghost, a Styrofoam block five meters square.

Tension in the wheelhouse was later reported as substantial, with the body and texture of a good chowder. The mood of all was further sacrificed to the rather uncivilized whims of the mate who broke into spontaneous chorus of that age old favorite of yours and mine--and quite professionally done, too-- "If I only had a brain...." The crew was afraid to protest as to do so was only to admit one's pitifully lacking capacity for fun, and so in this manner we endured, and passed the next five hours darting from one spot of ocean to the next like a moth about a lightbulb or a cat in hot pursuit of an invisible mouse.. The longer we searched the more foolish we looked and the Coast Guard frequency was alive with good- humored snide-ness. To abandon our quest meant emotional castration for we would be known forever more as the crew what couldn't save a skiff and we would never live it down. We must press on 'til death do us part. We must return with the Little Nugget, or else not return..

The ocean is, after all, only so big a place, and it was only a matter of time before the gods of absurdity grew weary of their assault on such unwitting creatures as us and relaxed their grip. We were eventually advised by a passing tug of a radar target in their vicinity, and once again our ship went leaping across the expanse to check it out. We were seeking an eight foot skiff and our imaginations had, over the course of the night, run amok with depressing visions of some sorrowful, dilapidated and pathetic arrangements of rotting boards, loosely resembling the vague silhouette of a small boat. We assumed beyond all possible doubt that the prize we sought was little more than just a wretched hunk of driftwood that would be useful only as a planter in front of the company office. And so it was with some puzzlement that we looked upon the craft captured and beheld in the circular glare of our light.

It was a sleek kind of thing, twenty five feet in length, low slung to the water and with the lines of finely oiled goddess. Numerous fittings adorned her decks, sparkling jewel-like in the unnatural light. She was a sight to behold, a treasure from a Pharaoh's tomb, a gem, a lady shrouded lavishly in the most eloquent of gowns. She was a dazzling trinket to be plucked from the rough hands of the sea. She was breathtaking..

We were unsure we'd even located the proper craft. Her lights were on but there was no answer to our calls; she was adrift and finally the seas turned her head enough so that the name could be read across her stern board, "Little Nugget". We had never seen such a skiff. Indeed, we had never seen such a vessel at all!

But as I worked the tug to come along side the casualty a curious thing occurred. The wind was blowing hard, sweeping the sea's foaming white crests along and spilling them down the liquid hills and it was not unreasonable that the Little Nugget should make a certain amount of way to the lee. Such a light vessel should be expected to fall to leeward quite rapidly after all, but it was quickly discovered that she was running at a rate that nearly out- did the best revolutions of our tug, and not always downwind! For a time she would appear to behave as an earthly thing and simply drift quickly in a given direction, and just as I bore down on her at full R.P.M., and prepared to put my mate aboard to make fast a line, she would suddenly dart off on a ninety degree turn or a reciprocal course, or at times she would just sputter in circles, and then charge off down the face of a combing swell and into the darkness.

At first we thought there was someone aboard and were perplexed that a fellow human being would be compelled to play such a joke, but presently we managed to approach her within twenty yards before she kicked up her heels and left us with heads spinning, and we were able to shine our light directly into her cockpit. She was empty of all mortal entities, and that left the imagination to absolutely unrestrained speculation.

Had the world itself not been aware of our plight, that evening, we may have been convinced to simply turn around and make for home. As the machinery of imagination ran wild in our heads, we began to believe that we cared not to uncover the force at her wheel. But our name was at stake, and an ego is a deadly affliction. We persevered, and for some two hours more we chased that slippery craft around a good part of the Pacific. Our tug was our pony, the skiff our calf, but the proportions were wrong, for as we all know, a parakeet can easily elude an elephant.

We were finally to learn that the Little Nugget's engine had been left running, and that she must have been kicked into gear in her captain's frantic scramble to escape. The sea that was running was enough to slosh her rudder stop to stop, port to starboard, and in this way she took on the characteristics of a drunken, living --or not-- frightened thing..

We continued to stalk our prey, slowly, gradually learning her tricks and weaknesses, until finally she made a fatal error and was captured as Jim, in a fit of frustration, made a dazzling leap and landed atop her back.

It was precisely at that instant a great flaming ball made its daily entrance, and poked the first dim rays of light over the eastern horizon. I recall the event, for I was blinded by the glow and was unable to witness the completion of Jim's daring jump. But it was, mysteriously, at this precise instant, as later reported by Jim, that the Little Nugget ceased her struggle, allowed him her reins, and lay down to rest after the night's gay romp. She was out of gas, and with the coming light, or so it seemed, the spell was nulled.

The Little Nugget fell in limply astern and lay like a dying fish in our boiling wake. We dragged the carcass home, keeping a wary eye aft in case she should spring to life once more and decide to detour on a scenic escapade of her own. But there was little to fear, for she gained life not from the day, but as a vampire, from the blackness, and for all those curious faces to see, back at the dock, she was but a boat, cool and inanimate, and never did we hope to convince them otherwise..

As a matter of routine we contacted the Little Nugget's owner. He had forgotten his offer of his skiff to her rescuer, and we let it slide. We did, however, have chance to look upon her insurance policy as we filed our claim through Lloyds of London. She was valued at one hundred thousand dollars, and I dare say worth every cent.

The story should have ended thus, but sadly it did not. We submitted our bill, a seemingly exorbitant amount for the rescue of the average eight meter skiff, but in fact it was only the usual rate --for saving ships-- and the insurance company was happy to pay it.

It was some time before the owner came to retrieve his "skiff", and when he did he arrived in grand style, aboard the elegant hundred and sixty footer, "Nugget". We met, there on the dock, and shook hands politely. The master spoke in a halting, hesitant voice, but he was determined to tell us all about her.

Her name, for instance, displayed neatly across her stern, wasn't done in the faded golden paint we would have imagined, but rather in real gold leaf. And her doors, which had given Jim so much trouble when he leaped aboard in that frothing sea; they weren't so difficult to open; why all that was required was a push of a button, and both mirror-like panels, with a dignified swish of escaping air pressure, swung smoothly up in gull-wing fashion. And the control console, mounted aircraft style overhead-- What did all those knobs and switches DO? And to our unsurpassed amazement first the wet bar appeared from God knows where, and the stereo emerged from its watertight enclosure, and quite automatically the plush seats began to move and change shape before our very eyes, and in short order had transformed into a comfortable and convenient bed. Antennas went up and down and radios and televisions came and vanished seemingly of their own accord. The craft was a spy's delight, and we were duly impressed.

We had left her tied securely to our company float. We assumed her owner would taxi the Little Nugget the short distance to where the mother ship was moored, and there bring her aboard by the davits. Instead the master put his ship underweigh and brought her along side the skiff. I'm certain it was arranged to show us his skill at boatmanship. But as the Nugget was made fast along side the tiny boat, and the lines from the skiff to the dock were slipped, and the power was routed to the huge diesel screws of the mother ship there was a peculiar creaking... There was an improper spin of the wheel, and two thousand horsepower took over where brains left off. The Little Nugget was squeezed like an egg in a vise.

For a moment she endured. But then, all at once, with a grinding, ear racking shriek she was crushed. It was about then this "master of ships" got the power off his screws, and just as he leaped to the wing of his bridge, the last of the wreckage submerged.

He looked at us, and we up to him. But the captain turned away, and stared out to sea. We could just make out a disgusted sigh, and his shoulders slumped down as if their bones had suddenly dissolved.

The late afternoon breeze, together with a falling tide, carried the spectacle out through the harbor mouth as if by magic, and when we turned away there had been no change in the scene except for an almost imperceptible turn of the ship.

It was later told that just after dark a figure was seen creeping stealthily along the rail of the ship, and one by one the lines that held up the remains of the skiff were seen to fray and part, as if severed, slowly, with a dull knife.

A short time later the Nugget lit her lamps, cleared her stacks, and showed us her tail, never to be seen again.

 

 

 

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