the municipal pier, sand and silt crept in and shallowed that once great anchorage sheltered by the jagged teeth of Whitsun Reef. And where once were shipways and ropewalks and warehouses and whole families of coopers to make the whale-oil casks, and docks too over which the bowsprits of whalers could project to their chain stays and figure- or fiddleheads. Three-masters they were usually, square-rigged; the after mast carried square sails as well as boom-and-gaff spanker—deep-hulled ships built to suffer the years at sea in any weather. The flying jib boom was a separate spar and the double dolphin-striker served as spritsail gaffs as well.
I have a steel engraving of the Old Harbor chockablock with ships, and some faded photographs on tin, but I don’t really need them. I know the harbor and I know the ships. Grandfather rebuilt it for me with his stick made from a narwhal’s horn and he drilled me in the nomenclature, rapping out the terms with his stick against a tide-bared stump of a pile of what was once the Hawley dock, a fierce old man with a white whisker fringe. I loved him so much I ached from it.
“All right,” he’d say, in a voice that needed no megaphone from the bridge, “sing out the full rig, and sing it loud. I hate whispering.”
And I would sing out, and he’d whack the pile with his narwhal stick at every beat. “Flying jib,” I’d sing (whack), “outer jib” (whack), “inner jib, jib” (whack! whack!).
“Sing out! You’re whispering.”
“Fore skys’l, fore royal, fore topgal’n’t s’l, fore upper tops’l, fore lower tops’l, fores’l”—and every one a whack.
“Main! Sing out.”
“Main skys’l”—whack.
But sometimes, as he got older, he would tire. “Belay the main,” he would shout. “Get to the mizzen. Sing out now.”
“Aye, sir. Mizzen skys’l, mizzen royal, mizzen t’gal’n’t, mizzen upper tops’l, mizzen lower tops’l, crossjack—”
“And?”
“Spanker.”
“How rigged?”
“Boom and gaff, sir.”
Whack—whack—whack—narwhal stick against the water-logged pile.
As his hearing got fuzzier, he accused more and more people of whispering. “If a thing’s true, or even if it ain’t true and you mean it, sing out,” he would cry.
Old Cap’n’s ears may have gone wonky toward the end of his life, but not his memory. He could recite you the tonnage and career of every ship, it seemed like, that ever sailed out of the Bay, and what she brought back and how it was divided, and the odd thing was that the great whaling days were nearly over before he was master. Kerosene he called “skunk oil,” and kerosene lamps were “stinkpots.” By the time electric lights came, he didn’t care much or maybe was content just to remember. His death didn’t shock me. The old man had drilled me in his death as he had in ships. I knew what to do, inside myself and out.
On the edge of the silted and sanded up Old Harbor, right where the Hawley dock had been, the stone foundation is still there. It comes right down to the low-tide level, and high water laps against its square masonry. Ten feet from the end there is a little passage about four feet wide and four feet high and five feet deep. Its top is vaulted. Maybe it was a drain one time, but the landward entrance is cemented in with sand and broken rock. That is my Place, the place everybody needs. Inside it you are out of sight except from seaward. There’s nothing at Old Harbor now but a few clammers’ shacks, rattlety things, mostly deserted in the winter, but clammers are a quiet lot anyway. They hardly speak from day’s end to end and they walk with their heads down and their shoulders bowed.
That was the place I was headed for. I spent nighttide there before I went in the service, and the nighttide before I married my Mary, and part of the night Ellen was born that hurt her so bad. I was compelled to go and sit inside there and hear the little waves slap the stone and look out at
I have a steel engraving of the Old Harbor chockablock with ships, and some faded photographs on tin, but I don’t really need them. I know the harbor and I know the ships. Grandfather rebuilt it for me with his stick made from a narwhal’s horn and he drilled me in the nomenclature, rapping out the terms with his stick against a tide-bared stump of a pile of what was once the Hawley dock, a fierce old man with a white whisker fringe. I loved him so much I ached from it.
“All right,” he’d say, in a voice that needed no megaphone from the bridge, “sing out the full rig, and sing it loud. I hate whispering.”
And I would sing out, and he’d whack the pile with his narwhal stick at every beat. “Flying jib,” I’d sing (whack), “outer jib” (whack), “inner jib, jib” (whack! whack!).
“Sing out! You’re whispering.”
“Fore skys’l, fore royal, fore topgal’n’t s’l, fore upper tops’l, fore lower tops’l, fores’l”—and every one a whack.
“Main! Sing out.”
“Main skys’l”—whack.
But sometimes, as he got older, he would tire. “Belay the main,” he would shout. “Get to the mizzen. Sing out now.”
“Aye, sir. Mizzen skys’l, mizzen royal, mizzen t’gal’n’t, mizzen upper tops’l, mizzen lower tops’l, crossjack—”
“And?”
“Spanker.”
“How rigged?”
“Boom and gaff, sir.”
Whack—whack—whack—narwhal stick against the water-logged pile.
As his hearing got fuzzier, he accused more and more people of whispering. “If a thing’s true, or even if it ain’t true and you mean it, sing out,” he would cry.
Old Cap’n’s ears may have gone wonky toward the end of his life, but not his memory. He could recite you the tonnage and career of every ship, it seemed like, that ever sailed out of the Bay, and what she brought back and how it was divided, and the odd thing was that the great whaling days were nearly over before he was master. Kerosene he called “skunk oil,” and kerosene lamps were “stinkpots.” By the time electric lights came, he didn’t care much or maybe was content just to remember. His death didn’t shock me. The old man had drilled me in his death as he had in ships. I knew what to do, inside myself and out.
On the edge of the silted and sanded up Old Harbor, right where the Hawley dock had been, the stone foundation is still there. It comes right down to the low-tide level, and high water laps against its square masonry. Ten feet from the end there is a little passage about four feet wide and four feet high and five feet deep. Its top is vaulted. Maybe it was a drain one time, but the landward entrance is cemented in with sand and broken rock. That is my Place, the place everybody needs. Inside it you are out of sight except from seaward. There’s nothing at Old Harbor now but a few clammers’ shacks, rattlety things, mostly deserted in the winter, but clammers are a quiet lot anyway. They hardly speak from day’s end to end and they walk with their heads down and their shoulders bowed.
That was the place I was headed for. I spent nighttide there before I went in the service, and the nighttide before I married my Mary, and part of the night Ellen was born that hurt her so bad. I was compelled to go and sit inside there and hear the little waves slap the stone and look out at
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