Death in the Meldon

You know, the Meldon was a diver.

Meldon would have looked very much like the Ranger

Phil said in an offhand way as the discussion of submerged halibut schooners tapered off and we all browsed Tom’s handy work to refresh our pie and ice cream plates.  Outside our tiny bubble of dim yellow light the gale still rages with full force, streaking through the rigging and top sides of the old boat with walls of spray and wind as she snaked her way along toward shelter.  Leaving that statement out in the air, he moved on to other stories about his experiences with his dad on the Meldon, but those six words had retold a pivotal event in the Old man’s life, complete with commentary.  Tom and I knew most of the story, were interested in hearing Phil’s additional information, and were equally interested in listening to other adventures and incidents in which Phil’s memory and facility with language could help us get through the tough night at sea.

     My first clear memory of Uncle Simon was, as a very young child sitting on the floor playing with toys of some kind, hearing him telling this story to my father.  It was in the living room of the big old home they had on Brooklyn Avenue, in Seattle.  Simon, in a pair of well worn Western Chief deck slippers, sitting back at one end of a couch,  balding hair still jet black.  He had a distinctive strong voice that sometimes made unusual word selections, adding interest and even humor to his stories that may not always have been intended.

     As he came down toward the end of his life this incident was frequently mentioned, filling in details and color that earlier versions didn’t include.  There are those who believe the Old man tended to embellish his stories, if not make up things out of whole cloth, just for the sake of entertainment, like old Kemo bull shitting young boys with stories of heads rolling around deck like cabbages, or using a whisk broom to clean out the galley.  However, I don’t think it is that simple.  None of the stories I associate with Simon were things that are that far outside the realm ordinary events that come along for someone in his life style, and the aspects that may seem stretched are at the most just attempts to express the essence of the situation and events.

    It has been said that the writer, or story teller who wants to get at the truth needs to be the biggest liar of all.  Meaning that there is always a lot more going on in any incident than can be reported with simple recounting of the exact facts.  Color and feeling, background and explanations all need to be filled in to give the real sense of things, and frequently the judicious use of hyperbole can add a level of accuracy in the mind of the listener that is not available through simple reporting of high lighted facts.  The difficulty I have encountered in trying to put some of these things to paper for folks who have not been in the boats, never shared many of the experiences related through these family stories is to include enough information to give even a hint of what it was really like to live this way.  But in the story of the incident on the Meldon, I will fill in as much as I can, using bits and pieces spanning a half century of hearing it told and retold.

     Just when Simon got the boat, or what he had been doing prior to having the boat isn’t clear in my mind.  He told stories of fishing out of San Francisco at some point in his career, as well as ports further south along the coast.  I know he chased tuna fish as well, once commenting that he had a knack for hiring a chum man, the guy who tossed bait into the water to excite the tuna around the boat, who managed to scare the fish away instead.  And there had been big money made during the war fishing for sharks, the livers being in  demand for the manufacture of vitamin B, I think.  By the time the late forties rolled around he was using her as a dragger, fishing for bottom fish out of the Grays Harbor area in the winter, venturing up the coast of Vancouver Island as far as the Queen Charlotte Islands during the milder parts of the year.

     She must have been sixty to seventy feet in length, cabin foreword with an open steering station on top, protected by a raised cowling that curved around a few feet on each side, over the forward section of the deck house.  A very early memory of mine is of a day when all the extended family was invited to a picnic on the boat, everyone gathering on the docks in front of Seattle Ship Supply, at the Fisherman’s Terminal.  I couldn’t have been more than four years old, but clearly remember the excited anticipation of getting to actually go in the boat, having a burning fascination with all things to do with boats from the earliest age.  For some reason, as soon as we got up to the side of the boat, ready to be lifted over onto the deck, I freaked out totally.  Screaming and crying that I was sure the boat had a big hole in it and was sure to sink, taking the entire family down with it.  It was an experience that has stuck with me all these years, in which I was almost detached from myself, hearing this silly little boy screaming in terror while at the same time wondering why it was happening.  I am sure my father was embarrassed to have his kid acting up in front of the family, but somehow I was dragged over the edge of the dock onto the boat, where my fears immediately melted and the rest of the day was very fun.

     Isolated details of that day still float around my head,  the wood deck boards, slats built up a few inches above the tarred planks of the working deck, and a pile of spare lumber along one side of the house.  Someone must have told me the scuppers lining the base of the working deck bulwarks had something to do with washing things during fishing operation, my little kid imagination seeing the guys holding fish by the tail, dangling them in the water through the scuppers to wash the slime away before tossing them in the fish hold.    The high step from the well deck into the galley, with its linoleum floor, and the heavy hatch leading straight down into the dim engine room just ahead of the entrance.  The dark outline of the engine, heavy duty Atlas ticking along at a hundred fifty rpm as we idled our way up the ship canal, bright red painted floor boards in the fo’c’sle just ahead of the engine,  lit from the sky light in the foredeck just ahead of the wheel house. 

     The deck house in a boat like that had three sections.  The galley with stove on the back wall and a sink and counter with cabinets on either side, extending a short ways around the wall opposite the narrow, Dutch door leading onto the back deck.  The table filled the foreword part of the room, with built in bench that doubled as storage lockers under, around two sides.  An open doorway lead to an area with a couple of bunks on the left, then a step up into the wheel house area that occupied the forward section of the house.  There may have been a door that could be closed to separate the wheel house from the berthing area and the galley for night running, although sometimes these boats a heavy curtain in the doorway.

   There was a large varnished steering wheel in the wheel house that turned left and right as Simon ran the boat from outside on top, using the painted cast iron with wood handles, connected to the lower with a chain that ran down outside in front between the middle windows and onto a sprocket through the bulkhead, on an extension of the shaft on which the inside wheel turned.  There would have been a speed control lever system that was connected together leading to the engine, most likely through a system that used a very light steel cable run through pulleys.  The shifting control was a horizontal bronze wheel on a shaft that came straight up through the deck, on the left of the steering wheel, extending through the roof to the conning station above, where it was attached to a hinged lever that folded down and out of the way when not being used to shift the boat from foreword into reverse.

     Pulling out of the Terminal Simon blasted his horn in the signal for the Ballard bridge, and in short order the traffic high above us was stopped and the road way raised to allow the mast and antenna clearance as we headed up the canal toward lake Union.  The Fremont bridge opened for us, as did the University, but when we got into the narrow Montlake cut the bridge did not open as we inched our way closer up the channel.  Simon blasted the signal a second time and third, reversing the engine to stop the boat from drifting under.  Finally, always short on patience anyway he put her in gear and with a tiny puff of white smoke from the stack the boat pushed under the bridge, Simon’s voice muttering his unique brand of almost curses that somehow managed to come just under the tight wire of language proprieties observed within our community.

     I have no idea if he though the mast might clear the bridge, or if he got mad and didn’t care.  In any event something at the top of the mast caught the under side of the bridge and snapped off with a bang that echoed loudly off the concrete bulkheads at each side of the canal, and splashed in the water a couple feet off the port side of the back deck.  Luckily it missed hitting anyone, and we were on our way out to a fun, sunny afternoon on the lake.  Simon’s two son-in-laws, Earnie and Gale climbed up to inspect the damage, riding along on the cross trees enjoying the view.  Then, to my mother’s horror cousin Jon climbed up there too, hanging onto the wood ladder rungs that were bolted to the side cables that supported the mast, like a little monkey scrambling up a huge tree in the primeval forest.  For years after, Mother talked about aunt Norm’s lenient attitude toward Jon’s dangerous antics, forbidding me from even climbing onto the top deck, let alone up the masthead with the other boys.

     It was a better work boat than cruiser, and she was worked year round.  Winters our of Westport, along the Washington coast, not because it was such a balmy, mild climate with easy access from the protected harbor to the grounds, but because there was a buyer open for business and fishing not excessively far from the port.  In the summer and fall they could venture further afield up the coast with a reasonable assurance of being able to travel back to town without being stopped by the weather.  The story of the Meldon’s “dive”  really began on one of those September days, when the weather in Puget Sound country is truly magical.  Sunny days that never really get too hot, clear air with water and mountains, trees and a city that at least up until the late stages of the twentieth century was like a pristine jewel along the sound and lakes.

     For some reason that has slipped my mind, Simon lost one of his crew members just before leaving on a trip up the inside of Vancouver Island to fish off Cape Scott.  An emergency in his family had suddenly called him away, leaving Simon in a bind to find someone quick.  While taking fuel at the Union Oil dock, in Ballard the  teen age son of the guy who ran the dock overheard the situation and begged to be hired on as the replacement.   Especially on a warm day with a hint of salt air drifting over the locks  a half mile along the channel, the life of the fisherman has a strong call to a young fellow.  Anxious to ice up and be on their way, the boy was told to run home for his sleeping bag and rain gear, and in no time he settled his things into one of the bunks below and his great adventure was under weigh.

     The rout from Seattle to Cape Scott winds its way through the San Juan Islands into the inland sea known as the Gulf of Georgia.  Sometimes it is like a mill pond, huge stretches of smooth water bathed in golden sunlight, occasional soft breezes.  It can kick up and be really scary as well, but not this trip.  About two hundred miles up the line from Seattle the Gulf suddenly closes into a very narrow passage, called Seymour narrows.  Timing the trip to pass this spot at slack water, between tides was a must.  Even full power steamers frequently cannot force their way through here against the tidal current, and fishing boats can be caught in the whorl pools and spun around like turds in the toilet bowl.

     Up until 1958, when the largest non nuclear blast ever set off removed many tons of rock, an underwater mountain came up to just a couple meters below the surface at low tide that must have made that place a true nightmare.  Over a hundred vessels of various descriptions had been lost on that rock over the years, most of them probably swept over the danger by the currents rather than just a matter of careless navigation.  It is almost certain that the tensions of chugging up past this perilous unseen crag began to dim the romance of life in the boats for the young oil dock attendant.

     The rest of the way winds along Johnstone Straight, hardly more than a mile or two wide in most places, which at night seems very restricted to the inexperienced eye.  Especially at night with gill netters fishing all along the way.  Gill net boats are small, showing only a couple of dim lights, trailing three quarters of a mile of net into the darkness that has a very dim little red lamp floating at the far end.  In those days the light at the end of the nets was a kerosene lantern with a red lens, wired to boards that were lashed to old inner tubes.  If there were only a single gill net boat ahead, spotting the boat and then scanning in each direction with the binoculars until the end of the net is spotted, and decision made as to which end to drive around, there is no problem.

     But there is never just one.  The rush of Seymour Narrows was hardly calmed when they came around the corner, out of Discovery Passage into Johnstone Straight and were confronted by hundreds of tiny lights, stretching as far as the eye could see into the night.  Sweat must have been forming on his forehead and palms as Simon, never the patient teacher, barked steering directions as they approached the gillnet fleet.

Most of the way they would have been leaving the steering to ‘Iron Mike’, the automatic pilot. In tight spots, like picking their way through the little gillnetters, often cutting nearly all the way across the channel, the ‘Mike” would have been little help, and a steady hand needed to be on the wheel, keeping a straight course with the aid of the compass.  Steering a heavy boat on the compass alone is an acquired skill, that frequently comes with the encouragement of a wildly upset skipper, shouting a mix of curses and instructions.  Turn a bit to the right, and by the time the greenhorn sees the compass card begin to move the momentum of the boat is swinging much too far in that direction, and the amount you have to turn the wheel in the opposite direction to counter that swing may get her swinging wildly in the other direction.

     My first time attempting to steer by compass alone happened to be crossing a shallow river bar on a wild night in Alaska, when the engines began to over heat and the skipper had to go below, leaving the wheel to me.  Between the nearly warn out steering system, and the crazy motion of the flat bottomed boat in the steep waves, I was totally freaked.  My perception was that the boat was remaining on a steady course, while the compass card turned wildly in the fluid, bathed in a very dim light in the total darkness inside and out.  The glare from the engine room hatch, that clanked closed after Jack as he disappeared below was hardly out of my eyes when the compass card began to spin in one direction, then when I tried to counter the turn it went completely around three hundred sixty degrees in the other direction.  By the time the boss got back up on deck I had managed to keep her swinging only about forty five degrees in each direction, an accomplishment that was congratulated with a total ass reaming, declaring that I was a totally worthless piece of shit.  I was glad for his sake that he had not seen my complete loops while he was below, the poor guys heart couldn’t have stood the strain.

     Simon’s language was on a somewhat different level than my first skipper’s.  Nevertheless, if you don’t think a guy can ream you out with a bone chilling vehemence without using most of the standard cuss words, you were never caught in a transgression by our old uncle Simon.  Once in a while his favorite phrase, “that dinging” thing would get very close to “damn” but never God Dam this or that or other common words associated with various bodily functions.  His generation came out of a time when language had power, and many folks were much more careful with their speech, even in moments of passionate anger than is common these days.

     It was a long run up Johnstone that night.  Simon peering into the glasses, trying to match lights on boats with the far end of their nets, several times having to do a full power back down to stop just at the edge of a cork line, frequent angry words exchanged with fishermen as they cut too close around a boat, or encountered some jasper who had buoyed off the boat end of his net and was somewhere in the middle tending to something, or trying to scare fish into the web by running along one side of the net.  In later years, a half century after that night, Simon allowed as how he may have been a bit harsh on the boy, but it is important to remember that Simon was rattled and even a bit scared at times as well.  Cutting a gill net in half, or crashing into one of the boats would have represented a huge financial loss, not to mention the possibility of tangling netting and rope into the wheel, and drifting helplessly onto near by rocks, losing everything.

     The next morning they had cleared cape Scott into the open ocean,  getting in position to set the net for the first tow of the trip when the cook came up the ladder and called,  “Sime, you have got to come down to the fo’c’sle, the boy’s gone out of his head.”

   Sure enough, there he was sitting on a little triangular bench where the lower bunks at each side of the room came together, hanging on to the lea rails on each side, eyes blankly staring straight ahead.  He did not speak, or acknowledge the other men. did not move.  None of them had ever seen anything like it in their lives, and the decision was made to make the run back to Anacortes and send him home.  His parents were friends, and they felt a responsibility for the kid.  If it had been just some guy off the street they may have tried to shake him back to reality, and it is not at all certain that a nudge or two was directed at this cationic figure, but they were soon on the way back south once again.  He never spoke another word.  When they got into town they stuffed his things into his bag, took him over to the Greyhound bus stop and got a ticket for Seattle.  The last they saw of him he was still staring straight ahead, expressionless into the back of the bus seat in front of his as the diesel blasted acrid smoke pulling away from the curb, on the way home.

     Stuck for crew, Simon went into the nearest tavern to see what he could scare up from the regulars at the bar.  In a small fishing town, across the street from the boat harbor, the local watering hole was as reliable a place to find crew as the hiring hall for a trade union.  I have been in many of these places where the boys mail would be filed behind the bar, for them to pick up between trips.  Simon’s general announcement that he was looking for someone with experience in a dragger got a answer from a young fellow, who had worked the inside boats a couple winters.  Day trips out with a sein skipper who supplemented his summer earnings with a few flounders from the mud of Padilla bay isn’t quite the same thing as fishing the open ocean off the Queen Charlottes, but it was better than a teenager gone crazy, and by early evening they were on their way back to the grounds, once again open for business.

     The new crew member worked out very well.  He was a likable guy, whose only fault was a somewhat loose tongue with the curse words.  Many times the others on the boat reminded him that they were Christians, and it wasn’t right to be going around with all the “God Dam” this and “God Damn” that in such an off hand manor.  These boys had been raised differently, and there is no doubt in my mind that the suggestion that they actually feared some divine retribution for taking the lord’s name in vain.

     Some parts of the story are lost, but as nearly as I can put together the various fragments this fellow worked with the crew for some considerable amount of time, possibly over one winter down in Westport, when at last they were back up in the Charlottes fishing again the next summer.  On this occasion a sudden, unpredicted storm sprang up.  The winds quickly whipped up a terrific huge sea.  Getting the net back aboard and secured must have been a real hump, with the boat wildly thrashing in the screaming winds.

     The sea had whipped up in a confused state, with large waves coming from more than one direction,  creating frequent monster waves as swells from different angles suddenly combined right in front of the little Meldon.   Simon was on the throttle and shifter, in the right corner of the wheel house, the young fellow from the bar in Anacortes was on the wheel.  No sooner than he had been told to get off the drop seat so he could move quicker if something happened the deck suddenly took a very sharp movement straight up, as an especially huge sea loomed in front of the bow.  Knowing what was next, Simon cranked her into neutral, and as the deck fell away from his feet he dropped to his knees.  In the time it took for him to get his head below the level of the window the bow had buried  itself into the next wave, smashing the glass in a gush of a thousand gallons of water laced with shards of glass as sharp as razors.  Simon's head had been cut in tiny streaks, almost as if a huge tiger had taken a swipe at him, narrowly missing with all but the tips of its claws.

The young man was not to lucky.  As the boat worked herself up the side of the next sea, water cascading out the wheel house door into the lower part of the house, six inches or more deep across the entire deck, he said “I think I’m cut.”  He never spoke another word in this life.

     A sliver of glass had entered his neck, leaving only a tiny pin prick on the outside, but severing something vital deep in his neck and by the time they had eased him into Simon’s bunk in the room directly behind the wheel house he had slipped out of consciousness.  In the mean time Simon had to go out on top to run the boat while the two other boys fitted the plywood window coverings over the gaping hole where the glass had been blown in.  A few minutes later the cook stuck his head up over the edge of the house, “Sime, he’s going fast, what can we do?”

     Knowing by now that there was nothing they could  do, Simon suggested they pack his neck with flower to ease the bleeding, but he was bleeding out internally, and within a few minutes he was dead.

     They finally made it into a sheltered place, where the bed things had to be dumped overboard, all the blood having been released when the kid passed.  His body was then packed in ice in the fish hold, and when the weather moderated they started out for Anacortes once again.  A coast guard inquiry determined that the ‘yacht’ had caused the death.  Somewhat amusing to call the old Meldon a yacht.  Whatever she was, tough fishing boat with a special kind of beauty, she was no yacht.

     In all the time he had been aboard they had not found out anything about the kid’s background.  He went his own way between trips, probably spending his time in the same tavern out of which he was hired.  There was no next of kin to be notified, no one to come claim the body from the morgue.  So Norm and Simon purchased a little plot in the cemetery, found a preacher to come out and say a few words as he was lowered to a final rest.  Other than Norm and Simon and the boys form the boat, the only ones to send him off were three young women from the tavern family.  Simon was sure they were ladies of the night, but this was most likely an overly harsh judgment.  In our straight laced background tavern folks are seen as low life types, which is not at all the case.  As with the unfortunate young fellow they were laying to rest, circumstance of life often come together for people who find their only family in these public houses.  There are many good folks who spend time in the taverns, many of course will have an issue with drink, but are otherwise as upstanding in every other respect of their lives as others who may be occupying the pews of the local church on a Sunday morning.

     The final chapter came several weeks later when the telephone rang, and Simon heard a woman’s voice on the other end identifying herself as the boy’s mother.  All she wanted to know was if there was any money coming to her, as his next of kin.  When she was told there was no money and Norm and Sime had born the  cost of the funeral arrangements out of their own pocket, there was a click on the other end of the line followed by the dial tone.

Copyright 2012 - Paul Petersen

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