Chesapeake (152 page)

‘You’ve heard what Turlock the Pirate tells his customers from up North? “If you don’t live on the Tred Avon, you’re camping out. And if you live south of the Choptank, you’ll never be invited to the good parties.”’

Chris, who preferred the wilderness of the Little Choptank, wanted to defend his choice, but Hugo raised both hands. ‘Please, your mother and I are trying to hide your shame from the neighbors.’

The pre-race meeting of skipjack crews was held at the Patamoke Club, and the mood was established by Captain Boggs, a towering black from Deal Island, known to his men as the Black Bastard: ‘The
Nelly Benson
observes on’y one rule. “Stand back, you sons-of-bitches.”’

Another Deal Islander said, ‘This here is a race of workin’ boats. Each skipjack to carry two dredges, a pushboat aft on davits, two anchors and full gear.’

One of the Patamoke men suggested a triangular course, but the Deal Islanders protested, ‘We’re racin’ in your water. We state the rules. If the southerly wind holds, a run up the river, turn and beat back.’

That was it, a clean-cut rugged race of up-and-back with no furbelows or fancy diagrams. When this was agreed, the drinking began and some of the crews did not get to bed till dawn. Owen Steed, who by now was totally immersed in the race, got his men home reasonably early and felt that the
Eden
had a good chance, unless Captain Boggs got an early edge, in which case he would be tough to beat.

Prizes for the race were not exorbitant: $75 to every boat that lined up for the start, and an additional $50 to each one that finished. The
Bugle
awarded a silver cup plus first prize of $100, second of $50 and third of $25, but most of the crews put together purses for wagers against boats of their class. The Deal Island men were especially eager to gamble, and Captain Boggs’
Nelly Benson
would go to the line with some $400 placed against various other boats.

The commodore for the race was a surprise, and a pleasant one. By acclamation, the watermen wanted Pusey Paxmore to serve as starter; in the old days he had been a man aloof, working at the White House and rather withdrawn from river life, but now that he had served time in jail he was more like them, and they insisted that since his family had built the oldest boats in the competition, the
Eden
and two others, his presence was obligatory. He had wanted to decline, but the Steeds would not permit it.

Since the race occurred in October, just before the start of the oystering season, the twenty-three skipjacks were in prime condition: all had been hauled out to have their bottoms painted, and all had been cleaned up on deck, their dredges neatly stacked, their lines coiled. Mr. Steed had purchased a complete new dress for the
Eden:
for halyards dacron
rigging because of its inflexible strength; for docking lines and anchor cable nylon because it did yield. He had gone to Henry Brown down at the tip of Deal Island for new sails and he had specified canvas rather than dacron because the stitching in the latter chafed too easily. In its eighty-six years the
Eden
had rarely looked better.

The race was to start at the edge of the mud flats west of Devon Island, run up to Patamoke Light, turn it and tack back to a line between Devon and the mainland. A skipjack race started in a peculiar way: the boats jockeyed till they were in a straight line, then dropped anchors and lowered sails, waiting for the gun that would spring them loose.

It was a tense moment, for the honor of every settlement on the shore was at stake—the rough watermen of Deal Island against the dudes of the Choptank. Each boat had a crew of six experts, plus seven or eight casual hands to man the lines. The
Eden
had five extra Turlocks and two Caters, each with his own job to do. Little Sam Cater, aged nine, would perch as far aft as possible and stare at the water, prepared to utter his warning cry, ‘Mud! Mud!’

‘You can fire, Pusey,’ one of the judges said, and what ensued made devotees of regular racing shudder. On each of the anchored skipjacks four men began hauling in the anchor while a team of two pulled heavily on the halyards that raised the huge mainsail. Since the crews worked at uneven speeds, some boats got under way quicker than others, which meant that they were free to cut across the path of the slow starters, impeding them further. But sometimes the early boats miscalculated, and the slow starters generated enough speed to ram their opponents and delay them. When this happened, crews from both boats cursed and threw things and tried to cut rigging.

One of the judges, a gentleman from a Long Island yacht club, said as the big boats slammed into one another, ‘This isn’t racing. This is marine suicide.’ And when Pusey Paxmore said, with some relief, ‘We got them off to a good start,’ the visitor replied, ‘Start? Good God, they’re all disqualified.’

The first leg was a long run eastward with the wind directly aft, and Captain Boggs depended upon this to give him an early advantage; indeed, it looked as if he might outdistance the field, but the
Eden
and the old
H.M. Willing
from Tilghman lagged only a short distance behind. The latter was a memorable boat; it had been sunk twice, refitted three times: ‘Cain’t be more than seven percent of the original timbers left. All rebuilt, but she’s still the
H.M. Willing,
because it ain’t the timbers that determines a boat, it’s the spirit.’

‘We’re in good shape,’ Captain Cater assured his crew, ‘because in ten minutes we swing onto a starboard run, and then we fly.’

He was right. Halfway to Patamoke the skipjacks had to veer to the southeast, which meant that the strong wind would blow from the starboard
quarter, the exact advantage the
Eden
needed. How she leaped forward! Her great boom swung out to port; her bow cut deep; she heeled well over and rode on the chine.

‘Stand back, you Black Bastard!’ Captain Absalom shouted as his boat passed the
Nelly Benson
and headed for the turn at Patamoke Light.

A real yachtsman who had twice raced to Bermuda watched the turn in frozen amazement; when the
Eden
negotiated it this gentleman said to people near him, ‘Why that man broke six rules! Doesn’t anybody say anything?’ A waterman who heard the question replied, ‘They better not.’

When the turn was completed, it was traditional for the cook to break out a spread and for the first mate to open the portable refrigerators for beer. From here on, the race became a little looser, for emptied beer cans refilled with water began flying through the air, and men with long poles tried drunkenly to impede their competitors.

The food aboard the
Eden
was excellent: ham hocks and lima beans,
krees,
as the watermen pronounced the biting watercress, biscuits and honey with large slabs of yellow cheese. But as each plate was wiped clean, its owner began staring toward the cook’s shack, and in due time Amos Turlock appeared with a wide grin, to announce, ‘Gentlemen, we got pie-melon pie!’ and the crew cheered. When he brought the first pies on deck he said, ‘We got lemon on the sour side, vanilla on the sweet, and Sam gets first choice.’ He carried two pies, brown-crusted and rich, aft to where the boy watched for mud, and the lad said, ‘I takes lemon,’ and a large chunk was cut.

A pie-melon was a kind of gourd raised along the edges of cornfields, and when properly peeled and stewed, it produced one of the world’s great pies, succulent, tasty, chewy when burned a bit and unusually receptive to other flavors; the proportion was usually three lemon to two vanilla, and today that tradition held, but as the men ate, little Sam shouted, ‘Mud! Mud!’ and this meant that the centerboard had touched bottom. This did not imperil the skipjack, but if the drag continued, its racing speed would be impeded, so two men jumped to the pendant of the centerboard and raised it until the lad cried, ‘No mud! No mud!’ and this meant that the
Eden
was making maximum speed, and that its centerboard rode as deep as practical to ensure adequate protection against lateral drift.

It was now apparent that the race would be decided on the two final tacks, and although the
Nelly Benson
had picked up a slight lead on the port tack, the boats must soon switch to starboard, and there the advantage would move to the
Eden.
‘We’re in strong position!’ Captain Absalom cried encouragingly, but as he prepared to jibe, Captain Boggs ordered seven of his crewmen aft to launch a barrage of water-filled beer cans at the wheel of the
Eden,
and Captain Cater had to step back to
avoid being maimed. In that moment the
Eden
lost headway; the sails flapped; and whatever advantage the Patamoke boat might have gained was dissipated.

But the
Eden
was not powerless. As soon as Absalom regained the wheel, he shipped his skipjack onto a course that would allow its bowsprit to rake the stern of the enemy, and when his tactic became evident the Deal Islanders cursed and threw more beer cans, but Absalom hunkered down, swung his wheel and watched with satisfaction as his long bowsprit swept the
Nelly Benson,
cutting a halyard and forcing the crew to quit their bombardment and try to put together a jury rig that would enable them to finish the race. They did this with such promptness that they entered the final tack only a few yards behind the
Eden
and well ahead of the others.

Captain Boggs now showed why his men called him the Black Bastard. Raising his sails to maximum height, keeping his keel as close to the wind as possible, he started to overtake the
Eden,
and when it appeared that he would succeed, he swung his bow sharply so that the bowsprit could sweep the stern of the Patamoke boat.

‘Fend off, back there!’ Captain Absalom shouted, but it was too late. The
Nelly Benson
crunched on, her bowsprit raking the
Eden,
and by some hellish luck it banged into a gasoline can carried in accordance with the rule that each boat must be in working dress. The can bumped along the deck, emptying some of its contents before it bounced overboard. The volatile liquid spread rapidly, with one long finger rushing into the galley where Amos Turlock was cleaning up.

A great flame filled the galley and flashed along the deck. Amos, finding himself ablaze, had the presence of mind to run topside and leap into the river. Hugo Pflaum, suspecting that his ancient enemy could not swim, as most watermen could not, grabbed a rope and jumped in after him, and so spontaneous was Pflaum’s action that he was able to reach the struggling cook and hold him fast as men on deck pulled the heavy pair back to the
Eden.

All hands turned to fighting fire, except Captain Absalom, who kept to the wheel, hoping that the starboard tack would allow his boat to pull ahead, but when confusion was its greatest, the boy aft began to shout, ‘Mud!’ and Absalom bellowed, ‘Man the centerboard,’ but there was none to hear, so he indicated that the boy should quit his post and try to haul up the dragging board.

A centerboard is a huge affair, often made of oak and a task for two grown men, so the boy accomplished nothing. ‘Take the wheel!’ Absalom shouted and the boy ran aft to steer the skipjack, while his father ran to the rope attached to the aft end of the centerboard and tugged on it mightily. It rose a few inches and the dragging ceased.

With the fire under control, the Patamoke crew turned to the job of bringing their damaged boat to the finish line. They had lost their lead,
but they kept in mind that this was a starboard tack. With burned hands and sooty faces they began to cheer and throw beer cans and trim their sails, but they were impeded by a situation which had never before developed in a skipjack race: the intense heat of the gasoline fire had melted some of the dacron lines into blobs of expensive goo. But Patamoke men were ingenious, and the crew found ways to improvise substitutes and to pass their shortened lines through sheaves and thus keep their boat moving.

It was to be a photo finish, with the
Nelly Benson
slightly ahead, the
Eden
closing vigorously. Crews of the trailing skipjacks began to cheer and big Hugo Pflaum with two of the black crewmen stood forward to repel any new assaults.

‘We can make it!’ Amos Turlock bellowed, throwing beer cans like mad at Captain Boggs. But the Deal Island men knew how to handle their boat, and while the
Eden
crew was working on their sails they heard the cannon. The race was over and they were forty seconds from the line. The cup, the money, the honor—all were lost. The deck was scarred with flame, their fingers burned with gasoline.

‘Damn,’ Absalom growled as the
Eden
crossed.

‘We almost made it,’ his son said.

‘Ain’t nothin’ in the world pays off on near-’ems ’ceptin horseshoes.’

‘It was fun,’ the boy said.

‘Fun!’ his father exploded. ‘Goddamnit, we lost!’

That night, when the crews assembled to celebrate and collect their awards, Absalom had the graciousness to approach Captain Boggs, shake his hand and admit, ‘You won fair and square.’ Those standing nearby cheered and the Deal Islander said modestly, ‘God was on our side. Ninety-nine times out of a hunnerd we wouldn’t of hit that gasoline can.’ And Absalom conceded, ‘That’s how the dice rolls.’

Mr. Steed, elated by the showing of the
Eden
and pleased to have been accepted into Choptank life so quickly, delivered the final judgment on the race: ‘All things considered, we gained a moral victory.’

The Steeds had hoped that when Pusey Paxmore served as commodore the excitement would lure him out of the exile to which he had condemned himself. ‘He came from this peninsula,’ Owen told his wife, ‘and returning to it should cure him.’ When she replied that this was a curious doctrine, he said, ‘It wasn’t chance that the sovereign remedy, penicillin, was found in the earth. The Antaeus factor. When you’re in trouble, scramble back to earth. Why do you think I scurried here when I was fired?’

Paxmore would not allow the cure to work for him. He believed that
his humiliation in Washington barred him from normal life, and he continued to isolate himself, brooding over the misadventures which had brought him to this low estate.