Boo Dog began barking at the mules and Ben yelled for him to quiet down. He grabbed his scruff and whacked him good, then looked out to sea, trying to pierce the darkness over the crashing rows of breakers, hoping to spot a mast. There was nothing out there. Or, if there was, it was secreted in the night and towering waves.
Looking down at the surf line, turned to froth and thick with boiling sand, pale crimson in the final glows of the Coston flare, he saw the awful sight of splintered timbers, broken spars with rigging still trailing; all kinds of debris. He had never seen it this bad. It stretched into the shadows on either side of the small group of men. They were now beginning to spread along the beach.
Ben knew what it meant. The ship had died out there before anyone could help her. Launch the double-ended boat or get a line on board her. There was nothing to do but search for bodies and hope that someone might have survived.
The lone man standing by the cart had despair on his face as he lit another Coston, making himself a sentinel. Ben quickly recognized him as Filene Midgett, commander of the Heron station. He was of some kin to Ben, as was almost everyone on the Banks.
The flare caught and began to bum, casting a hellish glow on shining, reddened skin. Filene glanced at Ben with anything but a welcome look. Vapor came out of his nostrils and mouth, winding away on the wind. Square-faced, heavy-jawed, he was not pretty to look at, even in sunlight.
"Anythin' I can do to help, Cap'n?" Ben asked, fairly anxious. He could hold the flare, for instance.
Filene shook his head and gazed back at sea.
Ben guessed that he was hoping a swimmer might spot his signal and flop toward it. Watching his heavy features, Ben tried to think of what next to say. He knew Filene and the other surfmen weren't too sure about what he planned to do in years hence. They only knew, even though he was John O'Neal's son, that Rachel had raised him as a girl until he was five, actually putting him in dresses and letting his hair grow long. They didn't know how much damage that had done.
Well, it had done a lot. Ben boiled every time he thought about her doing that. It was a monumental disgrace to do it to a surfman's son.
Once, when he was about nine and hanging around Heron Head station, watching them practice rescues, Filene had asked, "Why 'n tarnation you let that woman keep you in a dress so long?"
It wasn't a fair question, Ben thought. He hadn't had much to say about it when he was five. Filene couldn't reckon with that.
That same afternoon they were practicing with the breeches buoy, firing a line from the Lyle mortar gun over the wreck-pole yardarm; then hauling a man to earth in less than four minutes from the time they started rigging. The breeches buoy looked like a pair of oversized canvas pants and hung from the line on a pulley. The survivor would slip down into it and then hang on for dear life as he swayed over the boiling surf.
To show he wasn't a coward, Ben had said, "Cap'n, let me ride it down."
Filene had laughed. "Go ahead, boy."
Jabez Tillett had said, "Cap'n, mebbe it..." All he got was a withering look for butting in.
Ben started up the fifty-foot pole, heart in his mouth, climbing the spikes that were set for men. He got halfway up and didn't think he could make it. He looked back toward the sand. It seemed a thousand feet.
He swallowed and said, "Help me, John." Then went on to the top.
They brought him down in a wild ride that left his knees shaking. The back of his legs felt like jelly all the way home.
All Filene had said was, "You mighty slow goin' up that pole, Ben."
But whatever they thought of Ben, he knew the surfmen were kings on the Banks. Pure royalty. The jobs, though dangerous beyond belief, were prized. As much for pride as for money. The seven men at each station fished mullet or shad or made another living during the summer, but the winter and spring were reserved for patrolling the beaches and plucking survivors off wrecks. The Carolina stations were stretched every seven miles up to the Virginia line.
Of course, menfolk on the Banks had always been wreckers or lifesavers or had gone to sea in the square-riggers or had fished the sounds in sharpies or Creef boats; ocean-fished with haul nets. It was in the marrow and the worst thing any man could say of another was, "I'd like not to have him in a boat with me." And in the twenty years of the Lifesaving Service, no Banker, to anyone's knowledge, had ever shown a white feather; had ever given anyone the opportunity to call him a coward. Ben did not intend to be the first.
"When did she hit?" Ben shouted, determined to make Filene talk.
"Dunno."
"I saw her rocket."
"My rocket," Filene corrected sternly, glaring at Ben.
"Then nobody saw her hit?"
Filene nodded, paying more attention to the sea, naturally, than to Ben.
He was a powerful man, a bit over six feet. His age was about fifty. He'd been a surfman for thirty years, a rescuer even before the Lifesaving Service was founded in 1871. Now, he demanded respect and got it. The same was true of all the keepers. But Midgett was the most famous name in the dan of surfmen. There were a dozen or more in the service.
Filene finally spoke, almost in defense of himself, straining his eyes seaward. He did not really want to speak to Ben, especially this night, but felt he had to talk his piece to someone.
"I sent Luther Gaskins on patrol when she quit rainin' enough to see ten feet ahead."
The beach patrols always went one-half the distance to the next station, punched a dock, and turned back Back and forth. About every hour, meeting the patroller from the next station, usually. But when it was blind with rain or snow it didn't do much good to make the walk or edge along on a sand pony. Sometimes the first anyone knew of a wreck was a pitiful cry from a sailor crawling along the beach.
Filene snorted spitefully. "Alriddy there was wood on the beach. Must 'ave been deep in ballast when she hit the bar."
The men called ships, sky, tide, sea, fish, and sun "she." They were all female. Unpredictable, the men said. And mainlanders couldn't understand why the Bankers said some other things. Mommicked was "fouled up" and berlask was "ruined." The Bankers did not know, either, but were told that people in northern England had talked that way long ago. Some British professor came out and listened and said it was from Devon, wherever that was. The Bankers shrugged.
"Rain hid her from you all day?" Ben asked, careful not to antagonize Filene but still curious.
Filene nodded bleakly and Ben began to feel the keeper's rage; perhaps his guilt for not having sent a patrol out earlier. The sea had insulted him once again; had spit in his eye. That was not a healthy thing to do to Filene Midgett.
Ben knew Filene hadn't lost many lives when a ship got this close. He'd gone out in any weather under oars, six men pulling; him steering, no matter the water, to bring them in. Ben had seen the boats go out, climbing the breakers almost straight up, Filene hunched and braced in the stem over the steering oar; damning the sea without ever once cussing. He was a very religious man.
Ben knew he could lay a Lyle gunshot across a ship for a breeches buoy rig in almost total darkness; do it in less than five minutes once his gun was set. He'd been decorated, as had John O'Neal, for saving lives. Both were gold medal men, winners of the highest Lifesaving Service award.
But this ship, Ben was certain, had come apart like a box of spilled matches when it hit the bar in sheeting rain.
3
A SHOUT CARRIED over the wind and thunder of water.
Then Jabez Tillett, who was as stringy as the wreck pole and had an Adam's apple like a rock in midchannel, no chin at all, staggered toward them with a sodden limp bundle on his back He lowered it to the sand near Filene's boots. The man's mouth was open and his lifeless eyes were filled with terror as if he'd seen something he couldn't believe.
Ben glanced again. The body was broken and sand-dredged, almost stripped of clothing. The legs were at crazy angles. He turned his head. He didn't exactly like looking at dead people. He'd o
nly seen three or four in his lifetime. This man would join the others in walking the beach.
Catching his breath, Jabez yelled, "She's a bad one, Cap'n." Then nodding south, he slopped back that way along the licks of foam. The storm-driven tide was setting down-coast.
Ben took another look at Keeper Midgett who was still grimly inspecting the form on the sand and decided to join Jabez, who would be more friendly. He ran after him, Boo Dog pacing by his heels. In a moment, he spotted the wind-whipped flickers of several steaming lanterns; then the dim shapes of the surfmen strung out along the beach. They were pulling debris from the water, searching for more victims.
Catching up with Jabez, Ben shouted, "Can I help?"
Tillett yelled, "Go south." Then turned down into the surf, wading out toward flotsam.
Ben dashed on past Mark Jennette, a likable man about twenty-five who lived in Chicky village. Lathered with foam up to his waist, Mark was busy tugging at a spar entangled with line and a huge torn sail.
Another hundred feet and Ben spotted something bobbing in the foam. He stopped and eyed it, afraid it might be another body. Looking back north, he saw that the darkness and spray had already hidden Jennette. Then, setting his teeth, holding the lantern high, he forced himself into the water.
Edging through the foam, a lump forming at the hollow of his throat, Ben finally touched the mound of floating doth and sighed relief. It was only a hump of mattress, straw washing out of a split. He grabbed it and towed it back to the sand slope, the hammering of his heart beginning to subside. He truly wanted to find someone in the water. Yet he didn't. Perhaps he should just sneak home again.
Another sound carried faintly over the boom of the surf and Ben realized it was Boo Dog. The barks were insistent and Ben looked in that direction, down the beach. Boo was barely visible, though only thirty or forty feet away. Ben dropped the mattress and ran toward him.
Closer, Ben saw what all the barking was about. Something was on the sand, two or three yards up from the foam line. A shape, sprawled out. Maybe a body.
He stopped again and looked north, hoping to see Jabez or Mark moving toward him. But there was only darkness and those whirling clouds of spray.
Forcing himself on again, he drew up and then gasped. A human, not debris, was on the sand, three feet away from Boo. Ben took a deep breath and moved closer, staring down. Finally, he could see the body plainly.
He bent over, hardly breathing. It was a girl. About ten or eleven years old, he estimated. Almost his own age of just-turned twelve. Her blue dress had been pushed up around her waist. One arm was tucked beneath her. Her mouth was half open. Face smudged with sand; bruised and beginning to swell. Sand was in her nostrils and eyes. She looked dead in the dim lantern glow.
Ben backed away, swallowing; then collected his wits. He'd never seen a dead girl. "Stay here, Boo," he shouted, and then took off north.
Jennette was still in the water, struggling with the heavy canvas, trying to see if anyone was beneath it, when Ben floundered up to him.
For a second, Ben couldn't speak His mouth opened but nothing but an "ah" came out.
"What is it?" Mark shouted.
Ben swallowed. "Girl!"
"Where?"
Ben pointed, and Jennette dropped the spar, splashing back toward the beach, Ben following as fast as his boots would allow him.
In a moment, the surfman was on his hands and knees by the body.
Feeling queasy, Ben watched as Mark felt her pulse, then took his forefingers to pry her eyelids open. "Still livin I think," Jennette muttered, and then turned her over on her stomach.
Ben kept watching as the surfman placed her thin cheek on the back of her hand, then began pushing the water from her lungs, pressing down on both sides just above her spine. Water gushed from her open mouth and Ben dosed his eyes. For a moment, Ben thought he might become side. He turned away.
Finally, he heard Jennette shout, "Let's git her to the Cap'n."
The surfman stripped off his oilskin coat to wrap her, and then lifted her up into his arms. Ben fell in beside him as they ran up the beach, his head spinning from all that had happened in just a few minutes. Ben found it difficult to even think.
As they neared the keeper, Mark yelled, "Ben found one still alive."
Filene squinted at them but didn't answer. He just reached to the cart to jerk out a square of tarpaulin. Throwing it to the sand, he knelt down. He did it from long experience, not even bothering to glance at Mark or Ben.
Jennette dropped to his knees to settle the bundle gently to the canvas and the keeper peeled the oilskin back.
Panting, Ben stepped forward to take another look at her, carefully avoiding the dead man nearby.
Filene murmured, "Teetoncey" He said no other word. In the manner of Banks' speaking, it meant "small." She was small and fragile. "Teetoncey" was right for her, Ben thought.
Mark raised his voice above the surf noise, nodding toward the dead man. "I think that man brung her almost in. She washed on up, Cap'n. She's been on the beach a coupla hours, I'd guess. Cold as ice, she is."
Filene put his nose against the girl's mouth, trying to catch a faint sour breath, and then reached inside the tom blue dress that was plastered against her body. He ripped it, and then jerking his sou'wester off, put his ear against the girl's heart. In the lantern glow, Ben saw that the skin on her chest was like chalk tinted with blue.
Filene's rough face was wrapped in a frown. Looking up at Ben with an almost angry look, he yelled, "You strong enough to carry 'er? Take 'er to the station. Warm 'er up. Git 'er alive. I'll send someone soon's I can."
Heart thudding faster even now, Ben yelled back, "Our house is closer, Cap'n." It was, by more than a mile. Ben felt a different surge. He could be of more help.
Filene shrugged and stood up.
Ben pulled off his woolen coat and slid the oilskin away from the girl, tossing it back to Mark Jennette, who lost no time in returning to search for more survivors.
Ben folded the girl into the warmth of his jacket as Filene lit another flare, jammed it into the pipe upright on the cart, and was off into the darkness. It was the last Ben would see of him that night.
Leaving the lantern, he lifted the "teetoncey" girl into his arms and began to trot toward home. He was not really aware of her weight until much later. At that, she didn't weigh half a sack of potatoes. The thing that was welling up inside him made her feel light as a cornstalk.
He held tightly to her and drove his feet over the mushy sand. He was wishing the Lord would open a peephole and let John O'Neal take a look.
Boo Dog crisscrossed ahead, barking loudly, mystified by the whole thing.
Ben was hoping she'd live. The habit of praying was not normal to him, but he was praying she'd live.
Whoever she was.
4
BREATHING HARD, arms aching from the long haul, Ben kicked the door open and stood on the threshold with his burden. His cheeks felt as if they were flaming from the cold and exertion. "Mama, it's a girl," he said. "Half drownded. Mebbe dead."
Rachel sucked in her breath and rose up quickly, dropping her sewing to the table. "Put her on the couch."
Ben went on in and gently lowered the survivor down while his mother bent over, pulling the damp coat away from the girl's head, then opening the rest like an envelope. She lifted a thin, limp wrist and held a finger to it while Ben watched, still breathing hard, studying the blue-white face. The girl sure looked dead.
"Some pulse," Rachel said. "Not much."
She straightened up, making plans, chewing her lower lip, the only nervous habit she had. "Now, let's hurry, Ben. You build the fire up, an' I'll need some hot water. An' pull that small bed o' yours into here..."
Like most women on the Banks, she'd usually known what to do in an emergency. She'd done her share of midwifing, helping in births. There were no doctors on the sand strips. Nearest one was Meekins, up in Manteo. In emergencies, the keepers and the womenf
olk were the doctors. Mrs. Fulcher, from Big Kinnakeet village, had amputated her husband's leg after a stingray had poisoned him. She's done a nice job of it, Doc Meekins had said.
As Ben began chunking wood into the stove, his mother added, "You keep your back turned. I got to take her dress off, what's left of it, an' dean her up. Lord above, she's eaten a bushel o' sand. Mouth, ears, nose."
Ben ran into the kitchen to fill the kettle from the bucket on the sink drainboard, unable to believe his luck that he'd gone to the beach and that Filene had let him take this survivor. Usually, Filene just blew him out of the water with some choice words.
"Soon's you can, get me some cotton, Ben. I got to make a swab. An' get me one of your flannel nightshirts, too."
Ben nodded and filled the kettle. "Will she live?" he asked, replacing the kettle on the stove in the living room. It was beginning to rumble as the wood flared. They didn't use the kitchen range once it was sundown.
"She may if you hurry an' don't pester me with questions," his mother answered. "Poor thing. Half frozen. Blue as a week-old mackerd. If I wasn't a woman I'd curse that sea all the way back to Noah's Ark." Her hands were busy.
Then Rachel laughed weakly. "Why, she's built like a well-made hairpin."
Ben wanted to take a good look at her, even see her naked, and see what his mother was doing. He was simply curious, and felt some responsibility, too. After all, he'd found her. Yet, if the girl was dying he didn't particularly want to see that.
"Let me know when the water biles."
He went into the bedroom for the nightshirt and heard her call again. "An' bring me one of them big towels, one with rough nap. Outta that Sears box."
He carried them in and then saw that air was coming off the kettle. Pouring some water into a tin pan, he got that to her.
For the next few minutes while she kept making demands, Ben kept backing toward her. She was kneeling by the couch cleaning the girl with a big Florida sponge and warm water. She muttered now and then, talking to herself more than the girl. "Hateful. Tearin' this lil' thing to bits. Stuffin' her full o' sand."